Roy took Teddy’s pistol out of his pocket and put the barrel behind Kit’s ear. “I know this doesn’t mean anything to you. . . . It’s for Ted’s benefit.”
Larry pushed Teddy into the room.
“Give us any trouble and you both die,” Roy said. “Larry, bring those chairs over here.”
Larry picked up a straight-backed chair and carried it to Kit’s side. “Where do you want it?”
“Right in front of her.”
Larry put the chair down.
Roy looked at Teddy. “That one’s yours.”
His black eyes as cold as Roy’s, Teddy stepped in front of Kit and sat down, his knees nearly touching hers. Larry arrived with the desk chair and Roy had him put it to Kit’s right, so the three chairs formed a triangle.
“Tie his feet to the chair.”
Larry did as Roy ordered, and when he was finished, Roy had him pass a length of twine around Teddy’s waist and tie him into the chair. He then ordered the same treatment for Kit, threatening to kill Teddy if she resisted.
“We’re going to free your arms now,” Roy said, stepping back. “If either of you makes any trouble, I’ll kill both of you.” Roy nodded and Larry cut Kit’s hands free.
“No quick moves,” Roy cautioned.
The warning was unnecessary, for Kit’s arms were loath to leave the tied-back position and sharp pains stabbed at her shoulders as she slowly brought her hands in front of her.
The procedure was repeated with Teddy.
“Both of you reach out and grasp the other by the wrists.”
Though her shoulders ached when she lifted her arms and she and Teddy were both utterly under Roy’s control, the feel of Teddy’s fingers on her skin gave her renewed hope and she felt that somehow they’d get out of this.
“Tie their wrists together.”
When Larry was finished with that, Roy had him run a length of twine from one pair of their joined wrists to the opposite leg of Teddy’s chair. He repeated this with the other pair, effectively restraining any side-to-side or upward motion of their joined hands.
Kit saw that Teddy’s lips were dry and cracked and seeing that reminded her how much she wanted a drink of water. For a moment, she lost her grip on reality and she was home in the shower, cool water pouring over her . . . enveloping her . . . water in her face . . . in her mouth . . . running down her throat.
Larry’s voice brought her back.
“We doing him again?”
“She’s given us no choice,” Roy said.
Larry produced a cigarette lighter and thumbed the flint. He held the resulting yellow flame in front of the torch and turned it on, spawning an evil blue saber with a malignant whisper. He donned a single black glove from the bag that had held the torch and returned to the bag for a pair of pliers, which he used in his gloved hand to pick up the half-dollar and put it in the flame.
Roy sat in the desk chair and pulled it in close to Kit and Teddy. His face so close to hers she could see the pores in his skin, he said, “I think the problem with the way we did this last time was that it was all too abstract. Ted was in one room and you were in another. From your perspective, there was no immediacy to the situation. You didn’t hear or see any part of it, so it was relatively easy for you to wash it from your mind. But tonight will be different. I’m sure we won’t hear Ted cry out. Even if he was the type to do that, his wish to appear strong in your presence would probably give him the resolve to stay quiet. But you may feel his palms sweat. Or are they already doing that?”
Teddy’s hands did indeed feel moist against her skin. She was sure hers were no drier.
Seeing he would get no answer from her, Roy moved on. “His pulse will probably speed up as well, but I don’t think your fingers are properly placed to detect that. Pay particular attention to his eyes, though. When the pain is greatest, we should see some change in his pupils. We may also hear and smell his skin cooking.”
Kit’s anger for Roy and her fear for Teddy filled her mind, making it hard to think. And she had to think, because the situation had become more complicated. Though she’d spent many hours reading and studying the motivation behind criminal behavior, Roy was a paper yet to be written. Her refusal to give him anything to feed on had been based more on pure stubbornness than insight. But now, she suddenly saw the choices before her and their consequences more clearly. If she denied Roy any emotional reaction to what Larry was about to do, he might raise the stakes, hurting Teddy even more the next time to force her to give him what he craved. On the other hand, if she gave in, it would show she could be broken, and that might bring him back for more, also with higher stakes.
In her heart, she believed there was no answer. Either choice would lead to more torture. The only solution was escape. Realizing it was a rigged contest, Kit chose the same route she’d traveled to this point. She’d give him nothing.
19
Kit stared at the rusty water in her cupped hands, then lowered her face and drank deeply, ignoring the rattling water pipes. No bubbling spring in the French Pyrenees could have been more satisfying. She refilled her hands and drank again . . . and again, then splashed water over her face and rubbed it in.
She turned off the water and dried ineffectually on a length of toilet paper from a limp roll sitting on the back of the toilet. Reluctantly, she looked in the mirror over the sink. The silver backing on the mirror had flaked away in blisters, giving her the appearance of having a pox. Between these lesions, she looked even worse than she imagined, like a prospector who’d been dragged facedown for miles by his horse. She craned her neck and saw that it still bore an angry red ring where Roy had tried to strangle her.
Unable to look at herself for another second, she turned her attention to the grimy toilet, whose rim was caked with yellow stains. Below the waterline, its bowl was pecan brown.
The paint on the seat was cracked and bubbled as though the material under it was disintegrating from being constantly wet. She’d have given anything she owned for a waterproof seat cover, but here again, she was trapped. The only option left was the obnoxious, barnyard curtsy. Envying for the moment the way males were plumbed, she tore off another piece of toilet paper and plugged the keyhole to keep Larry from looking in. Knowing he was also listening, she again turned on the tap in the sink. With the same determination that had seen her through Teddy’s ordeal, she did what was necessary, all the while keenly aware there was no way to lock the door.
When she finished, she adjusted her clothing and shifted her attention to a hinged window on the wall next to the toilet. The glass was covered with yellow paint, so she couldn’t tell what was on the other side. The latch, too, was encrusted with paint, but with a little effort she got it to work. The window, though, was firmly painted shut.
Larry pounded on the door. “You about done in there?”
She shut off the water in the sink, flushed the toilet, and opened the door.
Larry was waiting with the twine. “Come out here and put your hands behind you. Remember, Roy’s watching Ted.”
Kit stepped into the room and placed her hands in position. “Larry, Roy didn’t learn from the radio tonight that there was no money,” she whispered. “He’s known it all along. He’s been treating you like a fool.”
“The spot you’re in, you’d say anything,” he said, tying her.
“It’s true. He’s putting you both at risk just to amuse himself.”
“Roy’s my brother. I’d believe him any day before I’d trust you.”
Larry took her back to the room where Teddy and Roy waited and pushed her onto the mattress. After retying her feet, both of them took Teddy to the bathroom.
As they were leaving, Kit’s eyes fixed on the sailor flap cut in Teddy’s shirt. She could tell where he’d been burned the first time by the dried exudate staining the fabric. And soon, there would be another stain, most likely bigger, judging from what Larry had said about the torch being much better than the stove at heating
the coin.
Roy had been right. With it all happening a few inches away, it hadn’t been possible to insulate herself from it as effectively as when Teddy was in a different room. She’d managed as before to show no reaction, but she’d been all too aware of every second of his ordeal.
Through it all Teddy had been a brick, making no sound at all. But as Roy had predicted, the pain had caused his pupils to dilate. And even now, she could hear the frying-bacon sound the coin made when Larry had pressed it against his skin.
This must stop. It must.
In her desperation, she imagined that by now, Broussard had figured out what the glitter was on Burras’s shoes. She pictured Gatlin and a bunch of other detectives lying in wait for Roy and Larry to return to the source of the glitter. But had he figured it out? Had the body even been found? These prickly questions showed her the odds were too long to rely on someone else rescuing them. She and Teddy would have to help themselves.
This brought her back to the bathroom window. If she could somehow open it and slip out . . . then what? If she tried that, Roy would probably kill Teddy. The glitter . . . Broussard had to figure out the glitter.
Teddy was back in less than five minutes. Then thankfully, Roy and Larry left them alone, but with the lights off.
Wincing, Teddy turned to face her.
“Does it hurt terribly?” she asked.
“I can deal with it. But we need to reach an understanding.”
“About what?”
In the next room, Larry had turned on the police scanner. Teddy lowered his voice. “We both know they’re not going to let us live.”
“Yes.”
“That means we have to take advantage of whatever opportunities are given to us and be willing to take some risks.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I mean we can’t let them use one of us to control the other . . . this idea that if you do anything to upset them, they’ll kill me. You have to put that out of your mind. When Larry took you to the bathroom, did he stay outside?”
“Yes.”
“Roy watched me, so I couldn’t check it out, but there’s a painted-over window in the bathroom.”
“I saw it—the latch works, but the window itself won’t budge.”
“It’s probably painted shut. If we can figure out a way to get it open, do you have the courage to climb through it and escape?”
“And leave you behind?”
“Every minute we stay with these psychotics, hoping for an easy solution, the less likely it is either of us will survive. You wouldn’t be leaving me; you’d be going for help. Besides, I don’t think they’ll make good on their threat. If you get away, I’ll be too valuable as a hostage for them to kill me.”
“What if I try and fail?”
“Sometimes you have to work without a net. Can you do it?”
“I guess I’ll have to. We’ll need something to cut through the paint film. . . .”
“We won’t find it sitting here in the dark. We’ll have to get the lights on. Sit up and shift your body so your back is toward me.”
Kit sat up and glanced at the door, worried that if they were able to reach the switch, Roy and Larry would see the light through the crack at the bottom. But even sitting there in total darkness, she could barely see the light from Roy and Larry’s side. So chances were good they wouldn’t notice.
She got her legs shifted around to her left and felt Teddy’s back touching hers.
“Dig your heels in and push up. . . . I’ll do the same.”
Working together in this way, they managed to get on their feet.
“The scanner will cover a certain amount of noise, but we still need to be as quiet as we can,” Teddy said. “My boots will make a lot more noise on the cement than your shoes.”
Kit began hopping toward the light switch, trying to stay on the balls of her feet. By the time she reached it, her thighs ached and she was breathing hard. It was a simple matter to nudge the switch on with her shoulder. Taking a deep breath, she hopped back to Teddy.
“Look for anything we can use as a scraper,” he said. Together, they scanned the bare room, paying particular attention to the intersection of the walls and floor, where a useful object might nestle unobserved. But the room was swept clean.
Then Kit saw something. “What about that?”
Teddy turned to see what she’d found—a large nail sticking out of the wall about eye level.
“That’d be perfect,” he said. “But it’s too high to get at. Damn . . . so close.”
They both stood looking longingly at the nail, trying to think of some way to reach it. But neither could. Finally, accepting that it was fool’s gold, they continued the search.
When Kit saw the second nail—at waist level—she nearly whooped out loud. She pointed it out to Teddy and he hopped over to it. He turned his back to the wall and set to work on the nail with his fingers, leaning outward and shifting his body slightly from side to side.
The way things had been going, Kit was sure the nail would be seated so firmly, he’d never get it out. But maybe they could use it to abrade the twine around their wrists.
She was about to suggest this when Teddy lurched forward and took a short hop to keep from falling.
“I got it,” he said. “I bloody damn well got it.”
He hopped to the mattress, where Kit waited; then he turned and showed her the nail. It was not as large as the first one, but it was big enough that she’d be able to get a good grip on it when the time came.
“Come closer and I’ll put it in your pocket.”
Kit maneuvered herself around to where Teddy could slip the nail into the one pocket in her slacks.
“Let’s get the light off before they notice,” Teddy said.
Kit made her way back to the switch and found she had to use her chin to turn it off. She went back to the mattress and they got down on it by reversing the procedure they’d used to get up.
Their hearts were barely back to beating normally after all the exercise when the police scanner went silent. The door opened and Roy flicked on the light. He brought in a chair and two books, sat down, and resumed reading aloud The Old Man and the Sea, picking up where he’d left off earlier, acting as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
A couple of pages into the session, he crossed one leg over the other and Kit saw several flecks of glitter on his new shoes. He’d put the shoes on for the first time earlier that night, just before they’d all gone out in the truck. The fact the shoes now had glitter on them meant the source was some part of this building. Obviously, Broussard hadn’t figured it out.
Roy soon finished The Old Man and the Sea and began to read them an Ed McBain novel. It was all wasted on Kit, though, because her mind was on their escape plan. She knew the window might be painted shut on the outside as well as the inside and that might keep it from opening. It might even be held in place by nails or screws she couldn’t see. But then again, maybe neither of those problems existed. . . . Maybe this was going to work. But if it did, she’d be leaving Teddy behind. And so it went.
READY TO PUT HIM away, Broussard reached for the zipper on the inner body bag containing the strangulation victim. With the Schrader lead dwindled away to the name C. F. Dumond and a hypothetical truck that might have picked the smuggled birds up at the dock, he’d gone over the body yet again, trying to link it to someplace other than where it had been found. And like all the other times he’d examined it, he’d learned nothing.
As the zipper meshed over the cadaver’s chin, it stalled. Broussard shifted his stance and grabbed the bag below the jam. With his other hand, he managed to back the zipper up and free it.
Lord, but it was hot in here. He made a mental note to call Maintenance and have them check the morgue’s climate controls.
Close inspection of the zipper revealed one slightly misaligned tooth. Not in the mood to shift the cadaver into another bag, he pulled the plastic taut so the tw
o sides of the zipper were on the same plane and tried again.
And again it jammed.
Frustrated at being thwarted in his examination of the body and still plagued by the headache he’d awakened with two hours earlier, he was not about to let a zipper get the best of him. Grabbing the bag below the jam, he tried to work the zipper past the bad tooth. In doing so, the force he exerted on the zipper was transferred to the gurney and from there to the cadaver, whose head began to jiggle from side to side.
Out of the corner of his eye, Broussard caught a flash of reflected light from the rim of the cadaver’s left nostril. Puzzled, he reached in and moved the cadaver’s head from side to side.
There it was again. . . .
Bending for a closer look, he tilted his own head to get the image onto the bifocal part of his glasses, then moved the cadaver’s head slowly from side to side.
There . . . a fleck of something shiny . . .
His heart tripping with excitement, he stripped off his gloves, threw them into the biohazard box, and put on a fresh pair. He then grabbed a long-handled cotton swab and a test tube. He moistened the swab with distilled water from a squirt bottle and returned to the body, where he carefully picked up the shiny fleck with the swab.
He put the swab into the test tube, broke off the protruding part of the swab handle, and capped the tube. The broken part of the handle went into the biohazard box and the test tube containing the swab went into another larger tube, which he likewise capped.
He put a biohazard label on the outer tube and slipped the tube into a clean beaker to hold it while he changed out of his morgue garb. Guy could deal with that balky zipper.
Two minutes later, he charged into the hall and practically ran for the elevator. Reaching his office, he went immediately to his desk and looked up the number of the Tulane Fine Structure Facility, which he knew had a scanning electron microscope fitted with a unit that could analyze solid samples by X-ray dispersal.
Mopping at the perspiration on his brow with some Kimwipes, head throbbing, he made the call and convinced the director of the facility that this was a sample needing top priority.
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