"Look Charlie." Jack said. "I got a lot on my mind right now. All sorts of problems that don't involve you. So why don't you just say the magic words and let us go about our day. Guns is serious shit, now. Even just carrying the ammo ain't gunna look good Charlie. I ain't gunna lie about that. But as soon as you start saying those special names, the sooner I can get you out of that chair and you can start serving your time. I'll put in a word for you. Honesty is a virtue in Rapture. And we're all about rewarding virtue in these parts. So, come on. Just say what we need to hear. Come on, Charlie."
Charlie Peprah was tied to the chair. In his life before Rapture he had been American. In his life before an hour ago he had been handsome. Both eyes wore swollen. His left was completely shut. Several of his teeth laid on the ground between his feet which were tied to the chair. His arms bound behind his back.
"I just wanted food." Charlie said. "For the neighborhood. Ryan left us in the shit. And working for the only people who can help you, are traitors. I was only trying to do what was right for the community."
"I don't doubt that." Jack said. "But doin the right thaig is prolly gunna get you killed these days. Now we all know the name you're about to say. Don't worry you ain't the first to say it. We all know what it is. All you gotta do, is just say those magic words give us a lil bit a information and we're in business."
Charlie hung his head down and took a few deep breaths. He inhaled deeply and looked up into towards Jack His one good eye searching out beneath a world of swollen pain.
"I ain't working for Fontaine." Charlie said. "He's a good man. He's got nothing to do with it."
"Christ Charlie." Jack said. "You're a lil late in the game for all that. Sullivan and the rest of us all know it's Fontaine. Just we need your help gettin a lil of what's called probable cause. You see you can't arrest Rapture's plasmid supplier on the word of a buncha smugglin shits, like yourself. You gotta catch him with his hand in the cookie jar. Now we been hearing rumor of army. Rumor of rebellion. Look at me Charlie. Look at me. Pullin in some cigars and whiskey from top side is one thing. But the world is about to get a whole lot wilder if y'all start stock piling weapons and getting ideas. Now I know there's guns around here. People gunna be using all that to get a whole mess of people killed. All I need you to do, all Rapture needs you to do, is just point the way. Just point the way and we can all avoid a big mess."
Charlie sagged his head again and sobbed. He sucked in air deeply through his nose and moaned. He looked back up at Jack.
"There ain't no rebellion." Charlie said. "I'm telling the truth."
Jack dug the back of his hand into his right eye socket and looked to the side exhaling deeply. He looked back at his fellow officers and held his hands up. He looked back at Charlie.
"Well, boys we'll just say he said it was Fontaine, cause it was Fontaine, and that he didn't know where he got the ammo from." Jack said.
Charlie was crying. Looking at Jack.
"No." Charlie said. "It ain't like that. I ain't lying."
Jack took his pistol out of it's holster and popped out the cylinder, and looked at it before popping it back in.
"I swear." Charlie said. "I ain't lying."
"Charlie," Jack said, "you know what the most common lie is?"
"Wait. Just wait. No. Stop"
Jack shot Charlie in the forehead and the man slumped back. The chair became unbalanced and the body and chair tied together fell sideways.
"There's an air lock around here, right?" Jack said.
"Uh." A guard behind him with a shotgun rubbed his chin. "Yea, boss. I think. There's one just down the ways. Shit my ears."
"Christ I hadn't been down to the fisheries in so long." Jack said. "You'd think I'd of never worked here. Let's throw him out to ocean. Coroner is too damn busy with all the mayhem going around that he doesn't need us unloading another body on him. And from now on wear your damn ear plugs. Rapture is an enclosed space you'll go deaf in two weeks. Y'all got this?"
"Sure thing boss." The guard said. "Like I said just down the ways."
"Aight." Jack said. "I'm gunna head to medical and check up on a buddy."
"How is Howard?" The other guard said.
"Shit I forgot you two played together." Jack said from the doorway. "Last surgery was a couple days ago. Light scares all over his face but he still looks better than y'alls sad faces."
They laughed and lifted the body between them and carried it smiling to the door as Jack made sure it stayed open for them.
"Say, what you were saying in there." The guard holding the feet said. "What is the most common lie?"
"I'm telling the truth." Jack said.
He walked in the opposite direction of Charlie being carried out to the ocean.
…..
"I would use the word complete failure, Frank." Jack said.
"Jackie-boy you can't just know what you are doing." Fontaine said. He was behind his desk. "You have to see what the other guy is going to do three steps ahead. If they're not going to give me up in the current interrogation, then Sullivan will step it up a bit. He'll make Ryan an even bigger enemy of the people with torture."
"Well shit Frank." Jack said. "I'm too busy being Rapture's brightest back stabber to keep up with the grand scheme. But someone's gotta crack sooner or later. And they already been hooking fellas up to batteries by their pecker. What could be worse than that?"
"Jackie-boy." Frank said. "With the things you pulled on half the people you pulled it on. There's nothing Sullivan can do that's going to put the fear in them the way you can."
Jack turned away and walked to the bar. His face frowned and then he quickly sucked in air through his teeth and rubbed the stitches on the side of his face. The plasmids had opened the hole on his face wider. The stitches were tight. He put ice and bourbon in both glasses.
"Why don't you have Steinman look at that?" Fontaine said. "With the way you got him in your pocket you should get it for free."
"I go under that man's knife and I ain't waking up Frank." Jack said.
Fontaine laughed and Jack returned handing one glass to Fontaine and holding the other up to his cut face.
"So you got him in your pocket that way." Fontaine said. "Well maybe you can get the kraut to ease your pain."
"Ever since you stopped toyin with her she been a bit moody." Jack said. "Apparently tellin a woman no is a good idea. And I learn this after all these years of, yes. Plus I think the ice is starting to melt. This current work is really starting to mess with her noodle."
"She going to be able to do what she needs to do?" Fontaine said.
"Shit Frank she's a kraut." Jack said. "They always get the job done. Just she ain't happy about it and I'm having to stick to good ole fashioned Kentucky pain medicine."
Jack raised the glass in a mock cheer that Fontaine returned with a smile. Fontaine took a sip but Jack swallowed the thing whole. He talked while he walked back to the bar.
"I mean, shit Frank. She's about got the job done. I wouldn't believe it I hadn't seen it myself, but the damn thing is working. But you gotta understand. She's still a woman. The kraut in her will do it and her overall toughness will get her through. But still Frank. It's lil girls. You gotta give her some slack."