“What do you want that for?” Emmanuel asked. “He probably just swiped it out of the evidence locker.”
I picked up the brick, hefting it in my hands. It was densely packed, professionally wrapped and vacuum-sealed, with a black wax seal over the seam.
“You ever seen one like this?” I said to Yury.
He shook his head slowly.
“What about it?” Emmanuel said, edgy and glancing in the direction of the remaining sex workers hawking their wares along Joy Street.
The brick looked professional on a level I had never seen before in Desolation. This was no Ziplock baggie full of blow cut with baby powder.
“Take it with us,” I said, tossing it to Yury.
Once we were back at the slaughterhouse, I told Yury to have the cocaine tested.
“We can test it ourselves,” Emmanuel said, giving the brick a hungry look.
“Don’t be a fucking fool,” I told him. “You’re gonna put something up your nose when you have no idea what’s in it? If that’s one hundred percent pure you might as well fire a .45 up there while you’re at it.”
Emmanuel turned away to hide his irritation, but I saw it anyway.
“Get the cop ready,” I ordered.
Before Yury could leave, I grabbed his arm.
“Check on Clare,” I said.
“I have been.”
“Keep doing it. I want her watched at all times.”
“Czar is outside her parents’ house right now. She’s safe,” Yury promised.
I nodded, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest.
Now I’m standing in front of Wicker, waiting for him to adjust to the dim light of the slaughterhouse after I ripped the hood off his head.
He looks up at me, snarling like a junkyard dog. He’s got a big, beefy face, one of those stupid too-short cop haircuts, and piggy little eyes that were already bloodshot before I ever touched him.
“You’re in big fucking trouble,” he hisses. “Parsons will have your head for this.”
“Well, that’s the problem with handing someone a life sentence, isn’t it?” I say, calmly, picking up a cleaver and running a whetstone lightly down the edge of the blade. It makes a high, silvery sound, like a skate gliding over ice. Wicker’s eyes are drawn to it involuntarily, his upper lip twitching. “Makes death seem appealing by contrast.”
I set the cleaver down and pick up an ice pick instead, rotating the handle slowly between my thumb and index finger, so the point sparkles in the light of the overhead bulb.
Wicker stares at the cruel tip, mesmerized.
They always start out defiant, blustering.
And then they all break.
I’ve never had a man last longer than an hour.
“In fact,” I say, softly, “when your buddies fired at me outside the hotel, they were shooting to kill. So I’m guessing Parsons is already hunting for my head.”
Wicker’s jaw tightens. We both know I’m right.
“Well, I don’t know what you think I’m gonna tell you,” he sneers. “I’m just a dumb grunt.”
“Oh, I think you’re going to tell me everything you know,” I say. “Useful, not useful. Your darkest secrets and the shit you write on Facebook. What your mother said to you when you were four, and even what your wife likes in the bedroom… Once I go to work on you, I might as well be rifling through your brain. You’ll keep nothing back from me, until there’s nothing left. Because unlike you, I’m very good at what I do.”
Wicker swallows, his throat jerking, eyes beginning to panic.
I trail my fingertips down the line of tools, watching to see which one elicits the strongest response.
Wicker is frozen in place, trying not to make a sound.
Until my index finger grazes the dental drill.
Then I hear the tiny, convulsive choking sound he tries to conceal.
I pick up the drill, switching it on to ensure it’s fully charged. The high, whining sound pierces our ears, setting my own teeth on edge.
The effect on Wicker is instantaneous.
He begins to stutter.
“There’s no—you don’t have to—don’t you fuckin’—”
“Hold his head,” I say to Emmanuel.
Emmanuel grabs Wicker from behind, pinching off his nose and mouth, depriving him of air so that when Emmanuel lets go, he takes a great, gasping breath.
I shove the spreader in his mouth and crank it open.
The metal prongs hold his mouth wide open, no matter how he tries to thrash his head to loose it from Emmanuel’s grip.
I set the drill down momentarily, though I leave it running so the high, insistent whine continues to burrow into Wicker’s brain, maddening him like a bull that can’t get away from a buzzing fly.
Instead I seize a pair of pliers and in one swift motion, close them around Wicker’s right lower molar.
“Who killed Roxy?” I say.
Wicker lets out a gurgling scream, thrashing as best he can, which is barely at all within the tight bonds.
“I duh nuhhhhhh!” he howls.
“Wrong answer,” I say, wrenching the tooth from its socket with one vicious flex of my arm.