Chapter Thirty-three

Jack and Oscar awoke in a locked cell, their arms and legs bound by chains. Both of them had massive headaches.

The room was cold and dark but when Jack’s eyes finally adjusted he realized they were in a basement cell of some kind. There was a shaft of light coming through a barred window on the door.

“Oscar, you okay?”

“Never better, hombre. You got any idea where we are?”

“Hell, or just down the block from it.”

Jack blinked and looked at the wall. He saw a patch of greenish-blue stone. Turquoise. The same color of dust he’d seen on the great hog and on Tommy. An old turquoise mine.

From outside they heard a roar, like men watching a boxing match.

“What the hell?”

“I think the show is about to begin, Osc. We need to get out of these chains fast. You happen to bring a skeleton key with you?”

“No,” Oscar said. “I left that at home with my decoder ring.”

“Shit,” Jack said. “We need to check this place out.”

Chained together, they shuffled their way across the room, tripping over a couple of cots and the charming open latrine.

“The only weapon we have is the bed. If we could pull it apart we could use the legs to beat the guards’ heads in.”

They both pulled on the steel legs. They didn’t budge.

“Son of a bitch is welded together.”

“You gotta give it to the boys,” Oscar said. “This is a well-made house of horrors. We could be fucked this time, hombre.”

Jack smiled in the dark and to Oscar his shining teeth looked like the keys to an open accordion.

“Before you write your will, I have another idea.”

Outside, the huge, black-masked guard, Hans, waited by their door. His orders were not to let anything happen to them until he had word from the higher-ups.

Hans stood with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out.

“Fuckers,” he said to himself, over and over again.

He shut his eyes and imagined all sorts of novel ways to kill the two chained-up fuckers inside the cell.

Then he heard a scream, a cry of pain.

And the words, “He’s dead! Dead!”

Oh, no. If one of the guys was actually dead . . . shit. Lucky would hold him responsible for it and crack his head with a ball-peen hammer!

He got his keys, ran inside, and saw the Mexican guy standing next to the white guy, who was balled up on the floor. His tongue was sticking out of his mouth at a grotesque angle.

“He’s dead,” the Mexican guy said. “He tried to get away and I told him to stay put. But we fought and he’s strangled by my chains.”

“What the fuck? You killed your partner?”

“Not on purpose. It was an accident. Look.”

“Bullshit. This is some kind of trick.”

“I’m telling you, dude. And in case you don’t know it, we’re FBI. You kill an FBI agent and you end up with the serious lethal inject.”

“Okay, I’ll check. But stand back,” Hans said. He held his nine-millimeter Glock out in front of him as he moved toward Jack.

“We have a problem,” Oscar said. “I can’t stand back.”

“Of course you can stand back,” Hans said. “And you better do it, too. Waaaay back.”

“Senor, there is nothing I would rather do than stand back,” Oscar said. “But since you chained us together and he’s lying there dead I can only kneel back a couple of inches. ‘Cause if I stand back I drag him with me, and then we are over there but still together.”

Hans thought that if the Mexican fucker didn’t stop explaining why he couldn’t stand back he would kill him right now.

“Of course, if you wanted to unchain me, then I could stand back, anywhere you wanted. I could stand back over there, or over there, or over there. The whole world of “standing back” would have endless possibilities, but since I am chained . . .”

“All right,” Hans screamed. “Shut the fuck up. You can stay here, but I don’t want you hovering over me. So kneel down.”

“I will not hover,” Oscar said.

“Fuckin’ A you won’t. A hovering prisoner will soon be a dead one.”

Hans moved forward cautiously and then knelt down next to the prone figure, still aiming his gun at Oscar but now from the side.

He looked down at Jack’s bent neck and saw scrape marks on it.

“How the fuck did you do this?” he asked.

“It was most unfortunate. He and I got into a little wrestling match . . . Here, I’ll show you.”

“Huh?”

Too late. Oscar took the chain that bound Jack and himself together, quickly wrapped it around Hans’s neck, and pulled. Hans made serious sounds of agony and managed to shoot off his Glock. The bullet passed through Oscar’s right arm and Oscar groaned and fell backward, but suddenly Jack was awake and together they strangled the giant.

Hans lay on the stone floor with his tongue hanging out.

“You hit?” Jack asked.

“Not too bad.”

“Just a flesh wound?”

“Fuck you. I always wondered what that meant. A flesh wound. Is that better than, say, a bone wound?”

“I think that’s the idea. Nobody says it anymore. They always used it in old cowboy movies. My dad still says it.”

Jack took Hans’s keys and unlocked their chains, then used Hans’s shirt to make a tourniquet for Oscar.

“Why does he say it?” Oscar asked.

“Usually about relationships,” like “‘That last woman thought she had my heart in her teeth but it was only a flesh wound.’”

As he talked, Jack gently helped his partner get his shirt off and looked at the bullet hole. It was high up in Oscar’s biceps and there was a good deal of bleeding, but it looked as though it had passed through cleanly. Indeed, only a flesh wound.

Jack tied the tourniquet tight and Oscar got up but had to put his hand on the wall for balance.

“You dizzy?”

“Not as much as you, bro.”

“You should get out of here. Get to an ER.”

“Bullshit. We got to get in there and break up that meeting.”

Then someone knocked on the cell door.

“Who is it?” Jack said, using a low, growling voice, which he hoped would fool whoever it was at the door.

“It’s Lucky,” a voice responded. “I want to see the Feds.”

Oscar put on the giant’s leather mask and went to the door while Jack waited behind it.

Oscar opened the door.

“Where are the assholes?” Lucky asked, walking in, one of his boys behind him. They were both wearing shiny metallic gray robes and white masks. They looked ridiculous, but still, somehow, frightening.

Oscar pointed at the cot.

Lucky saw a foot sticking out from beside the cot.

“I hope you didn’t ice them for good.”

“He didn’t,” Jack said, smashing his gun into Lucky’s shoulder, a glancing blow that knocked him off balance as he reached down into his robe for something. A pistol, Jack thought. But instead, Lucky unzipped his robe and pulled out what looked at first glance to be some kind of gun from an old Buck Rogers movie. Jack recognized the Super Soaker as Lucky slid away from him and started to pump the rifle.

“It’s dinnertime,” Lucky said. “And tonight we’re having fried fuzz!”

He was still pumping the gun when Jack rolled to the right. A slash of fire went by him. Jack didn’t wait for Lucky to shoot again. Instead he rushed him and knocked the gun from his hand.

Lucky crawled after it but Jack grabbed him by the neck and slammed his forehead into the floor. Twice.

Meanwhile, Oscar reached out and grabbed Lucky’s boy and kicked him in the balls. The man went down with a terrified squeak.

The two FBI agents looked at one another and shook their heads.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Oscar asked. “It looks like a freaking toy.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, smelling it. “It’s a kids’ toy turned into a flame-thrower. Man, a couple of inches to the left and I’d be a crispy critter.”

Jack smiled.

“Nice of them to bring our costumes with them,” Jack said as they set to stuffing rags in their prisoners’ mouths, taking off their clothes, and chaining their arms behind their backs.

“That gun might come in handy,” Jack said.

He looked down at the unconscious biker and saw a clip on his belt. Jack took it off and attached it to his own belt.

“In the twenty-first century, the well-dressed FBI agent is always equipped with a toy flamethrower,” he said.

He closed his robe. There was a bulge but not much of one.

“Time to check out the scene,” he said as he and Oscar donned their masks and headed out into the hall.