Colin Harrison - Afterburn

His desire was dead, his hatred gone.

The blond girl pushed her way out from beneath him. "That hurt, you fucker."

But the black woman laughed. "Nah, Kirby, I seen you, that hurt good."

The blond girl smiled. "Yeah, but I can't fucking walk."

But he was not listening. He wanted only to put on his clothes and step out into the late afternoon. His mind was clear. It had worked-perfectly, in fact. He was ready to talk to Christina now. He'd shower at the gym and have a cup of coffee, get a new shirt out of the truck, then walk over to her building and press the M. Williams buzzer and be able to speak to her. Without fear, with clearness.

He sat up with his underwear and pants. The blond girl left, keeping the door open. He found his shirt and socks. The black girl lit a cigarette. She cupped her left breast and lifted it, examining the sweaty crease beneath it.

"What're you looking for?" Rick asked as he pulled on a boot.

"I get these things, they called skin-tags. From the rubbing. These little pieces of-" She looked up and took a sharp breath. "Do something for you fellows?"

Her voice was different and Rick turned.

Three men stood in the doorway. The short one sported a silky green baseball jacket, argyle socks, and good shoes. The other two, each almost Rick's size, wore double-breasted suits.

"You must be Rick," said the one in the green jacket. "My name's Morris."

"You are-?" he began.

"You know who we are, Rick." He pointed a soft pink finger. "Get your other boot on there, no hurry." He looked at the girl. "Pardon us, miss," he said with gentle authority, "we don't wish to compromise you."

She didn't move. "Where's Jason at?"

"He's out there."

She was trying not to look scared. "Bring me Jason in here and I'll get out of bed."

Morris nodded to the older man in the suit.

I can't jump out of the window, Rick thought, too high.

The bouncer came into the room and picked up a blue robe. "Let's go, baby."

LaMoyna threw back the covers and stood regally as the bouncer held the robe. She wasn't beautiful. The other men waited impassively, as if for a train they knew always to be late. Morris unzipped his jacket and opened his wallet.

"Miss," he said to her, "this is for your trouble." He handed her a new one-hundred-dollar bill. He pulled out another, gave it to the bouncer. "You're a champ."

Rick stood. The two other men stepped forward and put handcuffs on him. Morris motioned toward the door. "Let's go. Just a bunch of guys, right?"

"Right," whispered Rick, his voice grieving.

They were not cops. With cops there was a lot of sitting around. Things need to get written down, and someone always has a radio. They walked him down the stairs without speaking and outside to a taxi repainted green. In the backseat, the two big men sat next to him. Morris drove. Two large carpenter's toolboxes were stacked on the passenger seat.

"Hey," Rick breathed out, "just tell me."

"We'll talk when we get there," Morris answered. "Just relax, it's all fine. Really, this is not a big deal."

"You work for Tony?"

"Yes, that would be correct." Morris turned down Second Avenue. The rain had started. He looked at Rick in the rearview mirror. "These other guys are Tommy, to your left, and Jones."

Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of an old factory off Tenth Avenue downtown. Rain battered the windshield and they waited in the car, steaming up the windows. His wrists hurt from the handcuffs. A wet dog nosed through some garbage next to a brick wall.

"He's got a little greyhound in him," Morris said. "You can tell by the curved back."

"He's just starving," said Jones.

"I don't think so." Morris opened the driver's door and whistled. The dog's ears jerked and he looked up. Morris whistled again, but the dog trotted away.

"Tommy, grab this other box, please."

They got out in the rain and this time Jones had a hand behind Rick. Tommy carried one box, Morris the other, each heavy.

The door that Morris unlocked was rusted at the bottom from men pissing there, but the lock was expensive and new, Rick noticed. They walked heavily up one flight of cement stairs and across a ruined wooden floor the size of a basketball court. Enough light came in through the yellowy, broken-pieced windows high up on the wall that Rick could see the room had lost function upon function, been inhabited, vacated, and reinhabited, only to be vacated again, the screw-holes in the floor from one grid of machinery superimposed upon the previous, the activity leaving a crazy quilt of paint-gun stencil edges, rub patterns, oil seepings. Failure and disinterest. Bat-shit drop-dripped on all the ledges. A room no one remembered, a room no one needed. In the gloomy far corner a mattress had gone rotten, spilling a soft pile of foam. Next to it a clatter of bottles, a pile of ghost's clothes.

In the corner stood a worktable, three chairs, and some clip-on work lights.

"Okay," said Morris. "We want you on the table. Sit up."

"Like the doctor's office," noted Tommy.

Morris unzipped his silk baseball jacket and folded it over the back of one of the chairs. He had a doughy body in a green sports shirt. "I'll be asking some questions, Rick. You're okay with that, right?"

Rick nodded, sitting awkwardly with his hands cuffed together. Tommy was looking inside one of the big toolboxes.

"Where is she?" Morris asked. "This Christina Welles." He smiled. "I'm sort of interested in meeting her, keep hearing things about her."

"She's something," Rick agreed, watching Tommy pull out a long heavy-duty extension cord.

"So…" Morris waited. "Will you please tell us where she is?"

"I don't know."

Morris fiddled with a ring on his finger-a wedding ring, Rick noticed.

"I admit I've been looking for her," he went on. "I think she's in the neighborhood down in the Village somewhere, but…" He shrugged. "I think I'm close."

Morris slipped his gold watch off his wrist and put it in his front pants pocket. "You're close, you think?"

"Yeah."

"How close?"

"I'm getting there, you know."

"Right." Morris pointed at the toolbox. "Tommy, I want the quarter-inch."

"Wait, wait," Rick said quickly.

They held him down and Morris started the drill.

"Wait, wait!" He struggled but Tommy calmly poked the barrel of a. 38 in his eye and he froze. "Okay, okay."

Morris stopped the drill, let it whine down. "Okay, what?"

He was panting, neck suddenly hot. "Okay. Fine. So let's talk."

Morris stared at Rick now. "You're sure?"

"Yes."

"Everything is cool?"

"Yes."

"Shall I put my watch back on?"

"Why not?"

They were still holding him down. "I usually take it off, see."

"No, no," said Rick, understanding now, "you can put it back on."

"Okay," said Morris. "In a second."

The drill started suddenly and Rick felt it go straight through his left boot, a hot nail plunging down through his foot, come out the bottom as he screamed, get caught in the sole of his boot, be yanked out.

"Fuck! Fuck! Okay, okay!"

They let him go and he curled up mournfully, clutching his boot with his shackled hands. Blood oozed up through the hole in the leather. He pressed his fingers against the hole. Paul, I need you, he thought.

Morris was holding the drill in front of him, the red bit whining to a stop. "We're serious here, Rick." He handed the drill to Tommy and took out his watch and slipped it back on. "We have something to accomplish."

"Right, right," cried Rick, squeezing his foot. "Okay, I get it. Really."

Morris removed a paper from his breast pocket. Rick's foot felt tight inside his boot. Swelling already. It hurt to move his toes. A bone feeling, pieces not fitting right. You're going to be okay, he told himself, you are. This is just to scare you.