Consequence by Eli Yance

gonna give me the cash or what?”
    Morris smiled and nodded. “James,” he said softly. “Give the kid the cash would you?”
    Roach nodded assuredly and moved towards the teenager. His hand was in his pocket and Steiner watched with anticipation as he withdrew it. The teenager didn’t even get the chance to see that the man in front of him had been reaching for a pair of knuckle dusters and not a bundle of notes, before a fist clattered into his face.
    Steiner recoiled; his jaw clicked and locked in place as his body stumbled sideways. Roach reached out with his left arm and stopped the youngster from falling, before driving his fist into his stomach.
    He coughed violently and repeatedly. Blood trickled from each explosion of wind, he gagged an assortment of muffled, curdled obscenities through his pained mouth.
    Morris bent over to meet his eyes -- the teenager was practically on his knees. “Where do you get the gear from?” he asked politely.
    “Just take it,” he yelped. He tried to reach into his pocket for the bag of pills but Roach stopped him, grasping his wrist tightly.
    “We don’t want your filthy fucking drugs,” Morris explained. “We want to know where you get them from.”
    Steiner’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. “Why?” he cried.
    “So we can cut out the middle man, go directly to the supplier, buy wholesale,” Morris said with a smile. “Does it really matter why? What you  should  be asking is  ‘or what’ because if you don’t tell us where you get the gear then my big friend here is going to remove your appendages one by one.” Morris straightened and removed a lock-back Smith & Wesson knife from his pocket. He flicked it open and aimed at the teenager’s groin, “And guess where he’s going to start.”
    He let out a gurgle of fear and tried to utter a reply but his words were rapid and clouded with a fearful stammer.
    “We haven’t got all day kid, hurry up,” Roach said, holding the youngster’s head tightly in both of his hands.
    “Pearce,” the youngster stammered. “Wayne Pearce.”
    “That’s a start,” Morris uttered. “Where’s he live?”
    “I don’t know, please, I really don’t--”
    Morris raised the knife to his left eye. He stuck the tip of the blade in the soft flesh below his eyebrow, drawing blood from the small wound. He then slowly ran the knife point over his eye.
    “I’ll ask you again,” he said, his arm surprisingly steady as he held the knife in front of the constantly blinking eye. “Where does he live?”
    Roach looked down to see a large wet patch spreading over Steiner’s groin. The urine dripped past his baggy jeans, over his legs and shoes before darkening the dry ground.
    “Walker Street,” he muttered, stumbling on each syllable. “Number thirty-two.”
    Morris smiled and withdrew the knife. “Is he the one who ships them into the country?”
    “I don’t think so, he’s a big time dealer but he’s a heavy user…he’s too fucked up to be that smart,” the teenager replied in a calmer voice.
    Morris smiled and nodded at his partner. Roach twisted Steiner’s head like a bottle cap. His neck snapped instantly and he fell limp onto the floor, his face in the pool of drying urine.
    “Looks like we can forget about the other name on Sanders’s list,” Morris said as they left the scene. “We’ll check out this Pearce guy, he sounds promising.”
    24
    Morris and Roach clambered back in the silver Ford Mondeo parked in the supermarket car park. Morris eyed the transit van as he passed, instinctively glancing its way. No one had tried to gain access to it; no one was hovering around.
    Car crime was big in the area. There were more unemployed people than employed and there had been a significant increase of commercial vehicles, like the transit van, being broken into. The crimes were committed by kids who didn’t know how to drive and would struggle to reach the pedals if they did; the vans were never stolen, but