Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set (49 page)

Little Louie and his bodyguards stepped behind him to get a better look.

“It’s electric,” noted Rocko.

Little Louie frowned. “The other guy used a gas stove. His sleeve caught on fire. Remember that?”

The thugs giggled. Hutson picked the lower left hand burner and turned it on the lowest setting.

Little Louie wasn’t impressed.

“Hey, switch it up higher than that.”

“You didn’t say how high it had to be when we made the agreement.” Hutson spoke fast, relying on the mobster’s warped sense of fairness. “Just that I had to keep it on for ten seconds.”

“It was inferred it would be on the hottest.”

“I can put it on low and still follow the deal to the letter.”

Little Louie considered this, then nodded.

“You’re right. You’re still following it to the letter. Leave it on low then.”

It didn’t matter, because already the burner was fiery orange. Rocko leaned over and spat on it, and the saliva didn’t even have a chance to drip through the coils before sizzling away and evaporating.

“I think it’s hot,” Rocko said.

Hutson stared at the glowing burner. He held his trembling hand two inches above it. The heat was excruciating. Hutson’s palm began to sweat and the hair above his knuckles curled and he fought the little voice in his brain that screamed get your hand away!

“Well, go ahead.” Little Louie held up a gold pocket watch. “I’ll start when you do. Ten whole seconds.”

“Sweet Jesus in heaven help me,” thought Hutson.

He bit his lip and slapped his hand down on to the burner.

There was an immediate frying sound, like bacon in a pan. The pain was instant and searing. Hutson screamed and screamed, the coils burning away the skin on his palm, burning into the flesh, blistering and bubbling, melting the muscle and fat, Hutson screaming louder now, smoke starting to rise, Little Louie sounding off the seconds, a smell like pork chops filling Hutson’s nostrils, pain beyond intense, screaming so high there wasn’t any sound, can’t keep it there anymore, Jesus no more no more and...

Hutson yanked his hand from the burner, trembling, feeling faint, clutching his right hand at the wrist and stumbling to the sink, turning on the cold water, putting his charred hand under it, losing consciousness, everything going black.

He woke up lying on the floor, the pain in his hand a living thing, his mouth bleeding from biting his lower lip. His face contorted and he yelled from the anguish.

Little Louie stood over him, holding the pocket watch. “That was only seven seconds.”

Hutson’s scream could have woken the dead. It was full of heart-wrenching agony and fear and disgust and pity. It was the scream of the man being interrogated by the Gestapo. The scream of the woman having a Caesarean without anaesthetic. The scream of a father in a burning, wrecked car turning to see his baby on fire.

The scream of a man without hope.

“Don’t get upset.” Little Louie offered him a big grin. “I’ll let you try it again.”

The thugs hauled Hutson to his feet, and he whimpered and passed out. He woke up on the floor again, choking. Water had been thrown in his face.

Little Louie shook his head, sadly. “Come on Mr. Hutson. I haven’t got all day. I’m a busy man. If you want to back out, the boys can do their job. I want to warn you though, a thirty grand job means we’ll put your face on one of these burners, and that would just be the beginning. Make your decision.”

Hutson got to his feet, knees barely able to support him, breath shallow, hand hurting worse than any pain he had ever felt. He didn’t want to look at it, found himself doing it anyway, and stared at the black, inflamed flesh in a circular pattern on his palm. Hardly any blood. Just raw, exposed, gooey cooked muscle where the skin had fried away.

Hutson bent over and threw up.

“Come on, Mr. Hutson. You can do it. You came so close, I’d hate to have to cripple you permanently.”

Hutson tried to stagger to the door to get away, but was held back before he took two steps.

“The stove is over here, Mr. Hutson.” Little Louie’s black rat eyes sparkled like polished onyx.

Rocko steered Hutson back to the stove. Hutson stared down at the orange glowing burner, blackened in several places where parts of his palm had stuck and cooked to cinder. The pain was pounding. He was dazed and on the verge of passing out again. He lifted his left hand over the burner.

“Nope. Sorry Mr. Hutson. I specifically said it had to be your right hand. You have to use your right hand, please.”

Could he put his right hand on that burner again? Hutson didn’t think he could, in his muddied, agony-spiked brain. He was sweating and cold at the same time, and the air swam around him. His body shook and trembled. If he were familiar with the symptoms, Hutson might have known he was going into shock. But he wasn’t a doctor, and he couldn’t think straight anyway, and the pain, oh Jesus, the awful pain, and he remembered being five years old and afraid of dogs, and his grandfather had a dog and made him pet it, and he was scared, so scared that it would bite, and his grandfather grabbed his hand and put it toward the dog’s head...

Hutson put his hand back on the burner.

“One...............two...............”

Hutson screamed again, searing pain bringing him out of shock. His hand reflexively grabbed the burner, pushing down harder, muscles squeezing, the old burns set aflame again, blistering, popping...

“...............three...............”

Take it off! Take it off! Screaming, eyes squeezed tight, shaking his head like a hound with a fox in his teeth, sounds of cracking skin and sizzling meat...

“...............four...............five...............”

Black smoke, rising, a burning smell, that’s me cooking, muscle melting and searing away, nerves exposed, screaming even louder, pull it away!, using the other hand to hold it down...

“...............six...............seven...............”

Agony so exquisite, so absolute, unending, entire arm shaking, falling to knees, keeping hand on burner, opening eyes and seeing it sear at eye level, turning grey like a well-done steak, meat charring...

“Smells pretty good,” says one of the thugs.

“Like a hamburger.”

“A hand-burger.”

Laughter.

“...............eight...............nine...............”

No flesh left, orange burner searing bone, scorching, blood pumping onto heating coils, beading and evaporating like fat on a griddle, veins and arteries searing...

“........ten!”

Take it off! Take it off!

It’s stuck.

“Look boss, he’s stuck!”

Air whistled out of Hutson’s lungs like a horse whimpering. His hand continued to fry away. He pulled feebly, pain at a peak, all nerves exposed–pull dammit! –blacking out, everything fading...

Hutson awoke on the floor, shaking, with more water in his face.

“Nice job Mr. Hutson.” Little Louie stared down at him. “You followed the agreement. To the letter. You’re off the hook.”

Hutson squinted up at the mobster. The little man seemed very far away.

“Since you’ve been such a sport, I’ve even called an ambulance for you. They’re on their way. Unfortunately, the boys and I won’t be here when it arrives.”

Hutson tried to say something. His mouth wouldn’t form words.

“I hope we can gamble again soon, Mr. Hutson. Maybe we could play a hand or two. Get it? A hand?”

The thugs tittered. Little Louie bent down, close enough for Hutson to smell his cigar breath.

“Oh, there’s one more thing, Mr. Hutson. Looking back on our agreement, I said you had to hold your right hand on the burner for ten seconds. I said you had to follow that request to the letter. But, you know what? I just realized something pretty funny. I never said you had to turn the burner on.”

Little Louie left, followed by his body guards, and Bernard Hutson screamed and screamed and just couldn’t stop.

THE END

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“—KILL YOUR DARLINGS—”

I was wiping down the counter with an old shirt rag when he came in. The man in the yellow slicker. I saw him without looking up, drank him in the way my customers downed their Scotch and water. Years of bartending had made me a quick study. Call it survival instinct.

Big guy, woolly Groucho Marx eyebrows, but his nose was small and sharp, more like a hawk's bill than an eagle's beak. He was an easy 6'  2” if he was an inch, and he was at least an inch. He was slouching down into the collar of his slicker, trying to make himself invisible. Fat chance.

He shook off the afternoon rain that had collected on his broad shoulders. Even in the dim light of neon beer signs, I could see his black smoldering eyes roaming over the joint. He wasn't here for the atmosphere, though we had plenty of that. A television in the corner, tuned to a 24-hour sports station, the sound turned down. A row of ragged barstools, their cotton stuffing oozing out from under the vinyl seats. A jukebox by the restrooms, broken down and so old that it featured “The Brand New Hit from Hank Williams!” A couple of regulars slouched in a booth, deep in their cups despite the early hour, whiling away the day until it was time to get down to some serious drinking. And all of that was doubled back in the long, foggy mirror that covered the wall behind the bar, the mirror that had a perfect round hole from a passionate gunshot maybe twenty years ago. He wasn't here for the scenery.

And he wasn't here for the smell. Stale urine laced with crusted vomit that never completely dried, just sort of congealed half-heartedly. The musty smell of the soggy carpet, worn down to the threads or, in places, all the way through to the rough pine planks underneath. The odor of old cigarettes which had seeped so deeply into the walls that you could kill a nicotine craving by chewing on a piece of the peeling wallpaper. And, of course, the grainy smell of every kind of imbibement known to man, at least the stuff that was under twenty bucks a bottle.

No, despite all this decadent splendor, he was here for something besides a blind date with a watered-down slug of rotgut. He was looking for someone. He walked across the floor to the chipped bar and sat down in front of me.