He stripped. She fastened his wrists and ankles into the four corners of a metal frame lying on the floor. They were silent and complicit. She stepped away from him, reached for a remote that hung from the ceiling, and pressed one of the buttons. One end of the steel frame started rising within some metal runners until it was vertical and Schafer hung spread-eagled within it. The pain in his shoulder joints was immediately excruciating. It was a technique he knew bore results.
Leena pressed another button on the remote, and the metal frame revolved through 180 degrees, so that Schafer was upside down and facing away from her. His hips felt as if they were about to dislocate. Leena selected a two-meter length of rattan cane and swiped the cold air, backward and forward.
Foley had given the Turk the all clear once he’d heard that both Leena and Schafer were in the lower apartment and they’d lost sound contact. Arslan entered the elevator codes and went up to the top floor wearing a pair of latex gloves. He had a 9mm Glock 19 with a titanium suppressor, which he did not intend to use. In his pocket he had a twisted leather garrote.
The elevator doors opened onto the apartment. He went through the master bedroom to the en suite bathroom and put together a cocktail of Leena’s medications in one of her pill canisters. He picked up a bottle of scotch from the drinks tray and tucked it under his arm. He strode through the art gallery, down the stairs and into the apartment below. He walked silently on treadless sneakers, took out his Glock, and opened the door. The soundproofing of the room meant that he’d heard nothing of what was going on inside. He was momentarily stunned by the sight before him.
“That was the rattan cane,” said Leena, slightly breathless. “This is a sjambok. It’s made out of rolled rhinoceros hide. You’ll notice the difference.”
Nothing from Schafer, just gasping. Blood ran from the open welts across his back, buttocks, and hamstrings. It ran in tickling trickles down his body and over his face and forehead and dripped onto the concrete.
“Put that down,” said Arslan from the door, the Glock in his outstretched hand.
Leena spun around, her face livid from effort.
“What are you doing in here?” she said, like a teacher whose space had been invaded by a pupil. “Is he something to do with you, Roland?”
“Drop the whip and come to me,” said the Turk.
This was better than he could possibly have imagined. His mind opened up to possibilities for a clean finish. It could be a sex session gone tragically wrong.
“He needs this,” said Leena.
“He might,” conceded Arslan.
“One stroke,” she said, and before Arslan could protest she laid the sjambok across Schafer s back. It landed with a dull smack and was accompanied by a stunned silence followed by a gagging scream. Arslan slammed the door shut. Leena threw the whip to the ground.
“Let him down from there,” said Arslan.
Leena used the remote to turn Schafer upright and let him down. As his back made contact with the concrete an exquisite agony concentrated itself in Schafer s body. He gritted his teeth.
“Release his feet,” he said. “You got handcuffs?”
Leena pointed to the wall behind with its assortment of cuffs and shackles. Arslan threw her a set.
“Cuff his hands behind his back. Leave him on his front.”
Arslan looked around while Leena worked on Schafer. He put the bottle of scotch on the table, swung a pulley and rope into position over the two of them, moved the stool underneath. He took out the leather garrote and told her to connect it to the rope.
She knew her work, used a metal caliper to make sure the join wouldn’t slip, looped it over Schafer s head. Arslan pulled on the rope. Schafer’s head came up and he scrabbled to his knees.
“Sit on the stool,” said Arslan.
Schafer sat facing away from him, hands behind his back. His chest expanded slowly and shallowly, as if each breath was agony. Arslan told Leena to tie the rope off to a ring in the floor. He motioned Leena with his Glock toward the table, took the pills out of his pocket.
“You’re going to drink these down,” said Arslan. “It’s either that or… violence. I’m easy either way.”
The one thing Leena knew from her endless replaying of the car accident was that, while she could stand pain, she could not bear impact. She knew the consequences of impact, and just the idea of it induced a profound sense of dread in her. She looked at the pillbox, contemplated it for some long seconds. She opened the canister and poured out a handful.
Arslan unscrewed the top from the scotch.
“These,” she said, holding up a round white pill, “are to make me go to sleep. One is normally enough for an adult to sleep a full night. If I take three of them I might get four hours.”
She took six and swallowed them with the scotch.
“These,” she said, holding up a half-red, half-gray capsule, “are antidepressants. The red part is the ‘anti’ and the gray part the ‘depressant.’ They’re supposed to make me happy, but all they do is turn dark black to overcast gray.”
She swallowed another handful; the whiskey seeped out of the corners of her mouth.
“Now these are the babies,” she said, holding up a rounded blue lozenge. “I take these all the time. They really work. Oxy-Contin 160 mg. Active ingredient oxycodone. Known in America as Hillbilly Heroin. These wrap you in cotton wool and tuck you away from life in a little drawer. They cure all known hurt except… the pain of loss.”
She socked back eight, poured whiskey after them. She took another assorted handful and worked her way through those. She became unintelligible, her legs went, and Arslan lowered her to the floor, where her eyes rolled back and she passed out.
The Turk went to the pulley rope, yanked it tight so that Schafer came to his feet. He pulled tighter and got him up onto the stool and then on tiptoe. The blood thumped in Schafer’s carotids. His calf muscles strained and cracked. He felt himself tottering. His mind had achieved great clarity since he’d been returned to upright. The extraordinary pain from the beating he’d sustained had contributed to this. He began to understand something of the nature of religious flagellation. The greater the awareness of his mortal sack through extreme vulnerability, the more he seemed able to concentrate on what was pure and untouchable. He’d never been a believer in God. He’d had no time for the soul or any of that spiritual claptrap. He’d stopped going to church as soon as he was out of his parents’ orbit. But now he found himself on the edge of a revelation. The possibility of it excited him.
A man of Middle Eastern appearance came before him. He couldn’t imagine how he must look to this foreigner. His face craquelured with blood, like Christ bleeding from his crown of thorns, but then the man was probably a Muslim, what would he know? There was nothing readable in his black, shining eyes.
“You know what I’m here for,” said the Turk. “You can make this short or long and drawn out.”
“Go fuck yourself,” said Schafer.
The Turk disappeared, and Schafer felt the rope tremble, and then his feet lost contact with the stool. He struggled to get back to it as the garrote cut into his neck. Darkness crowded his vision. And just as things started to rush away, he crashed to his knees. The world came back up to him. His vision cleared. The rope tugged him back up until he was once again standing on the stool. Arslan walked into frame with ajar of reddish powder.
“This is a mixture of chili and salt,” he said. “Don’t make me do this to you, Schafer.”
Schafer licked his lips, a terrible dryness in his mouth. He had so little to lose that he decided he might as well see what it was that lay beyond the limit of his endurance.