Summer Cool - A Jack Paine Mystery (Jack Paine Mysteries) by Al Sarrantonio Page A

sardonic sound. "What choice do you have? You always were piss-kneed, Quinones."
    "That was all so long ago. . .
    "To me, it seems like yesterday."
    "I just want it all to go away."
    "That's not an option, Quinones."
    "Please—"
    "Just do what I say."
    "Tiny—"
    Petty's voice grew angry. "Shut up."
    "What about your friend?"
    "I'll take care of that."
    The two voices stopped. Paine heard footsteps approaching his door. A key rattled metallically in the lock, and the door opened. An outline stood there, in front of weak light. The door closed, leaving Paine and the figure in the darkness.
    "You just don't know when to quit, do you, Jack?"
    "You taught me, Bobby."
    "Maybe I did."
    Paine heard Petty feeling along the wall, and then a low-wattage light came on across the room. Everything looked sour yellow.
    Petty came and stood over him. He was big and square, and looked more solid than ever. The sleeves of his shirt, a dark green one unlike the ones Paine had found in his closet, were rolled up. He leaned down closer and Paine tried to look into his eyes. In the bad light it was like looking into a face of stone. The eyes were like flat marble in a marble face.
    "I hope you quit after this, Jack," Petty said flatly, and then he hit Paine in the face with the hard front of his fist and then hit him again.
    Paine tried to move, to get out of the way of the blows, but there was nowhere to go. Petty hit him expertly in the face and the ribs and kidneys. Paine felt like a slab of meat on a butcher's table. After a while, to dull the hurt, he tried to detach his mind, to think of himself as a dead block of meat that he was examining from a distance.
    Petty didn't speak, but went about his work methodically. After what seemed like days, from a receding place, Paine heard Petty grunting with exertion. Paine's left eye was nearly closed, but he looked up and saw that Petty was sweating. Petty paused for a moment to catch his breath before going to work again.
    After what must have been years, Paine saw that the piece of meat on the butcher's block that was himself was in very bad shape, and he could no longer detach himself from that poor slab of beef and it became himself again and he heard himself cry out with each blow.
    And then Petty stopped his work, and the heaving catch of breath and the crying that Paine had become was the only sound in the room, until he heard Petty say flatly, "I hope you realize I mean it now, Jack," before the room and the world got very dark and went away.
    When Paine came back to consciousness there was a hint of light in the room from the next door. Daylight, perhaps, or a light on in a farther room. Paine managed to turn himself on the bed. His head, his body, hurt terribly. He lay on the mattress for a few moments, willing the throb in the slab of meat that was his body to subside, and finally it did to the point where he could move.
    He tried to move into a sitting position but could not. Instead, he arched his back, grabbing his feet with his hands, and began to explore the knot Quinones had made.
    It was good, but if he had remembered better, he would have put another loop into the truss that would have made it impossible for Paine to get out of it. But he didn't do that, and after a while Paine had loosened one noose around one foot enough to slip the foot out. The other foot followed. Fifteen more minutes and he had loosened his hands and rubbed blood back into them.
    He sat up on the bed.
    His body began to throb again. He sat perfectly still, letting the ache do its work.
    Finally, he stood, again letting his head have its way, and walked to the door.
    It was locked, but it was a cheap bathroom lock and a half minute with his penknife released it.
    He eased the door open.
    There was still night darkness in the house. The light came through an open door at the far end of the room he had entered. It was a storage room, boxes of silver chains and clasps, plastic bags of turquoise stones. Boxes