Ice slapped the man almost casually across the face. The blow was hard enough to rock him backward. Blood and spit sprayed out of Richie’s mouth. He sobbed and hastily clamped his lips together in an effort to remain silent.
“Richie, I didn’t ask for your excuses. You need to listen to the question.”
“Yes. Yes.” He bobbed his head up and down. “I’m sorry. I should have. About every five months or so. Maybe six. I didn’t keep track.”
Richie’s gaze went again to Bitters, who was moaning and crying.
Savage took scraps of material, wadded them up and thrust them into Bitters’s mouth. “Done with your noise. How many times did you make a child scream?” He got to his feet and walked back to the table to pick up a bottle of water.
Maestro took his place, crouching down beside Bitters, a blowtorch in his hand. Bitters didn’t seem to be aware that he was there. His gaze followed Savage. Richie, however, stared at Maestro in absolute horror. He tried to move his chair back away from the three members of Torpedo Ink. The chair tipped but didn’t go over backward.
“What’s he going to do?” Richie asked in a low, frightened voice.
Ice shrugged. “Ask him, not me.”
Richie licked at the cracks in his lips. “What are you going to do?” His voice was still low, almost a whisper. His gaze was fixed on the white-hot blue flame coming from the small torch Maestro held in his hand.
“This is the kind of thing they use in those snuff films, Richie,” Maestro explained. “Paul knows, don’t you, Paul? You have quite the collection. Code found them. You even have them labeled so nicely, the ones with ‘your’ kids. The ones you sold. You get off on that sick shit, don’t you?”
Paul began screaming around the gag.
“You might want to give me every name in this ring you have going across the country that you know, Richie. Now would be a good time.” Ice didn’t look at him. He spoke very softly. Very matter-of-factly. He didn’t sound like he was making a threat, but it was there, right on the cement floor in front of him, along with muffled agonized screams, and the smell of blood and burned flesh.
“I don’t know very many. I wasn’t in the inner circle like Paul. I know Avery. A man named Harold McDonald. He lives in a little place near the coast, Occidental, or something like that. He’s a cop, a sheriff.”
“Small fuckin’ world,” Ice observed. They had rescued a teenage boy from a desperate situation with a pedophile. The boy now lived with Torpedo Ink’s president, Czar, and his wife, Blythe. “We had a little run-in with a man in Occidental. Walter Sandlin, did you know him?”
Richie’s eyes widened. “That was you? No one had a clue who did him. Some thought the kid he had did him, but Harry said it was too professional to be the kid.”
“Who else?”
“There’s David Swey. He’s a vendor. Sells hot dogs out of a truck. Goes all over town in Santa Rosa. Lives in Graton. He’s got eyes everywhere. He’s close with Bitters and Avery.”
Richie frowned, trying to remember others, but his body was shuddering, almost in shock, watching as Maestro shut off the torch and patted Bitters’s shoulder as he stood up.
“Stop your whining, Bitters,” Ice said. “You’re pissing me off. You like this sort of thing, or you wouldn’t get off watching it.”
Richie began to shake his head. “I don’t watch it. I don’t. I didn’t know they did that to kids.”
“What did you think they did, Richie?” Ice asked, once more conversational. “It’s called a ‘snuff’ film.”
“I thought they just killed them. Quick, you know. These films aren’t for distribution, they’re only used for private collectors.” He sounded as if that made all the difference in the world. “And each person who asks for a film has to be thoroughly vetted before they’re allowed into the circle. It’s hard to get in. We’re not judgmental. Everyone has different needs and preferences.”
“So, you’re not judgmental about anyone who likes to hurt a child and then kill him or her,” Ice pursued.
“You’re twisting my words,” Richie whined. “I didn’t say that.”
“What are you saying, Richie? Because I’m very interested,” Ice said.
He walked past Bitters, who appeared to be unconscious, and stopped to nudge him with his foot. The man groaned but didn’t open his eyes or move. Ice kept walking to the table where he picked up his bottle of water and downed another third.
“That piece of shit thinks he can escape us by going to sleep. Not going to happen.” Fury rode him hard. He despised men like Bitters. They had money and they thought they were above the law. The law would have treated them a lot kinder than the assassins riding after them.