and the box springs, and patiently dismantle the bolted frame until he could slide the cuff free. But he couldn’t move fast. The carpet looked filthy. Billy wouldn’t sit or kneel on it. He went to the dinette alcove off the kitchen and returned with the only straight-backed chair in the house. He stood it in front of Zillis, out of his reach, and sat down.
“Billy, I’m dying here.”
“You aren’t dying.”
“I’m scared about my eyes. I still can’t see.”
“I want to ask you some questions.”
“Questions? Are you crazy?”
“I half feel like it,” Billy admitted.
Zillis coughed. The single cough became a fit of coughing, which became a fearsome choking. He wasn’t faking any of it.
Billy waited.
When Zillis could speak, his voice was hoarse, and it shook: “You’re scaring the shit out of me, Billy.”
“Good. Now I want you to tell me where you keep your gun.”
“Gun? What do I need with a gun?”
247
“The one you shot him with.”
“Shot him? Shot who? I didn’t shoot anybody. Jesus, Billy.”
“You shot him in the forehead.”
“No. No way. Not me, man.” His eyes swam with tears induced by the Mace, so they could not be read for deception. He blinked and blinked, trying to see. “Man, if this is some half-assed joke—”
“You’re the joker,” Billy said. “Not me. You’re the performer.”
Zillis didn’t react to the word.
Billy went to the nightstand and opened the drawer.
“What’re you doing?” Zillis asked.
“Looking for the gun.”
“There isn’t ‘the a gun.”
“There wasn’t one earlier, when you weren’t here, but there will be now. You’ll keep it close to you.”
“You were here earlier?”
“You wallow in every kind of filth, don’t you, Steve? I wanted to shower in boiling water after I left.”
Billy opened the door on the bottom of the nightstand, rummaged inside.
“What’re you going to do if you don’t find a gun?”
“Maybe I’ll nail your hand to the floor and cut your fingers off one by one.”
Zillis sounded as if he was about to start crying for real. “Oh, man, don’t say crazy shit like that. What did I do to you? I didn’t do anything to you.”
Sliding open the closet door, Billy said, “When you were at my place, Stevie, where did you hide the severed hand?”
A groan escaped Zillis, and he began to shake his head: no, no, no, no. The closet shelf over the hanging clothes lay just above eye level. As Billy felt along the shelf for the gun, he said, “And what else did you hide in my place? What did you cut off the redhead? An ear? A breast?”
“This doesn’t compute,” Zillis said shakily.
“Doesn’t it?”
“You’re Billy Wiles, for God’s sake.”
248
Returning to the bed, searching for the gun, Billy felt between the mattress and the box springs, which he wouldn’t have had the stomach to do if he hadn’t been wearing the gloves.
“You’re Billy Wiles,” Zillis repeated.
“Which means what—that you didn’t think I’d know how to take care of myself?”
“I didn’t do anything, Billy. I didn’t.”
Going around to the other side of the bed, Billy said, “Well, I know how to take care of myself, all right, even if I don’t exactly ring the bell on the zing meter.”
Recognizing his own words, Zillis said, “I didn’t mean anything by that. You think that was an insult? I didn’t mean it that way.”
Billy searched between mattress and box springs again. Nothing.
“I say things, Billy. You know how I am. I’m always joking. You know me. Hell, Billy, I’m an asshole. You know
