endearing and very explicit poses. I taped them to the concrete walls where Jaworski would see them as he stepped through the door onto the stairs.
I looked back in at Jaworski. He pulled out another twenty yards of wire. It stuck on something and would pull no more. Jaworski yanked twice, then pulled a pair of heavy cutters from his back pocket and snipped the wire. He picked up the wire lying at his feet and wound it into a tight coil on his forearm. Then he walked toward the stairs—toward me.
I shrank back into the stairwell and waited.
Jaworski wasn't trying to be quiet. He was not expecting any interruption—and he certainly wasn't expecting me. I listened to his footsteps and the small rattle of the wire coil dragging behind him.
Closer-He came through the door and a step past without seeing me. And then he saw the pictures.
“Whooof,” he said, as though he had been hit hard in the stomach. He stared, slack-jawed, unable to move, and then I was behind him with my knife at his throat.
“Don't move and don't make a sound,” we said.
“Hey, lookit—” he said.
I turned my wrist slightly and pushed the knife point into his skin under the chin. He hissed as a distressing, awful little spurt of blood squirted out. So unnecessary. Why can't people ever listen?
“I said, don't make a sound,” we told him, and now he was quiet.
And then the only sound was the ratcheting of the duct tape, Jaworski's breathing, and the quiet chuckle from the Dark Passenger. I taped over his mouth, twisted a length of the janitor's precious copper wire around his wrists, and dragged him over to another stack of shrink-wrapped Sheetrock. In just a few moments I had him trussed up and secured to the makeshift table.
“Let's talk,” we said in the Dark Passenger's gentle, cold voice.
He didn't know if he was allowed to speak, and the duct tape would have made it difficult in any case, so he stayed silent.
“Let's talk about runaways,” we said, ripping the duct tape from his mouth.
“Yaaaooww— Whu—whataya mean?” he said. But he was not very convincing.
“I think you know what I mean,” we told him.
“Nuh-no,” he said.
“Yuh-yes,” we said.
Probably one word too clever. My timing was off, the whole evening was off. But he got brave. He looked up at me in my shiny face. “What are you, a cop or something?” he asked.
“No,” we said, and sliced off his left ear. It was closest. The knife was sharp and for a moment he couldn't believe it was happening to him, permanent and forever no left ear. So I dropped the ear on his chest to let him believe. His eyes got huge and he filled his lungs to scream, but I stuffed a wad of plastic wrap in his mouth just before he did.
“None of that,” we said. “Worse things can happen.” And they would, oh definitely, but he didn't need to know that yet.
“The runaways?” we asked gently, coldly, and waited for just a moment, watching his eyes, to make sure he wouldn't scream, then removed the gag.
“Jesus,” he said hoarsely. “My ear—”
“You have another, just as good,” we said. “Tell us about the girls in those pictures.”
“Us? What do you mean, us? Jesus, that hurts,” he whimpered.
Some people just don't get it. I put the plastic stuff back in his mouth and went to work.
I almost got carried away; easy to do, under the circumstances. My heart was racing like mad and I had to fight hard to keep my hand from shaking. But I went to work, exploring, looking for something that was always just beyond my fingertips. Exciting—and terribly frustrating. The pressure was rising inside me, climbing up into my ears and screaming for release—but no release came. Just the growing pressure, and the sense that something wonderful was just beyond my senses, waiting for me to find it and dive in. But I did not find it, and none of my old standards gave me any joy at all. What to do? In my confusion I opened up a vein and a horrible puddle of blood formed on the plastic wrap alongside the janitor. I stopped for a moment, looking for an answer, finding nothing. I looked away, out the shell of the window. I stared, forgetting to breathe.
The moon was visible over the water. For some reason I could not explain that seemed so right, so
So close . . . I was so close to something I could almost smell—but what? A shiver ran through me—and that was right, too, so right it set off a whole chain of shivers until my teeth chattered. But why? What did it mean? Something was there, something
I looked back at the janitor. He made me so angry, the way he was lying there, covered with improvised marks and unnecessary blood. But it was hard to stay angry, with the beautiful Florida moon pounding at me, the tropical breeze blowing, the wonderful night sounds of flexing duct tape and panic breathing. I almost had to laugh. Some people choose to die for some very unusual things, but this horrid little bug, dying for copper wire. And the look on his face: so hurt and confused and desperate. It would have been funny if I hadn't felt so frustrated.
And he really did deserve a better effort from me; after all, it wasn't his fault I was off my usual form.
He wasn't even vile enough to be at the top of my TO DO list. He was just a repulsive little slug who killed children for money and kicks, and only four or five of them as far as I knew. I almost felt sorry for him. He truly wasn't ready for the major leagues.
Ah, well. Back to work. I stepped back to Jaworski's side. He was not thrashing as much now, but he was still far too lively for my usual methods. Of course I did not have all my highly professional toys tonight and the going must have been a little rough for Jaworski. But like a real trouper, he had not complained. I felt a surge of affection and slowed down my slapdash approach, spending some quality time on his hands. He responded with real enthusiasm and I drifted away, lost in happy research.
Eventually it was his muffled screams and wild thrashing that called me back to myself. And I remembered I had not even made sure of his guilt. I waited for him to calm down, then removed the plastic from his mouth.
“The runaways?” we asked.
“Oh Jesus. Oh God. Oh Jesus,” he said weakly.
“I don't think so,” we said. “I think we may have left them behind.”
“Please,” he said. “Oh, please . . .”
“Tell me about the runaways,” we said.
“Okay,” he breathed.
“You took those girls.”
“Yes. . . .”
“How many?”
He just breathed for a moment. His eyes were closed and I thought I might have lost him a little early.
He finally opened his eyes and looked at me. “Five,” he said at last. “Five little beauties. I'm not sorry.”
“Of course you're not,” we said. I placed a hand on his arm. It was a beautiful moment. “And now, I'm not sorry either.”
I stuffed the plastic into his mouth and went back to work. But I had really only just started to recapture my rhythm when I heard the guard arrive downstairs.
CHAPTER 15
IT WAS THE STATIC OF HIS RADIO THAT GAVE HIM away. I was deeply involved in something I'd never tried before when I heard it. I was working on the torso with the knife point and could feel the first real tinglings of response down my spine and through my legs and I didn't want to stop. But a radio— This was worse news than a mere guard arriving. If he called for backup or to have the road blocked, it was just possible that I might find a few
