Locke 2 (Blackwater Boys #4)

Forty

Locke

T hey had been questioning the jolly old fuck for a while now. In a secluded place. It wasn’t easy to arrange this. To catch the old man unaware as they snatched him from his spacious, four poster bed in his jolly blue and white striped pajamas of his surprisingly humble abode. He even wore those pajamas hats with the little ball at the end. No fucking word a lie, this was Santa off the clock.

Locke and Conor needed to be brutal. As such, they left their morals at the door. It was just the two them and jolly Ambrose. Getting into character meant shedding all forms of distractions, including their phones and wallets. Conor didn’t need to glance at the pictures of his kids and Charlotte when he pummelled the old man after they strapped him to the steel chair.

“I’m telling you,” Ambrose kept going. “I don’t know anything about a boy!”

They had to get…creative.

“I just want to make people happy!” he continued to cry out as blood trailed down his nose. “I’m a good man.”

On and on they went.

Hour after hour.

Locke’s jaw locked. He thought of Kali. Of Jem. Of the little boy Lenny…

“New rule,” said Locke after the third hour. “Every time you lie, we’re going to break one of your fat little fingers, Ambrose.”

“Oh, my God,” Ambrose screamed. “Not my fingers! Please, I play guitar at the preschool on Fridays once a month! I need my fingers.”

“Why do you hang around the kids so much, Arty?” asked Conor.

“They touch my soul! That’s all! There’s nothing nefarious about it.”

They broke a finger.

The pinky one first.

“You can still play guitar without your pinky, right?” Locke asked.

Ambrose nodded. “I can, yes, please, no more!”

But there was plenty more.

“Why are you employing sickos, Arty?” Conor questioned.

“Everyone needs a second chance!” Ambrose croaked, his body shaking. “They went through rehabilitation. Some of them are doing work release programs. I’ve changed lives! That’s what the point is. For them to leave prison and know they have a second chance waiting for them. We aren’t our mistakes!”

Locke rolled his eyes and moved to the third digit. “I don’t think you can play guitar without your thumb, Ambrose.”

He pleaded to keep the use of his thumbs.

He kept re-iterating he was a good man.

He loved kids, and not in any indecent manner.

“So, you’re just a philanthropist that moved to a fucking town that happened to have a hole in it?” Locke boomed.

“The only hole I know about is the hole in Georgewel’s heart!” cried Ambrose. “That’s why I’m here! I swear it.”

Conor was sweating by the time they took a step back and re-evaluated their next approach.

“We can pull his teeth?” Conor suggested.

“He’ll just put more fake ones in,” Locke returned.

“How about his legs?”

Locke considered this. “He’s a strong bastard. He knows he can wheel himself around to those charities he loves so much. We need to take something away that he can’t get back.”

Ambrose was tough to crack. In fact, he didn’t crack at all. And no matter how many times they threatened Ambrose, nothing changed. The answers sounded one and the same.

He loved kids.

He had a lonely life.

He had too much money to know what to do with.

He wanted people to have a second chance from their mistakes.

All these sappy cliches you read about in storybooks, and here was this man, living it.

Locke felt a sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach.

Something was off.

The hours bled by, and Ambrose only clung to his sappy story harder.

By the time they had a break, it was getting dark. Locke and Conor sat down on chairs before Ambrose. Ambrose was a mess. Soaked in his urine, he had dozed off, his face bloodied and bruised.

“If we’re wrong,” whispered Conor, “we never speak of this again.”

If they were wrong, then Locke was in deep trouble. So blinded by every trail leading to Ambrose, he hadn’t stopped to consider any other connections.

Maybe he needed that folder Jem had of the timeline before Lenny’s disappearance. Maybe something else would catch his eye.

Until then, he needed to be thorough.

“Wake up, Arty,” Locke said, kicking at the man’s leg.

Ambrose’s eyes whipped open, and he let out a childish scream. “Am I still living this awful nightmare? What do you want from me? I’ve given you everything! Just say it. What do you want?”

All Locke wanted was the boy.

All Locke wanted was to see Kali happy.

All Locke wanted was to start this new life with her by his side, but he couldn’t do it if he failed her on this.

Locke couldn’t fail.

“Arty,” said Locke, leaning over to stare heavily at the bleeding old man. “It’s time to raise the stakes.”

Within minutes, Ambrose’s screams turned to whimpers turned to whispers…