Page 11 of Three
“Real justice is like real love, it doesn’t exist,” Gabe adds, gifting us with another of his happy statements.
“Did you down a glass of cynicism before getting here?” I hear Lori asking him. Since he started working in Gabe’s lawfirm, he’s tried to minimize his taunts, but it has to be hard for him, seeing that he loathes Gabe with a vengeance. And I’d like to say the sentiment is reciprocated by my brother, but I can’t. Gabe barely tolerates people in general.
“Could you turn off the intercom? I’m trying to have fun here, for fuck’s sake,” I tell them before sighing and concentrating once again on the task ahead.
“Let the games begin,” I announce joyfully. “Let’s play Waldo, one of my all-time favorite games.” I grab the iPad from the tray and tap a couple of times on the screen. My donor is not looking at me, but he’s watching his surroundings, surely trying to figure out his location while pulling on the chains around his ankles—his hand and wrist are broken, courtesy of Grizzly.
“January thirteenth, Patterson family’s assassination. Oh, look who’s exiting the restaurant across the street from their house… It’s you!” I turn the screen toward him, and he glances at it for half a second. He’s turned rigid, but is trying very hard to hide it. “January twenty-sixth, David Carson’s homicide, along with his girlfriend’s and sister’s. Here you are a block away, eating pistachio ice cream—you are a messy eater, by the way. And then here, buying a big fat tub of lube at the pharmacy in the same building where seventy-year-old Miss Price, her two sons, and three dogs—tiny, sweet Maltipoos—were tortured and killed the same day, February second. Seriously, do you ever pick on someone your own size?” I ask him, then slap him hard on his face when he keeps avoiding my eyes.
“And on February fourteenth, one hour before strangling Sarah Dallas and her husband in their appliance store, where were you? Who’s the idiot with the checkered Rambo shirt staring at their store window? It surely looks like you, August.”
“Amateur,” Raph comments.
I grab his chin painfully tight, reading the hurt on his twisted mouth, and force his rough face up. “You do have thick skin, but as wrinkly as an elephant’s. Have you ever heard of sun protection? Moisturizers?”
The donor blushes. Figures. His tanned face is pulled taut. He’s wearing a grim expression.
“That’s the worst way to torture yourself,” Lori utters seriously. He’s a beauty fanatic.
“Fuck you.” The donor’s voice is high-pitched as he addresses the invisible people hidden by the one-way mirror.
“Bully bitches are not my type,” Linda replies.
“Didn’t I tell you to turn off the intercom?” I hiss, but they completely ignore me.
“I don’t think we’ve had a more pathetic donor before,” Gabe says.
“This is number twelve on the most pathetic donors list,” Raph clarifies. He has a spectacular memory.
“The one Rague took care of three weeks ago cried like a baby just looking at his face.” Michael laughs. I was there, it was very pathetic indeed.
I let go of the donor’s face. “Can you blame him? Rague is huge, and that lemon-sucking expression of his is what nightmares are made of.”
I turn to the tray and, letting go of the iPad, I grab the machete while my family keeps going with listing the worst donors. I feel totally at ease. I do this far too often. We all do.
My eyes are laser-focused on the donor again. “Why were you after the Black grizzly bear tonight?”
“Black grizzly?” I hear Lori ask.
But the donor’s reply has my attention. “Fuck you.”
So repetitive! And exciting. I crave the ones with a fighting spirit; it never fails to get the adrenaline pumping, anticipating the moment when they’ll break under my hands.
“Ahhh, wrong answer.” The sharp, pointy end of the machete slices easily through the donor’s inner thigh. The sight of the dripping, ruby blood and the scream of pain bring my sense of touch alive, and I can feel the hard handle of the machete in my hand.Fucking finally.
“This is how you work on your victims, right? I should have probably started with it. Do you have the right answer for me now?”
He grits his teeth and sends a murderous look my way.
The blade swings to the right, cutting off his nipple, which flies somewhere onto the black plastic covering the floor. Another wail, another splatter of blood, and my sense of smell is back right when the donor decides to pee himself. Better than feces.
Yep, I’m a glass half-full kind of guy—most of the time.
“How about now? Ready to talk? Not yet? Good! Always wanted to use these skewers.” My eyes land on the long pointy wooden sticks on the tray.
Michael’s excited voice suddenly fills the FUNS room. “That makes me think of the gridiron, a torture device.”
“Let’s hear it,” Uri encourages him. He loves to find new ways to extract information and pain out of our donors.
