"Now let's really talk," Ramsey said.
***
In the abandoned second-floor office across the way, the weaselly federal agent leaned forward in his chair, his face close to the laptop. He was listening to the voices of Ramsey and Shannon coming through the speaker.
"Man," he said. "Thing's working great. They're really coming over five by five."
Foster was still standing at the window, still looking down at the front of the restaurant below. "Well, well," he said. "Will wonders never cease?"
Then the voices coming from the computer crackled once and died.
"Wait a minute," said the weasel. "I think we lost them."
"I guess that answers that question," Foster murmured.
He narrowed his eyes, peering down at the restaurant. His hand was lifted near his face, his thumb rubbing his fingers as if he were feeling a piece of cloth—a nervous gesture. He noticed a movement now at the dark windows. It took him a moment to figure out what it was, then he realized: the venetian blinds had closed. His heart sank.
"Shit," he said. "They've got him."
Shannon felt the silence all around him, the eyes all around him. He felt his own breath go in and out and looked in Ramsey's eyes, which were calm and sad and unmovable. He hoped that Foster was on the run, coming like the cavalry to save him, but at the same time, he knew this was just hope, the everlasting reflex of hope: no one was coming, no one could. Ramsey's mild gaze—no wonder they called him Brick, his mild gaze was like a brick wall, like the dead end of yet another blind alley in a luckless life full of blind alleys, full of brick walls. And all those people—all those cops—sitting at all those tables, in all those booths under the plaster body parts, staring at him without mercy and without a sound ... No one could save him here.
"It's funny, you know." Ramsey frowned down at the cell phone on the table. He considered it, turning it this way and that. "I was actually beginning to get superstitious about you. No, really. All this time, I sensed there was something wrong, something working against me. I thought ... I'm not sure what I thought. But there's a reasonable explanation for everything, isn't there?"
Shannon breathed in and out, and the sweat trickled down his face. He knew it showed his fear, but he couldn't stop it.
"Who are you?" Ramsey asked him quietly. "Who sent you here?"
Shannon licked his lips and started, "I told you, I—"
"The smartest thing"—Ramsey interrupted him without raising his voice—"the smartest thing you could do for yourself now would be to tell the truth quickly. Because otherwise, we'll take it out of you slowly, bit by bit."
Shannon wiped his face with one hand. There was no point trying to hide the sweat; there it was for everyone to see. He took a long, deliberate look around the room—at the giant plaster nose, the torso, the cold, plaster, comfortless breast, and all those expressionless faces underneath the body parts that might as well have been plaster, too.
"Pretty good," he said, nodding. "Pretty good, Ramsey."
"I'm going to ask you one more time," Brick Ramsey said. "I need to know who you are and who sent you. I need to know how far along this has gotten. You're going to tell me eventually, so why don't you just tell me now."
Shannon opened his mouth. His tongue felt as if it were coated with some sort of sour dust. He felt all those merciless eyes on him and all those cold, plaster body parts and Ramsey's merciless eyes. And no one was coming to help him.
"Go to hell," he said. He looked around the room and swallowed the sour dust and raised his voice. "You can all go to hell."
Ramsey barely lifted his chin in answer and the blockheaded waiter-who-was-a-cop stepped up behind Shannon swiftly and stuck the hard, hurtful barrel of a Beretta into the hollow behind his ear.
***
The slick agent now rose thoughtfully from his chair. He moved to stand beside Foster. Foster remained where he was, standing at the window, staring out the window at Anatomy across the street, rubbing his fingers with his thumb, rubbing them.
"Should we go in?" the slick agent asked him.
Foster hesitated, gazing down at the restaurant, thinking through the possibilities. Finally, he shook his head. "If they see us coming, they'll kill him on the spot. It'd be over before we got there. Just another dead cop-killer, they'd say." Rubbing his fingers. Thinking. "No. Ramsey is going to want to know who he is, who sent him. If our guy holds out, they'll take him somewhere, somewhere they can work on him, make him talk."
"Why would he hold out?" said the slick agent. "He's just a punk. Why would he?"
Foster's face was blank, his lips parted. He went on rubbing his fingers with his thumb, in a reverie, thinking. "The girl," he said, in a distant voice. "If he gives us up, they'll get to us before we can get her into the system. If he talks, they'll get the girl."
The slick agent considered that, looking from Foster to the window. He grimaced. "He's a punk. He'll just tell them everything."
But Foster shook his head. "He won't. They're going to have to move him somewhere. To work on him."
Now the weaselly agent got out of his chair as well. He moved to stand next to Foster and the slick agent, and they all three stood at the window, looking out.
"They're going to have to bring him out—get him into a car," said Foster. "We'll have a chance then, a shot at stopping them. They've got to bring him out and when they do, we'll see them and make our move."
But he was wrong. They took Shannon out of the restaurant through the service exit in the kitchen. It led to a hall off the ground floor of One City Center. It was an empty concrete hall that led to a service elevator.
Ramsey led the way. Shannon followed him. He had no choice. The blockheaded cop dressed as a waiter was right behind him with the Beretta nine trained on his back. The blockhead kept the gun close to his side so there was no chance to grab it. Shannon knew the blockhead would kill him if he tried.
Ramsey used a Homak key to summon the elevator. The door opened at once. He stood back and let Shannon walk in. Then the blockhead walked in with the nine. Then Ramsey walked in.
Ramsey worked the Homak key in the elevator panel and the door closed. The elevator started up.
Then Ramsey turned and drove his fist deep into Shannon's midsection, right above the groin.
Shannon felt the air rush out of him and doubled over, sick. He was already falling to the floor when Ramsey hit him again, a lead-knuckled blow to the side of the head that dazed Shannon and made his knees give way.
Shannon lay gasping at Ramsey's feet. The moment before Ramsey kicked him, Shannon knew it was coming, but there was nothing he could do about it. Ramsey kicked him in the midsection hard and then kicked him again, aiming for his balls. Shannon spit puke and tried to cover himself. Ramsey grabbed Shannon's windbreaker and lifted him off the floor and punched him, dropping him back down again.
Shannon lay curled on the floor, groaning. He hurt and he was sick, but he didn't think there was anything irrevocable yet, anything broken inside. At the same time, he didn't see any hope of escaping, not with the blockhead holding the gun on him. They would just keep beating him until they were finished, and then they'd shoot him and he didn't see any way out of it. It made him sicker still with fear.
The elevator stopped with a heavy jolt. The door came open. Ramsey grabbed Shannon roughly, lifting him.
"Get up," he said.
Shannon had to take hold of Ramsey as he tried to get his feet under him. He couldn't think straight because of the blows to the head and because his whole body was weak with pain and sickness. He managed to stand up with Ramsey holding him. He stumbled out of the elevator. They were in another concrete hall. Ramsey grabbed him by the collar and hurled him face first into the wall. Shannon felt his nose break, which sent a unique and terrible pain through his head. Hot blood poured down over his face. His legs went rubbery and he started to collapse, but Ramsey grabbed him, held him up, and frog-marched him down the hall.
&
nbsp; Shannon saw a door coming at him, but by now he barely knew what was happening. The door opened in the center of a nauseating whirl. A gritty wind bearing the first dead heat of summer washed over Shannon's face. The next thing he knew he was outside, out in the middle of the sky, in the middle of the hot wind. Ramsey dropped him roughly to the floor.
Shannon lay there bleeding, trying to lift his head, trying to look around and get a glimpse of things through his haze of pain and concussion. He saw the naked sky through iron beams, walls in shreds like torn fabric, charred like burned paper. The dark towers of the skyline were visible through the gaps. Great, billowing clouds raced behind the towers on the hot, gritty wind.
Shannon understood where he was. He was on one of the top floors, one of the ruined floors, of One City Center. It was like being in a room that had exploded. The walls were smashed clear through, the beams visible, the windows shattered, the remnants burned. All that was left was the charred wreckage of the place on an open platform in the sky.
He knew what they were going to do to him, too. They were going to throw him off the building. He would fall so far, hit the pavement so hard, his body would be crushed to cinders, and no one would be able to tell what had happened to him. They would get their medical people to say it was an accident or suicide. That would be that.
The fear of dying in that particular fashion made him even weaker, even sicker, but there was nothing he could do, he was too beaten and dazed now to fight back. He tried to think of something that would make it easier for him. He thought of Teresa. He thought he still had the way he felt about her. It was like the gold ring in the boy's hand after his dream in the story—he still had it. He thought she would be safe now. If he could just keep his mouth shut till they killed him, she would be safe, and Michael and the old man—they would be safe, too. So he could die feeling how he felt about her and knowing he had kept his mouth shut and kept her safe and that was something. Otherwise, yeah, it had been a crap life all around. Maybe there was a better life when this one was over. Maybe God would forgive him for some of the bad things he'd done because, in the end, he had helped Teresa, then he would have a better life. But even if there was no God and no better life, Teresa would be safe. Maybe she would even think about him sometimes. So there was that, too. And basically Ramsey could go fuck himself.
The gritty wind blew over him with a roar. The shredded walls shook and fluttered loudly. Shannon lay on the floor and fought against his sickness and the fear of falling.
The weaselly federal agent and Foster and the slick agent stood together at the window and stared down at the restaurant. Foster rubbed his fingers with his thumb, his face blank.
"What do you think?" said the weaselly agent finally. "They're in there a long time."
Foster wasn't sure what he thought. He stood there silently.
Then he saw a flash at the window. The venetian blinds had opened.
"He's gone," Foster said. "Damn it. They took him out. Let's go."
Ramsey worked Shannon over on the floor of the shattered room at the top of the ruined tower. He kicked him in the gut and in the spine. He stomped on his hand, breaking his fingers with a snapping sound. He lifted him up by the jacket and punched him. The blockheaded cop in the white waiter's outfit looked on absently, holding the gun vaguely in Shannon's direction. The hot wind blew through the torn walls and the walls shuddered with a loud noise.
At first, the blows hurt Shannon, each one a fresh pain. He tried to cover himself and when he couldn't cover himself, he tried to crawl away. When he couldn't crawl away, he just lay there on the floor and went through it. After a while, it was all pain, a sort of throbbing, indivisible suffering mixed with the mess of blood and vomit on him and the sad understanding that they would kill him when they were through. He tried to think about Teresa, but after a while he couldn't think about anything except how bad it was. He just wanted it to stop, even if they did kill him.
"Now," said Ramsey, breathless with the work. He knelt down next to Shannon's head. He knelt on one knee and draped his arm over the other. He looked at Shannon mildly. Shannon flinched at his every move, afraid of more blows. "You're going to tell me who you are and how much you really know and who runs you," Ramsey said.
Cowering, his hands over his head, Shannon tried to answer him, but it just came out a sobbing groan.
Ramsey reached down. He pulled Shannon's hands away from his face and slapped him in the nose lightly with his knuckles. With his nose broken and his cuts raw all over, the blow sent a fresh explosion of hurt through Shannon's head.
"I didn't understand you, boy. Speak up," said Ramsey.
Shannon swallowed blood and tried again, louder. "You killed Patterson."
"Is that right? Who told you to say that?"
"I saw."
"You're lying. I want to know who runs you."
Shannon wearily mumbled his answer.
"What did you say?"
"Said ... go ... to hell. And fuck yourself on the way down."
Ramsey laughed at that. He glanced at the blockhead standing guard. "He's a tough guy."
"He is," said the blockhead reflexively. He wasn't really listening and didn't really care.
Ramsey looked down at Shannon's blood-soaked face. Shannon's eyes blinked whitely at him out of the blood. "Are you a fed? Or are the feds just running you?"
"Killed ... Patterson..."
"You're going to tell me everything, Conor," he said. "Really. Why make it so hard?"
Shannon gave a weak laugh. "Already hard."
"It's going to get a lot harder, son, believe me."
Shannon tried to curse him out but could only cough up blood.
"You don't want to die, do you?" said Ramsey.
Shannon coughed some more. "Not afraid," he said.
Which wasn't strictly true. He was full of fear, but he knew he could get through it. It had been a crap life and now Teresa would be safe. Fuck Ramsey.
Ramsey rabbit-punched him in the testicles. Shannon doubled over, gagging and sobbing.
"I want to know who sent you," Ramsey said quietly.
Shannon could not feel the hot wind on him anymore, but he could hear the walls rocking and shuddering. He could see patches of blue and clouds flying past towers as his head lolled over. He prayed to God to let it end already, to let him die, even if there was no better life.
Foster sent his two agents into the restaurant and good luck to them, but he went another way. He pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby of One City Center. He strode to the reception desk, flashing his federal ID. There was a male security guard there and a female receptionist.
"How many ways are there out of the restaurant?" Foster barked at them.
"There's a door into the lobby and one into the service hall," the receptionist said. She was a short, busty woman with an air of competence.
"There a way out of the service hall?"
"A back door to the Dumpsters and the elevator. You need a key for the elevator." The woman slapped a Homak key down on the black marble reception desk.
"This way," said the security guard. "I'll show you."
Foster followed him across the lobby. He already had an idea about where they'd taken Shannon.
Ramsey didn't have to slug or kick Shannon anymore. He could just probe his torn and broken places. Shannon screamed and sobbed at the pain. After a while, Ramsey knelt over him and studied him, expressionless. He was startled at how much he hated this man, how much he wanted to break him and kill him. The sadistic feelings disgusted him, as if they were some squirmy thing he wanted to hold at a distance from himself. Every time the man screamed, Ramsey felt some satisfaction in it and that disgusted him, too. He wanted to end this—and he would have ended it if it weren't for his pride, his fierce desire to break the man's resistance, to have that victory over him before he threw him off the building.
"Damn it, I'm going to find out the answers anyway, whether you tell me or not,"
he said quietly. "Tell me what you know and who else knows and who sent you, and we can be done."
Shannon tried to say fuck you but couldn't get the words out.
Ramsey grabbed Shannon's broken fingers and made Shannon scream again.
"You said you saw me," Ramsey said.
"Saw you kill Patterson," Shannon managed to answer.
"You're lying. You've got nothing. That's why they sent you, isn't it?"
"I saw you."
Ramsey made him scream again, squeezing his fingers.
"You're lying, aren't you? They sent you because they've got nothing."
"You killed Patterson," Shannon managed to mumble.
Ramsey's anger rose in a red tide. He could feel that he was about to lose control of this. Maybe he already had lost control and just didn't know it yet. He was furious and disgusted and he knew he had to finish it, but he couldn't finish it. So maybe he had lost control. What difference did any of it make? he reasoned with himself. He could trace the warrant, find out which feds had slipped out of the net. They would make the proper phone calls, take care of them, get rid of them. Whoever ran this operation would end up checking parking meters on the moon...
Still ... still ... this man here. He couldn't quite rid himself of the feeling that this man was, in fact, the nemesis that had pursued him all this time, that was still pursuing him. He wanted vengeance on him for forcing him to go to Super-Pred, forcing him to degrade the very meaning of his biography—his rise out of the ghetto, his service to his country, his service on the force—by begging favors from that fifteen-year-old nightmare version of himself, by letting that nightmare version of himself become his agent in the world. This man had done that to him, forced him to it. He would not be beaten by him now. He would not be defied.
He stood up over the trembling Shannon. He drew his Beretta. He pointed it down at Shannon's knee.