Page 85 of Bourbon & Blood

“I’m good,” I declared darkly.

They exchanged a look as I passed them to walk down the trail. A dubious look, if I ever saw one myself, and I didn’t give a fuck. They weren’t who I was mad at. The guy in the shed? He had whatever I was bringing coming. I had no doubt that Cornelius was tellin’ the truth. Granted a man like that would lie his fuckin’ ass off to save his own – but if you didn’t think we’d been checkin’ up on him, then you were a fool.

He was still going about his business in the city like nothin’ happened. Hadn’t packed up or tried to make a run for it and truthful men didn’t run.

If he said this guy had given the order, then he’d given the order, and there wasn’t no way to get to this assassin without his knowledge. There also wasn’t no way to find out how far up the political food chain that this order had come from without him, and so here we were, the moment of fuckin’ truth on that.

He was just waking up, just starting to struggle when I got up into the shed.

I took off my cut and hung it on the peg on the far wall where it’d be out of sight and worked on getting myself naked. That shit always freaked a motherfucker out when the hood came off; and it was the easiest and most efficient way to get cleaned up and carry no evidence away. Axe and Saint came in a minute later and took themselves off to the far corner before lookin’ to me curiously. I ripped the hood off the motherfucker in front of me and his eyes widened.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, struggling against the shackles we had him in.

“Fixin’ to get answers,” I grated and went over to the table of implements and tools we had against the wall by the front door. “Scream all you like,” I told him when he started hollerin’ for help. “Ain’t nobody out here to hear you.”

“What the fuck?” he demanded. “What do you want?”

“A name to start with,” I said.

“Whose name?” he demanded.

“Let’s start with the assassin you hired to take out poor Maya Bashaw, yeah?”

He went very still and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

I cocked my head, the sharp blade in my hand, and finally shook my head. “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Mr. Wells,” I said. He glared at me defiantly.

“Wait, what are you doing!?” he demanded as I approached him with the blade.

“Getting answers,” I said darkly, and I started to cut off his expensive clothes. He thrashed and screamed and hollered about it, but I didn’t care much about that. We was just warming up.

The real fun had yet to begin…

Question was, was this little hog gonna squeal before the blade kissed his flesh or, was he gonna hold out until the pain started?

Answer was, he held out way past the pain starting. Had to respect a man who wouldn’t break, butgoddamn… this was one tough son of a bitch. Surprising really, but not in a good way.

I looked to Saint and Axe. Saint’s eyebrows raised in something like a measure of boredom, Axeman’s icy-blue eyes gleaming with a mix of contempt and excitement. I knew the excitement was for gettin’ tagged in on this – Axe was a master at his craft and breakin’ people was his specialty. He dug it when they fought as hard as this dude did.

I threw him some chin, and he stripped out of his cut. Only thing Axe didn’t like was getting naked for this shit; and so, he didn’t. Instead, he preferred the disposable Tyvek suit that was hangin’ alongside the empty pegs for cuts and clothing for the guys, who like me, didn’t mind airin’ our skins.

It was too fuckin’ hot in here to put anything else on over clothes and skin cleaned up so much easier.

“Get the buckets,” Axe told Saint and Saint sighed and hung his head.

“Fetch and fuckin’ carry,” he grumbled, but took up the pair of metal pails and went on down to the dock to bring us up some swamp water.

I went over and got the weight bench and set it up behind ol’ Kenny to get this party started.

The waterboarding did the trick. Nothin’ like the fear of drowning after a round of painful torture to get a man singin’ like a fuckin’ canary.

“Alright! Alright!” he screamed. We doused him some more just to make sure he’d stay loose and talking.

He sang like a little bird, giving up the killer, spillin’ the tea that Daddy was sick of his little girl out there doin’ what she was doin’, worried about the fuckin’ fallout when he ran for governor and what his darling little girl would come out an’ say. Worst of all, he came out with the real reason why Maya hated her daddy beyond anything. It was going to be worth killing a few men for that alone; even though they were sins committed well before little boy Kenny’s time. Finally, he said how the solution to all of Bashaw’s problems had been all little Kenny Wells’ idea, somethin’ he’d said when his tongue was loose with some good liquor – but also how he’d never expected Bashaw to agree with it, let alone run with the idea, expecting Kenny to make it happen.

How they’d never dreamed that Maya had friends or even chosen family that would care about her and would press the fuckin’ issue like my little Alina did.

That last part caught my attention, sending up red flags. I shook him and demanded if they had plans for Maya’s friend – the one who kept going to the police.

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