Bob remained still.
Vern’s body language slowly relaxed.
From fifteen yards away, the dog began to bark vociferously, its muzzle pointed in Bob’s direction.
Damn traitor.
Move quickly, Bobby, before he’s up. Bob rose to his haunches, scurrying up to the man, intent on knocking him out with his pistol butt. But Vern was quicker than he’d anticipated, turning and rising in one motion.
Bob raised the FN and squeezed the trigger chest height, aiming center mass from less than five feet away. Vern didn’t panic, instead trying to minimize his target aspect, turning side-on just as the gun flared, the shot flashing past him.
The slide on the FN kicked backwards and stuck in place, the next round jamming at the feed ramp.
Vern looked down at himself, shocked not to have been hit. He had a massive bandage across his nose, Bob noticed.
Shit.
I missed from five feet.
“Shit,” Bob said out loud. It had been years since a pistol had jammed on him, and he’d never have expected it from the FN. Power spring went in the mag?
Vern was already swinging the rifle, barrel gripped like a baseball bat, the stock catching Bob square in the face and jaw, the lights going out in a flash of red to black.
36
Bob woke with a start, bad dreams forgotten in an instant. He was being dragged over rough dirt, his feet elevated, bound together at the ankles, rope serving as both restraint and handle.
His face hurt like hell—a dull throb, as if he’d developed tandem root canals on the upper and lower teeth. His eye socket felt swollen.
Froze in surprise. Must be getting old.
In the movies, operators had no emotional reaction to danger or failure, attacked with robotic intensity, and were never caught up in the moment. But in the real world, Bob knew, anyone could lose focus, especially someone out of the game for so long.
Lost focus. Got clocked.
He tried to raise his head and figure out where he was being taken, but the forward momentum made it difficult. Vern was clearly strong, dragging him like a sack of potatoes with a single arm. His wrists were bound. He pulled against the restraint. It felt soft, flatter and thicker than rope. A bandana? Something like that. Used all the rope on my ankles, maybe.
He looked left in time to see Vern drag him past the frame of the open double barn doors. The angry twin yanked him another ten feet before dropping his feet with a thud.
“You awake, there, Mr. Lawyer Man?”
Bob said nothing.
“I figure it don’t matter none either way,” Vern said. He lifted Bob’s feet again. Bob felt the hard, thick metal of the hook being slung between his feet, under both sides of the rope. There was a brief pause, the quiet of the evening interrupted by the clanging rotation of a winch mechanism, the hook being raised towards the ceiling, Bob going with it.
After fifteen seconds, he was hanging upside down, his hands just an inch or so above the ground, blood pooling in his head.
“Now, way I figure it, Mr. Lawyer Man, my brother would be best pleased if I up and killed you right away and didn’t fuss. But I remember how you done broke my nose with your sucker punch, and I figure I owe you.”
“Creative,” Bob mumbled back. His jaw hurt too much to really talk.
“What you mean?” Vern demanded tersely. “What you mean by that? You saying I’m a sissy? That what you mean?”
Jesus Tapdancing Christ… why did I have to miss the dumb one?
“You’re a mouthy kinda feller, ain’tcha?” Vern proposed. “Well, let’s see what you’ve got to say about this.”
He stepped into the punch from close in, like a boxer trying to knock his opponent’s legs out from under him. The meaty fist crashed into Bob’s left rib cage, the crack audible, a familiar, stabbing pain shooting through him.
Left sixth again, same as Venezuela. Maybe the seventh, too. Use the pain, push it away and focus on the external, look for a way out of this. He craned his head both ways. The barn seemed nearly empty, other than a workbench near the back corner, a potbelly stove adjacent to it.
Tools on the wall behind us, maybe? Most barns seem to have tools on their walls, Bob figured.
Vern’s fist crashed into his right rib cage. “YEAH!” he raged. “YEAH, BITCH! Gonna work you like a heavy bag, bitch!”
Another stab of pain. Minor this time, though. He’s not as strong with his right hand. His torso was swaying to and fro from the punches. Work the bandana, get your hands free first. He pulled both ways against the knot, letting it tighten but seeing how much the material would stretch.
“You enjoying yourself, Lawyer Man?” Vern giggled slightly, a high, tittering sound that seemed perversely out of place. “Sure is fun beating on you like a little bitch.”
Smack. The fist crunched into his left side again, the pain shifting again from a radiating throb to a stabbing intensity. There goes the seventh, Bob thought. If Kopec kept wailing on him, he knew, his attacker would break his rib cage so comprehensively that his lungs would risk being pierced and he could drown in his own blood.
But it was hard to concentrate. When younger, his adrenaline would have been surging, making it hard to even feel the abuse. Something had clearly changed—his time away, his age—whatever it was, he just felt tired. Exhausted, even.
Can’t take it like you used to, Bob.
“You know I could stand here hitting you all night long, but I figure you deserve something special,” Vern said. “So I’m going to go over to the warmer, stick a poker down in the hot coals—she’s a wood burner, and she gets real hot inside. Then in about five minutes, when she’s got a good red glow to her, I’m going to take that poker and see how you feel about my broken nose then, uh huh.”
He’s planning to torture me.
