‘I’m Hook Hobie,’ he said.
They stared at him. Said nothing. Their gazes started on his disfigured face and travelled slowly down to the empty sleeve.
‘Which of you is which?’ Hobie asked.
No reply. They were staring at the hook. He raised it and let it catch the light.
‘Which of you is O’Hallinan?’
O’Hallinan ducked her head in acknowledgement. Hobie turned.
‘So you’re Sark.’
Sark nodded. Just a fractional inclination of his head.
‘Undo your belts,’ Hobie said. ‘One at a time. And be quick.’
Sark went first. He was quick. He dropped his hands and wrestled with his buckle. The heavy belt thumped to the floor at his feet. He stretched up again for the ceiling.
‘Now you,’ Hobie said to O’Hallinan.
She did the same thing. The heavy belt with the revolver and the radio and the handcuffs and the nightstick thumped on the carpet. She stretched her hands back up, as far as they would go. Hobie used the hook. He leaned down and swept the point through both buckles and swung the belts up in the air, posing like a fisherman at the end of a successful day on the riverbank. He reached around and used his good hand to pull the two sets of handcuffs out of their worn leather cups.
‘Turn around.’
They turned and faced the guns head-on.
‘Hands behind you.’
It is possible for a one-armed man to put handcuffs on a victim, if the victim stands still, wrists together. Sark and O’Hallinan stood very still indeed. Hobie clicked one wrist at a time, and then tightened all four cuffs against their ratchets until he heard gasps of pain from both of them. Then he swung the belts high enough not to drag on the floor and walked back inside the office.
‘Come in,’ he called.
He walked around behind the desk and laid the belts on it like items for close examination. He sat heavily in his chair and waited while Tony lined up the prisoners in front of him. He left them in silerice while he emptied their belts. He unstrapped their revolvers and dropped them in a drawer. Took out their radios and fiddled with the volume controls until they were hissing and crackling loudly. He squared them together at the end of the desktop with their antennas pointed towards the wall of windows. He inclined his head for a moment and listened to the squelch of radio atmospherics. Then he turned back and pulled both nightsticks out of the loops on the belts. He placed one on the desk and hefted the other in his left hand and examined it closely. It was the modern kind, with a handle, and a telescopic section below. He peered at it, interested.
‘How does this work, exactly?’
Neither Sark nor O’Hallinan replied. Hobie played with the stick for a second, and then he glanced at the thickset guy, who jabbed the shotgun forward and hit Sark in the kidney.
‘I asked you a question,’ Hobie said to him.
‘You swing it,’ he muttered. ‘Swing it, and sort of flick it.’
He needed space, so he stood up. Swung the stick and flicked it like he was cracking a whip. The telescopic section snapped out and locked into place. He grinned with the unburned half of his face. Collapsed the mechanism and tried again. Grinned again. He took to pacing big circles around the desk, swinging the stick and cracking it open. He did it vertically, and then horizontally. He used more and more force. He spun tight circles, flashing the stick. He whipped it
backhanded and the mechanism sprang open and he whirled and smashed it into O’Hallinan’s face.
‘I like this thing,’ he said.
She was swaying backward, but Tony jabbed her
upright with his pistol. Her knees gave way and she fell
forward in a heap, pressed up against the front of the
desk, arms cuffed tight behind her, bleeding from
the mouth and nose.
‘What did Sheryl tell you?’ Hobie asked.
Sark was staring down at O’Hallinan.
‘She said she walked into a door,’ he muttered.
‘So why the hell are you bothering me? Why are you here?’