into realizing the reason for his visit.
He approached Brenda and knelt beside her. He put his hand around the back of her head and pulled it gently toward him until her cheek made contact with the pointed ends of the object. In a whisper, he said, “This, bitch, is a barbed-wire fence-post staple.”
Brenda went cold and the blood drained from her face. She began to tremble. Her hands became clammy and her body was instantly soaked in sweat.
Ryan pushed the staple into Brenda’s cheek with just enough force to break the skin. Two small beads of blood appeared and began to trickle slowly down her face. She whimpered softly and began to cry.
“How does that feel, Brenda? Does it hurt? I hope so, because it’s only a fraction of the pain that you caused someone very dear to me many, many years ago.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t…”
“Shut up, you filthy whore. I don’t want to hear a word out of that commode you call a mouth until I tell you to talk.”
Ryan looked over at Bill, who was trembling. “What’s the matter, Billy? Are you cold?” Try being patient for just a few more minutes. You’ll soon be very warm.”
Bill shivered. He looked at Brenda, who was beginning to hyperventilate.
“Listen up, now, while I tell you about an event that happened years ago in San Francisco,” Ryan said. “Have you ever been to the town that Mr. Bennett sang about, Brenda?” Ryan didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you have. What about you Bill? Have you ever been to the city of cable cars? Again, the answer is yes.”
Ryan smiled as the two of them squirmed. “They must be figuring out why I’m here,” he thought.
“Now that we’ve confirmed that you have been to my hometown, I think it only fitting that I introduce myself. My name is Ryan O’Hara. Does the name O’Hara mean anything to either one of you?”
Brenda’s gasps resembled those of a panting dog. Her hyperventilation was acute as she neared collapse.
“She knows,” Ryan thought. A feeling of satisfaction consumed him.
“Yes, my two belly crawlers, the name O’Hara should most definitely ring a bell with you.” He stared directly at Brenda and continued, “Mortimer Dermott O’Hara was my grandfather. You know who he was, don’t you, Brenda?”
Brenda tried to say something but was cut short.
“Shut up, rodent, and listen to me.
“Mortimer O’Hara, in addition to being my grandpa, was a policeman. He was working at Park Station the night you rigged a bomb under the hood of his patrol car. But you already know that, you filthy, Marxist slut,don’t you? My grandfather was hit by several of these barbed-wire fence-post staples that you and your Lenin’s Legion friends loaded into the bomb that you hooked up to the ignition.”
Ryan held up the U-shaped staple. “One of these was driven through Grandpa’s eye and into his brain. Another one severed his jugular vein. Hundreds more sprayed out indiscriminately through the interior of the police car and surrounding parking lot. Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to have one of these staples rip into your eye or tear into your throat, Brenda? Perhaps you’d like to experience that. Would you?”
Brenda gasped and wheezed as her breathing became more labored.
Ryan shifted his attention to Bill. “Don’t think I’m just singling out Brenda as the target of my wrath, asshole. I know you helped her plan the bombing and I’m holding you equally accountable. Perhaps you’d like me to shove this through your eye so that you can feel what my grandpa felt. No?”
Bill was weeping again. That annoyed Ryan.
He was tired of the weeping, the gasping, the denials of murder, the
oh, Gods
, and all the other panicked cries he’d had to listen to since he’d entered the house two hours earlier.
“Don’t worry, my two little communist scumbuckets. I’m not going to poke your eyes out. I want you to have all your senses intact so that you can watch your