looking for that tractor trailer was not a high police priority.
Pietro Cassandro drove the Ford pickup to the rear (most distant from the road) gate in the hurricane fence and stopped. Paulo Cassandro got out and swung the creaking gate open and flat against the fence itself, reasoning that it would be better to have the gate open, in case a rapid departure became necessary, even if the open gate—improbably, in the dark—attracted attention.
He then walked to the building, taking from his pocket as he walked a full-face ski mask and pulling it over his head.
Pietro Cassandro drove the Ford pickup to the rear of the building, turned it around so that it was headed toward the open gate, and then got out.
“This won’t take long, Mr. S.,” he said.
Mr. Savarese nodded, and arranged himself more comfortably on the seat.
Pietro pulled a similar full-face ski mask over his head, then took two battery-powered floodlights from the tool bin in the bed of the truck. Then he joined his brother at the steel door to the building.
They opened the door, stepped inside, closed the door, turned on the floodlights, and walked down the corridor to the room in which, twenty-four hours before, they had left Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham to his thoughts in the dark.
The door was closed with two locking levers much like those used to secure hatches on vessels.
Pietro Cassandro opened both quickly and pushed the door inward. Paulo Cassandro, his floodlight in his left hand and a crowbar in the other, went quickly into the room.
His floodlight quickly found Ketcham, who was cowering in a far corner of the room, the too-small overcoat not quite concealing his nakedness under it. Ketcham shielded his eyes against the painful glow of light.
“On your feet, cocksucker!” Paulo ordered.
Ketcham pushed himself erect by sliding up the wall behind him.
“Can we talk?” Ketcham asked.
“Oh, we’ll talk,” Paulo said.
“Jesus Christ,” Pietro said in disgust, “it smells like shit in here. We can’t bring—”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” his brother admonished him, and then addressed Ketcham. “Take the coat off and put it over your head, asshole!”
“I really think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”
“The next time you open your mouth without being told to, you’re going to eat the fucking crowbar!”
Ketcham removed the overcoat and placed it over his head as directed.
Paulo indicated the two-inch-wide white surgical—or perhaps “mortician’s and embalmer’s”—white gauze Ketcham had removed and which was now lying on the concrete floor, and indicated to his brother that it should be reused to make sure the overcoat over Ketcham’s head did not become dislodged.
Pietro did as his brother ordered.
“Just stand there, motherfucker,” Paulo ordered.
He then left the room, walked down the corridor, and opened the door to another of the NIKE storage rooms. He flashed his floodlight around it, saw nothing that bothered him, and then returned to the room where Ketcham stood naked with an overcoat over his head.
He went to Ketcham, put his hand on his arm, indicated with his finger that his brother take the other arm, then started to lead Ketcham out of the room.
“You said we could talk,” Ketcham said plaintively.
“I also told you to shut your fucking mouth,” Paulo replied.
They led Ketcham into the center of the other room and turned him around. Ketcham’s situation was almost identical to what it had been in the first room, except in this room there was no odor of feces and urine.
Paulo wordlessly indicated to his brother that he was going after Mr. Savarese, handed his crowbar to his brother, and left the room.
He returned in two minutes, politely ushering Mr. Savarese into the room ahead of him. Mr. Savarese stood perhaps six feet from Ketcham, his delicate, fragile-looking hands folded together in front of him. He nodded his permission to Paulo to commence the conversation.
Paulo reclaimed his crowbar from his brother and walked across to Ketcham. He extended the crowbar to Ketcham’s groin, gently touching both his penis and his scrotum with it.
“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Ketcham said.
“Okay. Now we’ll talk,” Paulo said. “Tell me about drugs.”
“What drugs?” Ketcham responded, sounding genuinely confused.
Cassandro’s crowbar touched Ketcham’s scrotum and penis again, somewhat less gently.
“Tell me what you want to know, and I’ll tell you,” Ketcham said, sounding desperately determined to be agreeable.
“You know fucking well what I want to know,” Paulo said. “I want to hear it from you.”
There was a long pause.
“I swear to God,” Ketcham finally said, “that I had nothing to do with the cops being there.”
“Bullshit,” Cassandro