She sat brooding in a straight-backed wooden chair, its front legs floating above cold concrete. The back of the chair tapped against the equally cold stainless steel walls of the walk-in meat locker. Shelly's legs straddled the seat. Her tiptoes periodically touched the wet floor as she rocked back and forth, maintaining a balancing act on the back legs of the chair. The floor was coated with beads of water condensing from warm air that was flowing in through the open door. Breath flowing out of her nostrils was also condensing into faint wisps of translucent fog. Occasionally one of her exhalations produced a thicker, cloud. The color of the exhaust had a bluish-tint that matched the thin stream snaking upward from a smoldering Marlboro held between manicured fingertips. On the opposite side of the room, Little Ed and one of his associates were leaning against a bank of padlocked wire cages. Even in the cold air of the cooler, Little Ed was visibly flushed. His forehead, coated with a greasy film of perspiration, glistened beneath the harsh illumination provided by a 150 watt incandescent bulb. Unused to even the slightest physical exertion, his breath was generating billowing clouds of vapor as he searched his inside jacket pockets for cigarettes and/or candy.
"Gotta light, Sal?"
Salvatore Gianotti snapped open a gold-plated windproof Zippo and ignited a cigarette dangling from his lips. Without looking up, he offered the flame to Little Ed.
"Thanks, Sal." Little Ed sucked in a massive drag that soon expanded out over Sal's head and into the center of the cooler.
"No problem, Ed." Salvatore took a long pull from a bottle of Budweiser, producing an equally long and resonant belch. "Hey, big guy, how are you doing? You look a little winded." He produced a Snickers bar from a jacket pocket and handed it to the big man.
"Man, I never thought that little puke was so tough," Little Ed replied, through a mouthful of peanuts and nougat. "He shoulda been singing like a bird before this."
"Well, maybe you're working a bit too hard. You know, if you want him to talk, it might be best if you give him a bit more time to think about it. I mean-- if he's screaming all the time and his lights keep goin' out, how do you ever expect him to talk?"
"Uh, yeah. Okay. I guess I kinda get carried away when I'm having a good time." Little Ed's pasty, bloated face grinned fiendishly through black and rotting teeth. He stepped over to an unconscious figure hanging from ropes that encircled both his chest and the ribs of a side of aging beef. Becoming softer in the warming air of the cooler, viscous translucent fluids and juices oozed from the meat and trickled inexorably toward the floor. Blood and mucous, seeping from numerous wounds and insults to the body of Manfred Gustafson, mingled with the meat juices contributing to a growing red puddle on the concrete. Manny and the beef carcass swayed from a rusty meat hook, squeaking at the apex of each lazy arc.
"Bring the bastard around again, Ed. And don't put him out again until he talks," Shelly ordered, flipping a glowing butt across the room. "Or you'll find yourself in his place."
"Yes, ma'am." Little Ed plucked the chocolate tainted butt from his own lips and blew on the business end until it was a bright-hot, cherry-red ember. He slapped the unconscious man viscously and demanded that he wake up and open his eyes. Manny groaned and whimpered, gurgling something unintelligible through a haze of semi-consciousness and broken teeth. Manny's face was battered and bloody. Both of his eyes were swollen tightly shut. Little Ed pinched one puffy eyelid and yanked it open, uncovering an eye filled with terror and pain. The last thing that this eye ever saw was that red hot cigarette ash just before it was snuffed out with a sickening hiss. The scream was so blood-curdling that even Salvatore and Shelly winced. Both of them were surprised at the vitality still remaining in their victim.
Little Ed had been working his craft on Manny for several hours. The job had originally been Salvatore's, but, still smarting from the loss of parts of two fingers to Bruno, Little Ed had insisted that he be given the opportunity for vengeance. Little Ed had begun his career as an enforcer for a small-time loan shark. The favorite tools of his trade were a pair of 10-inch Vise-Grips and thin steel wire. The therapy that had been prescribed for Manny started with a length of wire wrapped around the first joint of a little finger. Little Ed tightened and twisted with the Vise-Grips in small but very painful increments. The wire constricted relentlessly, severing cartilage and ligaments from flesh and bone. The first few twists constricted and crushed the venous vasculature directly beneath the skin. Arterial vessels that lay deeper, and closer to the bones, continued to force blood into the extremities. The resulting pressure pumped the victim's fingers up like boiled knockwurst. A few more twists cinched into the bursa and ligaments of the joints. Once immobilized by the wire, the knuckles would no longer flex in the normal manner. But, with a slight manipulation from Little Ed, each joint could, would, and did separate in a tearing, explosive, and excruciating snap.
Manny's tortured hands were reduced to bloody and bruised packets of disconnected gristle and bone. One over-exuberant twist of the pliers cut too deeply and severed a digital artery. When the skin gave way, Manny's mangled finger erupted into a pinpoint gusher that thoroughly spattered Little Ed's new, and very expensive, Italian shoes. The resulting ignition of a savage temper loosed the Vise-Grips on Manny's face. He was left without the bottom part of his nose and both ears. His cheekbone was shattered and the bones of his left orbit were crushed. Little Ed had just established a firm purchase on Manny's tongue when Shelly interceded. She reminded him that Manny was useless without a tongue. After all, his mutilated hands would never write again. The mission at hand was to extract information. This was not just an entertainment session for Little Ed. He spent nearly four hours transforming Manny into a barely recognizable lump of quivering flesh. Were it not for his sweet tooth and three pack a day nicotine habit, there would have been no respite.
Searing pain from the cigarette brought Manny back to life, but now he was screaming and writhing hysterically. Salvatore plugged the top of his beer with his thumb and gave the bottle two quick shakes. From about three feet back, he douched Manny square in the face. The cold brew spray stifled Manny's blood curdling screams and switched off his agony-induced seizure.
"He's talking again, Boss," Salvatore announced. "Sounds like the same line of crap he was feedin' us before. Keeps babbling about brains and skulls and boiled-down fish guts."
Shelly dismounted the chair and stepped closer. She plucked a small glass vial from a shelf in one of the open cages. She peered through the smokey glass as if to unlock the secrets of its origin. She let out an exasperated sigh and spoke, half under her breath. "There's no way what he keeps telling us could be true. Is there? Anyway, he's not going to be able to help us any more."
She placed the little vial back on the shelf along with about a dozen others. "Ed, you and Sal get rid of him and lock up before you leave. Then get over to his apartment and go over it again. Maybe there will be something there we can use to find his supply. Oh, and Ed, watch out for the dog this time."
"Uhh, Boss, what do you want us to do with him anyway?"
"I really don't care, Ed, just dump him in an alley on the south side. Let the cops take care of his sorry ass."
Little Ed and Salvatore looked at each other and shrugged. Shelly stalked out of the cooler and disappeared into the darkness of a large warehouse. The echoes and reverberations of quick short footsteps slowly faded until the clanging of a large steel door punctuated and finalized her departure.
Salvatore cycled the slide on a .380 Makarov automatic. The gun was a cheap throw-away that had been picked up just for the purpose at hand.
"Okay, let's get on with it, Ed."
For little cartridges in a small pistol the explosions were ear-splitting.
"Jesus H. Christ, Sal, gimme a break!"
Before Little Ed could cover his tiny ears, Manny's forehead had been perforated by two 95-grain copper jacketed slugs. Salvatore handed the gun to Little Ed. He dropped the magazine, pulled the slide back, removed the link pin and took out the barrel. Salvatore picked up the two spent cartridges, still hot and smelling of burnt powder. The various pieces were pocketed to be randomly dropped down storm drain grates far from the scene of the crime. Little Ed pocketed some seven hundred in cash gleaned from the dead man's wallet. Salvatore took three credit cards, a butane lighter, and a small pocket knife. He also pocketed an additional small glass vial that had been missed in the initial pat-down. The rest of Manny's worldly effects, consisting entirely of the clothes on his back, a plastic pocket comb, a stick of Chap Stick, a few keys on a leather key-fob, and the empty wallet, were stuffed into a battered steel dumpster one block away on an unlit side street. Within the hour, Manfred Gustafson, a.k.a. Manny Gordon, was unceremoniously booted from the back seat of a nondescript late-model Chevrolet Caprice that was motoring, lights off and quiet, through an unnamed alley. The broken corpse hit hard on wet brick paving. It came to a stop with a hollow, liquid thud.
Dawn, and the Coroner's van, found Manny crumpled against the back wall of the Our Lady of Charity rescue mission. Manny had company on his way to the county morgue. The unupholstered gurney on the other side of the van was occupied by his old friend, Willis Franklin.