Free Death Is My Comrade by Stephen Marlowe

matter-of-factly: “That was a judo chop, dead man. I’m an expert at it. A little higher and I could break a rib. A little harder and I could rupture a kidney. You’d cry every time you went to the john. A little higher and a little harder and they’d be trying to take bone splinters out of your lung. Now, where are they?”
    He said nothing.
    â€œWe’ll take them one at a time,” I said. “First, a little higher.”
    I used the judo chop on his floating rib. It drove him to both knees. He gasped and clutched his side. Kneeling there, he retched. This is the part I don’t like to tell, but it is part of what happened. I had to break him, fast and completely. As he retched, I tasted bitterness in my own throat. Working him over, knowing I could do everything I said I could do, I tried to picture Marianne waiting and not knowing, tried to get a mind’s eye view of what it was like when they’d hit Mrs. Gower and taken the twins. That helped a little: I could do what I had to do. But I did not enjoy it.
    â€œThat was the rib,” I said, still matter-of-factly. “Shall we try for the kidney?”
    â€œJesus, you’re crazy!” he said hoarsely. “You’re a crazy man. You’ll kill me.” He tried to get up. He was still clutching his side. He collapsed to his knees again.
    â€œOn your feet.”
    His right hand scrabbled at the door handle of the Buick. He drew himself up. In the half-light of dusk his T-shirt was gray with sweat.
    â€œHere goes the kidney.”
    â€œNo. Jesus, wait.”
    â€œYour name Allen?”
    â€œAl—Bock.”
    â€œHow many in on the snatch?”
    â€œMe and a friend. Two of us.”
    â€œWorking for who?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He started to turn his head and cried: “I swear to God I don’t. Leo, he knows. I swear it. My rib,” he added. “You busted it. My rib!”
    He winced, and I waited. He expected me to use the judo chop again.
    â€œYou supposed to contact Leo?”
    He didn’t answer. I waited silently, and he flinched. “No. Just go there.”
    â€œWhere?”
    He said no word, but he made a sound in his throat. Close up, he looked younger than I’d thought—in his early twenties. I had scared him. It wasn’t just the busted rib, and it wasn’t just knowing I could do what I said I could do. It was the way I’d done it, matter-of-factly, as if I put in an eight-hour day five days a week busting ribs and rupturing kidneys.
    I said again: “Here goes the kidney.”
    He started to cry.
    â€œAll right, Al. Where?”
    â€œPlace on Custer Street.” The broad back shuddered. “Just leave me alone, mister.”
    â€œLeo’s there—with the kids?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAre they all right?”
    â€œYeah, they’re all right.”
    â€œWhat were you going to do with them?”
    â€œBack,” he said quickly, earnestly. “Take them right back!”
    They were like hell going to take them right back, I thought. But that still didn’t make me feel like a hero. I felt weary. I hated myself a little then. And I wasn’t finished with Al yet. I asked him for the address on Custer Street, and got it. Then I said: “Let’s have your car keys.”
    â€œWhat are you gonna do?”
    â€œJust hold the keys out on your hand and don’t turn around. That’s what you’re going to do.”
    He did it. I took the keys with my left hand and at the same time reversed the Magnum in my right and slugged him behind the ear with it. He made a sound like, “Gnaa,” and his knees buckled. I caught him as he fell.
    Opening the rear door of the Buick, I wrestled his dead weight inside. I used my necktie on his wrists, binding them behind his back; used his belt on his ankles. I left him on the floor in the rear of the Buick, then punched open the glove