Dowd grabbed her by the wrist and squeezed. “We don’t bother with things like that, sweetheart. We’re looking for Osborne, and you’re going to tell us where he is.”
“You’re hurting me.”
There was nothing in his eyes, just a lunar emptiness. “I talk, you answer. Where’s Osborne?”
“I have no idea,” Amelia squealed. “Let go of me! You’re hurting me!”
Dowd twisted her wrist so hard that she was forced to kneel. Mertens, who was familiar with his partner’s methods, was looking around at the furniture.
Dowd had let his belly sag, but without relaxing his grip. “Osborne’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”
“You’re crazy!”
“He hasn’t been back to his hotel,” Dowd hissed. “Has he been staying here?”
“No!”
“Have you been letting him stay because he’s fucking you? Is that it?”
His breath smelled like an autopsy room.
“Stupid bastard,” she said through clenched teeth.
Dowd pursed his lips and twisted her wrist again.
Amelia screamed, and squirmed on the floor.
“That’s it, he’s fucking you!” Dowd spluttered. “And because he’s fucking you, you think you’re above the law! Little whore!”
“Let go of me,” she moaned.
At last, Dowd dropped her and she slid across the floor, until Mertens planted his knee in her spine. She writhed in pain. Mertens put a pair of handcuffs on her and joined her hands behind her back.
“Ouch!”
Amelia made a move toward the wall, but froze when a penknife was thrust under her nose. Above it, Officer Dowd’s adipose face, sweating profusely. There was something else besides anger in those eyes.
“You’ll talk, little whore,” he said, “trust me.”
Amelia had stopped moving, paralyzed by fear.
With an abrupt gesture, Dowd tore off her dress, threw the shreds on the floor, and moved the penknife close to her private parts. Amelia let out a cry and pressed her thighs together. The knife snapped the elastic of her panties.
“Little bitch.”
Amelia huddled in the middle of the room. “You’ll pay for this,” she said.
Dowd laughed and made a sign to Mertens, who grabbed her by the hair and pulled. Amelia could barely stand. Dowd punched her in the belly. The punch took the breath from her and she bent double. She felt as though a clump of earth was obstructing her airways, and she gulped for oxygen like a fish squirming on a deck. Mertens grabbed her by the hair again and pulled her head back.
Dowd adjusted his belt, a self-satisfied look on his face. “Well? Where’s Osborne?”
Amelia couldn’t speak. Her stomach had risen to her throat. Dowd sniffed noisily, took a plastic glove from his jacket pocket, and put it on. Mertens held her by the armpits and lifted her from the floor. Dowd slipped his gloved hand under her buttocks and, forcing a passage with his fat podgy fingers, found both orifices and plunged in. Amelia gave a last contortion. Panting through his nostrils, his piglike eyes bulging, Dowd rummaged inside her.
“Well?” he cried. “I’m going to tear your ass off, bitch!”
She burst into tears.
Suddenly the lights went out. The switch on the fuse box had been tripped, plunging the house in darkness. For a second, everything was black.
“Dowd!” Mertens cried, having just glimpsed a figure slipping into the room from the hall. Dowd quickly withdrew his gloved hand from Amelia and was just turning when a Maori patu smashed into his skull.
He toppled backwards, tripped over Amelia’s body, and crashed to the floor. Mertens had taken out his Magnum revolver and was looking for a moving target in the shadows, thought he detected one, and pressed the trigger. The bullet shattered a table lamp. He fired again, sending plaster raining down on the couch. He saw something on his left and swiveled around, and at that moment his gun literally flew from his hands. As he tried to reach for it, the patu hit him full in the face. There was a sound of breaking bones. Mertens swayed for a moment.
Osborne tightened his grip on the patu. He had already killed one man, which was either too much or not enough. He brought it down again, with all his strength. Mertens’ shoulder collapsed. He yelled out in pain, but wouldn’t fall. A stream of blood gushed from his nose, and he staggered in search of his gun. Osborne struck again, this time breaking Mertens’ jaw and knocking out a few teeth. The next blow cracked his left temple.
This time he went down.
A silence heavy with waves filled the room.
Osborne let the patu fall to the floor. His hands were shaking but his head was empty. Eyes now accustomed to the darkness, he saw three bodies on the wooden floor: two of them motionless, bathing in their own blood, the other against the couch, curled in a fetal position. Osborne dismissed his own shadow in a mirror. With his foot, he made sure the men weren’t going to move again, then went and switched the circuit back on.
The living room light blinded him for a brief moment.
Amelia hadn’t moved. Naked, handcuffed, she was weeping softly. Osborne kneeled by the bodies, and searched their pockets. A police badge: Special Officer Mertens. The other man’s name was Dowd: a fat guy with a repulsive face, his skull cracked open. There was also an older wound, on the right eyelid: the mark left by his car key. So they were the two cops who had tried to settle his hash, the other night, behind the hotel. The one missing was the third hooded man, the one holding the Beretta. Right now, he was probably sleeping off his hatred in a hospital room, crippled for life—Gallagher.
Osborne got to his feet, his heart pounding. He found the keys to the handcuffs in Mertens’ pocket and freed Amelia’s bruised wrists.
Amelia shrank a little more against the couch, as if trying to disappear into it.
