“Didn’t your mother, back in the kennel, try to teach you not to use that word in the presence of ladies?” Miller asked, almost conversationally.
“Let me the fuck go!” Thorne yelped. Then yelped again in pain.
“You’re apparently retarded, blubber belly, so I’ll speak slowly,” Miller said. “To begin, I’m not your brother. I’m an officer of the federal government, conducting an investigation. And you are not cooperating. That annoys me. When I’m annoyed, I tend to hurt whoever is annoying me. You understand that?”
Thorne yelped again in pain.
“Good,” Miller said.
“You’ll go to fucking jail for this,” Thorne said.
He yelped again in pain.
“There’s that naughty word again,” Miller said. “You really are a slow learner, aren’t you?”
Thorne groaned as his arm was pushed farther upward.
“Say, ‘Yes, sir,’ ” Miller said.
There was no response until after Thorne again yelped— this time almost pathetically—after which he said, “Yes, sir. Jesus Christ, man!”
“Let’s talk about jail,” Miller said. “I’m not going to jail. You are. You will be charged with assault upon a federal of ficer, which is a felony calling for five years’ imprisonment. During the assault your shoulder was dislocated. If you say ‘fuck’ one more time, both shoulders. That smarts.”
Thorne groaned again as Miller demonstrated the pain that accompanies a shoulder about to be dislocated.
“That white man out there is a supervisory special agent of the Secret Service. Who do you think a judge is going to believe, him or a fat slob wearing gold chains and a Rolex who got rich exploiting his African American brothers and sisters by paying them minimum wage to clean dirty airplanes? ”
“Jesus Christ, man!”
“Yahoo,” Miller said. “You know what that means, blubber belly?”
Thorne shook his head and moaned.
“You Always Have Other Options,” Miller said. “You understand? Say, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”
Thorne audibly drew a painful breath, then said, “Yes, sir.”
“Would you like to know what your other option is? Say, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” Thorne said, nodding.
“We go back out there and I tell Mr. Castillo that after talking it over you decided that you were wrong and now realize it is your duty as a citizen to cooperate with the investigation and that just as soon as we can get to your office you’ll give us whatever records we want. You understand your other option? Say, ’Yes, sir.’ ”
“Okay, okay. Jesus!”
He yelped in pain, then said, “Yes, sir.”
“And which option do you choose, blubber belly? You cooperate? Or you go to the slam with both arms hanging loosely from your shoulders?”
“Okay, I’ll cooperate. I’ll cooperate.”
“Good.”
“Are you going to let me go now?”
“One more thing. If you say ‘fuck’ one more time in the presence of that lady, I will rip your arm off and shove it up your fat ass. Understand? Say, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” Thorne said.