“Ai meu Deus do Céu!,” he pleads. I can’t work up any sympathy for this rapist.
“Nope. No god is helping you today.” I tap his knee again, and he starts blubbering. While he cries, I examine his gun.
“What is it?” Regan is back. In the moonlight, her legs are exposed and shiny from the water, and if I’m staring at them no doubt our intruder is.
“It’s an African Vektor SP-1. A nice piece not usually carried by someone from the slums. Most of those guys either have their AR47s or armas hechizas, makeshift weapons with pipe and a firing pin.” I heft the gun. “This one, though, shows he’s part of a well-funded, well-armed gang.” I turn to her. “Go put some pants on.”
She flushes but hurries over to the bag and pulls out a pair of linen pants. I realize as she’s tugging them on, right in front of both of us, that she’s scared shitless. She’s not letting me out of her sight. Running to the bathroom was an extreme act of bravery and trust on her part. She needs a reward and a security blanket.
I flip the Vektor around and offer her the grip. “Here, have a souvenir of your time in Rio. It’s a .9mm with a short recoil. Not a bad gun for you. Chambers thirteen, but I think he’s wasted about seven of those.”
Turning back to our captive, I spin the chair around. “Here’s how it’s going to go. You’re going to tell us what your objective was, and then I’m going to make all the pain go away. Okay?”
He nods.
“I know that Gomes wants my girl back, but that’s not happening, so start talking. Oh, and in English for the lady, por favor.”
“Gomes sends me to retrieve girl. Kill you.”
“Then what?”
He shrugs a little and then winces when it pains his shoulder. “Nothing.”
“You on staff or for hire?”
“For hire,” he says, and a glint appears in his eyes. Maybe he thinks he’s going to be able to bargain his way out of here.
“Got any questions for him, Regan?”
“Does he like eating his own dick? Because that’s what should happen to him.”
“Do you?” I ask him.
“She’s a whore. I can get you dozens more, better than her,” the man says to me in Portuguese.
“He’s trying to sell me on the idea that there are other girls I can get if I give you up,” I translate for Regan. Then I say, “In English, dickwad.” I kick him in the shin, and he cries out and shakes the chair trying to escape the pain. “Want to kick him?” I ask Regan.
“Yes,” she says emphatically. She wants to do more than kick him.
“Hold on.” I pull out the chair that I’d used to secure the front door and break off the leg. “Use this. Don’t want you to have to shower again.”
She holds the chair leg like a bat and hits him, not across the knee like I thought she would, but across the face. Once, twice. I catch her on the next downswing and she fights me for a minute, panting like a wild dog until, I guess, reason finally dawns on her. “Yeah, we want to keep him conscious enough to answer a few more questions,” I say.
Turning back to our intruder, I see he’s nearly passed out. “Sugar, run to the kitchen and get me a pan full of water and toss it in his face. He needs to wake up.” I figure these tasks will help her stay focused. When she returns from the kitchen, her breathing is under control and she doesn’t even hit him with the pan. He sputters awake.
“She doesn’t like you much, and I don’t want anyone else but her. I mean, come on, where am I gonna find someone who swings a chair leg like Babe Ruth?”
He doesn’t get the reference or he’s out of it because he stares at me blankly. “The fact that you’re a hired guy kind of bothers me because Gomes isn’t the type to hire out. He’s stingy. And even if he wasn’t, he doesn’t have the kind of coin to maintain a little army full of mercenaries like you. Who hired you?”
The intruder doesn’t respond, simply looks away. He’s obviously had some training, and it’s kicking in now because he decides that’s all the information I’m getting.
“Should I hit him again?” Regan asks eagerly.
“Nah. I think he’s too scared of your Mr. Freeze to give any more information, and we gotta get going.”
She looks disappointed.
“You got anything in the bedroom? Why don’t you do a sweep and make sure we’re not leaving anything behind?”
She sets down the pan and the wooden stick with some reluctance but heads into the bedroom.
Once I see she’s out of eyesight, I turn and shoot the motherfucker in the head. Twice. The sound of the gunshots brings Regan racing into the living room. “What did you do?”
“Put him out of his misery.”
The dismay showing on her face makes my insides shrivel a bit. Of course having sex with her is only fantasyland for me because there’s no way this diamond wants my black hands on her. I strip the guy down and take everything out of his pockets, including a bag full of bullets, a knife strapped to his leg, and a thick white vellum card with my address on it. I run my hands along the hems of his pants and shirt, searching for any hidden pockets or secrets but find none. Dropping the clothes in the tub, I soak the entire pile with alcohol and then light it up.
“Why are you burning his clothes? Haven’t you left clues all over this place? You aren’t even wearing gloves.” She raises her hands. “Neither am I. Oh my god, am I going to jail for this?”