LITMIR.BIZ

      Play with murder enough, it gets you one of two ways. It makes you sick, or you get to like it.

      —Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest

CHAPTER ONE

      You’re lucky one way, you know,” the man said. The accent was clipped, the vowels oddly pronounced, so that the words came out You’re luggy one wuh, you nuh. People tended to mistake the accent for Australian. But he was an Afrikaner, a descendant of the Dutch pioneers who had struck out into the South African wilderness in the 1800s to escape British rule. He was originally from the harsh, arid plateau known as the Karoo, although he hadn’t been there in a long time. His name was DeGroot, and he was worried.

      “Some people actually enjoy this type of thing,” the man went on. The naked man tied to the heavy wooden chair in the middle of the room said nothing. He tried to stare straight ahead, but his eyes kept darting to the table where DeGroot had laid out his tools. The room was empty except for the table, the chair, and the plastic sheeting covering the floor. The man in the chair could hear the harsh crinkling sounds of the Afrikaner’s boots on the plastic as he walked around.

      “I don’t enjoy it,” DeGroot said. “But you do what you have to.”

      The man in the chair hated the way he was sweating. He hated how he desperately wanted to know what it was that DeGroot was doing behind him. There was the snap of a switch and a high-pitched whine. A sharp, electric smell filled the air. He felt the Afrikaner step up behind him, felt the man’s breath on his ear.

      “I scheme your training’s like mine,” DeGroot said. “Everyone’s got his limits. Everyone talks eventually.” He stepped around to face his captive. He was holding a pair of wires in his hands. The wires ended in a pair of large alligator clips. The other ends were somewhere behind him.

      “You tell yourself you’ll be different. You’ll be the one who holds out.” The man smiled, almost sadly. “It’s who we are. We’re the best.” He was opening and closing the clips absentmindedly as he spoke. The man in the chair stared with horrified fascination at the jaws opening, closing, opening, closing…

      “But in the end, we’re human,” the Afrikaner said. “Flesh and blood. We’re all the same underneath. We hurt, we bleed, we scream, and”—he looked directly at his prisoner—“we talk. It takes longer for some than others, but we do. So save yourself some pain, eh? Tell me. Where’ve you been? And who’ve you been talking to? And most important, where’s your key?”

      “I haven’t told anyone,” the man in the chair said. “I swear it.”

      The Afrikaner shook his head. “I wish I could believe you, boet. We’ve been through a lot together already. But I can’t take any chances.” I kint take inny chanzes. He stood up and approached the man in the chair, the electrodes clenched open in his hands. “Don’t feel bad about screaming,” he said. “It’s not like anyone can hear you, way out here.”

      ***

      There are few places hotter than a tarpaper roof in the late summer in North Carolina. The small group of men working around the tar kettle were stripped to waist, the skin of their backs and chests cured to the color of old leather by the twin blasts of the sun from above and the waves of heat shimmering up from the sticky black goo they spread around the chimney that stuck up from the gabled roof. They were mostly silent, moving with an economy of motion. It was too hot to move fast, and they didn’t know one another well enough for small talk to come easily. Mostly they kept their heads down, concentrating on the job of spreading the tar evenly. They looked up, however, as the ladder that leaned against the side of the building shook and rattled. Someone was coming up. They looked at each other curiously. The whole crew was already at the top; they were expecting no one else. All work and motion stopped as they turned to see who was invading their space.

      As they watched, a head came into view, followed by a pair of broad shoulders. The man who clambered off the top of the ladder was tall and lanky, with shoulder-length blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. He straightened up and looked at the men standing silently by the edge of the roof. His gaze took them in, one by one.

      Finally, he stopped, his eyes fixed on a wiry dark-haired man who had moved to the middle of the group as if trying to lose himself in the tiny crowd.

      “Afternoon, Edward,” the blond man said in a soft drawl. “We missed you in court the other day.”

      The other men looked at Edward, then moved slightly aside. He was the newest member of the group, and no one felt inclined to try their luck against the dangerous-looking interloper. They were especially disinclined to stick up for him since he had previously introduced himself as Gary.

      Edward looked from one of his coworkers to the other and saw no help there. He looked back at the blond man and squared his shoulders.

      “I ain’t goin’ back,” he said.

      “Yeah,” the blond man said. “Actually, you are.” He advanced on the smaller man calmly, moving as easily as if he were on level ground. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a set of handcuffs. Edward looked desperately one way, then another, then over the edge of the roof. He turned back to the blond man.

      “Fuck you,” he said, and ran off the edge.

      It wasn’t meant as a suicidal move; in lunchtime small talk, the other men had regaled Edward/Gary with the story of how one of them had lost his footing, slid off the edge of a roof, and landed on his feet without any ill effect other than a sore ankle for a few days. Edward didn’t have that kind of luck; he never had. He screamed as he landed, his ankle breaking with a sickening crack. He rolled over onto his back, howling like a wounded animal, pulling his knee up to his chest in a futile and belated attempt at protecting the shattered joint. He looked up to see a short Latino man standing over him. The man was in his mid-forties, with deep brown eyes and a thin mustache that drooped on either side of his mouth. He was holding a shotgun pointed at Edward.

      “Hold still,” the man said in a soft Spanish accent. “We will get you a doctor.”

      Edward screamed again, the tears of pain and frustration rolling down his face. Dimly, through the haze of his own agony, he heard the metallic rattling of someone coming down the ladder. He looked up to see the blond man standing over him. The blond man turned to the Latino and held out his hand silently. The Latino man sighed and handed over the shotgun. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He riffled through the contents for a moment, then pulled out a bill and handed it to the blond man.

      “You were right,” he said. He shook his head.

      “I usually am, Oscar,” the blond man said, not unkindly.

      “What?” Edward snarled. “Right about what?”

      The Latino man shrugged. “I did not think anyone would be stupid enough to try to escape by running off a roof. Mr. Keller here bet me five dollars I was wrong.”

      “Fuck you,” Edward said again.

      Keller pulled out a cell phone. “Look, you want me to call an ambulance before we run you in or what?”

      ***

      The man with the rifle tracked the progress of the red Jeep Grand Cherokee as

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