He heads over there as my guy keeps trying to free his limbs. “Shut it off,” he says as I start the conveyor and he rolls slowly toward the roaring saw at the end.
“It rocks back and forth,” I tell him. “Like a slicer at the butchers. Toby there holds the lever and sends it left and right, left and right. The first one stings more than anything. It just takes the bottom of your feet off. Now, I’ve got meds to keep you alive a long time while we slice, and the pain you will go through will be like nothing you’ve ever known. All to protect my brother. Tell me, friend. Is he worth it? You think he’s going to give you a single thought now I’ve got you? He’ll hire someone else, and you’ll leave this world without a headstone to mark where and when it happened.” I glance past him. “You’ve got about four feet until it begins. Any last goodbyes you want to make?”
He glares up at me, yelling over the sound of the saw. “Shut it down. Shut it down right now.”
“I can press this button, and it all ends. You’ve just got to agree to talk to the commission.”
“Ernesto will kill me if I do.”
“And I’ll kill you if you don’t. You see the bind you’re in. Now I’m in a bad mood since you ruined one suit, and spitting blood on this one made me even more pissed, so I’m only going to ask one last time. Will you talk?”
“Shut it down,” he yells over and over. Two feet to go. One.
“Six inches, and it begins,” I tell him. “I can get him to slice you and then stop for an hour, maybe a day. We can stop the bleeding and keep you in pain as long as we want.”
“You’re a sick bastard, Hunter, you know that?”
I pause the conveyor belt, grabbing him by the collar. “You threatened me. You threatened my wife, my daughter. You did your best to kill me, but you failed, and these are the consequences. Did you think about them when you took the job?” I punch the button and send him toward the saw.
The roaring is so loud I can barely hear him as the saw gets three inches from his feet. He squirms like a worm emerging from the soil after the rain. He bends his legs, bringing them higher, earning himself a couple of seconds of reprieve. “Nowhere left to go,” I shout over the noise of the saw. “What’s it to be?”
He gets within an inch before he starts sobbing. “All right,” he cries out, yanking his legs into the air to keep them from being sliced up. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk.”
I nod to Toby. The saw dies at once. My guy is weeping to himself, muttering something I can’t make out. “What was that?” I ask.
“I’ve got a daughter,” he says, more to himself than me. “I can’t die. She needs me.”
“What’s your name?”
“Marvin.”
“Got a last name, Marvin?”
“Jenson. Marvin Jenson.”
I hoist him, so he’s sitting upright, beckoning Toby over. “Take him to the holding room. Get the doc to treat his wounds and guard him well. I need him in good shape to see the commission.”
“She needs me,” he says over and over to himself as I walk away. I get outside and catch my breath. It’s the same every time. I’ve never once had to use the saw.
They all crack. Most of them are within two feet of the blade. He lasted the longest. Not that I’ll tell him that. I knew he’d break eventually. They all do.
41
Hunter
* * *
I walk into the study, and I’m greeted by the sight of Bex’s ass. It makes a welcome change from what I was just doing. “Good girl,” I say, walking behind her. I kneel down, stroking her legs, working my way up her thighs. “In this house, you will obey me and be rewarded for that like I promised.”
She says something; the sound is muffled through the gag. I untie it and set it aside. “Say again.”
“I really need to pee,” she says, glancing back at me.
“Ask me if you can and call me Sir.”
“Please, can I go pee, Sir?”
“Good girl. Stand up.”