244
Until now, there had seemed to be a way to do this. A way to do it even if Steve Zillis turned out not to be the freak, and to walk away with minimal consequences.
In his imagination, however, the opening encounter had not been this violent. A spritz of Mace. Zillis at once disabled, obedient. So easy in the planning.
They had hardly begun, and the situation seemed out of control. Striving to sound confident, Billy said, “You don’t want to be hurt, then just lie there till I tell you what to do next.”
Zillis wheezed.
“You hear me?” Billy asked.
“Shit, yeah, how could I not hear you?”
“You understand me?”
“I’m blind here, I’m not deaf.”
Billy stepped into the bathroom, switched off the water running in the sink, and looked around.
He did not see what he needed, but he saw something that he did not want to see: his reflection in the mirror. He might have expected to look frantic, even dangerous, and he did. He might have expected to look scared, and he did. He would not have expected to see the potential for evil, but he did.
245
On the bedroom TV, a naked man in a black mask lashed a woman’s breasts with a cluster of leather straps.
Billy switched off the TV. “I’m thinking about you handling the lemons and limes you slice for drinks, and I want to puke.”
Lying disabled in the hall past the open door, Zillis either didn’t hear him or pretended that he didn’t.
The bed did not have a headboard or a footboard. The mattress and box springs sat on a wheeled metal frame.
Because Zillis didn’t bother with such niceties as bedspreads and dust ruffles, the frame of the bed was exposed.
Billy took the handcuffs from the bread bag. He locked one of the bracelets to the bottom rail of the bed frame.
“Get up on your hands and knees,” he said. “Crawl toward my voice.”
Remaining on the hall floor, breathing easier but still noisily, Zillis spat vigorously on the carpet. His flooding tears had carried the Mace to his lips, and the bitter taste had gotten in his mouth.
Billy went to him and pressed the muzzle of the pistol to the nape of his neck. I.
Zillis became very still, wheezing softly.
Billy said, “You know what this is?”
“Man.”
“I want you to crawl into the bedroom.”
“Shit.”
“I mean it.”
“All right.”
“To the bottom of the bed.”
Although the only light in the room issued from a dim bedside lamp, Zillis squinted against a stinging, blinding brightness as he crawled to the bed.
246
Billy had to redirect him twice. Then: “Sit on the floor with your back against the foot of the bed. That’s good. With your left hand, feel beside you. A set of handcuffs is hanging from the bed rail. There you go.”
“Don’t do this to me, man.” Zillis’s eyes watered copiously. Fluid bubbled in his nostrils. “Why? What is this?”
“Put your left wrist in the empty bracelet.”
“I don’t like this,” Zillis said.
“You don’t have to.”
“What’re you going to do to me?”
“That depends. Put it on now.”
After Zillis fumbled with the cuff, Billy leaned in to test the double lock, which was secure. Zillis still couldn’t see well enough to strike out or to make a play for the gun.
Steve could drag the bed around the room if he wanted. He could overturn it with effort, dump the mattress
