FIFTY-THREE

 

As he walked through the well-lit common area of his apartment complex, Tim Merritt patted his back pocket. He had a wad of cash there and liked the sense of power it gave him.

His Industrials, the ones who came through his gate into the Swain neighborhood, all expected to pay the daily toll he charged to let them through without hassle. He kept it affordable—no sense killing the goose to get the golden egg—and didn’t care about their openly hostile resentment. What could they do? That’s what gave him just as much satisfaction as the cash. His power; their powerlessness.

Yeah, he lived in an apartment complex. But it was inside the city wall. Influentials had their world. Industrials and Illegals had theirs. Merritt didn’t mind at all living somewhere in the middle.

There was always the cash. And what it could buy.

Long hours of boredom as guard were lessened by the fantasies he let drift through his mind. Fantasies he was able to purchase.

One of the Industrials who passed through his checkpoint was a chubby one, a little old, but desperate. She’d be waiting at his apartment as instructed, willing to do all that he instructed, just for a portion of the cash he’d already taken from her and the rest of them.

Merritt ran through the fantasy one more time, careful to construct it just so, imagining the sequence of events that was waiting for him once he opened the door. He’d instructed her to leave the lights off. In the dark, he could fool himself into believing she wasn’t quite that old.

He sauntered up the two flights of steps to his door, forcing himself to walk slowly, his mouth dry in anticipation.

The power.

That’s what it was all about.

He pushed open the door. Grinned in the darkness.

He shut the door behind him. The apartment door opened immediately into a kitchen area. Beyond that was the living room. Where she was waiting.

He started to unbutton his shirt. He stepped forward, whistling. Stopped. Did he smell fresh-brewed coffee?

Then something, someone, grabbed him around his neck.

He gave a gargled shout of outraged surprise. This wasn’t part of the game he’d told her to play.

He pulled at the arm around his neck, trying to loosen it. He half registered that the arm wasn’t soft flesh, but rock-hard muscle.

The kitchen lights went on.

At the cheap table, pushed up against the wall to make as much space as possible in the cramped quarters, sat a man with sandy-colored hair, black shirt, black jeans, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a cordless power drill in the other, staring expressionlessly at Merritt.

Merritt’s first thought was indignation. That was his cordless drill. He never loaned it out, and he’d painted it fluorescent yellow to identify it.

“First things first,” the man said. The man poured out his cup and dropped it, letting it break on the floor. “Your coffee is crap. Heard of roasted beans?”

“You got no right to be here,” Merritt tried as a bluff. But something about the man’s confidence told him otherwise.

“You don’t believe that,” the man said in a quiet voice. “We’re going to talk. Unless you want to find out exactly how many holes I can make in your body before you bleed out.”

A tall woman—younger, dark clothing, slender—stepped into the kitchen from the living room area. She carried duct tape. The invisible man holding Merritt by the neck maintained the chokehold while he shoved Merritt forward, spun him around, and forced him to sit in the other chair at the table.

In silence that was as terrifying as the suddenness of this, the woman with duct tape strapped Merritt’s ankles to the chair legs. This was too real and too scary to be anything like a fantasy. She taped each of his upper calves to a chair leg, forcing Merritt to sit with his legs apart with not-so-symbolic vulnerability. Next Merritt’s wrists. Taped behind his back to the upper part of the chair.

The woman and the man with solid arms stepped outside the apartment.

That left the man in black with the power drill staring thoughtfully at Merritt.

“What’s going on?” Merritt squeaked. “You can’t do this.”

The man smiled humorlessly. Revved the drill.

“Think I’ll start with a kneecap,” the man said. “Ever smelled bone when it burns?”

That’s when Merritt wet himself.

 

Pierce detested bullies. He was also aware of the hypocrisy of bullying a bully. Especially when unnecessary. Chances were, Merritt would talk without the psycho-drama threat that came with the borrowed power drill that Pierce had no intention of using past a prop. It’s the way Pierce had expected to handle it, coming to Merritt’s apartment with Holly and Jeremy.

But earlier Pierce had spent a few quiet minutes talking to an obviously exhausted Industrial they’d found waiting on a couch in Merritt’s apartment, shivering in ridiculously small fishnet lingerie. She’d probably been up well before dawn to make the trek to the city wall and through the outer gate. She’d already spent a full day in the walled community where Merritt worked security. Then, as Pierce had learned while she spoke, wrapped in a blanket Pierce had found for her, Merritt demanded most of the evening with her but intended to send her out into the night when he was finished with her, expecting her to hide someplace as she waited for dawn, when curfew ended and Industrials were allowed to move through the city again.

Would be good, Pierce thought, to change the man’s view of Industrials.

“There’s a chance you can keep your body parts,” Pierce told Merritt. “Even a chance you won’t be reported for extorting tolls from Industrials.”

“I don’t extort—”

Pierce cut him off by revving the power drill. “Think when we ask every one of them who passes through your gate that all of them will support your claim?”

“Everyone does it, takes money from them,” Merritt said. “Come on. They’re Industrials.”

Pierce seriously thought of running the quarter-inch drill bit through one of the guy’s earlobes. Knew he wouldn’t like himself for it. Earlobes. That triggered a half thought he couldn’t quite grasp.

“Despite the mess in your crotch,” Pierce said, “after the kneecap, we’ll move there.”

“You can’t do this,” Merritt said.

Pierce went to the man’s fridge. He found some grapes inside. Perfect.

He returned to the table with a grape. “What I’ve learned is that eyeballs kind of pop. Hydrostatic pressure.”

Pierce held the grape between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Drilled into it with his right. He squeezed at the same time to ensure a satisfying pop of the grape. He licked his fingers as he stared at Merritt.

Yeah, he was bullying a bully. He could just as easily have invited Merritt in a friendly voice to sit. Showed him the NI identity badge. Taken him through a couple of questions. No doubt the guy was a common type. A wannabe Enforcer. He’d love to feel important by helping Pierce.

“I’m going to ask questions,” Pierce said. “I already know some of the answers. So I’m testing you to see if you’re going to tell the truth. If you don’t, you’ll lose an eyeball too.”

Another rev of the drill.

Merritt licked his lips and swallowed hard, eyes focused on the drill.

“You let an Industrial into the neighborhood today,” Pierce said. “He wasn’t registered to the neighborhood. What time was that?”

Merritt answered. Quickly. With the right time.

Pierce knew it because that’s how they’d spotted Razor. Influentials didn’t allow surveillance cameras anywhere that affected them but fully supported the cameras anywhere it helped control Industrials. Face identification software wasn’t perfect and didn’t always deliver immediate results. But it had pinpointed Razor to Merritt’s gate about a half hour after Razor had arrived. It had taken another fifteen minutes for the information to reach Pierce. Too late to get to the gate before Razor left the neighborhood. But not too late for him to follow up with Merritt.

“We also know who he visited,” Pierce said. This was not true. It was much easier to find out this way than begin asking the Influentials of that neighborhood. One, Influentials had lots of friends who could make life difficult for Pierce. But two, and much more importantly, Pierce wanted to know who Razor had visited without alerting that Influential. “Tell me.”

“Hugh Swain,” Merritt answered without hesitation. “Now there is a man who keeps Industrials in his house after curfew.”

“Really,” Pierce said. “You admire him?”

Merritt turned stone faced.

“You’re doing fine so far,” Pierce said. “Don’t stop now. How’d the unregistered Industrial get in? Did Swain let you know ahead of time that he was expecting him?”

Merritt shook his head no. He spoke fast as he described the entire conversation. “Swain didn’t want to see him. The Industrial said Swain would want to see him. Said there was a friend named Jordan. Had a daughter that Swain was expecting.”

Pierce kept a bored expression on his face. But, for the first time, he felt close. Jordan Brown. The fugitive he’d failed to get in Appalachia. And Caitlyn, who’d somehow managed to escape too.

Pierce set the drill on the table. Merritt watched every move as Pierce stepped to the outer door. He spoke to Holly outside.

“We’ll need everything you can get on an Influential named Hugh Swain.”

Then back inside, where he grilled and regrilled Merritt, punctuating his questions with the power drill, occasionally putting holes in the kitchen table.

When Pierce was satisfied he had as much information as possible, he ripped loose the duct tape from Merritt’s left wrist.

“Do the rest yourself,” Pierce said.

Pierce pointed at the neatly drilled holes and small piles of sawdust on the surface of the table.

“Your guard booth is going to be under 24/7 surveillance from here on in. A couple of warnings: none of this gets back to Swain.”

Merritt nodded. Eagerly.

“And you take any money from Industrials or force any of them to visit you after hours, we’ll be back. Middle of the night, when you least expect it.”

Some bluffs were more satisfying than others.

Flight of Shadows
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