I had his interest now, which was good. It kept me from being killed. I told him the story, taking my time. I decided I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want anyone else to die. Not today, maybe not ever.
‘That sounds,’ Hoffer said, finishing the hooch, ‘like a crock of twenty-carat gold-plated shit.’
‘There are papers in the safe.’
‘And you can open it?’ I nodded. ‘Go on then.’
He followed me to the telephone. There were a lot of scribbles on the message-pad, a lot of numbers and letters. I found what I wanted and tore the top sheet off, taking it with me to the wall-safe.
‘Bullshit,’ Hoffer sneered disbelievingly as I read from the sheet and started turning the dial. I pulled on the handle and opened the safe slowly.
I looked inside, knowing if he wanted to see, he’d have to come right up behind my back. I could feel him behind me. He was close, but was he close enough? If I swung at him, would I connect with anything other than air? Then I saw what was in the safe. There were papers there, and a tidy bundle of banknotes. But there was also a snub-nose revolver, a beautiful little 38. I took my decision, but took it too late. The butt of a gun connected with the back of my head, and my legs collapsed from under me.
I woke up cramped, like I’d been sleeping in a car. I blinked open my eyes and remembered where I was. I looked around. The pain behind my eyes was agony. I wondered if Hoffer had been in there and done some DIY surgery while I’d been out. Maybe a spot of trepanning.
I was in a bright white bathroom with a sunken whirlpool bath and gold taps. I was over by the sink, sitting on the cold tiled floor with my arms behind me. My arms were stiff. I looked round and saw that they were handcuffed round a couple of copper water pipes beneath the sink. My feet had been tied together with a man’s brown leather belt.
Most disconcerting of all, Hoffer was sitting on the toilet not three feet away.
He had his trousers on though. And he’d put the toilet lid down so he’d be more comfortable. He had my money belt slung over one shoulder, and he was leafing through some documents.
‘Well, Mike,’ he said, ‘looks like you were right, huh? Some fucking business, handed five mil by the government. Thank you very much and shalom. Jesus.’ He patted his jacket pocket. ‘Yet the scumbag only kept five thou in his safe. Still, it’ll buy a few lunches. And thanks for your donation.’ He tossed the money-belt towards me. ‘I’ve left you the traveller’s cheques. I don’t want to get into any forgery shit. Not that they accept traveller’s cheques where you’re headed.’
I rattled the handcuffs.
‘Good, aren’t they? New York PD issue. Before they went over to plastic or whatever shit they use now. Look, I’ll leave the key over here, okay?’ He put it on the floor beside him. ‘There you go. It’ll give you something to do while you’re dying. Of course, you may already be dying, huh? I whacked you pretty good. There could be some internal haemorrhaging going on. See, I know about haemophilia, I did some reading. Man, they’re this close to a cure, huh? Genetics and stuff. Fuck all those liberals trying to stop laboratory experiments. Mike, we need more of those lab animals with holes drilled in their scrotums and wires running through them like they’re circuit-boards or something.’
‘Circuit-boards don’t have wires, Leo. At least, not many.’
‘Ooh, pardon me, professor.’ He laughed and rubbed his nose. I knew he’d done some drugs since I’d last been conscious, but I couldn’t tell what. He was feeling pretty good though, I could see that. Good enough to let me live? Well, he hadn’t killed me yet. He stood up and opened the medicine-cabinet.
‘All this organic shit,’ he muttered, picking out bottles and rattling them. He half-turned towards me. ‘I get fucking earache when I fly. And it’s all your fault I’ve been doing so much flying of late.’
‘My heart bleeds.’
Now he grinned. ‘You can say that again. So Kline set you up, huh?’
‘Provost says he didn’t.’
‘Well, somebody did. As soon as I heard you’d been asking the producer and the lawyer what clothes Eleanor Ricks usually wore, I knew the road you were going.’
‘Then you’re cleverer than me.’
‘Whoever paid you knew what she’d be wearing, didn’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, Mike, that kind of narrows things down, doesn’t it?’
It struck me, the problem was I hadn’t let myself narrow it down enough. Too late now, way too late...
‘So,’ I said, ‘you know I’m a haemo. And you’re right, a simple knock on the head might just do it.’
‘But I know something that’d do it a lot better.’ He stood up and came over, crouching in front of me. He had something in his hand. When he unfolded it, I saw a short fat blade. It was a damned pocket-knife.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it? Look, there’s a serpent running down its back. That’s the trademark. Talk about Pittsburgh steel, man, this is a piece of steel.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘You know what I’m going to do, D-Man. I’m going to demolish you. The death of a thousand cuts. Well, maybe just a dozen or so.’
I started to wriggle then, pulling at the pipes, trying to wrench them away from the wall. Kicking out with my tied-together legs. He just crouched there and grinned. His pupils were pinpoints of darkness. He swiped and the first cut caught me across the cheek. There was nothing for a second, then a slow sizzling sensation which kept on intensifying. I felt the blood begin to run down my face. His second slice got my upper arm, and a short jab opened my chest. I was still wrestling to get free, but it was useless. He hit my legs next, more or less cutting and stabbing at will. He wasn’t frenzied. He was quite calm, quite controlled. I stopped struggling, hard though it was.
‘Leo, this isn’t any way to settle it.’
‘It’s the perfect way to settle it.’
‘Christ, shoot me, but don’t do this.’
‘I’m already doing it. Slice and dice. And... voilà!’ He stood back to admire his work, wiping the blade on some toilet roll. I couldn’t count the number of cuts on my body. There were over a dozen. They all hurt, but none was actually going to bleed me dry, not on its own. But all together... well, all together I was in deep shit. My shirt was already soaked in blood, and there was a smear of red beneath me on the tiles.
‘Leo,’ I said. Something in my voice made him look at me. ‘Please don’t do this.’
‘The magic word,’ Leo Hoffer said. Then he walked out of the bathroom.
‘Leo! Leo!’
But he was gone. I knew that. I heard the front door close quietly. Then I saw the handcuff key. I stretched my feet towards it, but was a good ten to twelve inches shy. I slid down on to the floor, nearly taking my arms out of their sockets, and tried again, but I was still an inch or two away from it. I lay there, exhausted, pain flooding over me. Haemophiliacs don’t bleed faster than other people, we just don’t stop once we’ve started. I was a mild case, but even so there was only so much clotting my body could do for me. Leo must’ve known that. He knew so much about me.
‘You son of a bitch!’
I sat up again and twisted the chain linking my cuffs. Every chain had its weakest link, but I wasn’t going to find it, not like this. I looked up. Resting on the sink were a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, and a small bar of soap, like something you’d lift from your hotel room. Soap: maybe I could grease my wrists and slip off the handcuffs. Except that there was no give at all in the cuffs. I’ve always had skinny wrists, much skinnier than my hands. No way this side of the grave was I going to be able to slip my hands out, soap or no soap.