“Sure.” I grabbed his arm. “I’m already bored of this conversation. Let’s go.”
When we got to the truck, Matti tied Wally's hands behind his back and bound his ankles as he cried. He was piss drunk. That didn’t make for a fun time, and I’d have to cut the torture short because I didn't have much time. As we drove to the warehouse, I thought about what I could do that was simple and would hurt him enough to make him suffer before I killed him. Matti spent the ride switching radio stations until he found a station that played the kind of music that can only be enjoyed if you’re on drugs. Matti needed to pump himself up for things like this. I just needed a body to fuck up.
The drive was short. I passed the meet-up spot where I’d left my things earlier and drove to the next block. A few years ago, the guys and I decided to buy four blocks of warehouses. Not because we needed them but because we liked the privacy, and if there was ever a day that we were raided, they’d have to look through countless empty warehouses before they found our meet-up. Even if they had found that they’d have nothing on us, anyway, unless it was illegal to have a man cave in a warehouse (it wasn’t). The torture chamber, as Matti and Nico called it — because on top of being young idiots, they were also nerds — was hosed down and bleached every week. Even on weeks that it wasn’t used, we bleached it. Our bodies were disposed of in one of Dean Russo’s crematoriums near his funeral home. If we wanted to make money just offing people, we were a one-stop shop. That wasn’t our thing, though. I pulled up to the warehouse, Matti got down to roll it open, and I drove the truck in and killed the engine.
“Chain him up.” I rolled the door down and switched on the overhead lights, squeezing my eyes shut.
I’d bought them from a guy who installed professional lights – football, baseball, etc. Their brightness was the reason I bought them. Unfortunately, it blinded all of us for a few seconds. By that time, he was chained up with nowhere to run. Wally started to cry. So disappointing. I hated when they were under the influence. I shrugged off my jacket and shook my head as I walked over to him.
“This is your problem, Wally,” I said. “You don’t know your limits. Not with stealing, not with women, not even with your children.”
His eyes opened wide at that. “No. She lied. She was lying!”
“I’m sure she was.” I put on my gloves and examined my table of instruments. I had somewhere to be in an hour, so I needed to make this quick. Quick and painful. I looked over at Matti, sitting in a chair, texting. Fucking kids. “Mattia, whenever you’re ready to work, let me know since you’re the boss.”
“Shit, sorry.” He dropped his phone and stood up quickly. “What should I do?”
“Strip him.”
“Of his clothes?” Matti balked. “Like, get him naked?”
“That’s what stripping someone usually means, yes.”
He took a breath and walked behind me. Wally started to panic, screaming apologies, promising he’d never do it again, that he’d leave town and never come back, yada yada yada. I would have put something in his mouth, but I wanted to hear his screams. When I turned around, Wally was completely naked, and Matti looked like he was trying not to gag. Wally’s pleas were getting louder, but they were already lost on me. I walked to the wall near him and looked up at the tanks to ensure they were full, then checked that the temperature was just right.
“Who adjusted this to forty-five degrees?” I asked, turning the knob down to forty.
“Ah, shit, that was me,” Matti said, “I couldn’t remember the temperature it was supposed to be, so I Googled it, and it said hypothermia can happen with water at forty-five degrees. It seemed about right.”
I shut my eyes briefly. This kid was Googling shit. I didn’t even want to know what his search history looked like, and for everyone’s sake, I hoped the FBI wasn’t interested either.
“If Google says forty-five, you do forty. It’s torture, not a day in the fucking lake.” I looked at Matti, who nodded. “And be careful what you search for on the internet. You know Big Brother is always watching.”
I looked at Wally from this angle. Some people got out of jail stacked; he wasn’t one of them. You could see the bones in his ribcage. He’d already pissed himself, which was unfortunate. I checked the time. Fuck. I had thirty minutes. I pulled the lever and smiled as the cold water fell over Wally, and he thrashed. The chains were the best kind of music. The chains, his screams, his gargled pleas as the water went in his mouth. It was all a thing of beauty. There was so much water in the tank that I could drown him without moving him. I thought about it. I’d done it before, but I had other plans for this asshole.
“Stop,” he screamed when he managed to gasp for air. He tried to say something else but started choking on the water again.
I switched off the water and waited until he stopped moving and screaming before turning on the air conditioning. He let out a strangled sob when he felt the breeze coming from the vents. As his pleas for mercy rang out, I grabbed my favorite knife that could slice through a bone-in New York strip without effort. Rosie had shown me the knife when I had gone over for dinner, and I had immediately purchased one for myself. She had asked me three times if I'd used it for meat, and every time I smiled and said I had - but I never told her what kind of meat it was. Dominic knew, though, and Wally would as well in a few seconds. I grabbed the scissors at the last minute. Matti was bouncing off his heels next to me like he was set to fight some kind of boxing match, but my glare made him stand still immediately.
“Please,” Wally said, hiccupping. He was shivering uncontrollably now. “Just please.”
“Was that what your daughter said to you, Wally?” I walked over and stood directly in front of him. With the scissors, I cut underneath his left pec. He cried out, still shivering, the chains clanking above his head.
“Did she beg you to stop?” I put the scissors near his mouth. “Honest answers only.”
“S-s-s-s-he did.”
I nipped his bottom lip, slicing it right in half. He screamed again, crying louder now, the blood seeping down his chin, to his chest, to the floor between my boots.
I pressed the tip of the scissor against the left side of his face. His eyes widened, and he looked there to see what I’d do next. “What did you do when she told you to stop? Did you stop?”
“N-n-n-n-n-o,” he wailed. “It was a mistake.”
“A mistake.” I took the scissor away. I looked over my shoulder and heard Wally exhale in relief. I smiled. He was such a fucking idiot. “Can rape be a mistake, Mattia?”
“No, sir.”
“Hm.” I let the scissors fall with a clank and looked at Wally, still shivering, still bleeding. “He says rape can’t be a mistake.”
