The Swan and the Jackal by J. A. Redmerski

chair that often haunts my dreams. “I’ve told you everything! I can’t tell you what I don’t know!” Blood spews from the man’s swollen and busted lips. Fredrik beat him before he started pulling out his teeth.
    Why did Fredrik beat him? He never resorts to that.
    I’m frightened.
    Have I angered him?
    I swallow what’s left of the saliva in my mouth and shut my eyes as tears seep between my lids and down my chapped cheeks. My arms are wrapped around my bent knees, pressed tightly against my chest. I’m shaking all over. Every inch of me trembles so terribly that I feel like I’m going to fall apart. I rock myself back and forth, weeping.
    And then I begin to sing. I don’t know this song, but it feels so familiar. I know the words, yet I’m not sure how I know them.
    With my hands pressed over my ears, I sing louder as the man’s screams amplify.
    I sing louder….
     

Fredrik
     
     
     
     
    I stop abruptly, the bloody pliers suspended in my hand just above the head of Dante Furlong, heroin dealer from the West Side. Even his blood stinks, not like normal blood which smells metallic and harsh. Is it possible to smell the evil in someone like a canine might scent a tumor?
    I wonder if my blood smells as disgusting as his.
    His wide eyes look up at me, partly petrified, partly questioning. He knows the beautiful voice is what made me stop, is what saved him from further suffering. But for how long, he wonders. It’s what I’d wonder if I was the one in the chair.
    “W-What is that?” he asks with a lisp, unable to set his tongue right in his mouth now that his front teeth are missing. “Where is that coming from?”
    His long, dirty fingers grip the ends of the chair arms, still trying to break his hands free from the leather restraints tight around his wrists. But at this point I doubt he realizes he’s doing it anymore. It has become instinct, a way to deaden the pain, and his body doesn’t want to let go just yet.
    I look out ahead where the video camera is hidden in the wall, knowing that Cassia is looking back at me through the flatscreen in her room just on the other side of the brick.
    Suddenly she stops singing Where the Boys Are by Connie Francis. Just when I was beginning to get lost in her voice, she stops and forces my mind back into the moment.
    It’s for the better.
    I get back to work.
    “Fuck! No! Please ! You crazy motherfu—,” the rest of Dante’s words come out in garbled, choking sounds.
    I twist the pliers back and forth to the sound of bone crunching in my ears. The tooth pops out and I drop it in the silver tray next to me with the other six.
    Dante chokes on the blood draining into the back of his throat. His body shakes violently like a fish dropped on the shore just inches from the water. His beady pale blue eyes open and close from exhaustion and pain. But he hasn’t felt pain yet. I’ll pull out his fingernails next.
    “I-I’ll stop selling!” he spats. “I fucking swear it! I won’t sell anymore.” His mangled words begin to roll out amid sobs. His curly black hair, covered in filth and oil, glistens under the bright floodlight clamped on an IV stand at the back of the chair.
    I hover over Dante and look into his eyes.
    “You’re a liar,” I say in a calm, dark voice. “You’re a fucking liar. A shit stain in a pair of underwear. Men like you never stop. You’ll beg and plead in the face of pain, but the second I let you out of here, you’ll be selling heroin to little boys in abandoned houses.”
    “Little b-boys? Man, I-I don’t sell to little boys!”
    I grab his blood and spit-covered chin vigorously with my latex-glove-covered hand, wrenching it still, digging my fingertips into his unshaven cheeks. “How many little boys have you given drugs to for a blowjob? Huh?” I squeeze his face harder.
    “W-W-What tha’ fuck are y-you t-talking about, man?!”
    “HOW MANY?!”
    I dig my fingers into his cheeks so deeply I can feel the outline of his