“Look, buddy. I don’t know who you are, or what you want. But-”
“Shut the fuck up!” Luther twisted the ear. “Answer when spoken to. You a killer or not?”
“No! I’m fucking innocent!”
“Well, I’m relieved to hear that, Mr…?”
“Donaldson. Gregory Donaldson.”
“Do you want to know why I’m after Lucy here?”
“No,” Donaldson grunted. “It’s none of my business.”
“Do you want to know how we met?”
“I want to do whatever you want me to do.”
“That’s good, Mr. Donaldson. Because I want you to… get. Out. Of. The. Car.”
At the word car, Luther tugged, yanking Donaldson’s head into the window so hard the glass fractured.
But the ear stayed attached.
It took three more yanks to rip it off.
Donaldson screamed, and dropped the scissors.
“Can you hear me now?” Luther spoke into the severed ear. He took two steps back from the car. “Can you hear me now?” He raised it up over his head. “How about now?”
Tossing the ear across the road, Luther opened the car door and seized Donaldson’s swollen wrist. He gave it a sudden twist, and there was a sound like bubble wrap popping as all of Donaldson’s broken parts ground against one another.
Donaldson tumbled onto the ground, his knees sinking into the soft earth, the sounds coming from his throat scarcely human.
His good arm still stretched back into the Honda, cuffed to Lucy who’d been dragged across the central console.
“What if I were to tell you, Mr. Donaldson, that I wasn’t here for Lucy at all?”
Donaldson whimpered something incoherent.
“What if I were to tell you that I travelled a very long way just to have a chat with you?”
Luther gave the arm another terrible yank.
Donaldson screamed, the loudest scream yet, and passed out.
Donaldson returned to consciousness with Luther right in his face.
“Were you having a nice dream?”
Donaldson roared, staring at the skin bubbling under the flame on his ruined arm.
Luther snapped the Zippo shut.
“Welcome back,” he said. “Now get the fuck up.”
He strained to drag Donaldson onto his feet.
“My God, you’re fat,” he said.
Donaldson whimpered, struggling to catch his breath. Luther got him onto his knees, which prompted more screaming.
“Loud, too,” Luther said. He reached over Donaldson and grasped Lucy’s outstretched arm. “Help me get her out, Fat Man, or I’m going to play with your arm some more.”
Sobbing, Donaldson managed to pull Lucy free of the Honda.
Luther jammed the airgun into his belt, heaved her over his shoulder, and ordered Donaldson to follow.
The trio trudged up the dirt road. Earth sucked at Donaldson’s bare feet.
“You’re seriously still crying?” Luther asked. “Pathetic.”
Cows groaned in the adjacent field.
Snowfields glowed on the slopes of a mountain range twenty miles away.
The barn loomed fifty yards ahead.
“What do you want?” Donaldson asked, his voice cracking.
“Keep walking, Fat Man.”
The barn stood silhouetted against the night sky, a massive structure with a steeply-pitched roof. Across a winter-killed field, at least a half-mile away, there was a farmhouse. Dark. No lights. No cars out front. It looked abandoned.
Luther said, “The cop. Jack Daniels. You’ve met her.”
“What?” Donaldson’s voice continued to quaver. “Sorry, but you gotta speak up.”
“Jack Daniels. You know her? I saw her talking about you on the news.”
“Met her at a truck stop, few weeks ago.”
“Tell me. Tell me everything.”
So he did. Donaldson told Luther about meeting Taylor, their plans for Jack, and how the bitch had gotten the upper hand. The story took them up until they got into the barn through a giant, sliding door that creaked with rust as Luther dragged it open. Inside, it was pitch black and smelled like moldering hay. Luther led them to one of the support posts for the loft.
“What was she like?” he said, bending down and dropping Lucy.