Hellbent

Draker whipped up in a violent sit-up, driving his forehead at Thornhill’s nose. Thornhill wheeled back, nearly losing his footing. He looked down at his shirt, darkened by the spray from Draker’s wet hair. Draker’s head butt had missed him by inches.

“Whoa, cowboy,” Thornhill said, seemingly pleased by the effort. “That was close.”

Draker collapsed flat on the floor, spent.

Van Sciver squatted beside him, knees cracking, alert. “The boy,” he said. “The address.”

Draker gagged a few times. Van Sciver pressed two fingers into his solar plexus, and Draker vomited a water-clear stream so calmly and steadily that it was like opening up a tap. When he was done, he took a few seconds to catch his breath. Then he said, “What boy?”

“Right on,” Candy said. “Gotta admire the grit.”

She peeled herself from the wall and tested the plywood covering one of the rear windows. It was screwed in tight but not too tight. Which was perfect.

Van Sciver said to Thornhill, “Get the dog collar on him.”

The next technique, walling, was a Guantánamo Bay special. There they slipped a rolled towel around the detainee’s neck and used it to slam him into a semiflexible wall. The shoulder blades hit first, snapping the head. The collision gives off a sound like a thunderclap, like someone banging cymbals in the space between your ears.

Van Sciver preferred to use an actual collar. They were more durable, and his meaty hand never slipped. Plus, when he squeezed tight, he’d found, his knuckles shoved into the larynx, which added a bit more incentive.

Thornhill secured the collar around L’s neck.

“I don’t know about this, bud,” Thornhill said, flashing that carefree smile. “I was you, I’d just talk to the man.”

L lay there, curled on his side, panting. Van Sciver knew how it was. You had to enjoy the respites when you had them.

It was tough work from both sides.

“Get him on his feet,” Van Sciver said.

Draker was limp, his muscles turned to rubber. Candy and Thornhill juggled him up, holding most of his weight. He’d gone boneless.

Van Sciver seized the collar and dragged L over to the plywood sheet.

“Where is David Smith?” he asked again.

Draker couldn’t speak, not with the knuckles, but he managed to shake his head.

“Damn,” Van Sciver said, setting his feet and firming his grip. “You must really love the kid.”

46 Menu of Even More Specialized Services

At the edge of an industrial park in Northridge, through two security doors, past a warehouse humming with painters and restorers reviving valuable vintage movie posters, down a back hall tinged with the smell of petroleum and cleaning surfactants, Melinda Truong stood in a dark-walled photography room, fists on her slender hips, regarding Evan and Joey.

Melinda wore yoga pants and spotless robin’s-egg-blue Pumas that looked to be limited-edition and pricier than most vehicles. Straight black hair fell to her waist, which was gripped by a construction worker’s tool belt that required freshly awled holes so it could be cinched tighter in order to accommodate her tiny frame. The tool belt held an Olympos double-action airbrush, a 000 paintbrush, and various sizes of X-Acto blades, their grips padded with pink tape to discourage her workers from borrowing them.

She was the sole woman in the building. She was the owner of the operation. She was also the finest forger Evan had ever encountered.

One of her fists still gripped a retrofitted insecticide atomizer. Evan had interrupted her at the wet table over a Frankenstein one-sheet from 1931, cleaning a coffee spot off Boris Karloff’s cheek. The restored movie poster would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that was far less than she made from her menu of even more specialized services, conducted here in the photography room with its windows blacked out, ostensibly to prevent reflections during shooting.

She ticked the muzzle of the atomizer at Evan now, a show of mock annoyance. “It’s a good thing I have a secret crush on you,” she said. “Or I’d never let you stomp in here with this child and interrupt my work.”

“I’m not a child,” Joey said.

Melinda did not look over at her, instead holding up a finger. “Seen but not heard.”

Joey zippered her mouth.

Evan said, “Apologies.”

Melinda swept back her hair, a gesture that was at once concise and sensuous, and tapped her cheek. Evan complied, moving forward to kiss it. At the last minute, she turned, catching his lips with hers.

She lingered a moment, then shoved him back. “Now. What do you want?”

Joey took this in speechlessly.

“I need full papers for her,” Evan said. “Multiple IDs, Social, driver’s, birth certificate, travel visas, a backstopped history. Make her eighteen.”

“When?” Melinda asked.

“Now.”

Melinda looked over at her cobbler’s bench covered with etched metal plates, embossing tools, letterpress drawers holding passport stamps. She sighed.