The Savage(80)

Sergio sat bound, the one eye hanging, tears pitted down his cheek, mixed with the blood from his busted features and serrated lips. He’d listened to the clomps climbing the steps behind Cotto. While candlelight bounced over the concrete walls of spray-painted graffiti, until an eerie shadow lurched through the entrance. And Cotto’s eyes shifted to the right, then back at Sergio. “What do you know of Van Dorn?”

From behind Cotto stepped the shape of a bony and slumped figure. Cutthroat. He carried a square case that was laid upon the steel table of tools. Flame jumped and rimmed about the room, shadowing the singed skin of the man. Over left and right hands he wore black rubber gloves, a matching leather butcher’s apron over a shirtless body of mangled and knotted creases. Thumbs flipped the locks of the case. The lid opened.

With his back to Sergio, Cutthroat’s lips parted with a raspy tone. “When a line is drawn across the gut, everything on the other side drops and splashes to the floor. In order for this to happen, a sharp instrument is required. A person’s life is then measured by seconds as blood exits from the wound, the head becomes light while existence is a blurring rush of events, shadows painted with a brush.” Pausing, Cutthroat turned to Sergio, holding a blade to his throat. Ran it across his neck without touching the skin. “Quickest is this swipe. The parting of one’s box for sound. When the jugular is parted, everything a person has done to that point in life becomes one heated pool of red.” Cutthroat held the blade over the candlelight. Heated it. Then turned back to the table behind him, laid it down. “I’ve removed nails. One after the other. Submerged digits with fuel. Shit burns, stings, blackens. I’ve ignited fingers. A body can only withstand so much pain before the numb overtakes the nerve endings and the person passes out.”

Cotto watched from the entrance, hands holding open his leather-bound pad of notes and paper, working a coal pencil, the face of Van Dorn coming through in profile; he waited with a glint of amusement and frustration.

Turning back to Sergio, Cutthroat’s face was lit by candlelight as if a jack-in-the-box had jumped from the dark splotches devoid of incandescence. Skin connected to the corners of his lips, which were jagged and greasy. Cutthroat had no brows, no whiskers, his face was like a papier-maché mask created in art class. He approached Sergio again. Leaned toward him. Grasped his chin, the one eye still hanging loose as he lifted the face to meet his glare.

“Cotto has questions. It is best to answer.”

“They’s nothing to tell. He … he … Van Dorn was raised by his father, who was poisoned by Dillard Alcorn. He’s a survivalist. A young man who was raised from the rural land by the older-time pioneering ways. Th-th-that’s all Scar has offered.”

Cutthroat asks, “And?”

“And what?”

“There’s more. You’re holding back. Your kind always holds back truth.”

Pause.

“There are rumors of others. They’re … they’re gathering. Building hierarchies in the woods.”

“Who?”

“Men, mostly, survivalists. Some have lost their spawn, their wives. Others have never been touched. Have been bunkered. They’re in clans being led by warlord types of religious congregations. They’re territorial. Tribal. Residing in different counties. Battling amongst themselves, pitting one man to represent them, their people, in some blood feud they call ‘meat cellars.’ Their numbers are multiplying. They’re armed. Unruly.”

Cotto came forward. “I heard this rhetoric pronounced by the Pentecost. I possess something they do not: their futures, their children. They will not kill a child in battle, and because of that I will remove every one of them from existence. And I’ll do with the help of this Van Dorn and Sheldon.”

Cutthroat looked to Cotto, who backed away, waved a hand in disgust and anger. “Do with him as you’ve done with many, he’s lost all worth to me.”

Sergio tried to kick his legs, which were bound to the chair legs, his torso jerked. “You need me!”

And Cutthroat questioned Cotto, “Your judgment is final?”

Cotto came back toward Sergio. “Tell me what it is I need of you?”

Sergio drooled a Pepto-Bismol froth from his mouth and told Cotto, “I can get you into the encampment without battle. Without sacrificing numbers.”

“You’re an idiot. I know where it is, how do you think I tracked you?”

“You … you don’t know where the traps and trip wires lay in camouflage. You can bait me … bait me with explosives. They’ll let me in. Then you can detonate me … they … they won’t know what hit them … it’d be—”

Cutthroat said, “Unexpected.”

Cotto cleared his throat, thinking of Manny. Of how he’d baited the King with the immigrants to enter his ranch, and a smile laced with vehemence shaped his lips. And he asked Sergio, “Why would you defy me only to turn around and help me?”

“To save face before being removed.”

“Martyrdom. Aren’t you the clever one.” Cotto paused and contemplated Sergio’s offer. Closed his sketch of Dorn and said, “We must move now. Hit hard. Hit fast. I’ll get Chub and Minister to rig you with C4. I’ll call upon my soldiers for their task of demolition.”

*