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First there was sensation. His head pulsing, filled with so much blood it seemed it might explode. Dust on his tongue. A slab
of cushioned plastic shoved to his face, mashing his features to one side. A scent of decay, drawn into his mouth with each
rasping inhale.

Then sound, strained as if through a filter. Water sloshing. Shuffling boots. William’s voice – ‘I got the technique down.
I been rewatching that C-SPAN Senate inquiry. Why? What do
you
prefer?’

And then Dodge. ‘Fingers.’

‘Knuckle by knuckle, like
Sharky’s Machine
? No, we should give this a try. I mean, military-perfected, right?’

None of this seemed to be related to Mike; it was as though he were listening to an old-time radio show, fictitious characters
discussing fictitious outcomes. He forced his eyelids to part. The movement, however minuscule, sent daggers of pain back
through his head. But finally: sight. It was like being reborn, acquiring one sense at a time.

The room rotated on its axis for a while, and slowly it dawned on Mike that he was lying supine on a downward slant, his face
turned to one side. It took a few minutes longer for his eyes to adjust to the dimness and sharpen the focus on the whitish
blob five feet away, staring at him. It was Hank’s face, paled to an ashen white. His lips were bruised and mottled, puckered
out as if for a last kiss.

His daughter’s name roared into his head:
Kat. I have to scrub the memory of her location from my brain so no matter what they do to me, I’ve got nothing to tell them.

When he shifted, fire roared through his chest and arms. His bound hands were a knot in the small of his back and his head
screamed. He twisted his wrists and noted through his mind-numbed stupor that the restraints rubbing against his raw skin
felt like cloth. He appeared to be at a forty-five-degree angle, his knees visible above. His thighs burned, and his calves
and feet were installed into a contraption of some sort. Gradually, he recognized that he was hooked into an incline sit-up
bench.

The voices continued, a calm rumble. Dodge and William were behind him?

With great effort he rolled his head, the dark ceiling scanning by, and faced the other direction. He was in a big concrete
box of a cellar, the only light thrown through the open door at the top of a splintering wooden staircase. Standing between
Mike and the stairs, visible only as a slice of shoulder, cheek, forehead, was Dodge. Mike blinked a few more times, the cellar
coming clearer, William resolving from the darkness at the big man’s side. They were huddled, conferring. Mike’s gaze pulled
to a square of burlap spread on the concrete floor, various tools laid out like devices on a medical tray. Beyond the burlap
was a large, old-fashioned dunking-for-apples wooden tub. The water filling it to the brim looked black and forbidding.

Dust trembled in the column of light thrown from the open door above.

‘Oh, you’re up.’ William came toward him, making lurching progress, an empty plastic milk jug floating in each hand.

Mike turned his head away, the only movement he could muster, bringing him again face-to-face with Hank. His sprawled body
lay at an odd angle to his neck, a plastic drop cloth already cocooning his lower half. One foot protruded, the worn black
dress sock incongruous here, in this context. The line of flaking
white skin showing at Hank’s ankle underscored the awful tableau, the frailty of this life, of any life, which, despite all
the sweat and work and best-laid plans, could end in a windowless cellar, half rolled in a strip of plastic sheeting.

Beside the body was another drop cloth, which Mike realized had been reserved for him.

When he turned back, Dodge loomed above him, winding a piece of terry cloth the size of a gym towel around his hand. His shirt
was unbuttoned, curled back from a wife-beater worn to near transparency. William crouched, letting out a little pained moan,
and began to fill the gallon jugs with water from the tub. The bubbles gave off a faint, comic-book repeat:
glug glug glug
.

‘Okay,’ Mike said, still trying to grasp what was happening. ‘All right.’

William stood, a bottle dripping in either hand. Staring up at the faces overhead – Dodge’s drawn back, glinting eyes set
in the wide skull, and William, stooped to favor his left side, all wisps of facial hair and bunched lips – Mike felt something
break open inside him and spill heat.

‘I heard about you years ago,’ William said, ‘from my Uncle Len. You were the one who got away. The Job. But Boss Man, he
woulda let it lie. Finding you. He stopped looking. Stopped caring. Figured whatever life you’d made, you’d never put it all
together. But then your buddy Two-Hawks kicked the hornet’s nest, found out about your name on that genealogy report. Boss
Man caught wind, and guess what? You were back on the table.’

He neared. ‘These are glossies of Ted Rogers, the guy who did the stealing for Two-Hawks.’ He produced some photographs from
a back pocket and held them for Mike to see. The soft pink skin of a middle-aged man in various forced contortions. William
fanned through several taken within these same cellar walls before Mike turned his head and gagged. William leaned over him,
breathing down. ‘My uncle worked on your dad some. What yer daddy went through? Made this’ – a shake of the
photos – ‘look like a tickle. You know what? Why’m I talking so much when I can just show you.’

Horror came on like a toothed blade, sawing its way through the shock.

‘Okay now,’ William said gently, and Dodge let the small towel flutter down over Mike’s face.

Mike jerked in an instinctive breath, the towel adhering to his mouth. He sensed William lean in close, and the cloth grew
wet and heavy. Water moved up his nose, a slow trickle at first, and then soaked through the terry, sealing out oxygen. The
effect was instant, comprehensive. Mike jerked and screeched, shaking his head, but the towel clung to his face like a film.
His lungs and throat spasmed uselessly. Just when he thought he might go out, the towel peeled back and he found himself gasping
and gagging, Dodge staring down at him, the towel dripping onto the floor.

Mike’s shoulders cracked in their sockets, and he realized he’d pulled himself up to a sitting position. Also that he was
screaming. He twisted off the backboard, one leg tangling in the pads, the bench rocking up on two legs and settling with
the clop of horse hooves on cobblestone. He hit the floor with his shoulder and lay there, exhausted, pain blurring his vision.

Dodge leaned down and lifted Mike as easily as a grocery bag. He laid him back on the bench, manipulating his legs and torso
with stern efficiency, totally absorbed in his task. He might have been threading a needle or tying his shoes. When Dodge
moved Mike’s feet through the leg pads, Mike bucked, trying to get upright again, but Dodge placed a thumb on his chest and
flattened him down onto the decline backboard. Blood rushed to Mike’s head. His chest heaved against the pressure.

Dodge finished with Mike’s feet and eased his thumb off. Mike gasped for air, his ribs aching.

‘You got information you don’t want to tell us, right?’ William said. ‘So we need to extract it from you. It’s not gonna be
easy – on you
or
us. It’s just something we gotta get through together.’

Mike made some garbled noise.

William’s eyes trembled back and forth, as if his gaze were wavering, though it was not. ‘Where’s Katherine?’

Mike said, ‘I don’t know where she—’

William went to a knee over the tub, grimacing.
Glug glug glug
– the sound of round two.

It was over now, Mike knew. He was going to die. He just had to figure out how to get them to kill him before his stamina
gave out. He pictured Kat where he’d left her, sitting on that little bench in the foster home, her untied shoelaces scraping
the ground.
Please, Daddy?

William said, ‘We know you wanted to put her somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden. But Boss Man needs her, see, you
and
her out of the picture.’

‘Shep got your address from Graham,’ Mike said. ‘If I don’t check in with him, he’ll call the cops and head up here.’

William shook his head with disappointment. He nodded slightly, and the terry cloth slapped back over Mike’s head. Mike’s
panicked inhalation dimpled the cloth into his mouth, up his nostrils, and then the slow bleed of water invaded his face,
drowning him into contorted silence. His thighs burned against the pads, but when he tried to shove himself upright, the steady
pressure of Dodge’s thumb smoothed him back down. There was fire and agony, the cloth suctioned to him like a sea creature,
leaking a calm stream of water into him, shoving his own breath back down his throat.

At last he tasted oxygen and felt light on his face. His eyelids were fluttering as William leaned close, that sour breath
moving across his cheeks.

‘Ouch, ouch, I know, pal. I’m sorry. I know.’ William watched closely, his face soft with empathy. ‘But you see, I’m an expert
in this. I’ve taken a lot of folks to the edge. I been here before. And you haven’t. So I know the stories they tell, the
lies they spin. There’s a pattern to it, see? The fake answers, the money they promise, the friend who’s gonna call the cops.’

‘Okay . . .’ Mike panted. ‘I lied about Shep.’

‘Where’s Katherine?’

‘I don’t . . . I don’t know.’

William hoisted a filled jug. ‘Ready for the next round?’

‘No,’ Mike said. ‘No no no.’

But it came anyway. The even influx of water up his nose, the airless choking and heaving, the head-shaking blindness – a
fireand-brimstone hell imported from some past, barbaric age. Somewhere between screaming soundlessly and passing out, his
instinct to detach, cultivated since the whitesouts of his early childhood, kicked in.

He slid out of himself and observed the proceedings. He made himself impervious. He was a collection of parts, of bone and
flesh. He was a rock. Unthinking. Unfeeling.

As Dodge tried to pull the towel free, Mike clamped his teeth down on it, and it tore a little. William laughed, ‘He’s bitin’
it?’ And then Dodge’s fist hit Mike’s forehead like a battering ram and the cloth was ripped from his jaws.

William said, ‘Feisty, huh?’

Mike sputtered and drooled water. Because of the slant, it ran up his cheeks, over his eyes, through his hair, and tap-tap-tapped
on the concrete.

William said, ‘Where’s your daughter?’

Mike said, ‘I have no daughter,’ and something in his voice made William draw back, shocked or perhaps a touch awed.

Dodge scowled impatiently and William bobbed his head, winded. A foul odor pressed in on Mike, and he thought for a moment
that he’d messed himself. But then he realized it was the decay of Hank’s body, picking up strength in the dank cellar air.

They did another round. And another. He would have preferred to die, but that was the point, to take him to a place where
he would’ve pled for a bullet and to make him stay there awhile. And then to bring him back to life, again and again.

When he came into himself the next time, he was breathing
and William and Dodge were standing side by side, arms crossed, William wearing an expression of frustration that would have
been gratifying under different circumstances. The little towel hung like a dishrag in Dodge’s hand, and Mike was pleased
to see that it was ripped in several places; he must’ve bitten down on it a few more times. The smell of Hank’s body was stronger
now, mixed in the airless room with the stink of sweat and fear. Reclined half upside down on the exercise bench, Mike hacked
water through his mouth and nose, his throat raw, his chest an unremitting ache. His arms were as numb as posts beneath his
back.

Dodge produced two cigarettes and set them beside each other between his lips. He dug a cheap plastic lighter from his shirt
pocket and lit up, tilting his head to a cupped hand out of habit. He passed one to William, who sucked a long, eyes-closed
draw.

‘Fucking stinks in here.’ William armed sweat off his brow. ‘Before we take it to the next level, we should check with Boss
Man.’ His left leg was trembling. ‘I’ll get the phone.’

He labored up the stairs and returned a few minutes later. His gait had worsened from the effort of climbing and descending,
one foot dragging, pigeon-toed. He reached Mike, squatted, and held the phone to Mike’s ear.

Brian McAvoy’s smooth voice. ‘She’s in a foster home, isn’t she?’

Mike said, ‘Who?’ The syllable like a claw raking his throat.

McAvoy laughed. ‘With the money at stake? We’ll check every last one in the state. And then we’ll move to the next state.
And the next.’

‘So all this,’ Mike said, ‘is about money?’

‘You think I’m just a casino?’ McAvoy said. ‘I am a
nation
. I made something where there was nothing before. My daughter etched her initials into the front step when we poured the
foundation. I know you think your life, your daughter’s life are a big deal. But as far as collateral damage goes when it
comes to nation
building? There’s no choice. This isn’t my fault any more than it is yours. Or Katherine’s. So let’s handle this like men.
Men with a decision to make. Here’s my proposal to you: You tell us where she is, and we’ll make it humane. For you, now.
And more importantly for her.’

Mike’s breaths were shallow across the receiver. He said, ‘No.’

‘We’re finding her either way. All you’ll be doing is sparing her a scared, miserable existence between now and then.’

‘No.’

‘So what’s your plan?’ McAvoy said. ‘You’re going to
outlast
my two guys there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Bring ’em down through force of will?’

‘Sure,’ Mike said.

A guffaw. McAvoy had intended it to be dismissive, but there was surprise in it as well. ‘And then?’

Mike said, ‘You’re next.’

A very long silence ensued. Then McAvoy said, ‘Tell William I’d like to talk to him.’

Mike rolled his head. ‘Wants . . . to talk . . . you.’