Part 18 (1/2)
Custer ignored hian grinding his knife blade against it with a fingernails-on-blackboard scritch that jangled etting ambushed by the Sioux,” Custer said ”But he was actually a real brave guy He was in the Civil War, fought at Bull Run”
”I know,” I said ”I saw that on the History Channel” We were establishi+ng a rapport here Custer was starting to like me
”Yeah, I saw that show, too,” he said
”Did you know George Custer was once a schoolteacher?”
”No shi+t?”
”It's true He taught in a one-rooht? I had a crush onexpression, Custer brought the knife slicing down across my unprotected hand
I screamed in shock
We all stared atblood froer Miraculously, Ring Man and Pinky were still attached
”Youon Custer
”You said a finger A er”
”You did zero! Zero isn't one, duot small hands I can't do just one”
”You're supposed to be this hotshot shank artist and you can't cut off a fucking finger?”
”She ood”
”The fuck I didn't”
”The tape is loose She jerked away”
”A three-year-old could do better with a butter knife”
”Stop picking on hi this divide and conquer stuff rowled at ot better ways to ers intoat him ”Knohat this place is, Mazie?”
I was barely able to see hi ainst the pain, trying to slow
”It's a brewery, ain't it?” Custer said
”I wasn't talking to you, dickbreath,” Jong snapped He turned back to me ”This place is a brewery,” he said
Of course This must be the old Brenner brewery, unused for years since the operations had been switched to the suburbs The buildings were scheduled for demolition next year, but at the moment the breas conveniently empty, an ideal site for torture and murder Bear oes into beer?” Jong asked
”So kit once-”
”That was a rhetorical question,” Jong said, glaring at hiet to answer the question oes into beer They used to roast the ot the electricity and gas turned on in this end of the building We got malt oven number five turned on See?”
He jerked ot an upside-down view of the thing behind , sprouting iron pipes like tentacles Set into its belly was a square door, its outlines glowing red-orange It seerown hotter in the short time I'd been strapped to the conveyor It pounded out heat in pulsing waves
”That is one hot ly He went over to it and plinked his index finger against the tee set into its side
”Don't screith it I got it set where it's supposed to be,” Jong snapped
”It's getting too onna blow”
”It's not out of control, asshole”
Jong jerked hter out of his pocket and began flicking the flarees, Mazie Hot as a crehter flaainst the tape holding led hand so the blood dribbled toward the tape
”A body going into that furnace will burn to ashes-bones and all-in fifteensaid ”When they tear this place down, all soreasy ashes So here comes my deal, Mazie, baby-onetime offer only-you tell me what I need to know and I o in the furnace”
He kept flicking the Zippo, as though he had a nervous twitch Fla, when it was Sahara-hot in this roo moved the flame towardhair filled tie you like a Sunday roast lamb and shove you in the furnace while you're still alive,” Jong said ”You burn up real slow nobody hears you scream”
Insane with fear, I whipped ainst the belt's rubber surface But noare of so out of the duct tape I twisted it, hoping they wouldn't notice
Obviously a ing the fla and yankedin the crotch He shrieked as though he was having his prostate exahter flew out of his hand, arced through the air, and landed in a pile of old wooden excelsior shavings Feathery as air, flammable as hair, the fiery curls wafted upward on air currents, igniting stacks of cardboard cartons and floating around the room like fieryexcelsior swirled up and torched the back of Custer's pants He swatted aardly at his backside, bellowing at his partner to help, but Jong's po screa at his head ”fuckfuckfuck!”
Preoccupied with saving their own skins, they didn't attes free, heaved myself off the conveyor belt, and bolted across the room toward muffin's crate As I hauled nited-all thoseWith a roar that sucked the oxygen out of the roo The furnace thu klaxon sounded with an ear-blistering blare
Clutching h a doorway, through a series of interconnected roo an arched brick tunnel Bursting out of the tunnel, I found myself in a train yard where row upon row of old boxcars, hoppers, and switch engines stood on a web of rusted tracks the size of an interstate highway
I risked a look overmy would-be barbecuers had burned up
No such luck Here they ca and with half their clothes burned off, but sorays of fury nearly visible to the naked eye Custer spotted ed after me
I hopscotched between tracks, slid beneath the undercarriages of boxcars, hid in the shadows of the big train wheels Sensing the danger,wildly againstbetween the tracks, huntingnow, and my skin and clothes were dark frohetti sauce