Chapter 11: Eleven Names

"The names," I said.

We were in his apartment on the fourteenth floor, and the door was locked behind us.

I stood by the window with my arms crossed.

He stood by the desk with his hands at his sides.

"All eleven," I said. "In order. Don't make it sound better than it was."

"I won't."

He told me.

The first was a dock foreman who sold Augustin's shipments to a rival.

Enoch was nineteen.

His mother was in the hospital, and the bill was nine hundred thousand dollars, and Augustin paid it.

The second was a union man, in a parking garage.

The third was a clerk who kept a second set of books.

The fourth and fifth were brothers in a boat.

He said them flatly, one after another, with a place and a month.

By the eighth I had stopped being able to look at him.

By the tenth my hands were shaking.

"The eleventh," I said.

"A woman." His voice caught. "Seven years ago. She was going to testify against Augustin."

"What was she?"

"An accountant with a little girl. I was told she was a courier for a rival."

"You believed it."

"I wanted to. I found out afterward."

"And Augustin?"

"He gave me a drink and said the work was finished and I was a good boy."

I crossed the room and slapped him.

It cracked.

He took it without moving his head.

I hit him again, and again, with my open hand, on the chest and the shoulder and the jaw.

"You're a monster," I said.

"Yes."

"Don't agree with me!"

"I'm not going to argue. You're right."

I was crying.

I hated that I was crying.

I pounded my fists against his chest, and he stood there and let me, and slowly I stopped.

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