When I had the place completely to myself, I finally opened the door. Light spilled into the decontamination enclosure and Tony scrambled backwards into the corner in terror.
In addition to the blood coming from his nose, he had scratch marks on both of his cheeks and a wet patch on the front of his pants. He was looking at me as if his mind was breaking, muttering in what I assumed must be Italian.
I smiled. “Do you know who I am?”
Tony nodded and cried silently.
“Say it. Who am I?”
“Il Diavolo.”
“In plain English…”
“The Devil.”
I laughed. “That’s right. Clever Tony. I’ve been watching you your whole life. I think, today, I’m going to eat your soul.”
Tony whimpered and cried, trying to push himself backwards through the walls. “Nonononoooooo… please!”
“Let’s have a talk, you and I. I’ll ask you some questions, and you tell me some answers. If you lie to me, I’ll be very fuckin’ angry. Do you understand?”
“Anything! I’ll tell you anything, please!”
“We’ll see about that, Tony. Let’s talk about your job. You’ve been with the Acardi Crime Family for a while now, done a lot of jobs for them. You’ve seen some things. What do you know about where they stash weapons? Cash? Where have you helped them hide their shit, Tony? Tell me now you motherfucker!”
“Money! Weapons! Yes! I know! I fucking know some shit! Please!”
“Tell me!”
“Fucking millions! They’ve got millions hidden in a vault under a factory that makes computer shit in Redmond!”
“Bellevuetech?”
“Yeah! Yes! Yes! I delivered some cash there myself! I’ve never seen so much money in one place! Holy fucking shit! Oh please don’t hurt me! Oh my God…”
Tony was wide-eyed and frantic, still pushing backwards to keep every last scrap of distance between us that he could. I stepped forward and kneeled in front of him.
“Tell me more.”
Tony was very helpful. Over the course of an hour before he passed out, he corroborated the information I’d had from several others in the past, and gave me the location for one more weapons and money cache that I hadn’t heard of before.
When it came time for the Acardis to find out they were in a war with me, these places would be where they ran to. It would be crucial to take these locations to fund and supply the small army that would be required to establish my control in the chaos, and to consolidate my power before they really even knew what hit them.
I heard a groan from the decontamination enclosure and some movement, so I spun away from my computer and peeked in through the open door. Tony was sitting in the corner, blinking in confusion.
“Hey there, champ, how you feeling?” I asked.
“W-what happened?”
“Well, they call that a bad trip. You started swingin’ and swearin’, so I kind of bundled you into here where you couldn’t do too much damage.”
“What… what’s that smell?”
“I think you shit yourself.”
“Oh… fuuuuuuuuuuuck,” he groaned.
“Hey, listen, it’s OK man. Believe me, I’ve seen people do worse things while having a bad trip. Nobody needs to know. I’ve got some clothes here that a lab assistant left behind when he quit a few months back. You can have a shower in there, shove your clothes in the waste disposal, get dressed and head home. No harm, no foul, right?”
“Um… what… uh…oh… OK.”
“There’s the shower head, all you need to do to make it work is press that button and hold the handle… yeah, that one. Just reach out the door when you’re done.”
I returned to my computer and blocked out the sounds of showering and vomiting that streamed through the crack in the door. A quarter of an hour later, Tony stood in my office in his new clothes, looking pale and dazed.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Almost midnight.”
“Holy fuck…”
“So you wanna buy some of this acid? $500 a tab.”
“What? Fuck no.”
“OK. Out of interest… what did you see?”
“I… I dunno. Something. Something…” Tony trailed off.
“Well, let’s get you out of here. Like I said, nobody needs to know about this, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, thanks… If the guys ever found out…”
Tony stumbled off through the lab, his keys jingling in his new shorts. He was clearly in shock and didn’t even notice he was wearing a gay pride t-shirt.
The clothes weren’t really left behind by a former lab assistant. I bought them especially for such interrogations, because what was the point of being the King without a sense of humor?