The weaselly federal agent and Foster and the slick agent stood together at the window and stared down at the restaurant. Foster rubbed his fingers with his thumb, his face blank.
"What do you think?" said the weaselly agent finally. "They're in there a long time."
Foster wasn't sure what he thought. He stood there silently.
Then he saw a flash at the window. The venetian blinds had opened.
"He's gone," Foster said. "Damn it. They took him out. Let's go."
Ramsey worked Shannon over on the floor of the shattered room at the top of the ruined tower. He kicked him in the gut and in the spine. He stomped on his hand, breaking his fingers with a snapping sound. He lifted him up by the jacket and punched him. The blockheaded cop in the white waiter's outfit looked on absently, holding the gun vaguely in Shannon's direction. The hot wind blew through the torn walls and the walls shuddered with a loud noise.
At first, the blows hurt Shannon, each one a fresh pain. He tried to cover himself and when he couldn't cover himself, he tried to crawl away. When he couldn't crawl away, he just lay there on the floor and went through it. After a while, it was all pain, a sort of throbbing, indivisible suffering mixed with the mess of blood and vomit on him and the sad understanding that they would kill him when they were through. He tried to think about Teresa, but after a while he couldn't think about anything except how bad it was. He just wanted it to stop, even if they did kill him.
"Now," said Ramsey, breathless with the work. He knelt down next to Shannon's head. He knelt on one knee and draped his arm over the other. He looked at Shannon mildly. Shannon flinched at his every move, afraid of more blows. "You're going to tell me who you are and how much you really know and who runs you," Ramsey said.
Cowering, his hands over his head, Shannon tried to answer him, but it just came out a sobbing groan.
Ramsey reached down. He pulled Shannon's hands away from his face and slapped him in the nose lightly with his knuckles. With his nose broken and his cuts raw all over, the blow sent a fresh explosion of hurt through Shannon's head.
"I didn't understand you, boy. Speak up," said Ramsey.
Shannon swallowed blood and tried again, louder. "You killed Patterson."
"Is that right? Who told you to say that?"
"I saw."
"You're lying. I want to know who runs you."
Shannon wearily mumbled his answer.
"What did you say?"
"Said… go… to hell. And fuck yourself on the way down."
Ramsey laughed at that. He glanced at the blockhead standing guard. "He's a tough guy."
"He is," said the blockhead reflexively. He wasn't really listening and didn't really care.
Ramsey looked down at Shannon's blood-soaked face. Shannon's eyes blinked whitely at him out of the blood. "Are you a fed? Or are the feds just running you?"
"Killed… Patterson…"
"You're going to tell me everything, Conor," he said. "Really. Why make it so hard?"
Shannon gave a weak laugh. "Already hard."
"It's going to get a lot harder, son, believe me."
Shannon tried to curse him out but could only cough up blood.
"You don't want to die, do you?" said Ramsey.
Shannon coughed some more. "Not afraid," he said.
Which wasn't strictly true. He was full of fear, but he knew he could get through it. It had been a crap life and now Teresa would be safe. Fuck Ramsey.
Ramsey rabbit-punched him in the testicles. Shannon doubled over, gagging and sobbing.
"I want to know who sent you," Ramsey said quietly.
Shannon could not feel the hot wind on him anymore, but he could hear the walls rocking and shuddering. He could see patches of blue and clouds flying past towers as his head lolled over. He prayed to God to let it end already, to let him die, even if there was no better life.
Foster sent his two agents into the restaurant and good luck to them, but he went another way. He pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby of One City Center. He strode to the reception desk, flashing his federal ID. There was a male security guard there and a female receptionist.
"How many ways are there out of the restaurant?" Foster barked at them.
"There's a door into the lobby and one into the service hall," the receptionist said. She was a short, busty woman with an air of competence.
"There a way out of the service hall?"
"A back door to the Dumpsters and the elevator. You need a key for the elevator." The woman slapped a Homak key down on the black marble reception desk.
"This way," said the security guard. "I'll show you."
Foster followed him across the lobby. He already had an idea about where they'd taken Shannon.
Ramsey didn't have to slug or kick Shannon anymore. He could just probe his torn and broken places. Shannon screamed and sobbed at the pain. After a while, Ramsey knelt over him and studied him, expressionless. He was startled at how much he hated this man, how much he wanted to break him and kill him. The sadistic feelings disgusted him, as if they were some squirmy thing he wanted to hold at a distance from himself. Every time the man screamed, Ramsey felt some satisfaction in it and that disgusted him, too. He wanted to end this-and he would have ended it if it weren't for his pride, his fierce desire to break the man's resistance, to have that victory over him before he threw him off the building.
"Damn it, I'm going to find out the answers anyway, whether you tell me or not," he said quietly. "Tell me what you know and who else knows and who sent you, and we can be done."
Shannon tried to say fuck you but couldn't get the words out.
Ramsey grabbed Shannon's broken fingers and made Shannon scream again.
"You said you saw me," Ramsey said.
"Saw you kill Patterson," Shannon managed to answer.
"You're lying. You've got nothing. That's why they sent you, isn't it?"
"I saw you."
Ramsey made him scream again, squeezing his fingers.
"You're lying, aren't you? They sent you because they've got nothing."
"You killed Patterson," Shannon managed to mumble.
Ramsey's anger rose in a red tide. He could feel that he was about to lose control of this. Maybe he already had lost control and just didn't know it yet. He was furious and disgusted and he knew he had to finish it, but he couldn't finish it. So maybe he had lost control. What difference did any of it make? he reasoned with himself. He could trace the warrant, find out which feds had slipped out of the net. They would make the proper phone calls, take care of them, get rid of them. Whoever ran this operation would end up checking parking meters on the moon…
Still… still… this man here. He couldn't quite rid himself of the feeling that this man was, in fact, the nemesis that had pursued him all this time, that was still pursuing him. He wanted vengeance on him for forcing him to go to Super-Pred, forcing him to degrade the very meaning of his biography-his rise out of the ghetto, his service to his country, his service on the force-by begging favors from that fifteen-year-old nightmare version of himself, by letting that nightmare version of himself become his agent in the world. This man had done that to him, forced him to it. He would not be beaten by him now. He would not be defied.
He stood up over the trembling Shannon. He drew his Beretta. He pointed it down at Shannon's knee.
"Look at me, boy," he said.
Shannon looked up at him, blinking through the blood.
"You're making this uglier than it has to be," Ramsey said.
Shannon blinked up at him, open-mouthed. Even in the haze of pain, he realized what Ramsey was going to do. "Aw, don't," he begged.
"Are you going to talk to me or not?"
"Please…"
"Are you or not?"
Shannon sobbed in expectation of the agony. "Fuck you," he said. "Fuck you."
"God damn you!" Ramsey said.