I tossed the fingernail to the floor and blew the end of the pliers as if they were a smoking gun.
We all waited a full minute as Leo caught his breath, though it was still wheezing in and out of his scrawny chest after that time.
“Shall we try again?” Andrew said. “What’s the routine? What do we have to say to order women?”
“It’s fucking…shit, I don’t know.” He spat on the floor. “Fuck, man, this’ll get me killed.”
“No,” I said, “we will get you killed, and you’re lucky we haven’t done that already because you’re not being very cooperative, are you?”
He squeezed his eyes closed but opened them quickly when he realized I’d latched on to his ring fingernail with the pliers.
“What, no, fuck, okay, okay, I’ll tell you.”
“Start talking, quick.” I created tension on his nail then glanced at the door.
Cillian stood there, looking out. He gave me a thumbs-up. We were still alone. Good.
“He goes by the name Lucifer, or Devil, or Satan,” Leo said. “It’s changed over time but always devil something or other.”
“Fitting,” Andrew huffed.
“And when you call him you have to go by the name Mad Hatter.”
I frowned. Was he spinning us a tall tale?
“And then what?” Andrew asked.
“That’s all I know…honest.”
I applied pressure to the pliers, tugging the nail.
“Okay, okay. You say you’re having a tea party and you need an Alice, or three Alices, however many women you want.” He threw his head back and gritted his teeth. “This is fucking confidential information, you know.”
“It’s saving your life right now,” Andrew said. “Keep talking. How do you agree a price?”
“There’s no bartering. They are twenty grand each, cash, and he’ll tell you to go to the Queen of Hearts at a certain time on a certain date to get them.”
“And where is the Queen of Hearts?” I asked.
He stared me in the eyes. “I’m not fucking telling you. I’ve spilled enough info. Let me go. I’m a dead man walking for this.”
I pulled with more force on his fingernail. Like the first, it came out easily.
He yelped but quickly clamped his mouth shut to avoid another sternum blow. Instead, he stared at the growing bubble of blood at the end of his finger.
“Not sure how long these take to grow back,” I said and held the ugly bloody body part up in front of him.
He was shaking, his eyes watering.
“Tell us what we need to know, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll let you live to see the sunset,” Andrew said. “Where is the Queen of Hearts?”
“It’s top secret. I only know because I’ve bought off him in the past.”
“How many women have you bought?”
“From Kosovo, just the two, and that set me back, obviously, especially now they’ve fucked off into the sunset.”
“Good for them,” I said and smiled behind my bandana. “Now are we going to have to go through all your fingernails and toenails, or are you going to give us an address?”
