Chapter 14 #5
I laughed, and out of respect for our friendship, refrained from staring directly at his wife as I got redressed. “I didn’t want to get them wet.”
Kensi smiled widely. “He doesn’t like that I’ve been showing the other ladies your channel. He says he doesn’t mind, but the other guys are getting on him about it.”
I waggled my eyebrows at her. “I say use whatever gets your motor going. You ladies are free to look,” I ran a hand down my soaked abs, “but touching is strictly off the table.”
Capone cleared his throat and gestured down to the man I had just dragged under the belly of our boat. “Is he dead?”
I kicked him, and Konstantin groaned. “Not yet.” I turned to Tangaloa. “Let’s get started.”
“Wait,” Kensi said, pointing down at the bloody man at our feet. “This hasn’t ‘started’ yet?”
“Oh, sweetheart. You’ve seen my channel. You know how I like a good warmup.” Tangaloa handed me a bucket of chum. “Now we are getting started.”
Various cultures around the world had a version of death by a thousand cuts. To my knowledge, the oldest recorded death was from China in the early 900s. They called it ‘Lingchi’ or ‘slow slicing’.
I always admired a good torture technique, but I was arrogant enough where I always had to put my own spin on it.
Konstantin, conscious and hacking up seawater, was strung up in front of the glass windshield of the helm.
The boat didn’t have a gaff like Tommy’s boat, so we had to improvise using rod holders and a metal pole bent into a U shape.
He was spread eagle with his feet flat on the floor.
After being keelhauled, I didn’t want to string him completely up and risk him dry drowning too soon.
Tommy started the boat again, keeping us at a slow pace so we didn’t draw too much attention. We knew where we dropped the chum so we could return to it when we were ready, and this way we wouldn’t have to wait around to prime the waters.
I grabbed another bucket from the helm and put it down between Tangaloa and I. Each of us grabbed a number of hooks, careful not to create any cuts on our hands.
Kensi looked into the bucket. “That’s a lot of fishing hooks.”
“A thousand of them,” I informed her as I pinched Konstantin’s arm and slid a hook in. I tapped the bucket with my bare foot. “You’re welcome to help.”
“What’s the most painful area?” she asked, coming closer.
I shrugged. “Probably his balls.”
Kensi laughed as Aftermath snapped, “No! You are not touching another man’s balls!”
Kensi pouted over her shoulder at her husband.
I chuckled. “If your man is too insecure to let you stab hooks through another man’s balls, you can put them in his feet.” I looked at Aftermath, baiting him. “Unless that’s too much for your sensibilities too.”
“Keep it up, Aloe Icky, and you’ll be going overboard too.”
I waggled my eyebrows, daring him. “But then my men would toss you over? What would be the point? Of the two of us, which do you think is the strongest swimmer?”
Konstantin’s pitiful whimpers continued as we added more hooks. It was almost like he was too exhausted to scream, the lazy bastard.
“If Aftermath’s overboard too, then it’s two-on-two,” Tangaloa pointed out. He added two hooks to the man’s ear. In my experience, it was a tight squeeze, but a grown man could fit twelve to fifteen hooks per ear. I doubt those two were the only ones going in.
“Yeah, but Kensi’s one of those two,” Aftermath shot back at him.
“And you think we’re too honorable to fight a girl?” Tangaloa asked him, amused.
Aftermath snorted. “Fuck no, but once you see her fight, you’ll be jumping to join us in the water.”
Kensi looked up at her husband from where she was making a heart shape out of hooks in the top of Konstantin’s foot and blew him a kiss.
“This might take a while,” I said to Capone, who was watching our banter like it was a tennis game. “You’re welcome to start questioning him.”
Capone pulled out his phone, lucky fucker.
The one Neo had given me was a Nokia 3300, which brought back a lot of childhood memories.
They claimed I couldn’t go off fighting evil without a phone but they were not giving me yet another phone to be destroyed.
If I managed to keep this one intact by the time I got back, they would consider replacing my smartphone.
It was why I only had printed pictures of Nishi.
Capone turned his phone around to face Konstantin. The same picture of Nishi that I had was on the screen. “Almost three months ago, you sold this woman. We want to know to who.”
Konstantin blinked, his eyes filled with pain. His throat was likely sore from the seawater, but if he could scream, he could talk.
“Have you tried putting a hook through someone’s eye before?” Capone asked me.
I was still working my way down Konstantin’s right arm.
Each of his fingertips now had one too and I did four in his palm.
“Sure. It was disappointing the first time I did it because I learned they don’t pop like balloons.
Instead, it’s like an oozy kid’s ball being deflated.
And normally I don’t do it until the end.
I like them to see and admire my handiwork first.”
Capone took a look over Kensi’s crouched form at the bucket with hundreds of hooks still inside. “Seems to me, he only needs one eye for that.”
Kensi handed me up a hook.
“Thank you, darling,” I smiled down at her as I took the hook. “Have I told you yet just how utterly fantastic you look on your knees before me?”
Aftermath growled. “Have I told you yet that I have Lu’s cellphone number?”
I looked over my shoulder at him. “Sending dick pics to my wahine? Naughty, naughty, Mr. Jacobs.”
Aftermath raised his chin. “’bout time she saw what a real man’s dick looked like.”
I grinned and then nodded to Konstantin. “Hold his head still. He’s going to squirm on this one.”
Aftermath stepped forward, his legs wide over his wife’s hunched back. He grabbed Konstantin by the hair, tipping his head back, and then locked his jaw closed. As soon as I brought the point of the hook closer to his face, he seemed to register what was going on and struggled.
I paused, holding the hook up in front of his nose.
“This is going in your eye. The question is if it’s now or later.
Later, you might be too out of it with pain to notice.
By then, there will be several in your frank and beans anyway.
I wonder which is more painful,” I added offhandedly.
“Now, answer my friend’s question and don’t make him repeat it.
He’s nicer than I am when it comes to repeating questions, but it’ll still piss me off. ”
Aftermath lowered his hand from Konstantin’s jaw but kept hold of his hair.
“Yonkers,” the man gasped out as soon as his mouth was free. His voice was raspy, like a chain smoker, and his chest heaved with the effort it took to talk. “He’s in Yonkers. Please… It was just—”
I touched the tip of the hook to his cornea.
“If you finish that sentence with business, I will tie a rope through the eyes of all one thousand hooks in your body and use them to secure you to the keel. Are you aware that in the open ocean, a vessel like this can reach seventy, seventy-five miles per hour at full speed? You’ll be ripped apart bit by little bit, the hooks ripping from your flesh one by one.
Now,” I removed the hook tip from his eye, “tell me again what the sale of my woman’s best friend was. ”
He swallowed hard, the sound rough rather than smooth. But he kept his mouth shut.
“Where in Yonkers?” Capone asked in the following silence.
“I don’t know his address, but he’s bought from me before.
” The man seemed more inclined to speak to Capone, even though it had been his idea to puncture Konstantin’s eye now rather than later.
I felt a bit slighted, but at least we were getting answers.
“His name is Weatherby Dalton-Jones IV. He works on Wall Street.” He gasped for breath. “I swear, that’s all I know.”
“And you sold my wahine’s best friend to him? You’re sure?”
He nodded as best he could in Aftermath’s grip. “I’m sure. He’s got a thing for Japanese women.”
“Thank you,” I said before jamming the hook into his right eyeball.
The man shouted loud enough to make my ears ring before passing out.
“Rude,” I snapped. Aftermath stepped back, since he no longer had to hold Konstantin’s head.
“Call Red and Neo. I want to know everything about this Weatherby fucker. And what the fuck kind of name is Weatherby anyway?”
“Not really sure you’re the person to ask that question, Ally Hippie,” Aftermath said as he walked away, pulling out his phone.
I shrugged, “Not one of his best, but touché.” I glanced down at Kensi. “Be a dear and pass me up some more hooks. We need to hurry this along. Where is Yonkers anyway?”
“New York,” Capone answered, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s about twenty minutes outside the city, and there’s a Chapter of Royal Bastards there. Run by a man named Hurricane, if I remember right. You can take our plane. It’ll get you there faster.”
I nodded my appreciation.
Capone scratched his chin. “You know, this whole ‘death by a thousand hooks’ thing doesn’t work so well when he’s passed out like that.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said with confidence.
“He’ll wake up again soon. Might want to get a gag ready now that we have what we need.
” The man’s cry of agony as I pierced his dick could have been heard for miles.
“Huh.” I looked up at Tangaloa. “Apparently, it is the dick that hurts more. Good to know.”