Page 89 of Make Them Bleed
“Literally,” Ozzy says, and jams Chester A. Arthur up onto his head like a crown. “I still wish we’d wear Ghostface.”
“Brand confusion,” Gage says.
Paul’s sedan turns onto Pinecrest exactly when Knight said it would. The headlights wash the street a bland, municipal white. The car noses into the driveway with the careful optimism of a man who didn’t plan to be interesting tonight. He kills the engine. Porch light on. A neighbor’s dog yips once and then thinks better of it.
“Positions,” I say, and my stomach does that thing it does when I steer into a plan I hate but will execute clean because that’s who I am.
We move. By the time Paul’s juggling keys and mail at the door, we’re close enough to grab him without anyone noticing. Ozzy takes the elbow, Gage the keys, and I cover his mouth with one gloved hand and whisper, “We’re not here to hurt you, Paul. We’re here to ask questions you already know the answers to.”
His eyes go big and human and wet. “What— mmph?—”
Inside. Door shut. The deadbolt knocks home with a sound that always makes me feel like I’ve done something irreversible. We don’t smash lamps or break his pictures. We aren’t here for theater. We’re here for names.
The living room smells like lemon cleaner and guilt. There’s a bowl of wrapped mints by the door. The thermostat is set to seventy-two like a man who’s found his comfort and refuses to negotiate. We sit him in a dining chair that’s probably seen manyThanksgivings. Gage ties him off with nylon. Nothing fancy, nothing that leaves more than time as evidence. Ozzy flicks on a single lamp and leaves the overhead off. I keep my Hoover mask on. You’d be amazed what latex and a voice modulator will extract without anyone laying a finger.
Paul’s a mid-tier guy in Bob’s office, all the right polos at cookouts and the passive-aggressive email etiquette of a man who has studied the Reply-All button and chosen caution. Right now he’s trying to breathe through his nose like a swimmer. His chest shudders.
“Okay,” he says, once he has air and a sense that we’re not going to drop him in a trunk and take him to a second location where a shovel is. “Okay. I don’t— Who are you? Why?—”
Ozzy leans in, the Arthur chin bobbing in a way that would be funny if my heart weren’t tripping over itself. “This the part where we say ‘we ask the questions’ or do you want to guess first?”
Paul blinks at the masks, bewilderment cutting through fear. “Is that… are you… Chester A. Arthur?”
Gage, deadpan from behind Polk: “Yep.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Paul says, voice pitching up. “Am I being haunted by AP U.S. History?”
“We’re your remedial class,” I say, Hoover frowning in sympathy. “Pop quiz. You were at Club Greed, Pride room last night. You saw five men walk in. One of them shot you a little finger gun like a sixth grader who never learned manners. You know them.”
He tries for indignation. “I don’t?—”
I throw a printout on the coffee table—a still from Greed’s mirror, stabilized, thermal noise cleaned just enough to make the silhouette of Man One unmistakable. The onyx ring flashes like an eclipse. Paul flinches so hard the chair legs squeal.
“You do,” I say.
He squeezes his eyes shut. For a second I wonder if he’s going to make me choose between being the guy who keeps promises and the guy who gets results. Then the dam cracks and it’s not even elegant. He cries. Not movie tears. Ugly, panicked, loud sobbing that makes Ozzy go still.
“I don’t want to die,” Paul says. “I don’t want to be in the river. I didn’t— I never— I don’t know. They’re hired men to do dirty deeds. I don’t want to die.”
My pulse punches my ribs. I unclench my hands. “Then don’t die,” I say, quietly. “Talk. Who hires them?”
He’s belligerent. “They own everything,” he says, words tumbling over themselves. “They owneverything. The marina board, the permitting office, the clubs, the donor dinner where if you don’t show up you lose your budget next cycle. You think Procurement is clean? Nothing’s clean.”
“Names,” I say, and he shakes his head like he’s trying to shake water out of his ears.
Ozzy produces a clean dish towel and sets it gently against Paul’s shoulder like we’re at a diner and he spilled coffee. “You’re doing great, sweetie,” he says, which should not work and does anyway. Paul laughs once, sharp and broken.
“Names and how you know them,” I repeat.
He swallows. His voice drops, and his shoulders drop with it. “Man with the ring,” he says, eyes flicking to the printout. “That’sColeman. Stanley Coleman. He runs half of Gracewood’s shadow. Says he’s a consultant. He’s a choreographer. If there’s a dance, he wrote it.”
Coleman. I hear Juno’s breath in my head going sharp as glass. I nod once. Gage writes neat block letters on a legal pad he pulled from a drawer with the kind of confidence that saysI live here now.
“Bald one,” Paul says, sniffing hard. “That’s Rook. Rook Salazar. Ex-military, or something. Rumor is he left a program with no name and kept the skills. He works the docks like they’re chessboards.”
“Tattoo?” Gage asks.
“Anchor under the collar,” Paul says. “Low. He doesn’t show it unless he’s sending a message.”
