Just now the voice that was like a tape played at triple speed, but not so high-pitched, was saying, "Have you ever pictured $10,000,000 concretely? Think of it this way: a yacht on the Amazon, bubble-dome cabin, your private copter, a blonde, a brunette, and a red-head, yourself absolute monarch of a very interesting microcosm. Doesn't it appeal to you?"
"But I didn't take the green cat," Phil replied quickly—Billig's speed was catching. "I don't know where it is."
"What do you want then?" Billig demanded. "Or like most people, are you afraid to say? Tell me, I've heard everything."
Phil opened his mouth, thought of Lucky, and said nothing.
"Hit him, Harris," Billig ordered, "and don't be all day about it!"
Pain bounced like a steel ball back and forth inside Phil's skull at Harris' dispassionate swipes. At the last one Phil felt his head go numb and his thoughts glassy. Harris' bank cashier face swam out of sight, to be replaced by Billig's smooth mask with its lurking host of wrinkles.
Billig produced the gun he'd been carrying when Phil was caught. He informed Phil, "I propose to cut your limbs off, one by one. The beam burns, which keeps you from bleeding too fast."
All Phil's glazed mind could think was how ludicrous the word "limb" was. He wondered if Billig considered him a tree. Billig's head persisted in circling Phil like a small planet, though that may only have been the room swimming. Suddenly Phil stuck out an arm.
"All right," he informed Billig, "begin with this. Don't hurt the leaves."
Billig lowered the gun. "You hit him too hard," he told Harris, "or else he likes it. There are other kinds of pain. Where's Brimstine? I told him he had only two minutes to find Jack. Hayes, frisk this man."