Blood Sports (15 page)

It didn’t make sense. Muscle Shirt had called him a snitch, but Tom had kept his mouth shut. Paulie’d never go running to the cops, not with her record. They were such small fry, it wasn’t funny. It had to be a sick, stupid joke.

But Firebug lacked a sense of ha-ha. Personality type A-B, All Business. Everything in its place. Firebug’s perfectly tidy writing, textbook cursive. A dot for every “i” and a cross for every “t.” Firebug wasn’t random. Doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t. Sense.

He pounded on the steering wheel, willing it to break. He braced his feet again. He would run up the road to the top of the hill and see what he could see from there. He would circle the truck, expanding his search in widening circles in case Paulie and Mel were nearby. He would find them. They were alive. Firebug wasn’t random.

Something popped. Tom scrambled for the door, kicking off his sneakers to fit his toes under the handle. The door swung
open with a loud creak. Tom slid outside, braced himself on the running boards, and, grabbing the wheel, used his weight and all his strength to pull. The steering wheel groaned, and then clicked, and he could feel a minute shift.

Then he heard heavy footsteps crunching on the gravel. Tom raised his head to look over the door. Firebug walked down the hill. He was wearing fatigues and black boots. His holstered gun bulged under his shirt. His sunglasses glinted as he turned his head, his attention caught by something in the woods. Tom yanked on the wheel, yanked and twisted and bounced, trying to make it break faster.

The footsteps stopped near him. Tom listened. He turned to find Firebug watching him. He stood, swallowing.

“Hey,” Tom said. “Firebug, I –”

“You don’t speak until you’re spoken to,” Firebug said.

Tom found himself babbling, unable to stop. “Please. Please, can I see them? Please, Firebug. Please, I –”

“Paulie’s right there,” Firebug said, making a small movement with his head.

The road was empty. Tom turned his head back in time to see Firebug’s fist. Tom spun, still tethered to the steering wheel, falling back against the bench seat as he tasted old pennies, blood in his mouth from where he’d bit his tongue. It felt like his scalp was too tight, like he had a rat bite above his ear. Firebug shook out his hand, his solid silver ring washed with blood.

“I ask the questions,” Firebug said.

The bile rose up so fast, even though Tom tried to avoid it, he ended up spraying Firebug across the chest. Tom coughed, shaking, his throat burning. Firebug lifted his shirt. He stared at the vomit and then at Tom.

“If you were anyone else,” Firebug said, “I would have shot you long ago.”

“Stop here,” Firebug said, poking Tom’s ribs with the tip of his .45 Para-Ordnance pistol, Betty. (“The only woman who was ever faithful to me.” Firebug in the maudlin stage of drunk, rubbing Betty along his cheek in a smoke-hazed kitchen. “Good, old Betty.”)

The clearing was about a hundred feet from the truck. The trees surrounding the clearing were tall and had white, peeling bark. Tom didn’t know what kind of trees they were. Their crowns were high overhead and their leaves flashed dark green and then light green, dark and light as a breeze blew through the canopy. The trunks were thin. Firebug unsnapped Tom’s cuffs.

“Please remove your shirt,” Firebug said. He held out a black garbage bag, keeping the pistol trained at the centre of Tom’s guts. The handcuffs glittered and clinked at the bottom of the bag with his sneakers. Firebug had coils of thin, white rope thrown over his shoulder.

Tom struggled to make his fingers work. They were cold and Novocaine-numb. He was shaking. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped it in the bag.

“Your pants, please,” Firebug said.

He dropped his eyes. Just like a doctor’s office, visit to the doctor, he told himself even as he felt heat creeping up his neck.

“Tom,” Firebug said. “I don’t want to repeat myself. Do you understand?”

Tom nodded. He undid his button and then his zipper and pushed his pants down his legs and stepped out of them. He bent over, picked them up, and dropped them in the garbage bag.

“Good,” Firebug said. “Socks, please.”

Tom lifted one foot and then the other.

“Underwear, please.”

He didn’t think about what he was doing. He kept his eyes on a spot past Firebug, and then on the truck. Firebug put the garbage bag down.

“Please back up,” Firebug said.

Tom stepped back and then back again until he felt a tree trunk behind him. The trunk wasn’t thick, but the tree was solid and didn’t move when he leaned against it.

“Kneel,” Firebug said.

The ground was dusty. Firebug pushed him into position, legs apart, back resting against the bark. Firebug folded Tom’s forearms behind the trunk. His joints popped in protest, the muscles across his chest and down his arms twinged from the stress.

“I’m going to keep the pressure off your wrists,” Firebug said. “Don’t want to risk nerve damage, do we?”

Jaunty. Very jaunty. Things were going well in Firebug’s world. Rope went around Tom’s stomach, around his chest, and finally around his neck.

“Be quiet,” Firebug said, patting Betty who was safely back in her rig. “Or I’ll shoot your kneecaps.”

Firebug picked up the garbage bag and slung it over his shoulder like a Santa sack. He strolled back to the truck as if he had all the time in the world. Tom could wiggle, could shift his legs, but if he moved too much, the rope tightened around his neck and he quickly stopped.

His heart, his heart, his chest hurt because his heart was vibrating like a rung bell. Trees and sunshine, leaves, fierce summer light, smooth dusty ground. Paulie and Mel, somewhere, alive, please, alive and unhurt. His breathing rapid and loud in the
clearing. He wanted to memorize his location. Two kinds of trees. Deciduous. Leafy trees. Needles and leaves. The sad total of what he remembered from high-school biology.

He jerked at the whine of a small motor. Firebug leaned into his truck, hand vacuuming. Tom’s guts iced, clenched. All the “i”s dotted, “t”s crossed. All evidence of his existence hoovered up and tossed into a plain black garbage bag.

Firebug walked back and forth between the truck and Tom. First, he brought back a camcorder and a tripod. He adjusted the tripod so the camcorder was level with Tom’s head. On the next trip, he brought back a green camp chair, which he set up in front of Tom. He placed a tackle box on one side of the chair and a navy blue duffle bag on the other. He snapped open the tackle box. The top layer was all lures and spoons. He lifted the fishing stuff off, and underneath were Firebug’s real tools, neatly compartmentalized: a mini-torch, the kind that caramelized crème brûlée; a pair of red-handled needle-nose pliers; stainless steel surgical scalpels; thick needles, the kind that Paulie had used to sew canvas.

Firebug pulled a small bag of white powder out of his pants pocket. He opened the bag and then reached into the tackle box and picked up a tiny spoon that he used to scoop up the powder. Coke or crank – either way, it wasn’t promising.

“Bump?” Firebug said, offering Tom the spoon.

Tom shook his head.

Firebug snorted the bump and sat back, tapping the spoon on the chair. He closed the bag and put it and the spoon in his pocket. He admired the clearing before he bent over and picked up one of the needles. He rolled it between his fingers. “I’m not a
big believer in chainsaws. Jer … well, Jer’s watched
Scarface
one too many times. I say once you hack off a limb, you’ve peaked.”

“Anything you want,” Tom said. “Anything.”

Firebug stuck the needle in the back of his hand like it was a pin cushion. Firebug picked up the pliers and the mini blowtorch. He patted his pockets until he came up with a lighter. The blowtorch hissed and then whooshed to life as Firebug brought the lighter close to it.

If Tom was standing, he would have fallen. He felt boneless, his bones had dissolved. He sagged against the ropes, hoping he’d pass out.

“Anything,” Tom said. “Anything, Firebug. Anything you want. I have money. Do you want money? I have seventy thousand dollars. I have three keys of coke. They’re yours.”

Firebug plucked the needle out of his hand with the pliers. He passed the blowtorch along the needle until it glowed orange. The air above the flame quivered.

“Did I do something?” Tom said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did. You have to tell me what I did. Please. Please, don’t. Please, Firebug. Please.”

Firebug shut off the torch and put it beside the chair. He reached over to the camcorder and turned it on. He stared into the camera. “Jer, old buddy, old pal. You have something that belongs to me. And now I have something that belongs to you. Look at the camera, Tom, and beg Jeremy for your life.”

Tom launched himself up, trying to stand. He could kick then. The ropes creaked. He could hear himself grunting as he strained to make the ropes move.

Firebug’s arm pulled back. Sunlight showed the thinning spots at his temples, shining with sweat. Lips pursed in concentration, eyes wide and fixed, Firebug jabbed.

For a moment, Tom thought he missed. But the needle hadn’t connected yet. The skin of Tom’s left nipple sizzled as the needle touched. He could hear it, the sound like a match being pinched out by wet fingers. His chest exploded. He convulsed. His back arched and his body went rigid as Firebug forced the needle in until it grated against bone.

Nothing existed. Nothing had ever existed but the pain. He squealed, he heard the sounds ripping through his throat, and he fought the ropes. He screamed and he screamed and he threw himself forward so the ropes would tighten and it would end.

1.

Roll the drunks passed out at your mother’s party. Since they’ve trashed the apartment, they might as well help with rent. Never take all the money. The tricky part of rolling in your own home is facing a jonesing boozehound who’s sure he’s been ripped off. Take just enough to cause doubt: did I spend it or did I get rolled? Practise looking innocent in the mirror. If you can’t manage innocent, settle for slack-jawed, drooling stupid. Blink slowly and nod a lot.

Roll your mother’s boyfriend first. He’s got a decoy wallet in his pants. The real wallet is tucked into a hole in the lining of his black leather vest. He’s been claiming poverty, but he’s sporting almost seven hundred dollars. He has an emergency twenty in his right shoe. You once found a tooth, a large metallic molar in a shoe. It left an angry red indentation in the man’s heel. Another time, you found a faded black-and-white picture of a pretty, pigtailed girl holding a doll. Leave the boyfriend’s twenty. You just wanted to look. You’re always curious to see what people are afraid to lose.

2.

“Someone out there must be missing you by now, baby.” The woman tilts her head, tries on a smile. She has a fine web of wrinkles around her eyes and two deep lines bracketing her mouth. “You got a name?”

“Yeah,” you say.

“Yeah? Yeah what?”

Watch the tea kettle rattle on the hot plate. “I can’t remember.”

“Huh,” she says, pulling her sleeve over her hand to pick up the kettle. She carefully pours two mugs. Her teaspoon ting-tings as she stirs. The hot chocolate has floating lumps of powder, circling. They burst open on your tongue, gritty and sweet.