Troubleshooter

Chapter 7

The five men walked a slow turn around the broken figure on the chair. Duct tape bound the man to the chair arms from wrists to elbows; both his arms had left their sockets. His features were no longer discernible. He coughed out a mouthful of blood; it ran from his cheek to the thin carpet. His matted ponytail hung stiffly.

The room, a garage conversion with milky plastic windows set high in the still-functional roll-up door, smelled of oil from the Harley and from the greasy tools occupying the brief run of kitchen counter. A vise protruded from a wobbly table littered with engine parts, spare wheels, and blackened wrenches. The cot against the far wall and a scattering of dirty plates and cups were the sole signs of habitation.

Den halted, and the others stopped their pacing, waiting for his next move. They looked unnatural off their bikes, eroded into slouches acquired from too many hours leaning on handlebars.

"Tell me," Den said. "I know you planned it out by now."

The man was weeping quietly, a hiss that turned to a gurgle somewhere around the mouth. "I haven't. I swear, ese."

Den looked at Kaner. "Put out the cigarette. Warm-up's over."

Kaner ground the butt against his front tooth, popped it in his mouth, savored a few chews, and swallowed.

"Still never met a nicotine junkie like you." Goat tapped his glass eye with a long fingernail, a gross-out stunt that had developed into a nervous tic. "Chasing the cancer like a piece-a ass. What you gonna do when you catch it?"

Kaner's words came in a deep rasp: "Smoke through the hole in my throat."

He tugged off his shirt, revealing an enormous pectoral tattoo-a revolver aimed straight on, with six Sinner skulls staring out of the holes in the wheel. The dim light-morning's first gray glow-turned his flesh pale and moldy. He found a fresh T-shirt in a cabinet and tossed it to Den. Den slid his bowie knife from his shoulder holster. Its genuine-ivory handle shimmered. On the butt, tiny inset rubies formed a flaming skull. He'd paid over a grand to a Kenyan poacher for the section of tusk, or so the story went. Den slit both sleeve cuffs and threw the shirt back to Kaner. The fabric still stretched at Kaner's biceps when he pulled the shirt on.

Tom-Tom laughed. He was bouncing in his boots, white hair flapping, fingers going at his sides as if he were hopped up on meth, though he required none. "Lookadit. His shirt. Doanfitchasogood." His voice sounded funny, altered through an oft-broken nose.

Kaner said, "Why should I stain mine?"

The man in the chair emitted a faint cry.

Goat laughed. "You sound like Chief. Next you'll have your bitches polishing your boots."

Chief stared ahead, unamused and silent, his thin lines of beard fastidiously sculpted.

As Kaner drifted behind the man, Den drew forward into a square of foggy light thrown through one of the tiny windows. The man tried to recoil in his chair, pulling his head back and to one side, muttering a prayer in Spanish.

Den's surprisingly handsome face tensed. "I won't ask again."

"Por favor…por favor…"

Den nodded at Kaner, who palmed the man's skull, his other hand locking beneath his chin, and ripped him and the chair backward. Kaner dragged him, shrieking, toward the kitchen area.

Den got there before they did and spun the arm of the vise. A metallic whir as the jaws spread. At the sound the man found a hidden reserve of strength, bucking against Kaner's hold. Goat and Tom-Tom stepped in, and then Kaner gripped the man's blood-slick ponytail, forcing his head back. The man grunted and strained forward against his hair, face reddening, veins standing up in his neck. At a snail's pace, both hands tightening around the ponytail, Kaner fought the head between the open jaws. Den knocked the handle with the side of a hand, and the device clenched.

A piercing scream that faded to whispered babbling.

Chief watched impassively from across the garage, looking mildly bored. He had not moved.

Den appraised the tools on the counter, picking up a pair of needle-nose pliers. He looked down at the trapped head.

The pliers rose into the man's view. "I tell you. I tell you todo."

"I know." Den bent sympathetically over the upturned face. "But I'm gonna work for a while first."