Brew and Ted get back to Ginny’s office and settle in, among bits and pieces of reminders of how recently Ginny was there to be leaned on. Now Brew is going to try to think like Ginny.The sun was setting in a bloodlike red wash as I drove the Olds out of the parking lot.
Well, Brew isn’t really constitutionally suited to thinking like Ginny. It’s a stroke of intuition that reminds him to check with her answering service. Sure enough, some man has called four times. When Brew dials the number, he recognizes the voice. It is Last, the fake doctor who bombed Alathea’s room and amputated Ginny’s arm. Last wants to deal, and you can imagine Brew’s reaction!
Ignoring the damage he has done to Ginny’s office in his fury, Brew accepts the offer to meet Last, because Last promises to give him the kidnapper. The meeting is at an abandoned warehouse. Brew knows it’s a trap, but what else does he have? And Ted is up for anything, as long as it’s action.I was left with what felt like a perfect set of my fingerprints indented in the handle of the receiver.
Brew cleverly arranges to get a clue to Acton about where to find Last. He explains his reasoning clearly, but he has figured it out so fast it’s obvious he got there intuitively.
In the car driving to the warehouse, Ted starts talking about himself, his family, and his career as a P.I.. Nothing has gone right for him.Ted didn’t answer. He looked bedraggled, as full of self-pity as wet poultry, but the dull glare in his eyes said as plain as words that Last wasn’t going to get away from us.
Brew doesn’t try to explain to Ted that he’s got things all wrong about Ginny’s business.. He just listens – unwillingly – and then realizes that Ted thinks the pimp who has Mitty is going to kill her, to hide the evidence."People ... hire you for what you look like. You’re built like a tree, and Ginny looks like a steel trap, and people just naturally go to you when they’ve got something important. They come to me when they’ve got something grubby.”
When they get to the warehouse Brew gives Ted his gun and arranges him so Last can’t see that Brew has brought someone with him. Ted’s job is to cover Brew, while Brew confronts Last unarmed.I took a tighter grip on the wheel, pushed down harder on the accelerator. Because there was nothing else I could do.
Last pins Brew in a circle of spotlight. Then, puzzlingly to us readers, he walks out into the light himself. Last isn’t willing to tell Brew anything that will lead him to the kidnapper, but he is happy to give him the details of degrading the girls. Hiding outside the circle of light, Ted listens to Last describe the clothing and drugging of little girls as if they really were the whores they were treated as. Brew says,And wishing like hell that I had Ginny covering me instead. I trusted Ted’s determination, but I didn’t know how much good sense he had left.
But in the background, he can see Ted, gun trained on Last, visibly going to pieces.I thought my nerves were going to snap.
Here’s a great spot. Last says:
Brew’s inner comment:“That Axbrewder was a feisty little bitch. ... Some of the johns were bleeding when they got done with her.”
The limit is reached when Ted hears Last describe the taking of Mitty’s virginity.Well, by God, Alathea. Good for you!
Last is dead with the first shot, but Ted empties the gun into him. At first he doesn’t seem to realize what he has done.The first shot hit Last like the kick of a mule. I saw the slug plow through the front of his chest.
Ted runs, leaving Brew with the gun, the dead body, and the spotlight.Then it penetrated him. His face broke open.
The way Last talks in this chapter, the only acceptable thing would have been for him to be killed, overkilled, and mangled. Ted finds his actions harder to live with than the reader does. SRD really has a knack for making his villainous victims deserve their fates.
