A Song of Shadows by John Connolly Page B

attach one to his right wrist, then put his hands close together behind his back and place them on the bar. If he tried to run away, or pull a fast one, he was assured that he would be shot in the back. Once more, Lenny did as he was told. When he turned his back and put his hands on the bar, the second cuff was quickly cinched tight around his left wrist.
    ‘All done,’ said the man. ‘Now come around here and sit on the floor.’
    Lenny moved from behind the bar. He thought about running for the door, but knew that he wouldn’t get more than a few feet without being shot. He gazed out into the night, willing a car to appear, but none came. He walked to the spot indicated by the man, and sat down. The TV came on again, blazing into life at the gunman’s touch on the remote. It continued to show images of the camps, of men and women climbing from trains, some of them still wearing ordinary clothing, and others already dressed in the grab of prisoners. There were so many of them, and they outnumbered their captors. As a boy, Lenny would wonder why they didn’t try to overcome the Germans and fight to save themselves. Later he learned that their captors starved them before marching them to their deaths, so they would be too weak to struggle. But now he knew that physical weakness was only part of the explanation. Fear – real terror, intensified by the terror of others – eats away at the will.
    The man leaned against the bar, the pistol leveled at Lenny.
    ‘You asked me who I am,’ he said. ‘You can call me Steiger. It doesn’t matter much. It’s just a name. Might as well have plucked it from the air. I can give you another, if you don’t like that one.’
    And again Lenny felt a glimmer of hope warm the coldness of his insides. Perhaps, just perhaps, this night might not end in his death. Could it be that, if he was withholding his true name, this freakish individual planned to return to the hole from which he had emerged and leave Lenny alive? Or was all this a ruse, just one more way to torment a doomed man before the inevitable bullet brought all to an end?
    ‘You know where these teeth came from?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Your wife. They came from her mouth.’
    Steiger grabbed a handful of the teeth from the bar and threw them on the floor before Lenny. One landed in his lap.
    For a moment Lenny was unable to move. His vomit reflex activated, and he tasted something awful in his throat. Then he was moving, trying to rise to his feet, but a bullet struck the floor inches from the soles of his shoes, and the noise as much as the sight of the splintered mark upon the floor stilled him.
    ‘Don’t do that again,’ said Steiger. ‘If you try, the next one will take out a kneecap, or maybe your balls.’
    Lenny froze. He stared at the tooth stuck to his jeans. He didn’t want to believe that it had once been his wife’s.
    ‘I’ll tell you something,’ said Stegner. ‘Working on your wife’s teeth gave me a renewed admiration for the skill of dentists. I used to believe that they were just like failed doctors, because, I mean, how difficult can it be to work on teeth, all the nerves and stuff apart. I hated going to the dentist as a kid. Still do.
    ‘Anyway, I always thought extractions would be the easy part. You get a grip, and you yank. But it’s harder to get a good grip on a tooth than you might think, and then you have to twist, and sometimes – if there’s a weakness – the tooth just breaks. You’ll see that some of your wife’s teeth didn’t emerge intact. I like to think that it was a learning experience for both of us.
    ‘If you doubt me, and are trying to convince yourself that they’re not your wife’s teeth,’ said Steiger, ‘I can tell you that she was wearing jeans and a yellow blouse, with green – no, blue – flowers. It was hard to tell in the dark. She also has a mark here, on her left forearm, like a big freckle. That would bother me, I have to say. She’s a nice-looking