“Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Tse-tung
Jimmy O’Leary walked into the warehouse, paused and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He saw Gordon Winter walk out of the office. “Where is he?” Jimmy asked. “In the back. Billy is with him.”
O’Leary tossed his cigarette to the ground, stepped on it and followed Winter inside. They wove their way through corridors of contraband, much of which was still in the original cartons, and stolen cars waiting for a trip either to Mexico or a local chop shop. In the far corner, next to a large tool crib, a young black man clad in hip-hop clothes sat in a chair beneath a single light. Duct tape had been used to bind the kid’s feet to the chair legs and to secure his wrists to the armrests. O’Leary stood in front of him and lit another cigarette. “Billy, take his blindfold and gag off, then you can leave. Gord, I’d like for you to stick around.”
“You think that’s wise?”
“What, you staying here?”
“No, letting this piece of shit see you.”
“Don’t matter; he ain’t gonna tell anyone.”
Billy ripped away the duct tape they had used to blindfold Jermaine Watts. When he tore off the tape the adhesive pulled out eyebrows and eyelashes he ignored the gangbangers muffled screams. Billy used a finger to pick at one end of the tape that covered Watts’ mouth. When he was able to get a grip on it, he yanked it free. He balled the tape up and arched it toward a fifty-five-gallon drum that served as a garbage can. The tape bounced off the lip and fell into the drum. Billy held his hands in the air as if he had just scored the decisive basket in a championship game. “Where are the fuckin’ scouts when you need them?” He turned back and stopped goofing when he saw O’Leary’s glare.
“Hey, Larry Bird, are you all done fucking around?” O’Leary asked.
“Sorry, boss.”
“Go outside and keep an eye out, I don’t want to be disturbed while me and Jermaine have a little talk.”
Jimmy waited until Billy was gone before pulling a chair in front of the youngster. “Do you know who I am?”
“No, suh. I ain’t never seen yo b’foe.”
“My name is Jimmy O’Leary—most people just call me Jimmy O—and I’m the worst fuckin’ thing that’s ever happened to you”
The kid’s eyes widened when he heard who was sitting before him. It finally registered that he was in serious trouble.
“How you been, Jermaine?”
“Hey, man, why you fuckin’ roustin’ me? I ain’t done nothing to you.” The young man’s eyes were in constant motion darting from side to side as he tried to find a way out of his predicament.
O’Leary missed none of the telltale signs of fear. He knew it was just a matter of time before this gutless puke told him everything he wanted to know. Before he was finished, Jermaine would gladly sell his firstborn. “That’s true, Jermaine, but what about Latisha Worthington?”
“D-don’t know nobody named Latisha.” Watts’s breathing was labored and his voice quavered.
“Is that so? Let me refresh your mind . . . she was thirteen years old and lived across the hall from you and your grandmother. Seems she showed up dead a few weeks back, not far from where you and your homeboys hang out. Somebody introduced her to crack, then raped and murdered her. I think you know something about it.”
“I tol’ you, I don’t know shit, man—” He made a last-ditch effort to sound tough. “Even if I did, no way I’d rat on my brothers to no cracker . . . ”
“Well then, let’s see what this cracker can do to jog your memory.” O’Leary reached over and ground his cigarette out on the back of Watts’ right hand.
Jermaine screamed and bucked against the tape that bound him to the chair arms.
O’Leary sat silent and stared at him until he calmed down. “You remember anything, Jermaine—or should I call you Razor?”
Sweat poured down Watts’s forehead and he shook his head to get it out of his eyes. After several futile attempts, he raised his head to stare at his tormentor. “What you do that for? You ain’t got no call to be doing shit like that.”
“Son, you aren’t in any position to be telling me what I can or cannot do.”
O’Leary rose from his chair and walked to the tool crib. He pawed through it for a few seconds, removed several tools and then sat down again. “Let me tell you what I think, Jermaine. I think that if you didn’t do her, then you know who did. As far as I’m concerned, either one makes you as guilty as the other.”
He reached out and gripped Watts’ left hand. “You got some real long nails, Jermaine.” He gripped the index fingernail of the kid’s right hand with a small vice grip and tightened the handle screw until the tool’s jaws were tight and held the nail securely. “Once more, Jermaine; who did Latisha?”
“I don’t know . . . ”
O’Leary yanked back on the vice grip and ripped the fingernail from its place. Jermaine howled with pain.
“One down; nine to go,” he said, removing his hand from Jermaine’s chin. He loosened the tension on the vice grip, removed the bloody fingernail and studied it for a second—holding it before his prisoner’s face as he did.
Watts’s head dropped forward as if it had suddenly become too heavy to hold up. Sweat covered his face and dripped onto his lap. Blood poured from his mangled finger and splattered on the concrete floor.
His sobs were like music to O’Leary, who lit a cigarette. He glanced at his watch. “It’s only ten o’clock, kid—we got a long night ahead of us . . . ”
An hour and eight fingernails later, later O’Leary wheeled an acetylene torch from the corner, placing it before the chair. He lit his lighter, opened the valve and held the flame to the torch’s tip.
Watts’s head snapped up when the gas ignited with a loud pop. O’Leary stood in front of him and made a big show of adjusting the flame until it was cobalt blue.
Watts’s eyes widened and he began sobbing. “M-man, this ain’t legal. You can’t be doin’ shit like this—I gots rights.”
Winter watched his boss for a few seconds and then said, “I think I’ll go outside and give Billy a hand—it looks like you got things here under control.”
O’Leary dismissed him with a wave of his hand. He squatted in front of Watts. “What you think, I’m the fucking cops? What about Latisha’s right to be a kid and grow up to have her own children? I’m goin’ to keep hurting you until you tell me what I want to know.” He swiped the torch across the boy’s bloody fingertips, cauterizing the wounds. Watts bucked against his bonds screaming and cursing as the torch scorched and blistered his fingers. O’Leary grabbed the last of his fingernails and yanked. He smiled when Watts shrieked in agony.
“I hate guys who molest kids, Jermaine. You street punks think that once you’re fifteen or sixteen you become men. Well, son, before I’m done with you, you’ll wish you were still five years old.”
“Man, you crazy!” Watts cried.
“Jermaine, you don’t know the half of it . . . ” The torch swept across Watts’s hands again and he screamed and bucked so hard the chair fell over.
Jimmy pulled the chair back onto its legs and squatted in front of his captive. The torch’s angry hiss filled the warehouse. “Son, you better tell me what you know. I got a full tank of gas.”
At two in the morning, O’Leary walked out of the warehouse and found Winter leaning against the wall. O’Leary lit a cigarette and inhaled deep.
“Is it over?”
“It is for Jermaine. I want you to get some of the guys and take care of a few things for me.”
“Okay.”
“Start by dumping that piece of garbage. Do it so word will get around. I want his goombahs to know what happened. Then find Jamaal Rooms and Shawnte Armstrong. Once that’s taken care of, locate Andrew Sheets.”
“You want them disappeared?”
“I don’t care about Rooms and Armstrong, but Sheets is the leader. I want him. The others you can leave where any other drug-pushing, pedophiles will know the cost of molesting kids.”
“You got it, Jimmy.”
“Gordon . . . ”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t do it too fast, give the motherfuckers enough time to think about their sins and repent before they meet God face-to-face.”