Jan Burke - Nine

Majors felt gloved hands taking hold of him, grasping hard and lifting him. The pull on his wrists and ankles was excruciating. The young men were strong, much stronger than he had believed them to be. He was not light, but they easily lifted him out of the tub. They carried him to a four-poster bed that had nothing on it but a fitted sheet. There was a plastic drop cloth beneath it. Seeing that, he felt bile rise in his throat and for some seconds was afraid that he might choke on his own vomit.

They made a change in the way he was bound. Weakened by the time spent pulled like a bow, he could not struggle against them as they released his arms and legs. The relief of the strain on his muscles nearly made him start crying again. He was moved to the bed and laid on his back, then tied spread-eagle-the wire, again, only this time each band was attached to hooks that were already in place at each bed corner. He glanced down at his naked torso and saw that his body had been shaved-there was no hair between his neck and his genitals.

He heard a knock on the door. He waited until he saw Emil open it, then screamed as loud as he could. Gagged as he was, it was a sound much softer than he wanted it to be, but loud enough to be heard by anyone at the door. Of that much, he was sure.

To his relief, it seemed he was heard, for who should come in but the helicopter pilot, Alberto.

Alberto’s brows drew together.

Emil said, “Justino saw nothing of it. He helped us without knowing what happened next. Your brother made sure he was well away before we began.”

“Thank you,” said Alberto. He moved closer, staring down at Majors with utter contempt. “And I see you have exercised great self-control. I tell you, it has been difficult for me.”

Majors felt all hope slipping from him. Fear made his mouth dry.

“I understand, Alberto,” Emil said sympathetically. “As does Conrad.” He turned to his partner, the dark-haired one. “Don’t you, my friend?”

“Yes. But we won’t have to delay much longer.”

Again, a knock at the door. The Brazilian and the Canadian entered. If they were, Majors thought bitterly, really from those places. The Brazilian was carrying a black case.

“Ah, Paulo, you’re here!” said Emil, and asked him something in Portuguese. He received an answer, and then said to the others, “Paulo tells me he would prefer to do his work now, to give Mr. Knox-or, as he calls himself now, Mr. Majors-time to think about what is to come. Do any of you object?”

There were no objections.

Emil turned back to look at him. “I think I’ll keep calling you Majors, if you don’t mind. I think I like the name better than your real one. And after all, you aren’t going to hear our own real names, so it’s only fair.”

Conrad moved closer to Majors’s head, then looked back at Emil.

“Yes, you’re right,” Emil said, as if he had heard a question asked.

Conrad reached down and grabbed an edge of the duct tape. In a swift move, he ripped a piece of it away. He did this again and again, mercilessly pulling hair and skin with the tape as he unwound it. When he finished, he stepped away.

Majors’s cries of pain eventually faded to whimpers.

“That’s better,” Emil said. He turned to the others. “We will be happy to gag him again if he says anything to offend you, or if his screams bother you.”

“I’ll pay you!” Majors said. “Get me away from here alive, and I’ll pay you. I’m a rich man.”

“Oh dear,” the Canadian said. “I think he already offends me.”

Emil sighed. “Mr. Majors, you are not a rich man. Paulo is rich, Alberto is rich, and Pierre-this gentleman you think of as a Canadian-is rich. They have the money that used to belong to you. This surprises you, I can see. I can also see that you believe the funds in your Swiss and Cayman Island and other accounts couldn’t be in their hands. But that’s exactly the case.”

Majors’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“You may be hoping someone nearby will hear you. They won’t. You may be expecting rescue from your friend Slick. Alberto?”

“I’m happy to report that his friend was careless in the helicopter. He has had a very long fall from a very high place.”

Majors swallowed hard, then said, “He’s not the only one who knows I came here.”

“He’s not,” Conrad said, “the only one who is dead.”

The coldness of that voice left Majors without his own.

He heard noises and turned his head to see that Paulo was removing an instrument of some sort from his case.

“A tattoo needle,” Emil said. “Paulo is a tattoo artist. Do you remember the last time you were near a tattoo parlor?”

What little color was left in Majors’s face drained away.

“Yes, the young boy in Rio.” He spoke for a few moments to Paulo in Portuguese, then said, “Paulo says that if he had been given every dime you had earned, it would not repay him for the loss of his son. And it would not buy one second of the pain you inflicted on his boy.”

“It’s true,” said Pierre. “But I appreciate the chance to have a revenge denied to me for the loss of my nephew. He will not remember the young boy from Minnesota, will he? My sister couldn’t live with what happened to him. She felt responsible for not guarding him closer, for letting him fall into this one’s filthy hands. She killed herself. So I owe him for two lives, you see.”

“You asked me the name of the resort,” Alberto said. “I told you chapulín means grasshopper, but the word has another meaning-trickster. Last year, in late August, a sweet and innocent boy-Justino’s cousin, my only child-went to the city of Oaxaca. He went with his older cousins to sell chapulínes-chili grasshoppers-a local delicacy. They had caught the grasshoppers the night before and prepared them to sell on the streets that morning.”

“He did not return,” Emil said, “which is not exactly the same as saying he was not seen again.” He paused. “We cannot, of course, do anything to a grown man that would equal your cruelty to those children.”

“But we’ll try,” Conrad said, smiling.

They held him down while the one called Paulo began his elaborate design. He began on the tender nipples of Majors’s chest. A five, Majors saw, in one of the moments of rest. They paused every now and then so that he didn’t become too accustomed to the pain, so that the anticipation of it would stay fresh. He tried to think of why it was a five. Did they believe he had killed only five boys? He asked-politely, really-but they would not reply to anything he said.

Except once.

He found a little bravado at one point and said, “I’m surprised you didn’t put the tattoo on my balls. The chest isn’t such a painful place to get one.”

Emil looked at him and said coolly, “But you will keep your chest.”

It was the last time anyone spoke directly to him. When the tattooing was finished, Alberto, Paulo, and Pierre left. He began to hope it was over.

Emil and Conrad waited-for what period of time, he couldn’t judge.

The lights came on again. A stand of camera lights, he saw now. Emil and Conrad donned hoods and turned the camera on.

They said the names of his victims as they did their work.

They knew there were more than five.

Sandia Peak, New Mexico

Tuesday, May 20, 5:04 P.M.

Frederick nearly lost sight of Meghan while trying to ditch the woman he had been kissing.

“We won’t be leaving for another hour,” the woman said to him, gazing up at him, her lips swollen.

A good kisser, he thought, with a little regret. If he weren’t on a mission, he was sure he could have taken her somewhere semi-secluded and given her the best sex she’d ever had in her life. God knew she was hot for it. He admitted to himself that he was hot for her, too. Well, at least he had her number-he’d see if he had any juice left when he was done boning Meghan. He glanced up to see Meghan walking into the Peak Experience Restaurant, then smiled down at the woman who clung to him.