Mr. Joe stepped forward, his face right up against mine. In a low voice, scarcely moving his sharp lips, he snarled, “Did you really think you could mess around with me, steal one of my girls, and just disappear? If you had tried to negotiate for her and I refused, perhaps I would have understood. But for you to snatch her away, just like that, means you don’t take me seriously, you’re making fun of me. Tell me, are you making fun of me?”

I nervously shook my head. Mr. Joe turned away and stepped over to Shaygha. When he took her face in his hands and peeled a lock of her hair off her swollen features, she opened her eyes. Her pupils completed a full circuit without focusing on anything in particular; then they rolled back again to show the whites. Mr. Joe slowly wiped away the line of blood running from the corner of her mouth and down her neck. Then he pushed his large thumb between her lips. He began moving it in and out, looking at me the whole time. His other hand began playing with her nipples before reaching down to grab her pussy. Shaygha suddenly gasped, like someone breaking the surface of the water in the very last moment before drowning. Then she purred, as a kitten might do as it rubs against its owner’s leg. The filthy man stroked her some more, holding my gaze as he aroused her. For a moment, it appeared as though he had forgotten why he had come.

Afraid to anger him, I said in a shaky voice, “How much do you want to set her free?”

He continued staring at me as he set about adding, multiplying, subtracting, and dividing, taking care to make no mistake in the calculation. “How much do you think she’s worth?” he said, as he crossed the room and sat down on the only sofa in the room.

“I don’t know. It’s up to you to set the price.”

“You never told me: what do you do for work?”

“I’m not working at the moment, but before, I was a writer.”

“You were a journalist? For which paper?”

“No, no, I mean a novelist. And a university professor.”

“Ah, a storyteller, then! What do you say about me telling you a story that will make your hair stand on end. You write it down for me, and I’ll sign it.”

Mr. Joe turned around, laughing for the two goons, who burst out laughing in turn to imagine their boss as a writer. “You’ll have to sign it, ‘The Sphinx’!” suggested one.

“No!” cried the other. “‘Skullcrusher’ is stronger.”

Mr. Joe wiped the merriment off his face and was frowning again. The goons broke off their jokes and fell silent.

“Her value might not be within your means to pay, so I’ll leave it to you to propose a number.”