Page 99 of The Instruments of Darkness

“We have company, Leo,” said Antoine, “so watch your mouth.”

Leo did some eye-rolling, but only for form’s sake.

“And was Bobby pointing at you when he said this?” Antoine persisted. “Did he suggest that you ought to be the one to do it, and direct you toward the matches and gasoline?”

But it was Sonny who answered.

“He wanted us to do something to her. He didn’t tell us directly, but we knew. We got it.”

Antoine studied Sonny.

“I can believe that,” he said, before striking Sonny full in the face with the heel of his right hand. Sonny’s nose crumpled under the impact, and he toppled backward as Antoine advanced, the steel toe of his booted right foot catching the boy in the side. Sonny curled up on the floor to protect himself, so the next kick struck the base of his spine. By the door, Olin opened his jacket to reveal the butt of the gun tucked into his belt, on the off chance that we, or anyone else, felt the urge to intervene. Leo didn’t do anything except drop his pizza.

Eventually, Olin said “Antoine” and the kicking ended so abruptly that a switch might have been thrown in Pinette’s brain. He stepped back, ran his hands through his hair, and turned to his brother.

“Take Sonny to the emergency room,” he said. “Get him seen to. You can pay the bill. Then I want you to put a thousand dollars—no, two thousand dollars—in an envelope and drop it off at his place. After that, I never want to see him around here again. The next time you feel the urge to show some initiative, you talk to me first, understand?”

Leo swallowed hard.

“Yes,” he said, but behind his eyes a dark shape scuttled, like a spider stalking the inside of his head, seeking an outlet for its venom. The atmosphere roiled with Leo’s suppressed rage, the sediment disturbed from his depths dimming the very air around us.

“Sara,” said Antoine, “give them a ride to the ER.”

The girl with the cue ball, who had kept it in her right hand throughout, tossed it on the pool table, buttoned her shirt, and dug her car keys from her shorts. The ER would be doing good business that night thanks to the Murder Capital, even by the usual standards. Leo and another man picked up Sonny and carried him out, Sara trailing behind. Puddles of blood marked Sonny’s path.

“We good?” said Antoine to me.

“That’s not the word I’d have used. I didn’t like the performance.”

“Says the guy who leaves bodies in his wake. You want to be a judge, get some robes. We’re done.”

“I’m going to have to talk to Bobby Ocean as well,” I said.

“You and me both. I prefer afternoons. You might want to bear that in mind for your diary, so our paths don’t cross again. Now get the fuck out of here.”

We left without saying anything more. After all, what would have been the point? Olin held the door so it didn’t hit our asses on the way out.

“Well?” I said, as we walked to my car.

“Antoine’s a step up from the norm in intellect,” observed Louis, “but a step down in every other way.”

“What makes him dangerous,” I said, “is that he knows exactly who he is, and has chosen his path after due reflection. He’s not deluded, or crazy, but he’s definitely malign.”

“The way he dealt with that Sonny kid was impressively methodical,” said Louis. “I’d be surprised if Pinette’s heart rate went above sixty during the whole beating.”

Olin emerged from the Capital, watching us while he smoked a cigarette and spoke on his cell phone. We got in my car and I started the engine.

“I wonder who Olin’s calling,” I said.

“Bobby Ocean?” suggested Angel.

“If it’s Bobby, he’s getting in touch with him at Antoine’s instigation. Olin is Antoine’s creature through and through.”

“As opposed to Leo,” said Angel. “For a moment back there, Leo wanted to kill his brother.”

“Antoine does cast a big shadow for someone with no light around him,” I said. “Leo worships him, but that’s not the same as liking.”

We drove off. I had hoped that, as the Capital receded in the distance, I might sense its miasma lifting from me, but I did not. Antoine Pinette and Bobby Ocean were part of a new ascendancy, but if you caught their reflection in a glass, they would appear dressed in an older raiment, one adorned with death’s heads. They would have to be faced down and crushed because there could be no negotiation with them. If they were given free rein, they would trample goodness and morality into the dirt, and burn truth and decency to ash.

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