The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [107]
“If I ever get a chance to—”
I stopped and looked across the seat at Cisco. He had a slight smile playing on his face.
“Is that what this is? You have these two guys at the clubhouse?”
He didn’t answer but he kept the smile.
“Cisco, I’m in the middle of a trial and now you’re telling me the guy who has his fingers in my client’s pie is the one who set me up for that… that assault? I don’t have time for this, man. I have too much—”
“They want to talk.”
That shut my protest down quick.
“Did you interview them?”
“Nope. Waiting for you. Thought you should get first crack at them.”
I drove in silence the rest of the way, pondering what lay ahead. Soon we pulled to a stop in front of a compound on the east side of the brewery. Cisco got out to open the gate and the car immediately became infected with the sour smell of the brewery.
The compound was surrounded by a chain-link fence with a twist of razor wire running along top. The concrete-block clubhouse, which sat in the middle of the hardscrabble lot, looked unimpressive in comparison to the gleaming row of machines parked out front. Harleys and Triumphs only. No rice rockets for this crew.
We entered the clubhouse, took a moment to let our eyes adjust and then I saw Cisco walk up to a serve-yourself bar where two other men in leather vests sat on stools.
“Ready to do this?” he said.
The two men spun off their stools and stood up. Both of them went an easy six foot four and three hundred pounds. They were enforcers. Cisco introduced them to me as Tommy Guns and Bam Bam.
“They’re back here,” said Tommy Guns.
The two men led us down a hallway behind the bar. They were so big they had to walk in single file. There were doors on either side. Bam Bam opened a door midway down the right side and we entered a windowless room with the walls and ceiling painted black and a single bulb hanging from above. In the dim light I could see sketches painted on the walls. Men with beards and long hair. I realized this was like a dark chapel where the fallen Saints were memorialized. My first thought as I looked about was Pulp Fiction. My second was that I didn’t want to be here. Two men were lying on the floor hog-tied, with their arms and feet up behind their backs. They had black bags over their heads.
Bam Bam leaned down and started to pull the bags off. This started a chorus of groans and fearful sounds from the two men.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Cisco, I can’t be here. You’re bringing me into—”
“Is it them?” Cisco said, not waiting for me to finish my protest. “Look closely. You don’t want to make a mistake.”
“Me? It’s not my mistake! I didn’t ask you to do this!”
“Calm down. You’re here, so just look. Is it them?”
“Jesus Christ!”
Both men were gagged with duct tape wrapped completely around their heads. Their faces were distorted further by the swelling and bruising already forming around their eyes. They had been beaten. The features didn’t match with what I remembered from the Victory Building garage or even the photograph Cisco had showed me earlier. I bent down to look closer. Both men looked up at me, complete fear in their eyes.
“I can’t tell,” I said.
“It’s a yes-or-no question, Mick.”
“Yeah, but they weren’t scared shitless when they beat the crap out of me and they weren’t gagged.”
“Take off the tape,” Cisco ordered.
Bam Bam moved in, springing a switchblade open and roughly cutting through the tape on the first man. He then tore it off, taking chunks of neck hair with it. The man yelped in pain.
“Shut the fuck up!” Tommy Guns yelled.
The second man learned from his friend’s example. He took the harsh tape-removal process without making a sound. Bam Bam threw the gag to the side of the room and then moved behind the men. He grabbed the nexus of the rope that tied the arms and legs together and knocked each man onto his side so I could see his face better.
“Please don’t kill us,” one of the men said, desperation tightening his voice. “It wasn’t personal. We were paid to do a job. We coulda killed