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was me, panting.
“I hope he fucking did,” Roth said. “I let you go, you dumbbell! I fucking let you go! I forgot about
you! Then you turn up at Frank’s in Fort Worth to bet the goddam Case-Tiger fight. Exact same MO
—big bet on the underdog and all the odds you can get. This time you predict the exact fucking round.
So here’s what’s going to happen, my friend: you’re going to tell me how you knew. If you do that, I
take some pictures of you like you are now and Eddie G’s satisfied. He knows he can’t have you dead,
because Carlos told him no, and Carlos is the one guy he listens to, even now. But if he sees you fucked
up . . . aw, but you ain’t fucked up enough quite yet. Fuck him up some more, Carmo. Do the face.”
So Carmo hammered my face while the other two held me. He broke my nose, closed my left eye,
knocked out a few teeth, and tore open my left cheek. I kept thinking, I’ll pass out or they’ll kill me,
either way the pain will stop. But I didn’t pass out, and at some point Carmo quit. He was breathing
hard, and there were red splotches on his yellow rawhide gloves. Sunshine came in through the kitchen
windows and made cheery oblongs on the faded linoleum.
“That’s better,” Roth said. “Get the Polaroid out of the truck, Carmo. Hustle, now. I want to finish
up here.”
Before leaving, Carmo stripped off his gloves and put them on the table next to the lead pipe. Some
of the felt strips had come loose. They were soaked with blood. My face was throbbing, but my
abdomen was worse. There, the heat continued to spread. Something was very wrong down there.
“One more time, Amberson. How’d you know the fix was in? Who told you? The truth.”
“It was just a guess.” I tried to tell myself I sounded like a man with a bad cold, but I didn’t. I
sounded like a man who’d just had the shit beaten out of him.
He picked up the pipe and tapped it against one pudgy hand. “Who told you, fuckface?”
“Nobody. Gutierrez was right. I’m a devil, and devils can see the future.”
“You’re running out of chances.”
“Wanda’s too tall for you, Roth. And too skinny. When you’re on top of her, you must look like a
toad trying to fuck a log. Or maybe—”
His placid face wrinkled into rage. It was a complete transformation, and it happened in less than a
second. He swung the pipe at my head. I got my left arm up and heard it crack like a birch-branch
overloaded with ice. This time when I sagged, the goons let me drop to the floor.
“Fuckin wiseass, how I hate a fuckin wiseass.” This seemed to come from a great distance. Or a
great height. Or both. I was finally getting ready to pass out, and ever so grateful to go. But I had
enough vision left to see Carmo when he came back in with a Polaroid camera. It was big and bulky,
the kind where the lens comes out on a kind of accordion.
“Turn im over,” Roth said. “Let’s get his good side.” As the goons did so, Carmo handed Roth the
camera, and Roth handed Carmo the pipe. Then Roth raised the camera to his face and said, “Watch
the birdie, you fuckin spunkbucket. Here’s one for Eddie G . . .”
Flash.
“. . . and one for my own personal collection, which I don’t actually have but which I may now start
. . .”
Flash.
“. . . and here’s one for you. To remember that when serious people ask you questions, you should
answer.”
Flash.
He yanked the third shot out of the camera and threw it in my direction. It landed in front of my
left hand . . . which he then stepped on. Bones crunched. I whimpered and drew my hurt hand back to
my chest. He had broken at least one finger, maybe as many as three.
“You want to remember to strip that in sixty seconds, or it’ll get all overcooked. If you’re awake,