Carlotta narrowed her eyes at him. “You know something, you little shit. And you’d better tell me.”
He got a surly look on his face as he reclined on his elbows. The robe had fallen away to reveal baggy briefs and a spare tire. “Or what?”
She handed the fire extinguisher to Hannah. “Would you pull the pin, please?”
“Here, trade me.” Hannah pulled a gleaming twelve-inch cleaver from a box. “This only takes one hand.”
Carlotta’s eyes widened, but Chance’s startled yelp vanquished the reprimand on the tip of her tongue.
She hefted the heavy cleaver while Hannah aimed the hose at Chance’s dingy briefs. “Christ, what is it with you rich people and underwear? A three-pack of Hanes at Target for ten bucks—give it some thought.”
Chance grinned. “Where did you get the dog, Carlotta? I kind of like her.”
Hannah blasted his crotch with foam, eliciting a scream from him. When the dust settled, Hannah leaned closer. “The cleaver is next, fat boy. Start talking.”
“It was Wesley’s idea.”
Carlotta’s stomach churned. “What was his idea?”
Chance sat up, defeated. “He thought The Carver was behind the drive-by shooting at your place. He was scared that you were going to get hurt. So he came up with a plan to blackmail the guy.”
“Blackmail The Carver? How?”
Chance grinned. “It was genius, really. We got a transvestite to go to a strip club with us where the guy was hanging out with his cronies. When he went to the can, we sent in our himbo, and got some incriminating photos. Wesley told The Carver if you got hurt, the photos would be posted on the ‘Net.”
Carlotta shook her head in confusion. “But the man responsible for the drive-by shooting is in jail. He had nothing to do with The Carver.”
Chance winced. “I know. That part kind of sucks.”
Carlotta exchanged a horrified glance with Hannah. “We have to go.”
Chance slowly got to his feet and struck a cocky pose. “Hey, Goth Girl, can I persuade you to stay?”
Hannah blasted him with the extinguisher again, then grabbed her handcart and followed Carlotta out. They sprinted back to the van, where Carlotta punched in Jack’s number with a shaking hand.
4
Wesley twisted his handcuffed wrists to glance at his watch. He’d been locked in this bathroom for twenty-four hours. He’d missed the meeting with E., his probation officer. Carlotta was probably worried to death.
He was sitting in a grimy green bathtub, his head leaned back against the cool tile on the wall. No matter what he did, he seemed to screw up. He’d thought he was protecting his sister when he and Chance had embarked on the Great Strip Club Caper. Instead he had humiliated one of the most dangerous men in Atlanta for no reason—a man he still owed a great deal of money.
Wesley gave a little laugh. They’d just had a fake funeral for Carlotta, and his parents hadn’t bothered to show. He’d told Carlotta that their father had smelled a setup, but with so much time on his hands to think in this grimy, stinky john, he’d begun to wonder if Carlotta had been right all these years—that their parents didn’t give a damn about them, and wouldn’t risk apprehension even if one of their kids was lying in a pine box.
No, he told himself with a mental shake. The fact that he was doubting his father was just proof of how isolation and lack of food could mess with your mind.
It was his own fault if The Carver decided to carve him up and scatter his parts all over the city. He’d come to the shabby warehouse office in East Atlanta with a peace offering—the memory chip holding the photos he’d taken of the man with Cherry, a well-endowed transvestite, and a payment of nine hundred dollars on his loan. But before he could state his good intentions, he’d been hauled off his bike, relieved of his wallet, handcuffed, then tossed in this box.
They hadn’t fed him, but he’d drunk from the sink faucet to keep from becoming dehydrated. Mouse, The Carver’s collections man, told him they were keeping him until the boss decided what to do with him.
Wesley surveyed the tub he was in, wondering how many other people The Carver had dissected here, allowing their blood to run down the drain before gathering their limbs in garbage bags and disposing of them with the junk mail.
A scratch sounded at the door. Wesley glanced at the crack at the floor to see the shadows of two sets of shoes—Mouse had brought company this time. Wes’s heart jumped to his throat.
The dead bolt slid open, then the knob turned and the door swung wide. Mouse and another man walked in and unceremoniously hauled him up out of the bathtub.
“What’s new, fellas?” Wesley asked congenially.
“Shut up,” Mouse told him as they half dragged him out of the room and down a hallway. The floor was concrete and the studded walls had been gutted of drywall. “The boss wants to talk to you.”
“I can talk better with my hands,” Wesley said. “How about uncuffing me?”
Mouse clocked him up the side of the head. “I said shut up.”
Wesley blinked until the starbursts faded, and decided to take Mouse’s sage advice. They deposited him in an office—if thugs had offices. It was pretty much just a windowless room with a rickety straight-back chair and some menacing-looking stains on the concrete floor. There was a drain in the corner—just in case the room had to be hosed down, he guessed.
They slammed him into the chair and left, closing the door behind them.
He concentrated on not sweating, visualized glaciers and avalanches and other cold scenes. Ice fishing … igloos … polar bears … Klondike bars.
But when the door burst open, so did his pores. The last time he’d seen The Carver, the man had been inebriated and sitting on the john with his pants around his ankles, a piece of duct tape over his mouth, his wrists bound with a cable tie.
He had recovered well.
The loan shark was impeccably groomed, his skin tanned and glowing, his salt-and-pepper hair smoothed back from his face, every strand in place. Wesley didn’t know much about clothes, but the brown suit and collarless shirt looked expensive, as well as the square-toed shoes. The only thing that hinted the man was a gangster was the thick rope of gold around his neck.
Oh, and the switchblade in his hand.
With one click, a six-inch blade appeared. Wesley leaned forward and vomited the water that had been sitting in his stomach, splashing the man’s expensive square-toed shoes.
“Christ,” the loan shark said, taking a few steps back. “Are you going to piss yourself next?”
Wesley lifted his head and licked his dry lips. “I hope not.”
“Me, too.” The Carver leaned down to get in Wesley’s face. “You stupid little shit, I ought to gut you for what you did to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Wesley mumbled.
He looked incredulous. “You’re sorry?”
“Someone shot up my house when my sister was home. I thought it was your guys. I was wrong.”
The Carver paced all around him. Wesley tensed, expecting to feel the blade plunge into his bony body, disemboweling him. Sweat rolled off his nose and dripped onto the floor.
“I brought the memory chip from the camera to give you,” he offered.
“Where is it?”
Wesley kicked off one of his tennis shoes. “Under the insole.”
The