Aurora(73)

Zielinski gestured to Espinoza, turned to look out the window, and listened to the sharp crack of Rusty’s other pinkie finger as Espinoza broke that one too. Rusty screamed, a thin, high-pitched shriek that bounced off the walls of the dirty room. Zielinski turned back.

“Please stop screaming.” He waited. After a bit, Rusty’s screams turned to whimpers, and Zielinski continued. “Do you know how much of the earth had electric power before this happened?”

Rusty shook his head no.

“Eighty-seven percent. I remember it from the Discovery Channel. That means seven billion people have never lived any other way except with electricity. Neither have their parents, their grandparents, or their great-grandparents. And then, whoosh—it’s gone. All gone. And nobody knows shit about how to live without it. So what have a lot of us been doing?”

Rusty shrugged. He’d given up.

“Dying, that’s what they’re doing. But that’s not going to be me, my friend.” He stood up and put a hand on Rusty’s shoulder. “Put your hands on the table.”

Rusty, cradling both hands in front of him, shook his head, fearing whatever torture was about to come next.

“Put your hands on the table. I’m not going to fuck with you.”

Quivering, Rusty laid his palms on the table. Both pinkies stuck up at grotesque angles.

Zielinski tried not to laugh. “You gotta admit, that looks pretty comical.” He went to the far side of the room, searching the shelves. “Do you own a book, Rusty?”

“A what?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Nothing. Look at this. Look at these shelves.”

“Here’s one.” Espinoza had ducked his head into the bathroom and came out with a large hardbound Guinness Book of World Records from 2004.

Rusty started to hyperventilate. Zielinski waved him off, irritated. “Don’t be a baby. What are you gonna do, walk around with your hands like that? Like you think you’re at some kind of fucking tea party or something?”

He nodded to Espinoza, who came around behind Rusty, bent over, and wrapped a bearlike arm around his torso, holding his arms in place. The big man averted his eyes.

Zielinski raised the book high over his head and smacked it down on Rusty’s right hand. Rusty screamed, Zielinski lifted the book, and slammed it down on the other hand.

He tossed it aside and stepped back, admiring his work while Rusty howled in pain.

“See? I fixed you.”

Rusty looked down through watery eyes. His pinkies had been broken in new places, more or less straightening them out. He lifted his gnarled hands and pulled them close to his belly, moaning in pain.

“His phone,” he moaned, almost to himself.

Zielinski looked at Espinoza, questioning. He looked back at Rusty. “Whose phone?”

“The Irish prick. I got his phone.”

Zielinski smiled. “I don’t know what that means,” he said, “but it sounds like this-year thinking.”





28.





Outside Jericho

Eight or ten miles west of Sanctuary, Thom was just about ready to turn the Volvo around, head back, and say some scathing shit to certain people when he felt the bulky satellite phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled over and looked at the screen.

Brady?

Brady was picking now, of all possible moments, to resurface? After four months, and with a lame-ass explanation of his whereabouts and what had happened to the quarter of a million dollars meant for Aubrey? Sure, why not? Why not today, why not Brady too, why not just pile everything on top of me and light me on fire?

He pressed the green button and put the phone to his ear. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

“Tommmmy,” said the voice from the other end.

Thom hadn’t heard Rusty’s voice for five years, but there was no mistaking the midwestern twang and the slightly mocking, above-it-all tone that he’d always used with Thom.

“Hello?” Thom said, to buy a little time while he tried to think this through. His ex-brother-in-law, calling on Brady’s phone?

“Yeah, hey, buddy. It’s Rusty.”

“Is Aubrey all right?”

Rusty sighed. “I’m fine, Thom, thank you so much for asking. How are you?”

“Come on, Rusty, what the hell is going on? Why are you calling me? And where did you get this phone? Is everything all right with Aubrey?”

“That’s a lot of questions. Which one do you want me to start with?”

Thom held his tongue. Rusty’s voice sounded a little shaky. He asked again, calmly. “Is Aubrey OK?”

“Well, Tommy, that’s the thing.”

“What? What is the thing, Rusty?”

“Take it easy, brother.”

“I’m not your brother. We were related for a little while, and we’re not anymore.”

“Still got the touch with the common man, don’t you, big guy?”

Thom closed his eyes, trying to will himself to be patient. Rusty had always enjoyed fucking with him, but this was the first time Thom could remember that he’d actually held the upper hand. Clearly, he was sitting on some information that he knew Thom wanted desperately, and he was playing it out for as long as he could. But there was something else, and Thom couldn’t put his finger on what it was.