Hellfire by Jeff Provine Read Free Book Online Page A

breath.
    “What did you see?”
    Nate let his breath out. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    Ticks coughed. “I understand, but this is a very important matter to the Rail Agency. Your statement could be worthy of a very handsome reward.”
    Nate opened his eyes. “You want to bribe me?”
    Ticks rolled his dark eyes innocently but didn’t disagree.
    “Do I look like the kind of man who takes bribes?” Nate’s heart beat faster. “I earn my money!”
    “You can earn a great deal by helping us with this investigation.”
    “I wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
    “Come now. We can talk this out like men.”
    “Men don’t stomp on another man’s wound,” Nate said and rolled his shoulder, reawakening a spark of pain.
    Ticks’s mustache twitched. “Right. My apologies. In the heat of the moment, I overreacted.”
    Nate pressed his lips together tightly.
    Ticks sighed. “Is there anything else I can get you? A drink, perhaps?”
    Nate glanced at his shoulder, covered in dried blood. A little whiskey would dull the pain, but he didn’t want to drink with Ticks any more than he wanted to talk with him.
    “No, I’m fine.”
    “Something to eat, then.”
    “I said I’m fine.”
    Ticks sighed again. “Very well. We’ll do this the hard way. Parvis.”
    The short hunchback shuffled forward. Nate could hear him making fast wheezes through his mask. It was high-pitched, like a giggle.
    He pulled a little metal hammer out of his pocket. It bore short spikes, a meat tenderizer, like Nate’s mother had in her kitchen. With his oddly long arm, he held it up in front of him, twirling it slowly as if examining each part. Nate watched the reflections off the dark glass eyes in the hunchback’s mask.
    Ticks cleared his throat. “Now, then, Mr. Kemp. Tell us about the fire.”
    “What about the fire?”
    “Parvis,” Ticks said simply.
    The little hunchback shot forward and slammed the hammer right into Nate’s knee. Nate fell, and another swing landed on the back of his ribs. The pain made him howl so hard he pressed his eyes closed. Nothing was broken, but he didn’t want to imagine the bruise he’d have in the morning.
    Eventually the pain faded enough for Nate to control his screaming. He panted for air to refill his lungs.
    Ticks’s boots thumped on the planks again. “Every time I give my say, Mr. Parvis gets to hit you twice anywhere he pleases. He loves this game.”
    Nate took a pair of deep breaths and calmed himself. His knee throbbed. His back could still feel the mallet against it.
    “The fire, then. Tell us.”
    Nate looked up at Ticks. He smacked his lips a few times and then spat, landing a thin slime of saliva and mucus on the leg of Ticks’s black suit.
    Ticks growled. “Mr. Parvis.”
    The hammer came down twice again, once on his good arm and another on his ear. The second pain drowned the first, but together they were more than Nate could stand. His whole body seemed on fire. The small hunchback’s giggles rang in his ears.
    The cycle went on over and over. Each blow was worse than the last. The pain never dulled. Nate lost count how many times the hammer fell.
    “Honestly, Mr. Kemp,” Ticks said, “we’re going to run out of new places to hit you. I’d hate to have to start repeating ourselves.”
    Nate spat again, this time on the floor. He could taste blood. “You can kill me. I’m not going to tell you anything now.”
    The short hunchback took a step forward again with eager wheezing. Ticks put his hand in front of the hammer and stopped it.
    “I believe you, Mr. Kemp,” Ticks told him. “And we are going to kill you.”
    Nate panted through his pain.
    “You don’t seem too afraid, and of course you wouldn’t. What do you care for a life spent shoveling coal just to watch it burn up? There are things out there more important, like your mother.”
    Nate held his breath.
    “That’s right,” Ticks told him. “It wasn’t difficult to overhear. ‘Mrs. Martha