Hitman vs Hitman - L.A. Witt Page 0,57
flicked toward August, then back to what Ricardo was doing. “I was at my buddy’s bar that night.”
August huffed with theatrical exasperation. “All day? You spent all day at a dive bar? Doing what—playing pull tabs and drinking shitty beer?”
The chair squeaked with Bubba’s uncomfortable shifting, but he said nothing.
With another dramatic sigh, August turned to Ricardo. “Okay, he’s not going to just tell us, so apparently we need to persuade him.” He quirked his lips as if he were really giving it some serious thought. “Do you think he has fortune cookies under his skin?”
Ricardo eyed him. “Fortune—what?”
August blinked with what Ricardo could only describe as sadistic innocence. “You know—where you break them open and answers come out.” He flicked his wrist, snapping open his baton with a satisfying clank. “I’ve always found the best answers come from the ribs and collarbones.”
He couldn’t help himself this time—Ricardo laughed. And the somewhat smug smile on August’s slim lips was almost endearing.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Bubba demanded. “I’m not a fortune—you’re not going to get answers out of me that I don’t have!”
“Oh, I know.” August put the baton behind his own neck and held its ends in both hands. “It’s the answers you do have that I’m concerned about. And I am going to get those out of you.”
Bubba stared at him, but then his expression hardened. “Fuck you.”
August opened his mouth again, probably ready for some more taunting, but Ricardo preferred the direct approach.
“Listen, fucker.” He took his gun out of its holster, shoved in the magazine, and racked the slide, which made Bubba jump with satisfying nervousness. Ricardo took his boot off the milk crate, stood right in front of Bubba, and glared down at him, using the muzzle of the pistol to lift Bubba’s chin so they were looking at each other. “I don’t have time for games. We have you on camera leaving the residence at 87 Northam. Your face matched in three separate facial recognition databases.”
That was a stretch, but it got the job done—Bubba was breathing faster now, sweat beading on his tattooed bald head. He knew he was cornered.
“You were on the property, and you were stupid enough to have your weapon out and visible, and we have confirmation from the homeowner that you were neither invited nor welcome.” Ricardo dug the gun harder into Bubba’s chin, making him tilt his head back until it had to be uncomfortable as hell. Once the guy was wincing, Ricardo growled, “Why were you there, and who paid you to be there?”
Bubba grunted in pain. Ricardo held him like that a second longer, then let him go and stepped back so Bubba had a chance to rethink his life choices.
Apparently Bubba either wasn’t very smart or seriously lacked survival skills, because a smart man or one who was aware of his physical disadvantage would’ve taken the opportunity to offer up something that might get him out of this piss-scented hell hole.
Instead, he chose to look Ricardo up and down with a sneer before saying to August, “What are you even working with this asshole for?” He spat at Ricardo’s feet, narrowly missing his boot. “Fuckers like him are the reason we need to build that wall.”
Ricardo didn’t even have a chance to pistol whip him or say something snide—August came out of nowhere and cracked his baton across Bubba’s knee, and the skinhead howled in pain.
Then August jammed the baton against Bubba’s crotch, grabbed the whimpering asshole by the throat, and got right in his face. “I’m out of patience, but I am not out of toys,” he snarled. “You want to see how many more toys I have? Because I have nothing but time to show you everything I—”
“No! No!” The sobbing Neo-Nazi shook his head vigorously. “Just let me go! I don’t know nothing!”
“Bullshit!” August hissed. “Unless you’re moonlighting as a UPS driver and you were there to deliver a package, what the fuck were you doing on that property? Come on, fucker!” August hit him again, and even Ricardo winced as the baton connected to the same kneecap it had already cracked against. As Bubba screamed, August barked in his face, “What were you doing there, Bubba? What the fuck were you doing there if you weren’t—”
“It was just a job!” Bubba sputtered.
“Yeah? And who paid you to do it? What was the job? Talk, fucker!”
Bubba cringed as much as his restraints allowed. He was almost hyperventilating now, choking on