Blood in the Water (Kairos) (30 page)

Chapter
Seventeen

The officer that had turned up to answer the emergency call had been a stranger.  They were too far away from Absolution for Chief Hooper to be the one to answer the call.  Paul didn’t know how Samuel felt about that, but personally he was relieved.  He didn’t have a lot of trust for the police at the best of times, but he just plain disliked Hooper.  The darkness was their friend.  With a body on the ground that had no gunshot wounds and a story about aquaplaning and riding in a downpour, they had no idea that there were shell casings to even look for.  Their story wasn’t too far removed from the truth.  They omitted any details regarding the ambush.  Maybe Dean would have been able to keep his seat if people hadn’t been shooting at him, then again, maybe not.  There would still have to be an autopsy, but there would be no awkward questions to impinge on the Carters’ grief.

Now Paul was standing in a broken-down, two-room shack in the bayou.  The rickety thing was held together with rusty nails and a wing and a prayer, although it was wired for electric and the overhead lights worked.  It stank of the animals that made it their home, but the bloodstains on the floor and the walls bore testament to the use that the Priests put the building to. 

Geoff was sitting on a rusting metal bed frame, in what had once been the bedroom.  He was perched on the bare springs under the watchful eye of a suspicious Kong.  He hadn’t said anything yet, and Paul didn’t know what to make of that just yet.  The Mexican was in what had passed for the living quarters.  Kong had fashioned him a bandage from a molding piece of blanket that had been lying around the room and had tied him securely to a wooden frame chair.

They had watched Dean’s body being loaded into the ambulance to make its quiet journey to the parish coroner’s office.  Sinatra had brought the garage tow truck to collect Dean’s bike, but none of them had returned to the clubhouse.  Samuel had been adamant on that point.  As soon as they had finished dealing with the police they had made their way to this peaceful corner of the woods.  Morse was still in the hospital.  Sinatra had reported that Moira and Dolly were fussing around getting Fletch settled into his room.  Only Chiz and Tag still remained ignorant of the situation.  It galled Paul that the miasma of distrust was tainting Chiz; he’d have bet his own life that Chiz would not betray the club.  But then, he supposed, Chiz might have said the same about him, and he would have been wrong.

So now the five men were standing looking down at the Mexican, and Paul was trying to decide how he wanted to start this thing, given the limited tools he had available.  Kong had removed the man’s jacket and shirt before setting him on the chair.  “Los Perdidos” was proudly proclaimed in ink across his chest.

He decided to start with conversation.  “Before I start,
ese
, you wanna tell us that you speak English?”

He was met with a stony stare.

“You wanna play it like that?  Okay.  I could give you the usual bullshit about tellin’ us what we want to know and us lettin’ you go free.  But I think you know that’s not gonna happen.  You’re gonna answer for the death of our brother.  Charon’s fee is paid.  All that’s left to you is whether you go easy or hard.”

The Mexican did not break his stare from Paul’s eyes.  Paul squatted down in front of the chair, which put him on eye level with the man sitting in it.  He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “We know why you tried to kill us.  It’s a message to the Rojas, we got that.  We don’t like it, but we understand.  But there’s one thing we don’t know, that we wanna know, and we think maybe you can tell us. We know one of our own turned on us today to tell you where we’d be.  You might not know who, you might get a kick out of takin’ the name to your grave; but I’d sure appreciate it if you could tell us.”

“You’re goin’ to kill me,
cabrón
.  Makes no difference to me whether you know the name or not.”

“I told you,
ese
.  The difference it makes to you is whether I take my time or not.”

“Maybe I don’t know the name.”

“
Ese
, I am not the man you want to bluff with.  I will make you tell me the name if you know it.  Hell, I’ll make you tell me your mama’s name, your sister’s name.  You’ll give up your whole goddamn family by the time I’m done if that’s what I want from you.”

“Do your worst,
cabrón
.”

Paul sighed.  He was a long way from dry and he was tired.  He had no time for bravado.  He turned to his brothers.  “Playin’ devil’s advocate here, we don’t know about Chiz and Tag.  Morse ain’t been in contact today to tell anyone shit, same goes for Fletch, I’d say.”  Five heads nodded in agreement.  “Open the door to the other room.”

Dizzy stepped forward and opened the door to the bedroom.  Kong and Geoff both looked up as extra light from the naked bulb in the outer room encroached into the bedroom.

Paul addressed Samuel directly.  “Everyone can see what I’m gonna do to this piece of shit.  You keep eyes on them.”  Samuel nodded.  His grief had given way to something else, something hard and not quite human.  Paul wondered if that shell would ever break, or if his president was irrevocably changed.

Paul shrugged his kutte off and handed it to Samuel.  He didn’t want to get blood on it.  He pulled his knife from the sheath at his hip.  He favored an MPK Titanium blade; it hadn’t let him down yet.

“Ideally I like to do this when a body’s upright, but I’m adaptable.  Let’s have some fun.”

He flicked his wrist and the majority of the Mexican’s nose bounced off his chest as it fell to the floor.   The man screamed, as best he could past the blood that was now flowing down the front of his face and through his exposed nasal passages into the back of his throat.

“I told you,
ese
.  Easy or hard, it’s all the same to me.  All I wanna know is who gave you the intel that we were headin’ back early.”

The man only grunted, sputtering the sound past the free-flowing blood.  Paul took his right ear next.  When he was answered with another grunt, he started on the hands.  He took two fingers from the right hand first, carving from the knuckle just underneath the nail.  That left him plenty more finger to work with.  He wanted to leave an ear, the lips and the tongue.  He needed for the Mexican to be able to hear him and to be able to speak, but he knew he could work around those limitations.  He asked again, and received no answer.  He started working his knife into the joint of the third finger, repeating his query about who had fed the intel about their early return.  As he dissected the lump of flesh in front of him, Paul realized that he had changed.  His ability to do this work was no longer powered by the cold, empty pit in his soul; now it was fuelled by rage, icy rage.  But in no way did it lessen his focus.  The constant thought that Ashleigh might be hurt or be put in danger was gasoline on the fire.

“Shark!”

Paul stopped and turned at Kong’s shout.  Kong indicated with his head and Paul saw that Geoff, pale and shaking on the edge of the bed frame, had wet himself.  Every other man had been watching with dispassionate interest.

Paul looked up at Samuel.  When Samuel spoke, his voice held no emotion.   “Get another chair. Side by side.”

Dizzy pulled another frame chair from the side of the room and set it up next to the bloodstained Mexican.  Kong manhandled the visibly shaking Geoff from the bed frame to the chair.  It might have been that the young man just didn’t have the stomach to witness the vivisection of another human being.  Paul wanted to find out; but he was still wet and tired, so he decided to speed things up.

He gestured to the Mexican.  “Strip him.”  Dizzy and Terry yanked the bleeding man out of his seat and pulled down his jeans. One stood on either side, keeping a firm hold to ensure he stayed standing.

Paul squatted in front of Geoff.  There was no need to bind him; he was paralyzed with fear.  His curly brown hair was matted to his head with sweat. “Watch.  I want an answer.”

Paul turned to the Mexican and took hold of his limp dick.  Even at that small touch the man’s grunts began deep in his throat, as if he could vocally prepare for what was coming next.  The tip of Paul’s knife disappeared into the nest of black hair, and blood began to trickle down the man’s thigh as his animal noises increased in volume and frequency.  Paul felt the tip of his wickedly sharp blade slip into the weak flesh, and then Geoff shouted.

“It was me!  Oh.  Fuck. God, it was me!”

Paul squatted in front of the whimpering Prospect.  “Please.  Go on.”

Geoff was barely audible between his own sobs and the breathless grunts of the man still being supported by Dizzy and Terry.  “I... I... It was me.  I told them you were comin’ back...I... I... I’m sorry.  I... I didn’t... want... mean... I didn’t...”

“You didn’t mean for Dean to be killed?  Boy, what the fuck did you think would happen?”  Paul demanded. 

“I... I don’t know... I ... I just wanted...”

“What?” Samuel’s voice was strident.  “What did you just want?  What did you just fucking want that was worth my life?  That was worth the life of my son?”

“M...M...My patch.”  At least the wretch had the good grace to hang his head under the weight of his shame.  “I wanted it and... and... I didn’t get it and then this guy... he... he... came up to me in.... Joe’s diner the day.... the mornin’ after the vote.   We... we got talkin’ and I was so angry and he asked and I told him and... Oh Jesus, Samuel, I am so fucking sorry about Dean... I am you have to believe me.... I really am.”

“When Samuel called you, you called the Mexicans?  You told them about the fundraiser too?”  Paul asked.

“Yes.  Yeah I did.  I’m so sorry.”  Geoff sobbed.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”  Samuel bellowed.  The room was silent.  Not even the mice under the floor boards moved.  Geoff stifled his sobs into hiccups.

“Kill him.”  Samuel’s voice had lost all tone and emotion.

“No.”  Paul felt the weight of that word.  He stood as he said it.  If he was going to defy his president on this he wouldn’t do it from nearly on his knees.

“What do you mean ‘no’?  Kill him.”

“No.  I think we can make him a better message than that.  Let me work his hands.  I can make it so he never rides again.  He’ll be fuckin’ lucky if the surgeons don’t take them.  He definitely wont ever fucking use them the same again.  If we kill him we’re buryin’ him in the ground outside.  If no one finds him, no one hears.”

Samuel paused for what seemed like forever.  “Okay.”

Paul nodded to Terry and Dizzy.  They set the Mexican back into his seat and grabbed Geoff by his arms.

“I want him on the floor.  Arms out.”

Terry and Dizzy forced Geoff to the floor.  They pulled his arms outstretched, each man leaning heavily on a limb.  It adequately prevented the Prospect from moving the rest of his body.  Paul reversed his knife and, using the hilt as a hammer, brought it down over and over and over again on Geoff’s hands.  Every couple of hits, he reversed it and stabbed the blade straight through the appendage.  There was no ink to take, and when Paul was done, Geoff’s hands were barely recognizable as human body parts, and he had involuntarily defecated.  They let him free and he curled up on the floor around his ruined hands, mewling like a kitten.

The Mexican had watched the show from his chair.  Paul was panting a little from the exertion of using his knife as a hammer. Samuel pointed to the Mexican.  “Finish from where you left off.  He’s our callin’ card.  They boiled Eduardo’s men.  I want them to know what happens when they step into our back yard.”

Paul nodded.  Now that they didn’t need information, he started at the top and worked his way down, tossing the bits and pieces of flesh, bone and muscle that he removed in to a small pile on the wooden boards and adding substantially to the bloodstains.  The Mexican hung on for an impressively long time, but taking his pride and joy finished him off.  Severing those arteries was usually the death blow.  He died with a rattling hiss from behind the clenched teeth in what was left of his ruined mouth.

The five other members in the room had watched without making a sound.  Sinatra was a little green around the edges and a little wild--eyed when he looked at Paul, but he held.  Sometimes the old ways were the best, even though nothing could cause enough pain to balance out what had been done.  Paul remembered once chatting with Dean about this method; he felt it was a sort of tribute to use it now.