Hunter pumped a round into the shotgun’s barrel:chunk-SHUNK. “Last chance.”
The waitress was rooted to her spot at the end of the bar. Her eyes were fixed on Ethan. Not on the gun in his hand. On Ethan.
“Dear God,” she said. “You’re enjoying this.”
Ethan ignored her.
Cleveland murmured, “M-my left.”
“Your what?”
“My left hand, you crazy fuck!”
“Then do it.”
Another silence.
“Do what?” the cook said.
“You know what. Do it.”
Cleveland was bewildered, then curious, then aghast. His eyes settled where Ethan’s had: the vats of amber grease roiling in the deep fryer.
Ethan finally felt reality catching up to him. “Hunter, you scared him fine. Let’s—”
“Don’t worry. It won’t take long. The best lessons never do.”
The grease let out a hotpop.Ethan could feel the heat from this side of the kitchen’s window. Those fryers must have been running at three-hundred-fifty degrees. Maybe four hundred. Maybe more.
The waitress spoke. “Oh, son. You have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”
Ethan turned. The waitress was shaking her head. She didn’t look scared anymore.
She looked sad, the frown so similar to his own mother’s that Ethan almost pulled the trigger of the Python just to make it stop.
“You poor, poor boy,” the waitress said. “Mark my words. This man is going to get you into the sort of trouble you cain’t never get out of.”
“Quiet,” Hunter said from the kitchen. He tapped the cook’s head with the shotgun. “Do it.”
“Please, man, anything. I swear to God, I’ll do anything but—”
“Do it, or it’ll be your brains in that grease instead.”
With a horrible feeling—vertigo, or maybe the thrill of a bullfight—Ethan watched as the cook extended his left hand over the grease. The waitress closed her eyes. She made a low groan in her throat: resignation, horror, defeat.
Ethan looked at Hunter. At the black fire burning in those eyes.
Ethan said nothing. For a long time after, he’d wonder why.
Hunter said to the fry cook, “Do it.”
Cleveland let out a croak of horror. He lowered his shaking hand closer to the hot grease. Lowered it by an inch. Another.
And there it stopped, just above the grease, shaking.
“I can’t do it.” The cook was sobbing. “I can’t, man, I—”
Hunter took one hand off the shotgun. Wrapped it around the cook’s left elbow. Thrust the cook’s arm into the sizzling oil.
