'Stop,' Roy-Boy said. He pointed the pistol at Blackburn's face. 'And pick up my ice scraper.'
Blackburn stopped. He was at the foot of the bed, four feet from Roy-Boy. He reached down between Heather's knees and picked up the glass shard.
'Now cut her,' Roy-Boy said. 'Anywhere you like. But cut deep, or I'll shoot you.'
'You'll shoot me anyway.'
'No, I won't. I promise. I'm a moral guy too.'
Blackburn gripped the taped end of the shard with both hands. The sharp end was pointed up.
'Why should I have killed you?' Blackburn asked again.
'Maybe because I threaten your masculinity,' Roy-Boy said. 'So stick the glass between her butt cheeks. That should make you feel like a stud again.'
Blackburn placed the point of the shard under his own chin and began to push upward. It hurt, but like Heather's fingernails on his face, the pain was pure, cleansing. He thought again of Dad's fiberglass rod. No matter how much he had hated it, it had contributed to his creation. This new pain reminded him of that truth.
Roy-Boy grimaced. 'Not
Blackburn thrust his fists out and down, cutting his chin, and slashed Roy-Boy's right wrist.
Roy-Boy shrieked. He swung his pistol toward Blackburn again.
But Blackburn was already lunging. He sank his teeth into Roy-Boy's slashed wrist. With his left hand he grabbed the silver pistol and tried to yank it away. With his right hand he used the shard to rip and stab. Roy-Boy stumbled backward. He was screaming things that might have been words, but Blackburn didn't listen to them. The only voice he listened to now was his own, the voice that told him what needed to be done.
They fell to the floor in the hall. Blackburn kept his teeth clamped and his left hand on the pistol, but concentrated on driving the shard into Roy-Boy's eyes, throat, belly, and groin. The odor of soap was overwhelmed by stronger smells. Before long the pistol came free.
Blackburn rolled off Roy-Boy and squatted beside him. He threw the shard into the living room. Then he looked down at what remained of Roy-Boy's face.
'You'd like to believe you're evil,' Blackburn said. 'But you're only stupid. Anyone who's done it seriously knows there's only one good way to kill: a bullet to the head. Of course, with the smaller calibers, it might take more than one.' He placed the muzzle of the silver pistol against Roy-Boy's forehead. 'Do you know the answer to my question yet?'
One of Roy-Boy's hands flopped aimlessly.
'It's simple,' Blackburn said.
He cocked the pistol.
He squeezed the trigger until the gun was empty.
Blackburn dropped the pistol on Roy-Boy's chest and stood. He was dizzy for a moment and steadied himself against the wall, leaving a handprint. He was a mess. There had been a lot of blood some of the other times, but never this much. He wanted to brush his teeth and take a shower. He wanted to scrub and burn incense until Roy-Boy's stink was gone.
On the floor, the carcass twitched. Its ponytail had come loose, and the hair was spread out like a fan on the trash bag Blackburn had dropped. The plastic was keeping most of the hair off the wet carpet. Blackburn thought of taking the scalp, then rejected the idea. He didn't want a trophy. He wasn't proud of the way things had gone with Roy-Boy.
He heard a noise in the bedroom and turned to look. Heather was up on her knees. She had managed to free her right wrist and was now trying to loosen the cords around her ankles. She wasn't having any success. She was unsteady, swaying.
Blackburn went to her. 'I can do that,' he said.
She looked up at him and tried to say something, or to scream. All that came out was a moan.
Blackburn wiped his hands on his shirt. It didn't help. His shirt was wet. 'This is mostly his,' he said.
Heather looked away as Blackburn untied the cords around her ankles. When she was free, he tried to help her up, but she pulled away and got off the bed on the other side. She stumbled into the hall.
Blackburn pulled the top sheet from the bed. The apartment was cold, and he thought Heather should cover herself. He went into the hall and saw her step over Roy-Boy's body. She didn't seem to notice it. He followed her into the kitchen and turned on the light. Then he draped the sheet over her shoulders, and she didn't even glance at him.
He saw that she was no longer the Heather who had slept with him, and he knew that he was responsible. For the first time in his life, he was horrified at himself. Not for what he had done, but for what he had failed to do. In that failure, he had become an accessory to torture and rape. Killing was not always murder, and stealing was not always a crime… but torture and rape were absolutes.
Heather lifted the receiver from a wall telephone and pushed 911. Blackburn heard the dispatcher answer the call, but Heather didn't put the receiver to her ear. She stared at it as if trying to figure out why it was making noise.
'Let me,' Blackburn said. He reached for the receiver.
Heather jerked it away, then hit him in the face with it.
His eyes filled with tears. The receiver had struck his nose hard. 'Let me talk to them,' he said. 'You're hurt. You need to go to the hospital.'
Heather dropped the receiver and yanked the telephone from its wall jack. The sheet fell away, and Blackburn saw the red lines that her wounds had left on it.
She swung the telephone and hit his head. Then she hit him again, and again. The telephone clanged, and the receiver bounced on its cord, thunking against the floor.
Blackburn backed up against the refrigerator and then stood there, letting Heather hit him. He should never have begun stealing for a living. That moral slip had led to the next one, and that in turn had led to this. So he would take his punishment. It was the only punishment he had ever received that made sense.
'I'm sorry,' he told Heather. She had become a blur. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'
The telephone clanged. Heather began to grunt with each clang, and then to shout. There were no words. Only the voice of her rage.
Blackburn heard it and knew it was just. He slid to the floor. The tiles were like cool water against his cheek.
And so the State of Texas took him, and healed his face, and charged him with rape and murder. He let the rape charge stand. Murder, however, he could not accept. He had killed, but he had never committed murder. This went double in the case of Roy-Boy.
His court-appointed attorney said that this was not a suitable defense.
Homicide investigators from across the nation came to Houston to question Blackburn, but he was only able to help two of them. Most of the others were trying to track down serial killers of women, and Blackburn had nothing to tell them about that sort of thing-except to say that there were a lot of bastards out there, and he should know, having killed a number of them.
