The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(59)

Lancaster handed him a glossy pamphlet. “On that note, here’s tonight’s program. Enjoy, enjoy.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

A few more prisoners came down from the tiers, filling out the line beside me, while Lancaster greeted his other guests and passed out more pamphlets. Two of the new arrivals headed our way. The woman, in a pink sundress and a floppy hat, I vaguely recognized from TV. She was some kind of socialite reality-show star, famous for being famous. The man at her side, a hunk of muscle in a tailored jacket, I didn’t know. They walked up and down the line, glancing from us to their pamphlets. I slipped the camera back into my pocket before they got too close.

“Ooh, this one,” she said, pointing at me. “Definitely this one. Did you read this? He’s a former assassin, sweetie. Isn’t that just the coolest?”

The man rolled his eyes. “Sure, if it’s cool to throw your father’s money away. Never bet on a first-timer. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“Longer odds.” She held the pamphlet in his face and rapped her fingernail against it. “Bigger prizes.”

“You did this exact same thing at the Kentucky Derby last May. Do you even know how statistics work? Have you ever taken a class?”

They carried their argument back to the wet bar, leaving me to stew in silence and wonder what the hell was going on here.

Lights from the guard tower flickered, strobing behind the smoky glass. Conversation hushed. The prisoner on my left tensed up, manacles rattling as his hands clenched into fists. I palmed the camera again and started filming.

Warden Lancaster took the floor with a microphone in his fist. When he spoke, speakers crackled and his sonorous voice echoed throughout the gallery.

“Ladies and gentlemen, how fine it is to welcome you to another grand event. We’ve got quite the show planned for you tonight, and a delightful time indeed. But first…I’m afraid we have a bit of unpleasant side business to take care of.”

Jablonski and another guard hauled a limp prisoner in front of the crowd, chained at the wrists and ankles with a burlap sack over his head. They ripped off the hood, and the breath caught in my throat.

Emerson squinted, dazed, through swollen eyes. His face was a mask of bruises and freshly dried blood.

“We had a bit of a…weasel in the henhouse, it appears,” Lancaster told the crowd. “This man is an undercover informant. Now, now, don’t fret. He never set foot in this hallowed hall—well, not until now, anyway.”

“Please,” Emerson gasped, his lips purple and puffy. “You can’t do this. This is wrong—”

Lancaster talked over him, leaning into the microphone. “Fortunately, he was not very good at his job.”

That drew a ripple of laughter from the audience.

“I highlight this incident,” Lancaster said, “simply to reassure you that your safety and your privacy is of utmost importance to myself and my staff. We found the problem, and we’ll fix the problem.”

He reached into his jacket. His hand came out, slow and smooth, with a long-barreled .45 revolver. The gun gleamed in the candlelight as he held it aloft for the audience’s approval. Someone in the back let out an eager hoot.

I gritted my teeth and kept the camera steady.

“Please,” Emerson begged, “I won’t tell anyone. I won’t—”

“I know you won’t, son,” Lancaster said.

Then he put the barrel to Emerson’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

The revolver boomed like a thunderclap as the bullet tore a hole through Emerson’s skull, sending him tumbling to the concrete in a haze of blood mist and shattered bone. Polite applause rippled through the crowd along with a chorus of clinking glasses, as Jablonski and the other guard dragged Emerson’s body away by his ankles.

The cavalry wasn’t coming to my rescue. The cavalry was dead.

“We’re just about ready to begin,” Lancaster told the crowd, “so get those bets in. Odds are printed in your program guides, and we’re happy to cover all requests…minus the house’s customary ten percent, of course.”

Another ripple of laughter. I stared down at the concrete floor, at the bloody smear where Emerson had fallen.

Working in pairs, the waiters rolled out something new: a pair of tall wire frames festooned with hooks, like tool racks in a mechanic’s workshop. Tools hung on the display: hammers, drills, chisels.

A bloodstained machete. A chainsaw. And a baseball bat wrapped with coils of barbed wire.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lancaster said, the crowd falling into an excited murmur. “It is my great honor to welcome you to tonight’s entertainment.”

He spread one arm wide, taking in the room, and flashed pearly teeth like a game-show host.

“Welcome,” he said, “to the Killing Floor.”





32.




I got the idea, fast, when the guards dragged two prisoners out of the lineup. They stood them front and center before the audience, unshackling them while Lancaster worked the room. They kept a ten-foot buffer between the open floor where the prisoners stood and the first rows of tables. A buffer thick with old, dried stains on the concrete.

“Diego Antunez,” Lancaster boomed, “a triggerman for the Cinco Calles, with an estimated seven kills to his name on the outside. Of course, he eliminated his enemies with a gun and by surprise, so take that for what it’s worth.”