some color?”
“I’d say so.”
The first Outfit job I pulled was on a sawbones named Dr. Joseph Weinstock. Doc Joe was selling prescription blanks to the Outfit: tablets of one-hundred blanks that runners would forge signatures on and offload at twenty, thirty bucks a pop. The speed freaks and nodders loved it and the scam netted Doc Joe a couple thou a month. But he got greedy and jacked the price. The Outfit balked. Doc Joe threatened to take his business to the Eastside. Bad move. They called me in.
A doctor’s hands are his dinner ticket; something happens to his digits and he might as well burn his shingle because his practice is toast. By the time I walked into the soundproofed room, Doc Joe’s fingers had been spread and u-clamped to a table. His mouth was duct-taped, nose smeared across half his face; would’ve looked just like strawberry jam if not for the white humps of cartilage.
“Put him out of business,” Marco Sorbetti said.
Using a DeWalt variable-speed drill, I bored pinprick holes through Doc Joe’s fingernails, tracing the milky rim of each cuticle. Then I filled an insulin needle with carbolic acid and injected it into the tender flesh under the enamel. There was this violent fizzling , like when baking soda and vinegar react, followed by the rank smell of emulsified flesh. Doc Joe’s fingers withered, then blackened. It was like watching matchsticks burn down. He broke most of them spasming against the u-clamps. The Outfit was duly impressed. Now I’m their Answer.
I uncap the bottle of Coppertone and slather coconut-scented oil over Joey’s chest and arms until his body gleams like a shellacked egg.
“This what you like, you fucking old faggot? Greasing dudes up?”
“Yes,” I say softly. “This is how old faggots like me get off.”
I crack the tanning bed open. Eight rows of ultraviolet bulbs reflect their heat on my skin. Phil uncuffs Joey and leads him over. The kid’s smiling.
“Hey, I could use a tan. Bronze me up and I’ll be off to Fantasy Island. Hey, boss—de plane, de plane! ”
Phil sits Joey on the lip of the tanning bed. I kneel and look into his eyes. I need to make him realize who he is dealing with. I’m not a monster, not exactly, but I do not care about him and he needs to understand this. He needs to know I will hurt him mercilessly until he tells me what I need to know. If he does not, I’ll watch him die.
“One more time: where’s the truck?”
The kid yawns. “Let me catch some rays, old man.”
Sometimes I think that if everyone did what’s best for them, my occupation would become redundant. But it is my experience that people rarely act in their own best interests.
I lay Joey down, then close the lid and lock it with a pair of Swedge padlocks. The kid’s singing “California Dreaming” by the Mama’s & the Papas. Nice voice.
Phil produces a deck of Bikes and we play a few rounds of nickel poker. I’m left holding aces and queens when he trumps me with a full house; then he matches fives on the last card to beat my ace-high. Cards are a great way to kill time; Crosshairs and I used to play in the jungles of Vietnam until he lost his poker face.
Got his poker face torn off is more accurate, I suppose.
Ten minutes pass. I check on the kid. He’s lobster-red but the pain hasn’t registered on his nervous system yet. “Close the lid,” he says. “Getting comfy.”
I press my finger to his flesh. It leaves a dime-sized spot of whiteness. “Listen to me,” I say. “Phil and I are going to lunch. When we get back, I guarantee you’ll tell us where the truck is. So why don’t you spill now, before I have to scrape you out of this thing with a spatula.”
“Bring me back a meatball sub, why don’t ya?”
I close and lock the lid.
We choose Honey’s, a chicken-and-pizza joint three blocks east. We sit at a bar strung with winking Christmas lights underneath a banner that reads HAVE A MERRY HO-HO-HONEY’S CHRISTMAS and order
“I’d say so.”
The first Outfit job I pulled was on a sawbones named Dr. Joseph Weinstock. Doc Joe was selling prescription blanks to the Outfit: tablets of one-hundred blanks that runners would forge signatures on and offload at twenty, thirty bucks a pop. The speed freaks and nodders loved it and the scam netted Doc Joe a couple thou a month. But he got greedy and jacked the price. The Outfit balked. Doc Joe threatened to take his business to the Eastside. Bad move. They called me in.
A doctor’s hands are his dinner ticket; something happens to his digits and he might as well burn his shingle because his practice is toast. By the time I walked into the soundproofed room, Doc Joe’s fingers had been spread and u-clamped to a table. His mouth was duct-taped, nose smeared across half his face; would’ve looked just like strawberry jam if not for the white humps of cartilage.
“Put him out of business,” Marco Sorbetti said.
Using a DeWalt variable-speed drill, I bored pinprick holes through Doc Joe’s fingernails, tracing the milky rim of each cuticle. Then I filled an insulin needle with carbolic acid and injected it into the tender flesh under the enamel. There was this violent fizzling , like when baking soda and vinegar react, followed by the rank smell of emulsified flesh. Doc Joe’s fingers withered, then blackened. It was like watching matchsticks burn down. He broke most of them spasming against the u-clamps. The Outfit was duly impressed. Now I’m their Answer.
I uncap the bottle of Coppertone and slather coconut-scented oil over Joey’s chest and arms until his body gleams like a shellacked egg.
“This what you like, you fucking old faggot? Greasing dudes up?”
“Yes,” I say softly. “This is how old faggots like me get off.”
I crack the tanning bed open. Eight rows of ultraviolet bulbs reflect their heat on my skin. Phil uncuffs Joey and leads him over. The kid’s smiling.
“Hey, I could use a tan. Bronze me up and I’ll be off to Fantasy Island. Hey, boss—de plane, de plane! ”
Phil sits Joey on the lip of the tanning bed. I kneel and look into his eyes. I need to make him realize who he is dealing with. I’m not a monster, not exactly, but I do not care about him and he needs to understand this. He needs to know I will hurt him mercilessly until he tells me what I need to know. If he does not, I’ll watch him die.
“One more time: where’s the truck?”
The kid yawns. “Let me catch some rays, old man.”
Sometimes I think that if everyone did what’s best for them, my occupation would become redundant. But it is my experience that people rarely act in their own best interests.
I lay Joey down, then close the lid and lock it with a pair of Swedge padlocks. The kid’s singing “California Dreaming” by the Mama’s & the Papas. Nice voice.
Phil produces a deck of Bikes and we play a few rounds of nickel poker. I’m left holding aces and queens when he trumps me with a full house; then he matches fives on the last card to beat my ace-high. Cards are a great way to kill time; Crosshairs and I used to play in the jungles of Vietnam until he lost his poker face.
Got his poker face torn off is more accurate, I suppose.
Ten minutes pass. I check on the kid. He’s lobster-red but the pain hasn’t registered on his nervous system yet. “Close the lid,” he says. “Getting comfy.”
I press my finger to his flesh. It leaves a dime-sized spot of whiteness. “Listen to me,” I say. “Phil and I are going to lunch. When we get back, I guarantee you’ll tell us where the truck is. So why don’t you spill now, before I have to scrape you out of this thing with a spatula.”
“Bring me back a meatball sub, why don’t ya?”
I close and lock the lid.
We choose Honey’s, a chicken-and-pizza joint three blocks east. We sit at a bar strung with winking Christmas lights underneath a banner that reads HAVE A MERRY HO-HO-HONEY’S CHRISTMAS and order
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