Charlie Hustmyre - House of the Rising Sun

For just a second she had to stop for traffic crossing through the intersection, and then the V-8 roared as she shot through a slender gap between a couple of cars. Ignoring the blare of horns behind her, Jenny put her foot on the floor and raced to catch up to the Lincoln.

Headed south on Williams she followed Tony’s car under the interstate overpass, then for another mile through heavy congestion until Joey made a left turn into a subdivision. Without other cars to cover her, Jenny had to back off and give the Lincoln more of a lead, but she still had to stay close enough to see where it went. She had expected them to jump up on the I-10 and head toward the swamp, out past the airport. What they were doing in a residential neighborhood, holding a man captive in the trunk, Jenny had no idea.

Through a couple more turns, she slowly closed the gap with the Lincoln, every second afraid she was going to lose them. Fifty yards ahead of her, Joey turned left. When she got to the street, she made the turn behind them. Too late she saw the yellow diamond of the dead-end sign. The street was only a block long and ended in a cul-de-sac. The Lincoln was stopped a quarter of the way around the circle, on the right-hand side.

Near panic, Jenny whipped into the first driveway and killed the lights. There were already two cars in the driveway, and the lights were on in the house. Even if Tony hadn’t noticed her car pulling into the driveway, or if he did and thought it belonged there, the people inside were going to want to know who was sitting in their front yard.

The Lincoln sat in the street in front of a two-story brick house. Jenny saw the automatic garage door start to rise. Joey threw the Lincoln into reverse and backed partway into the garage. When the car stopped, both right-side doors opened and out popped Tony and Rocco. Rocco was still moving slowly, as if he were in pain, and Tony still held something pressed against his ear. What the hell happened to these guys?

From the driveway where she was parked, Jenny couldn’t see into the garage, but she saw the Lincoln’s trunk open. Tony and Rocco, both already standing at the back of the car, reached into the trunk, then jerked around like they were having trouble, like Ray was putting up a fight. Rocco threw a punch into the open trunk, and the struggle ended. Through a narrow slice of space between the back of the car and the garage, Jenny caught the briefest glimpse of Rocco dragging Ray out of the trunk.

Joey climbed out of the driver’s seat and slammed the trunk closed. He got back behind the wheel and eased the car forward enough to clear the garage. As the automatic door slid down, Joey jumped out of the car and ducked under it.

Ray was in there with three mobsters, and if he wasn’t dead already, he soon would be. Jenny had to think of a way to get him out. But what could she do? One woman, alone and unarmed, against three killers.

Then she had an idea. What if she wasn’t alone, what if she got help? Maybe some guys who weren’t afraid of mob assholes. Jenny reached for her cell phone.

Tony didn’t keep cars in his garage. He kept them parked in the driveway. The house might belong to his wife, she could put up all the frilly shit she wanted to in there, but the garage was his and it was off limits to her.

He wasn’t into woodworking or fixing cars, but Tony had a workbench stretching the length of one wall and a four-foot-by-eight-foot sheet of Peg-Board nailed to another wall, the holes filled with steel hooks hung with yard and patio tools: a broom, a rake, clippers, sheers, a hose, and extension cords. A door in one corner led into the laundry room, which connected to the kitchen by another door.

The rest of the garage was set up as a den and game room. The floor was unfinished cement, but Tony kept it clean enough to eat off. In the middle of the room, facing the back wall, sat a sofa and coffee table. Beside the sofa was a leather recliner. Mounted on the back wall was a sixty-inch flat screen, and to the right of that stood a cherrywood cabinet with etched glass doors.

Johnny Four-Fingers had built the cabinet for Tony. Johnny had been a hell of a carpenter but a piss-poor gambler. That’s why he was dead. The cabinet was stacked with a multidisk CD/DVD player and a ton of stereo equipment. To the left of the TV was a stand with a smaller television. Sometimes Tony had to watch more than one game at a time. In two of the corners were a pool table and Ping-Pong table.

This is where Tony got away from the bitch. Where he could watch anything he wanted without his wife nagging the shit out of him. Like Asian lesbo porn. He loved to watch those chink chicks do each other.

Ray Shane sat on the floor, leaning against the back wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Rocco and Joey stood next to him and had kept an eye on him while Tony had gone into the bathroom and cleaned up. His ear had stopped bleeding but the pain was almost unbearable. The only thing getting him through it was thinking about how much pain he was going to put Ray Shane through.

When he got back into the garage, sporting a wad of gauze taped to his ear, Tony stared at the ex-detective, glad he finally had hold of the slippery son of a bitch. “Now that we got some time and some privacy, we’re gonna have a little talk, Shane.”

Shane didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything with tape still around his head. He just stared back at Tony. His face-what Tony could see of it above the tape-looked like a prizefighter a couple days after losing a fight. The shiner Tony had put on Ray’s eye was fading, leaving his skin that sickly yellow color of a healing bruise. Blood had drained out of his left ear, leaving a crusty trail down his neck and a stain on his shoulder. But there was no mistaking the look in Ray Shane’s eyes-pure hatred.

Tony nodded to Rocco. “Take the tape off.” Then he told Joey, “He makes any noise, kick his fucking head in.”

Rocco eased himself down to his knees and grabbed Ray’s hair. Using a fingernail, he peeled off some of the tape, just enough to get a grip, then ripped the long strip off Ray’s face and head. A groan of pain slipped through Ray’s clenched teeth but otherwise he said nothing.

Tony was a little disappointed. He had hoped for something more. “You think you’re a tough guy, don’t you, Shane?”

Shane just kept staring at him. It was making Tony a little uncomfortable. Shane was on the floor, he was beat to shit, and he was about to die. Did he know that? Did he care? Of course he did, everybody cared about dying, no matter what they said. So why was he just sitting there, doing nothing? Groveling, begging, crying-those were the things Tony expected, the things he wanted. Not this stony silence. But one way or the other, he was going to get what he wanted.

Tony strolled over to his workbench. He pulled Ray’s Smith amp; Wesson from his waistband and tossed it into a drawer. He needed something more terrifying than a gun. Mounted to the wall behind the workbench was a three-inch-thick sheet of wood. Carved into the sheet were a couple dozen custom tool cutouts, each designed to fit a specific tool, each lined with green velvet. Another piece of master carpentry by Johnny Four-Fingers.

Tony gazed around the board and finally selected a pair of Craftsman Robo-Grip pliers. With the pliers in hand, he turned and looked at Joey and Rocco, then pointed the Robo-Grips at Shane. “Pick him up.”

After the two muscle heads jerked the ex-cop to his feet, Tony held the pliers up and snapped the big jaws together a couple of times. “Take off his pants.”

“Nine-one-one operator,” a woman’s voice said. “What is your emergency?”

Jenny had just circled the cul-de-sac and was stopped at the other end of Tony’s street. She stared up at the street sign.