Everyone Pays by Seth Harwood Page A

mouth. He flipped hair out of his face, an action that took a full movement, a swing of his body. His hair so thick and heavy.
    He saw the gun on the floor. I didn’t know how stupid he thought I was, but I wasn’t that green. I dipped into a right uppercut and pivoted from the hips, brought my fist up hard under his chin, sent blood flying. I dropped a left hook into his ribs, an easy move since he was fully unguarded, didn’t even attempt a fighting stance. When he reacted to the hook, left his face open again, I knocked him down with a right cross.
    I had questions, wanted a list of names, but I could barely control myself. I dropped on top of him, straddled his chest, and reached for the metal box. I lifted it over my head and brought it down. It gave a little, the box, and I lifted it to smash down again.
    Later, I held the box aloft. He blinked slowly, focusing on my hands, then smiled through the blood. I still had him; he had enough left to give me what I wanted.
    When the pimp came to, I’d calmed enough to do my work, to get what I needed. I’d cleaned and scrubbed his coffeemaker and used it to make a dark pot, finding old coffee that I forced myself to consume. When I’d had enough, I tied up the girl and gagged her so she couldn’t scream. I woke him with cold water on his face and chest, forced some down his throat.
    He spit it up on the floor, coughed himself awake.
    “Ready to talk to me?”
    His eyes flitted around the room, then focused on his wrists, which I’d tied.
    “You can’t do this.”
    “I want names.” I brought the knife to his forearm, played it against his skin. “We’re going to play a game you won’t like.”
    He swore, and I admired that attitude. It made what I had to do even easier.
    I sawed the knife harder, broke skin, then worked its tip into the cut.
    He ground his teeth, and something came loose. When he spit it on the ground, I could see it was a piece of thin, cheap gold.
    “What you want?”
    “Names. Everything about a girl named Emily. You called her Silver.”
    He shook his head, grimacing at the pain. “Don’t know her. Too many tricks, man.”
    I slapped him with my open hand. “How do you know me?”
    He squinted. Thinking. “The church, man. I been to your church. Seen you there. You can’t do this. What would God do?”
    I punched his mouth, bouncing his head back.
    “Who did that to her?”
    “What?” He focused. “Who?”
    “Emily. Her tongue.”
    It came to him then, slowly but definitively. He got it, remembered exactly who I meant.
    “Did you do that?”
    “Me? No. Huh-uh. That made her worthless to me.”
    “Who did it?”
    “Who? Right.” He was scared. “A trick. A john.”
    I pushed the knife in.
    “Johns. You got to believe.”
    The knife formed a distinct outline under his skin, almost an inch of it now.
    “That was a ways back. Silver, she—”
    I slapped the word from his mouth. “Emily.”
    “Emily. She wasn’t here that long. She young, man.”
    “Too young.”
    “Damn.” His eyes came into focus. Blood dripped from his lower lip. I pulled my arm back to hit him again when he said, “How you know her? Who she to you?”
    Time passed without my answer. His breath wheezed in and out through his nose. In the bedroom, the woman strained against her bonds, screamed into her gag. I removed a small black notebook from my inside pocket and flipped it open, readied my pen.
    “Tell me who did it to her. Tell me their names and how I can find them.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    DONNER
    Ibaka led us back into Dub’s apartment, past a shattered coffee table and a turned-over recliner. There, on the floor, his dreadlocks matted with blood and flecks of bone, was our man Richard Webster—Dub. In truth, he’d been lucky to live as long as he had.
    I wondered if we had gotten here sooner, if maybe something would have changed. Maybe we could have helped him, even caught our guy. I didn’t waste long on that line of thought. It