The door creaked open, and Benny walked in. It never occurred to him for a second he was about to get his head handed to him.

“What the hell’s this?” Benny asked Shane. “Somebody forget the light bill?”

He took three more steps in, and I spoke up. “We’ve been looking all over the place for you, Benny.”

Benny started at my voice, turned to look. His eyes needed a second to adjust, then he saw it was me. “Oh, hell.”

He made for the door, but one of Lou’s big hands fell on his shoulder.

“Charlie, you got to let me explain. I know it looks bad, me splitting town just when everything’s turning sour, but I can explain, I tell you.”

“There’ll be a time for that,” I assured him. “First things first. You know the routine.”

“Charlie, please.”

I slapped a strip of duct tape over his mouth.

We used the rest of the roll to tie Shane to a staircase.

I thought maybe I’d tie Benny to a chair, but there wasn’t a single stick of furniture in the house. Lou and I took Benny into the bathroom, because the shower curtain rod was surprisingly sturdy. We tied his hands up to the rod with strips of rag we’d found under the kitchen sink. He looked scared, the blood gone from his face.

He worked his mouth behind the tape like he wanted to ask us something, but I shook my head no. Talking would come later. After we softened him up.

I worked the ribs for a little while, my knuckles biting hard into Benny’s side. He took the shots with whimpering grunts. I worked my way into a good rhythm, trying not to give any spot particular attention, spreading the punches around his whole torso. I stopped for a few seconds to shed my jacket, handed it to Lou, glimpsed his face. He looked a little sick. He liked to fight, but this wasn’t a fight.

Benny cried a little, and I let up.

I pulled the tape off with one quick jerk. “Where’s Stan?”

He drew a wheezing breath, like ice skates on a chalk-board. I turned the shower on him, gave him a blast of cold water. He leaned into it, letting it wash over his face, hanging limply from the curtain rod.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it”

“How much do you want to know?”

“Start when the Earth cooled, and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

“It was Beggar Johnson,” began Benny. The water beaded on his bald head, dripped down and streaked his face, soaked his mustache. “He came to me with an offer. It wasn’t like I had a choice, Charlie.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No, Charlie, no bullshit. Really. Beggar said Stan was finished in Orlando. Young blood was coming in to take over the territory. The old man might go soft or he might go hard, but he was going. That’s how Beggar put it. He said my future was in my own hands. If I cooperated, it would go easier for everyone. Geez, Charlie. I mean, well, shit. I got a life, right. What am I supposed to do? Stand up to Beggar Johnson?”

“You could have come to me or Bob or any of us.”

“I thought of that. I really did, but Beggar had Sanchez with him. They made it look like the whole team was bailing out, going over to Beggar. I got scared.”

“You sold out.”

“It’s not like that.” Benny tugged at his bindings. “They’re cutting off the circulation.”

I shook my head, sat on the edge of the tub. “Stan was good to us, like a dad, Benny.”

“There’s more, Charlie.”

“What?”

“You’re not going to like it,” he said.

“Talk.”

“Stan was…” Benny shook his head, groping for the words. “Something was wrong with him, Charlie.”

“Shut up. What do you know about it?”

“He’s a good man, but he wasn’t sharp anymore. He wasn’t all there.”

“I said shut up.” My fists balled.

“I’m not saying he’s senile… just, I don’t know. Old fashioned. Beggar could see he wasn’t running the show right.”

I got all hot up through my face. I couldn’t see how to tell Benny how wrong he was. I had to make him understand. My teeth clenched. My fists came up.

“My arms. Can you untie-”

“Ungrateful fuck.”

“They’re numb.”

I grabbed a fistful of his shirt, held him so he wouldn’t swing while I was hitting. I started punching again, short jabs with the other fist. One, two, three-

“Wait-”

Six, seven, eight-

“I just want-”

Ten, eleven, twelve-

“My arms. I can’t feel-”

I kept punching, lost count.

Benny sobbed, yelled. “Okay. What do you want? I’ll tell you already.”

I stopped. I was sweating good, nearly punched out. What did I want?

“I’m going to get some air,” said Lou. New Guy looked green and confused.

“You stay,” I barked. God damn stack of muscles. Couldn’t he stomach to watch a pro work? Lou didn’t argue. I let go of Benny. “Stan. What happened to him? Where is he?”

“I don’t know. For God’s sake, Charlie. I don’t.”

“You must want another pasting.”

“Charlie.” Lou tugged at my sleeve like some little kid. “He’s had enough, man. He doesn’t know.”

I swatted him away. “You listen to me, New Guy. You understand this. Everything was good. Stan did what he did, and we did our job. It was perfect. And when somebody came along to ruin it, this rat bastard didn’t stand up. He didn’t stand up for Stan or for you or for me. He turned on his own, and that’s the unforgivable sin.”

“There’s a place, Charlie,” said Benny. “I heard some talk between Beggar and that killer of his.”

“Mercury.”

“Yeah. A warehouse in Bithlo, out of the way. I heard them talking about it. I don’t know if Stan’s there, but they were talking about how out of the way it was, like maybe it was a good place to hide something or somebody.”

Benny leaned pathetically against the shower tile. He was covered with sweat and bruises. A little ragged moan crawled out of him.

For a second, I felt bad for him and reached for the shower knob to give him another cold bath. Then I thought about Stan, what I would do if I even found him. Everything had been good. Now it was shit. My hand veered toward the hot knob.

At first, Benny was grateful. He lapped at the water, let it soak him, run down his chin. But the spray heated quickly. Benny’s eyes got big with realization. And then the hot hit him full on

“Shit! Fucking turn it off.” He hollered, twitched, tried to twist away from the spray. “Ow, fucking shit, you’re killing me!”

“Come on,” I told Lou.

He went out ahead of me. I pulled the bathroom door shut, Benny still yelling for us to come get him. He’d be a little pink, that’s all. The hot water would run out soon, and he’d just be wet and prune-skinned. But his pleas for mercy followed us into the hall.

Lou looked at me like I’d just fucked his pet bunny up the ass, but he didn’t say anything. He needed out for a while, so I thought of an errand for him.

“Can you hot-wire a car?”

He nodded. “I used to do repossessions.”

“Get us something. They’ll pick us up in two seconds if we go out in the Suburban. I’d like to be out of here before daybreak. Try to be discreet.”

“Okay.” He looked at the bathroom door then back at me again. “You going to be okay here, man?”

“Me? Yeah. I’ll be fine. He’s not going anywhere.”

“If you’re going to work him over again, do it while I’m gone.”

I waved him away. “Sure.”

He left out the back.

I put my ear to the bathroom door. Benny had shut up his screaming. Probably the water had turned cold, or maybe he’d passed out. I had some thinking to do, so I went outside and sat in the front seat of the Suburban with the window down. I thought about turning on the radio but didn’t want to risk the noise.

I closed my eyes, replayed the fiasco at the Laundromat. Shane was a two-bit pusher. He thought I’d been at the Laundromat to make a buy. I looked in the backseat, thinking maybe the paper package had flown out when the door had come off or during one of Lou’s sharp turns. But it was right there on the floor. I grabbed it, tore it open. Three fat kilos of snow-white powder. I took a closer look at the wrappings. The brown paper was a grocery bag from a Piggly Wiggly. The inside layer was the sports section of The Orlando Sentinel.