Storm Prey

Florida.”
    “Tell you what, when we get done with this, we go to Rochester, you kill my old man, and then we go to Florida, and I kill your old man,” Cappy said. “My old man owns a recreational equipment business, and I’ll fuckin’ inherit. And you’ll fuckin’ inherit. We’ll both be fuckin’ rich.”
    “My friend,” Barakat said, pausing for a twist, “we have a deal. Huh. I kill your cocksucker father and you kill my cocksucker father and we go to Paris.”
    Cappy took a hit and a thought occurred to him: “You don’t like being a doctor. That’s scary, you know, having a doctor working on you who doesn’t like it.”
    “Well, I don’t like it much, but ...” Snort. “I am really a very good doctor, huh? I know what I’m doing. But I don’t like it. I have seen one asshole too many.”
    At two o’clock in the morning, they watched the last drunk roll out of Cherries, pause in the parking lot to light a cigarette and zip a parka against the cold, and then drive away; two minutes later, a bartender came out, walked around to the side, got in his car, and disappeared.
    “Let’s go,” Cappy said. They got out of the van and walked across the back parking area, where Lyle Mack’s car was parked next to the dumpster, the last car at the bar. They climbed the back stoop to the door, then stepped sideways into a shadow of the loading-dock door.
    Ten minutes, and a light went out; and another. “He’s coming,” Cappy muttered.
    “Finally. My hands are freezing.”
    They both unconsciously shuffled their feet. A minute later, Lyle Mack came out the back door, turned to pull it shut. Cappy jumped across the space between the loading dock and door, hit Mack in the back, slammed him through the door and into the bar.
    Barakat was a step behind, with his .45. Cappy was on Mack’s back, Mack facedown on the floor, trying to do a push-up. Barakat slammed the door closed, and in the dark, pressed the muzzle of the .45 against Mack’s head and said, “Stop, or I kill you.”
    Mack went limp. Cappy said, “Lyle, we need to talk.”
     
     
    LYLE PLEADED and moaned and argued, but they taped him up with duct tape, awkward in their heavy winter gloves, and then Lyle asked the question, “Why?”
    “The thing is, man, this whole deal has gotten too complicated, and sooner or later somebody is going to talk, and then you’re going to sell us out,” Cappy said. “So we decided we had to move.”
    “Man, I can’t sell you out,” Lyle Mack said. “If I sell you out, I go to jail for thirty years.”
    “Yes, yes. Now. We need answers to two questions,” Barakat said. “Where is the dope? And, where is your brother?”
    “Well, fuck you,” Lyle Mack said, nearly choking on the words. “You’re gonna kill me anyway.”
    “But maybe not,” Barakat said. “You don’t want to hurt Joe, because he is your brother. But if Joe disappears, then who can touch us? Then, we believe you. You won’t sell us out, because there is no reason. You take revenge on us, you send yourself to prison. We will kill your brother, and then the woman doctor cannot reach us, and maybe you plan revenge, or maybe you choke on his death, but you don’t sell us out.”
    “About the dope,” Cappy said. “We’re not going to see any of that. That’s gone, isn’t it?”
    “No. We hid it good. We gotta wait, guys—”
    “Bullshit, wait,” Barakat said. “Now, Lyle, I think you will tell us where the drugs are, and where your brother is. How hard this will be, you decide.” He emptied his pockets—the scalpel, the hammer, two vinyl gloves. He took off his winter gloves, pulled on the medical gloves. “Now, I will tell you. You do not believe what we will do to you, so before you answer the question, I will cut a ball off. Huh? One ball. You will still be able to fuck later, with one ball. But if you do not answer after the ball comes off, then I cut off your penis and then the other ball. Then, I work with the hammer. Huh?”
    “Oh, man, don’t do that. I’ll tell you,” Lyle Mack said. “Joe’s on his way to Mexico. Our friend Eddie picked him up this afternoon. They should be in Wichita tonight. The drugs, we hid up north ... ”
    Barakat held up a hand. “Maybe I believe you. But I cut off one ball anyway, huh? Just to show you.” He wiggled his fingers and picked up the scalpel.
    Cappy said, “Let’s get him in where it’s warmer,” and they dragged him like a sack of potatoes across the