The Swing Voter of Staten Island (21 page)

Ultimately it all depended on how they wanted to handle him. If they were simply trying to force out a confession, it was just a matter of torture. If they were looking for the truth, though, they would have to be more crafty, meaning he had half a chance.

The three soon reentered. Underwood took a seat facing Uli and once again asked him to start talking about the Colder woman upon first meeting her.

“She offered to help me assassinate Dropt in the Lower East Side, but she got sidetracked,” he recounted.

“By what?” Deer asked.

“She saw a retarded man named Oric who she felt was some kind of agent.”

“The half-wit in the bus?” Chain said.

“Yeah.”

“And I saw you with him at the Shub rally,” Deer interjected.

“I got to know him on the ride from JFK and we were heading in the same direction, but we weren’t together.”

“Go on.”

“Colder thought the guy could be a possible asset,” Uli said.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why do you think?” Chain asked, thrusting his polygraph scope in Uli’s face.

“She heard him say something that made her think he knew something about something, but I don’t know what.”

“Think you might remember if I remind you?” Chain said, almost tenderly.

“I might.”

“Did she say anything about the mission being in jeopardy?”

“You mean my mission to kill Dropt?” Uli asked.

“Any mission.”

“As you probably remember, since you caused it, I have a memory problem.”

“What exactly do you remember?”

Uli was convinced that if Underwood knew he and Oric had eluded Colder by jumping out the bus window upon reaching Manhattan, they would be torturing him right now. So he proceeded with the assumption that they didn’t know.

“I told her that I thought we should stay on track with the assassination,” Uli said. “But Colder insisted that we had to abduct the retarded man.”

“How?”

“We said we were going to take him to get some cake.”

“Where?”

“Some pastry shop in the East Village. He had the mind of a child.”

“Then what?”

“I sat with him while she called someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was the name of the pastry shop?” Chain asked.

“I don’t remember, some Italian name. He had a slice of chocolate cake.”

“Then what?”

“Roughly an hour later, some guy showed up. We put the retarded man in a car and drove him down to some pig farm in Staten Island.”

“What happened there?”

“I didn’t think what was going to happen would happen.”

“What happened?”

“She tortured that poor retard for hours.”

“If you didn’t want to help her, why did you?”

“Cause of you,” Uli said, talking directly to Underwood.

“What about me?”

“She said you worked for her and were a liar, that you had no way out of this hellhole or you would’ve taken it long ago. But she said if I did as she told me, she’d help me eliminate Dropt and then get me out of here herself.”

“That sounds like Dianne,” Chain grinned. “If she needed someone, she’d snap him right up.”

“What exactly did she get out of the retard?” Underwood asked.

“No clue,” Uli replied stiffly. To his surprise, Underwood whipped him across the face with some kind of hard plastic cord. When Uli jumped forward, Chain grabbed his hands.

“What did the retard say?”

“Conversation’s over.”

“Hell it is,” said Underwood.

“You people are government officials and I have rights.”

“All rights were suspended long ago. Now what’d the retard say?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Uli shouted.

“Cuff his hands,” Underwood said. Chain and the other gangcop each pulled an arm behind the chair and slipped his wrists through a hard plastic loop connected by a narrow band. He heard the clicking of notches as it closed into the catch lock. When Uli struggled to get to his feet, they fastened white bands of plastic around each of his ankles, connecting them to the front legs of his chair.

“Get the fuck off of me!”

Deer took a rag and wrapped it over his mouth. She pulled his head back, jerking his neck against the top of the chair. The weapon in Underwood’s hand turned out to be an extension cord with a plug on one side and the two copper wires on the other.

“You’re smart,” Underwood said, as he plugged the cord into a socket and held the two wires apart. “There was a reason she was torturing the retard and I want to know what it was!”

Deer ripped open his shirt and Chain splashed a small paper cup of water on him. Underwood pressed the wires to his bare chest. The shock of electricity running through his body felt like a mashing and burning around his lungs and heart. Underwood quickly withdrew the wires.

“Okay!” Uli groaned. “I know! I know what it was!” He took a deep breath, but before he could say anything, Underwood pressed the two wire ends to his cheeks, causing him to writhe in anguish. “A
seer
!” he shrieked. Underwood removed the wires. “A Crapper seer, she called him.”

All gasped.

“What else!”

“She intercepted him before he could get to the Crapper headquarters.”

“If he was a seer, why was he traveling alone?” Deer asked.

“He wasn’t alone!” Uli shouted to Chain. “He belonged to that couple you hung in Borough Park.”

“What’s this?” Underwood asked Chain.

“The two Crappers I caught on the bus. One of them who called himself Chad had a rifle lodged inside a metal detector and a bucket of old bullets. I left Chad and his wife hanging out there.”

“How the fuck did two know-nothing Crappers acquire a goddamned seer?” Underwood asked Uli.

“How the hell would I know?”

Again Underwood jabbed the charged copper wires against Uli’s bare chest. The muscles in his body cramped all at once. The electricity seemed to reshape time itself, turning it into a vortex of excruciating pain. When the man pulled the wires back, Uli gasped for air. Every cell in his body hurt. Before the sadistic son of a bitch could reelectrocute him, Uli blurted, “He had a metal cross sticking out the back of his skull.”

“A brain cuff,” Chain said.

“That explains his retardation,” Deer added, “but it doesn’t explain his gifts.”

As though Uli were a broken information machine, Chain grabbed the wires to fix him with another jolt.

“He was a twin! His twin was chasing us!”

“A twin?” Underwood said. “Sounds like our Crappers were able to secure an experiment. What happened to this twin?”

“He got blown up at Rock & Filler Center,” Uli said, trying to catch his breath.

“So much for grabbing any assets,” Deer muttered.

“Okay, now listen up,” Underwood commanded, bringing his own sweaty face within inches of Uli’s. “You’re going to tell me exactly what that retard said. What predictions did he make?”

“Gibberish,” Uli replied sternly. “He talked gibberish.”

“I will fry your balls until smoke is coming out of your asshole.”

“I really don’t know!” Staring terrified at the copper wires, Uli tried to maintain steady breaths. “He kept saying
big bang boom
or some shit. I think he knew that the Manhattan Crapper headquarters was going to get blown up.”

“What else?”

“That was it.”

“We both know he said something else,” Underwood seethed. “And you’re going to fucking tell me what it is!”

Deer reached down and started undoing the buckle of Uli’s belt. She tore his pants open, ripping the zipper down the middle. As the young sadist fumbled in his underpants, Uli yanked forward, trying to rise out of the chair. “Karove! They’re going to shoot someone named Karove!” he screamed.

“I knew it!” Underwood shot back. Apparently, Uli’s fabrication was exactly what he had been hoping to hear. Turning to Chain, he ordered, “Call them! Tell them it’s high alert. Move him to the Bronx. Stick him under Yankee Stadium.”

Chain dashed out of the little room.

“What else?” Deer asked, visibly disappointed.

“That’s all I remember, I swear it. He died after that.”

“You done good, son,” Underwood said. “What happened to Dianne after she killed retardo?”

“We drove to Manhattan to finish the primary mission.”

“Okay, now a trick question. What was the name of the Pigger worker who picked you up at the pastry shop and drove you down to Staten Island?”

“Don’t remember.” He started hyperventilating.

“What kind of car did he drive?”

“Some sporty car.”

“What did he do then?”

“He drove us down to the pig farm and left.”

“He drove away?”

“I guess.” Uli felt utterly frazzled.

“If he drove away, how the fuck did you and Colder get to the Lower East Side?”

“I told you, in his sports car.”

“But you just said he drove away!”

“I meant he
went
away. I don’t know where. For all I know, he lived within walking distance,” Uli said. “What does it matter?”

“We found him dead in the Calypso pig farm where you just said he left you!” Underwood shouted spittingly.

“That had to have happened after we left,” Uli replied.

Underwood and Chain stormed out of the small interrogation room, leaving Uli alone with the cruel campaigner.

“Who killed him?” Deer asked, eager to take charge of the interview.

“No clue,” Uli answered, collapsing back in his chair.

Deer grabbed the electrical wires. “I owe you this for Siftwelt.”

“What are you talking about? HELP!”

She slipped the needle-sharp wires through his underwear and jabbed them into the soft base of his testicles.

An unbelievably searing pain coursed through the most sensitive part of his body, shooting up his thighs and midsection. Uli tried struggling back. With a fixed grin, Deer held the wires pressed to his gonads, sending more volts through him. He attempted to focus on some tiny point deep inside himself, but he couldn’t get a fix. He found himself silently, manically counting to ten over and over, as though he were forcing time to move faster. But the pain intensified beyond levels he thought humanly possible. He could actually feel his flesh cooking, frying from pink to brown.

As soon as he blacked out, his eyes popped open elsewhere. He seemed to be in some large barren field surrounded by sandy hills. At first he thought he spotted the young Armenian mother, but then realized he was mistaken. Strangers were standing around. His heart was beating frantically; something exciting had just happened, but he didn’t know what. He couldn’t hear a thing. Suddenly, coming down a sandy slope before him was Bea in all her muscular beauty. She was smiling at him. He saw blood on her shirt, but he knew it wasn’t hers. As she approached, he watched in slow motion as the front of her skull erupted, spraying her blood, bone, and brains into his face.

“No!!” he cried.

Someone tossed a cup of water on his face, waking him to the smell of his own sizzled skin. He was still strapped to the wooden chair, but Underwood and Chain had returned and pulled Deer off of him.

“Where exactly is Colder’s apartment located?” The Pigger leader had to ask the question several times before it sunk in.

“Fourth … and … First.” Uli was barely able to get the words out. The pain was perfectly balanced with exhaustion.

“That’s right. She liked the Class-A Lady on First,” said Chain dolefully.

The third-degree burns on his scrotum and mesoderm felt like red-hot nails had been driven up through his peritoneum. He sensed the worst was over.

“What happened there?” Underwood pressed.

Though Uli’s mouth moved, nothing came out. He had pissed his pants. The surging agony made it difficult for him to breath, let alone speak.

“Croak him up,” Chain said.

A few minutes passed before a gangcop assistant produced a syringe and injected the drug into Uli’s bound arm. As the glowing numbness spread, Uli passed out in joy. Another moment and he was wide awake again.

“What happened when you got to her place?” Underwood repeated.

“She went upstairs and came back down a few minutes later. Then I left her to use her bathroom and she waited in the car. When I came out, she and the car were gone.”

“How long were you up there?”

“Five minutes tops.”

“Why didn’t you report it?” Chain asked.

“I did. I called 911 and got a recording.”

“It’s true,” Deer chuckled. “The Crapper gangcops have a recorded announcement for 911 now.”

“So the hotel clerk saw both of you together?”

“Yeah, but the guy who stole the car and kidnapped Colder killed him. You can confirm that.”

“Bullshit, you killed him and you killed her!” Underwood shouted back viciously. “You killed her and chopped off her head.”

“All I’ve ever wanted since I got into this toilet was to leave. And she offered me a way out. I sure as hell wouldn’t have killed her until after I got out of here. Keeping her safe was more important to
me
than to any of you.” A moment of silence convinced Uli that his attempt at sincerity had stuck.

“So what’d you do next?” Chain asked.

“I thought maybe she had gone to the Manhattan headquarters to do the job herself, so I headed over there.”

“But—”

“Just as I got there, the place was blown up.”

“So why didn’t you return to me?” Underwood asked innocently.

“Because I had a hunch that you might do to me then what you’re doing to me now.”

“What’d you say to Adolphus Rafique?” Underwood asked, surprising Uli. They seemed to know almost all his movements.

“Where would I have seen Rafique?’”

“In Staten Island,” Underwood replied. “You went down there after the Crapper headquarters was blown to smithereens.”

“Says who?” Uli shot back, sensing they had simply gotten lucky.

“Says me!” yelled Deer, who had been silently basking in the sight and fumes of her work.

“She’s crazy,” Uli replied.

“You caught me and you didn’t even know it,” Deer countered.

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw you sticking around afterwards, digging clams out of that Crapper mud pile. When you were done, you got on the bus to Staten Island. The next day, when you got to P.P., I greeted you. If you really were who you’re suppose to be—” Deer went dead silent. A moment later she resumed, “Hell, we talked to each other when you arrived at P.P.”