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patiently waited.
    “Fine …” the Right Hand panted, forcing his words between breaths. “I’ll tell you.”  
    Amit put his palms together in front of his chest, smiled, and gave a small bow of thanks.

Chapter 3

    12:26 P . M . ON S ATURDAY

    Amit had never tortured a man, but it couldn’t be hard.  
    In the end, none of this really mattered. A man who was pure of spirit and had nothing to hide would be able to endure the pain and escape into bliss. Only the truly vile would suffer. Existence was suffering; the Buddha had given that thought to the world. Amit would be putting a finer point to the Buddha’s meaning.  
    “If you would just tell me what I want to know,” he said to the thin, wiry Asian man hanging upside down in front of him, “none of this would be necessary. You saw what I did to the others. You know what I will do to you. I would like to politely request that you consider this logically.”  
    “Fuck you!” said the hanging man.  
    “I would like to offer you a second chance, despite your response,” said Amit. “Think about what is likely to happen next. You will be in great pain, and in the end, you will tell me who gave the order as I have requested. It is not weak to tell me now. You have this impression that suffering somehow lessens the impact of what you will be giving me. It does not. It is simply wasted pain. So far, you are the only one of your fellows who would be able to walk away. The others will not be walking again. Why would you throw that away in the pursuit of some vain sense of … ”  
    “FUCK! YOU!”  
    Amit shrugged, then stabbed the razor-sharp X-Acto blade through the man’s cheek. The hanging man screamed. Amit dragged the blade further down, widening the slice. When Amit pulled the tiny knife away, blood was dripping into pools on the floor. The man’s teeth were visible through his closed mouth.
    “I would not chew on that side for a while.”  
    “Fuck you, beaner!” the bleeding man spat.  
    Amit turned his head sideways and looked at the man with a scrunched-expression. “Do you think I am Hispanic? That is incorrect. And your slur is surprising to me, seeing as you are a minority yourself. I had figured we would share kinship.” He stabbed the blade into the man’s arm, then ripped it upward, opening his sleeve and flesh at once. The man bellowed appeals and profanities to many deities at once.
    “I need to know who gave the order,” Amit said to the man once he calmed down.  
    “Your mother gave the order.”  
    “She did not. And again, I must express my confusion at your obtuseness. What do you think I will do if you don’t answer? You know I will continue to injure you, so why do you persist? Does some part of you think that after enough time, I will simply stop? Because I can assure you I will not. This is a matter of some importance to me.”  
    Amit looked at the hanging man, dangling from the barn loft, hair seeming to stand on end, face red from too much rushing blood. Although now, a good amount of the blood was spilling onto the dirt at both of their feet, and Amit, who was barefoot, had to keep sidestepping it. Nothing stained the bottom of feet more than blood (other than mulberries) — a lesson learned back at the monastery, with all of his spilled — through accident and on purpose — to find limits during his training.  
    The Asian man was still staring with an obstinate glare. The puddle was getting quite large from the gash on his arm, and his ragged second mouth was copiously bleeding. Amit had had to step back quite far. When he moved to cut the man next, he might have to wet his feet. He wondered if there were any work boots in the abandoned barn. He knew there were several pieces of farm equipment that might make for good torture devices, should further persuasion be required.  
    He sat down cross-legged on the packed-clay floor well away from the puddle and thought of the monastery and his training.  
    He