“Hurts, don’t it?” Carmo said. “Gets you right in the old kazeenie.”
“I think you ruptured something,” I said. I heard a hoarse steam-engine sound and realized that was me, panting.
“I hope he fucking did, ” Roth said. “I let you go, you dumbbell! I fucking let you go! I forgot about you! Then you turn up at Frank’s in Fort Worth to bet the goddam Case-Tiger fight. Exact same MO-big bet on the underdog and all the odds you can get. This time you predict the exact fucking round. So here’s what’s going to happen, my friend: you’re going to tell me how you knew. If you do that, I take some pictures of you like you are now and Eddie G’s satisfied. He knows he can’t have you dead, because Carlos told him no, and Carlos is the one guy he listens to, even now. But if he sees you fucked up. .. aw, but you ain’t fucked up enough quite yet. Fuck him up some more, Carmo. Do the face.”
So Carmo hammered my face while the other two held me. He broke my nose, closed my left eye, knocked out a few teeth, and tore open my left cheek. I kept thinking, I’ll pass out or they’ll kill me, either way the pain will stop. But I didn’t pass out, and at some point Carmo quit. He was breathing hard, and there were red splotches on his yellow rawhide gloves. Sunshine came in through the kitchen windows and made cheery oblongs on the faded linoleum.
“That’s better,” Roth said. “Get the Polaroid out of the truck, Carmo. Hustle, now. I want to finish up here.”
Before leaving, Carmo stripped off his gloves and put them on the table next to the lead pipe. Some of the felt strips had come loose. They were soaked with blood. My face was throbbing, but my abdomen was worse. There, the heat continued to spread. Something was very wrong down there.
“One more time, Amberson. How’d you know the fix was in? Who told you? The truth.”
“It was just a guess.” I tried to tell myself I sounded like a man with a bad cold, but I didn’t. I sounded like a man who’d just had the shit beaten out of him.
He picked up the pipe and tapped it against one pudgy hand. “Who told you, fuckface?”
“Nobody. Gutierrez was right. I’m a devil, and devils can see the future.”
“You’re running out of chances.”
“Wanda’s too tall for you, Roth. And too skinny. When you’re on top of her, you must look like a toad trying to fuck a log. Or maybe-”
His placid face wrinkled into rage. It was a complete transformation, and it happened in less than a second. He swung the pipe at my head. I got my left arm up and heard it crack like a birch-branch overloaded with ice. This time when I sagged, the goons let me drop to the floor.
“Fuckin wiseass, how I hate a fuckin wiseass.” This seemed to come from a great distance. Or a great height. Or both. I was finally getting ready to pass out, and ever so grateful to go. But I had enough vision left to see Carmo when he came back in with a Polaroid camera. It was big and bulky, the kind where the lens comes out on a kind of accordion.
“Turn im over,” Roth said. “Let’s get his good side.” As the goons did so, Carmo handed Roth the camera, and Roth handed Carmo the pipe. Then Roth raised the camera to his face and said, “Watch the birdie, you fuckin spunkbucket. Here’s one for Eddie G…”
Flash.
“… and one for my own personal collection, which I don’t actually have but which I may now start…”
Flash.
“… and here’s one for you. To remember that when serious people ask you questions, you should answer.”
Flash.
He yanked the third shot out of the camera and threw it in my direction. It landed in front of my left hand… which he then stepped on. Bones crunched. I whimpered and drew my hurt hand back to my chest. He had broken at least one finger, maybe as many as three.
“You want to remember to strip that in sixty seconds, or it’ll get all overcooked. If you’re awake, that is.”
“You want to ask im some more now that he’s tenderized?” Carmo asked.
“You kiddin? Look at im. He don’t even know his own name anymore. Fuck him.” He started to turn away, then turned back. “Hey, asshat. Here’s one to grow on.”
That was when he kicked me in the side of the head with what felt like a steel-toed shoe. Skyrockets exploded across my vision. Then the back of my head connected with the baseboard, and I was gone.
I don’t think I was out for long, because the oblongs of sunlight on the linoleum didn’t appear to have moved. My mouth tasted of wet copper. I spat half-congealed blood onto the floor, along with a fragment of tooth, and set about getting to my feet. I needed to hold onto one of the kitchen chairs with my one working hand, then onto the table (which nearly fell over on top of me), but on the whole it was easier than I thought. My left leg felt numb, and my pants were tight halfway down, where the knee was swelling as promised, but I thought it could have been a lot worse.
