mysterious.” He took a sip of his beer. “I haven’t seen you here before, Vincent.”
“I’m…” Vincent couldn’t think of anything clever or witty to say. “Well, I…This is my first time.”
“Your first time, what? Here?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“Or your first time. Period?”
“Yes. My first time. Period.”
Lionel looked at him as if he’d just said something humorous. “You haven’t done this before. Ever?”
“No.” Vincent took a drink as a way of hiding, but also of, hopefully, encouraging the young man to drink his beer as well.
It worked.
When Lionel had finished the swig, his eyes drifted toward Vincent’s left hand. Toward his wedding ring.
“You’re married.”
“Yes.”
“Why tonight? Why did you come tonight? Is she out of town?”
The last thing Vincent wanted to do right now was talk about Colleen. “Yes,” he said, lying. “Visiting her parents.”
“And you decided to try something a little different? For a change?”
“To step out on a limb. Yes.” His heart was beating. Thinking about Colleen made all of this harder.
Vincent took another sip from his drink. So did Lionel.
“I don’t live far from here,” Vincent offered, and then immediately realized that it was much too forward. On the other hand, if his suspicions were right, Lionel was working the place, looking for payment for his companionship, and wasting a lot of time on formalities wouldn’t serve either of their interests.
“Really? Where?”
“Not far.”
A wink. “Staying mysterious, are we?”
Vincent had no idea how to respond. “I really…I’m not sure how to say this. Um, are you, well, are you-”
Lionel laid his hand gently on Vincent’s forearm. “I can be whatever you want me to be, Vincent.”
It was a long moment before he removed his hand.
“Okay.” Vincent said.
Lionel smiled softly. “Okay.”
Another swig.
And another.
And although Vincent was anxious to get going, he realized he needed a little time for the drugs to work, so he answered Lionel’s questions about where he’d gone to college, UW-La Crosse, and what he did for a living, managed a PR firm. In response, Lionel mentioned that he had a theater degree from DePaul and was an actor “between jobs.”
As the minutes passed, the drugs and alcohol started to have the desired effect.
“Lionel?”
“Um-hmm.” His voice was wavering, unfocused.
“Do you want to leave?”
“Your place is close?” he mumbled.
“Yes. Let’s get you to the car.”
No response, just a bleary nod.
So Vincent helped Lionel to his feet and supported him on the way to the door.
2
Apparently, two men leaving this bar-with one of them evidently drunk-was not too out of the ordinary. Nobody paid much attention to them as they left the building.
Vincent could see his breath as he crossed the sidewalk, but the November night felt brisk rather than icy cold and that would be good for Lionel, for what Vincent had in mind for him.
Earlier, Vincent had taken the backseats out of his minivan and it wasn’t difficult to help Lionel into the vehicle. Once they were inside, he closed the door and retrieved the handcuffs.
He hoped Lionel wouldn’t struggle, but Vincent had been a linebacker in college, still worked out four or five days a week, and was willing to get physical, if that’s what it took.
Vincent began to unzip Lionel’s jacket.
“What are you…?” Lionel’s words were blurred, confused.
“We need to get you out of these clothes.”
“I thought we…were going…to your place.”
“Plans have changed.” He tugged off Lionel’s coat.
Lionel eyed the handcuffs. A look that went past confusion and dipped into fear crossed his face and he tried to wrestle free. He was squirrelly and hard to hold on to, and Vincent was forced to do something he hadn’t intended to do-punch him in the face. Lionel crumpled to the floor. “What the-?”
Vincent cuffed his left wrist and when Lionel tried to get up again, Vincent grabbed his head and smacked it hard against the floor of the van. “Don’t fight. It’ll make it worse.”
“No-”
This wasn’t going well, not well at all.
Vincent bent over him. “Be quiet, Lionel, or I’ll have to do that again. I don’t want to, but if I-”
“Help!” Lionel rolled to his side, tried to scramble toward the door, but Vincent snagged his left arm, twisted it behind his back, brought the right arm around as well and cuffed the wrists together. Once he was assured that Lionel wasn’t going anywhere, he stuffed a cloth into his mouth and wrapped a few rounds of duct tape around his head to hold it in place. Lionel tried to shake free, to cry out for help, but could hardly make any sound at all.
Vincent hurried to the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Sweating, shaking, Vincent turned the key and the engine came to life. He scanned the street, the sidewalks. A couple of men had just left the bar but were headed in the opposite direction and weren’t looking at the van. Vincent heard the muffled sound of Lionel trying to call for help, but it wasn’t nearly loud enough for the men outside to hear.
Vincent lurched the van onto the street too fast, his heart racing, his mouth dry.
Eight blocks away he paused in a deserted parking lot, turned off the headlights, and let the engine idle; then he returned to the back of the minivan. The drugs were taking their toll on Lionel. He lay on the floor, barely conscious.
Quickly, Vincent removed Lionel’s shoes, then his socks, then his pants and underwear. The fight had gone out of him and he didn’t resist, just stared vacantly at the roof of the minivan.
Using fabric shears, Vincent cut a long slit up each sleeve of Lionel’s sweater. He removed it and then went to work on his undershirt.
A few moments later Lionel lay naked and cuffed in the van.
“I didn’t want things to go like this,” Vincent told him.
Lionel rolled weakly onto his side, curling himself into a fetal position.
Vincent returned to the driver’s seat and guided the van to North Twenty-fifth Street, to the alley that ran between a ramshackle two-story house and an empty lot that was surrounded by a rusted six-foot-high chain-link fence. Two stout, brick apartment buildings lay just to the left of the fenced-in lot. The alley was empty. No one on the sidewalk that led past it. No traffic.
However, half a dozen cars were parked along the alley’s side of the street, leaving room for snowplows to drive along the other side if the weather took a turn for the worse. Vincent realized it was good that there was a
