Page 81 of Mercy (The Sins Trilogy 3)
The air is cool and musty, with a hint of urine underneath. There’s nothing inside except for the gray concrete floor and one naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The extra cord wraps around the thin part of the bulb like a black noose. Two small, dirty windows up high let some sunlight in, adding to the meager illumination.
Tolyan jerks his chin at the corner.
Two people—one woman, one man—are on the floor, their hands tied back and heads covered with black hoods. The woman’s kneeling, while the man’s on his side, shaking badly.
I make a face at the clichéd scene. “Is this necessary? It looks like something staged for a hostage movie.” I thought Tolyan was above this.
“Setting the right scene is important if you want to intimidate people who don’t want to be intimidated. Do you think I only employ crude instruments?”
TJ says, “Well…yeah.”
Tolyan smirks. “Ninety-five percent is crude. But the other five is quite refined.”
He walks over, drags the man like he weighs nothing to the center of the floor and whips the hood off him. He’s filthy, sweat pouring down his body and smearing the dirt on his bruised and swollen face. Drool mixed with blood stains the gag around his busted mouth. His hair’s matted and greasy, and smells as bad as it looks. He’s trembling all over, the sounds from his throat muffled.
“What did you do to him?” I say.
Making animal sounds behind the gag, the mugger crawls toward Tolyan. Tolyan kicks him hard, then swipes his boot on the floor with distaste twisting his mouth.
“He fell. Repeatedly,” Tolyan says blandly. “The streets here are very slippery these days.”
It hasn’t rained in L.A. since the engagement party. “Are you going to remove the gag? He can’t talk with it in.”
TJ takes half a step back from the pathetic thing on the floor as he spasms, his body jerking closer to TJ.
“Why should I? He’d tell you his mother fucked a corpse in a graveyard on Uranus if that’s what you want to hear.” Tolyan smiles thinly. “He’s a druggie in withdrawal.”
“Jesus.” I shove a hand through my hair in frustration. “So we can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I got some out of him when he had just come down from his high. He robbed your girlfriend for a hundred bucks, plus whatever cash she had in her purse.” He shakes his head. “People really need to pay better if they want competent help. He handed the money to a clean-cut man, but he doesn’t remember the face. He doesn’t look at faces when people approach him. He says it makes them feel sorry for him, more likely to give him something.”
It obviously didn’t work on Tolyan. His eyes are pitiless.
“Anything else about the man? Maybe his clothes or voice?”
“Sounded educated. Real nice dress shoes. Looked new, but the left one had this black mark on the tip. Too bad about that, ’cause I could’ve pawned ’em.”
“Okay, okay, but what about the guy?”
“I dunno. A white guy. On the pale side. Dark hair on the back of his hands and forearms.”
Damn it. That describes about a million white-collar professionals in the city. “How about the woman there? Did she see anything?” Even as I ask, I wonder if Tolyan beat her like her accomplice. The knot in my belly tightens. As a rule, I don’t like women getting hurt unless they pose a life-or-death threat.
“Her?” He walks over, squats down and pulls the hood off her, but leaves her where she is.
She blinks. Unlike the guy, she’s not sweating. Her face is wiped clean of the street grime, and I can see she’s an attractive woman, maybe a little younger than Ivy. Good bones. But her hair’s so filthy and stringy that it’s impossible to tell the color. She lifts her head and looks at me with bright amber eyes.
“Tell him what you told me,” Tolyan says in a cool tone.
“I didn’t want to push her too hard. I don’t like pushing people. They get angry.” Her words are soft but clear, no hint of street in her diction. “But I’m always hungry. He said if I shoved her he’d buy me a six-inch sandwich from Subway. There’s one near where I like to hang.” She bites her lower lip.
“It’s okay, little one.” Tolyan runs a hand along her back, the gesture surprisingly gentle. It makes for a creepy tableau, especially with her kneeling on the hard floor, her hands still bound, and his eyes still so cold and pitiless. “Tell them everything.”
“So I did it, but not too hard, because I wasn’t supposed to hurt anybody. But he didn’t give me the whole sandwich. Only half. It wasn’t what he promised.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Tolyan murmurs, then stands up. He looks at me. “I found her first. She ratted this idiot out, and you know why? Because he didn’t deliver the full six inches.” He smirks.
I shake my head. Surreal. But TJ was right about there being a second party. The mugging was too sloppy, too haphazard to be the work of the killer from Tempérane.
