Tanner's Virgin by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online

don’t want to see this.”
    â€œI’m not going anywhere.”
    â€œGo home. Now.”
    She shook her head.
    â€œHorrible image,” I mused. I left the room and wandered through the rest of the flat. I had wondered what sort of person would live in a whorehouse, and the other rooms answered the question for me. A whore lived there, and Hyphen had borrowed her place for the evening. There was female clothing in the closets, messy cosmetic tubes and jars and bottles scattered in the bedroom and bathroom. In the kitchen I fumbled through drawers until I found something that was a sort of cross between a regular knife and a meat cleaver. I think it’s used for chopping up heads of lettuce.
    I got a roll of adhesive tape from the bathroom cabinet and tore off eight or ten six-inch strips, fastening them together to make a square patch. I returned to the front room. He was as I had left him.
    â€œLast chance,” I said. He told me what to do to myself, and I fastened the patch of tape over his mouth.
    â€œWhat’s that, Evan?”
    â€œA gag. So he won’t scream.”
    I bent a loose end of picture wire back and forth until it frayed. The piece was long enough to wrap around the index finger of his right hand five times, and while I was doing that Julia asked me what it was.
    â€œA tourniquet,” I said.
    â€œWhat is it for?”
    â€œSo he won’t bleed when I cut off his finger. Go in the other room, Julia. You don’t have to go home if you don’t want to, but please get the hell out of here.”
    She went. I caught a glimpse of her face on the way out. She looked slightly nauseous. I picked up the cleaver and looked at Hyphen. For the first time his eyes had lost that maddening assurance.
    I said, “You think I’m bluffing but you’re not certain. You can gamble, but if you’re wrong it’ll cost you a finger. Ready to talk?”
    He nodded. I yanked the gag off. “Last chance,” I said. “Make it good.”
    â€œYou’d cut off a bloke’s finger.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œUndo that wire, mate. Me whole finger’s throbbing.”
    â€œTalk.”
    He sighed heavily. “It’s a fiddle I’ve got. A smuggling fiddle, the birds do the smuggling. A perfect blanket, six lonely birds looking at bleeding tombs.”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œI could do with a cigarette, mate.”
    â€œYou could do without one. You took the girl along. Then what happened?”
    His face clouded. “Bloody thing went bad. The peelers landed on us with both feet. All six girls wound up in the moan-and-wail.”
    â€œAnd you?”
    â€œBought me way out. Would have bought them out, but I hadn’t enough of the ready.”
    â€œWhere did this happen?”
    â€œTurkey. Ankara. We brought guns in and would have brought gold out, but the bloody—”
    I never found out what the last bloody was intended to modify, because I cut off the flow of words by slapping the tape back in place. I said, “You’re very stupid. You don’t know how much I know, so it’s a bad time to try lying to me. You’re a dreadful liar to begin with. It’s just not your bag, and from now on you’ll have to avoid it. This one particular lie just cost you a finger.”
    He struggled. His whole body went rigid, and for a moment I thought he might be strong enough to snap the wire. He wasn’t.
    I cut through the finger just above the second joint, about half an inch below the wire tourniquet. There was hardly any bleeding at all.
    He did not turn his eyes aside. He watched his finger until I had succeeded in separating it from his hand, his face growing steadily paler, and then he quietly passed out.
    Â 
    â€œJust never expected it of you. The way you talk and all, and how you handle your face, and especially you being a Yank.” His tone was soft and marveling,as if he had just witnessed