“Or the dog chow,” North offered.

“Or the dog chow. Maybe you like it when a total stranger rips your hole apart, beats your ass bloody, and then flushes you like a come-soaked tissue. But here’s the problem: that doesn’t pay the bills, does it?”

“Fuck,” Brueckmann said through split lips, blood running down his chin. “You.”

“No, Lee. You’re the one who’s fucked. Because if you don’t tell me what I want to hear, we’re going to strip you of that butch leather jacket, and we’re going to slap a collar on you, and we’re going to cram you in one of your dog crates, and we’re going to take a lot of pictures. And I’m not really a photographer, but North does a great job. He really gets it, you know? Light and shadow. Angles. So he’s going to make sure you look your absolute best as a cock-hungry hound who just needs somebody to dominate the shit out of him.”

Lee Brueckmann wheezed bloody breaths, his eyes fixed in furious hate on Shaw.

“I thought you knew what to do with me,” North said, tightening his fist in Brueckmann’s hair hard enough that Brueckmann’s eyes welled.

“Fine,” Brueckmann said, and he hocked a bloody loogie onto the desk. “Fine, get your fucking hands off me.”

“I think I’ll stay right here,” North said. “You like having your hair pulled, I bet, so I’m just going to provide the ultimate customer experience.”

“We really do try to go the extra mile,” Shaw said. “Now, let’s hear it.”

“There’s a video. Supposedly. I was a kid. I was new to the scene. I’m not into that shit, no matter what you say, but I was still trying to figure things out. I didn’t even know the fucker had recorded it. It was a one-night thing, and after we both got off, I went home, and that was the end of it. The end. It wasn’t my thing.”

“Course not,” North said.

“Not a big, butch guy like you,” Shaw said.

“Fuck both of you, ok? Fuck you, you big fucking troll, and fuck you, you fucking twinkie with a face like fucking roadkill—”

North slammed Brueckmann’s face into the desk so hard that Shaw actually heard his nose break. Brueckmann gave a wet scream, and when North pulled him up by the hair, his face was a disaster zone.

“Try that again,” North said. “We want the rest of it. Politely.”

For a long moment, Brueckmann sputtered blood, and he might have stayed that way except North yanked on his hair again. Then Brueckmann hissed out a breath, shook himself, and said, “Fine. Fine. That was it, one night. But last week, I got an email. To my private account. And it just had a few short sentences describing what had happened. He told me he had the video.” Brueckmann gave a short, bewildered laugh. “I mean, I don’t even remember the guy. No name. He had a goatee, that’s all I remember, because it tickled. It didn’t even seem real at first.” He shook his head. “This guy comes out of nowhere. This one guy, this one time. And he wants two thousand dollars every two weeks. Do you know how much fucking money that is?”