Agent Martin
The lower levels of the tenement reek of urine. The door on the third floor is cracked and has chipped paint. My knocks alone should be enough to tear the door off the hinges. I tap my toe while I wait.
The giant black man wouldn't normally look so fearful, but he just found the corpse in the back room, and the girl he was working with fled the scene. I flash him my badge. “Barney, I’m Special Agent John Martin, FBI, and we need to talk." He stares at me, eyes going past, so I grab his hand to focus him.“Barney, I don’t have much time, I need you to stay with me.” I smile and say. “We can make this easy if you tell me about the man who was here. I'd like to come in, please."
“The Don... The Don, he’s dead.”
I push him gently on the chest and he backs up a step. “Barney, I don’t care about the Don. There are more pressing issues at hand, and I need you to focus.” I push the door closed behind me and guide Barney toward the couch. "The girl was here with him? Where can I find him?”
“The Don... The Don...”
I slice off his nose with a serrated dagger that is now in my hand. He wails, clutching his bleeding orifice, falling to his side. “Damn it, Barney, I told you, I need you to focus.” I put a foot on his chest and start to press. “Was there a girl with him? A pretty girl, she had blonde hair, looked a lot like that singer.”
“Girl,” Barney moans.
Barney's ribs crack and poke into his major organs. Barney screams. “I can take this information from you, whether you know it or not. It's in here, soaked into your body, and will hurt a lot less if you tell me what I want to know." When he doesn’t answer quickly enough, I take off one of his ears, making him cry harder.
“I don’t know, I don’t know!”
I didn’t want to be mean to poor Barney, didn’t really have the time, but I know he has what I’m looking for. I heft the giant of a man up and slam him down on the wooden coffee table, affixing him with leather straps and slicing off his clothes. He tries to fight, but even if his body wasn't wrecked it wouldn't do him any good. “This is the last chance to talk, Barney.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” he screams and cries.
In my briefcase, there is a cage full of white mice and a metal bowl with leather straps on it. I put the mice in the bowl and strap it around Barney’s stomach, and then take a blow torch out of my briefcase as well. I doubt Barney can see what is happening through the blood in his eyes, but the skittering on his stomach must be making him wonder.
I light the torch and put it to the metal bowl. The temperature within rises quickly, driving the mice into a panic. They dig first at the bowl, and then into Barney’s softer flesh. Then they start to gnaw. I turn off the fire to give the mice a chance to enter his guts. Barney is screaming so hard he is coughing. I wait until he is quiet, muscles so taut I think he will pop.
"Can you think of anything?" I whisper in his ear. "Did Eleazar say anything at all?"
Barney rolls his head to the side and releases a raspy exhale. Only one eye is open. "Upstate," he says, barely able to form the words.
I leave him tied to the table so the mice can finish their meal. Some will eventually chew their way out his flanks and survive this terrible ordeal. Barney wasted enough of my time.
Go to Chapter 52
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