Dean Koontz - Velocity

“She disappeared.”

“Like in a magic show?”

254

“She was just gone.”

“She was such a lovely girl, wasn’t she?”

“Everybody liked her,” Zillis said.

“Such a lovely girl, so innocent. The innocent are the most delicious, aren’t they, Stevie?”

Frowning, Zillis said, “Delicious?”

“The innocent—they’re the most succulent, the most satisfying. I know what happened to her,” Billy said, meaning to imply that he knew Zillis had kidnapped and killed her.

Such a full-body shudder passed through Steve Zillis that the handcuffs rattled protractedly against the metal bed frame.

Pleased with that reaction, Billy said, “I know, Stevie.”

“What? What do you know?”

“Everything.”

“What happened to her?”

“Yes. Everything.”

Zillis had been sitting with his back against the bed, his legs splayed on the floor in front of him. Now he suddenly drew his knees up to his chest. “Oh, God.” A groan of abject misery escaped him.

“Precisely everything,” Billy said.

Zillis’s mouth softened and his voice grew tremulous. “Don’t hurt me.”

“What do you think I might do to you, Stevie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to think.”

“You’re so imaginative, so talented when it comes to dreaming up ways to hurt women, but suddenly you don’t want to think?”

Shivering continuously now, Zillis said, “What do you want from me, what can I do?”

“I want to talk about what happened to Judith Kesselman.”

When Zillis began to sob like a young boy, Billy got up from the chair. He sensed that a breakthrough was coming.

“Stevie?”

“Go away.”

“You know I’m not going to. Let’s talk about Judi Kesselman.”

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“I don’t want to.”

“I think you do.” Billy didn’t go closer to Zillis, but he squatted in front of him, coming down almost to his level. “I think you want very much to talk about it.”

Zillis shook his head violently. “I don’t. I don’t. If we talk about it, you’ll kill me for sure.”

“Why do you say that, Stevie?”

“You know.”

“Why do you say I’ll kill you?”

“Because then I’ll know too much, won’t I?”

Billy stared at his prisoner, trying to read him.

“You did her,” Zillis said with a groan.

“Did what?”

“You killed her, and I don’t know why, I don’t understand, but now you’re going to kill me.”

Billy took a deep breath and grimaced. “What’ve you done?”

For an answer, Zillis only sobbed.

“Stevie, what’ve you done to yourself?”

Zillis had drawn his knees to his chest. Now he stretched out his legs again.

“Stevie?”

The crotch of the man’s pajamas was dark with urine. He had wet himself.

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Chapter 64

Some monsters are pathetic rather than murderous. Their lairs are not lairs in the fullest sense because they do not lie in wait. They take to ill-kept burrows, with minimal furniture and the objects of their misshapen sense of beauty. They hope only to indulge their mutant fantasies and live their monstrous lives in as much peace as they can find, which is precious little, for they torment themselves even when the rest of the world leaves them unmolested.

Billy resisted the conclusion that Steve Zillis was one of this pathetic breed.

To admit that Zillis was not a homicidal sociopath, Billy must accept that much precious time had been wasted in the pursuit of a wolf, presumed fierce, that was in fact a meek dog.

Worse, if Zillis was not the freak, Billy had no idea where to go from here. All the evidence had seemed to funnel him to a single conclusion. The circumstantial evidence.

Worst of all, if the killer was not before him now, then he had stooped to this brutality without profit.

Consequently, for a while he continued to question and harass his captive, but by the minute, the contest between them seemed to be less a contest than an act of oppression. A matador can find no glory when the bull, bristling with banderillas and lanced by the picador, loses all spirit and will pass not even listlessly at the red muleta.

Sooner than later, concealing his growing despair, Billy sat on the chair once more and raised his final issue, hoping that a trap might spring when he least expected.

“Where were you earlier tonight, Steve?”

“You know. Don’t you know? I was at the bar, working your shift.”

“Only until nine o’clock. Jackie says you worked between three and nine because you had stuff to do before and after.”

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“I did. I had stuff.”

“Where were you between nine o’clock and midnight?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters,” Billy assured him. “Where were you?”

“You’re gonna hurt… you’re gonna kill me anyway.”

“I’m not going to kill you, and I didn’t kill Judith Kesselman. I’m pretty sure you killed her.”

“Me?” His amazement rang as true as any reaction he’d had since this had started.

“You’re really good at this,” Billy told him.

“Good at what? Killing people? You’re bugshit crazy! I never killed anyone.”

“Steve, if you can convince me you have a solid alibi for nine to midnight, then this is over. I’m out of here, and you’re free.”

Zillis looked dubious. “That easy?”

“Yes.”

“After all this—it’s over that easy?”

“It could be. Depending on the alibi.”

Zillis worried over his answer.

Billy began to think he was concocting it from scratch.

Then Zillis said, “What if I tell you where I was, and it turns out that’s why you’re here, because you already know where I was, and you want to hear me say it so you can beat the shit out of me.”

“I’m not following you,” Billy told him.

“All right. Okay. I was with someone. I never heard her mention you, but if you have a thing for her, what’re you going to do to me?”

Billy regarded him with disbelief. “You were with a woman?”

“I wasn’t with her, not like in bed. It was just a date. A late dinner, which had to be later ‘cause I covered for you. This was our second date.”

“Who?”

Steeling himself against Billy’s jealous outrage, Zillis said, “Amanda Pollard.”

“Mandy Pollard? I know her. She’s a nice girl.”

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Warily, Zillis said, “That’s it—‘She’s a nice girl’?”

The Pollards owned a successful vineyard. They grew grapes on contract for one of the valley’s finest vintners. Mandy was about twenty, pretty, friendly. She worked in the family business. Judging by all evidence, she was wholesome enough to have come from an era better than this one. Billy let his gaze travel the sleazy bedroom, from the porno-tape package lying on the floor beside the TV to the pile of dirty laundry in one corner.

“She’s never been here,” Zillis said. “We’ve only had two dates. I’m looking for a better place, a nice apartment. I want to get rid of all this stuff. Make a clean start.”

“She’s a decent girl.”

“She is,” Zillis eagerly agreed. “I think with her in my corner, I could clean up my act, start over, do the right thing for once.”

“She ought to see this place.”

“No, no. Billy, no, for God’s sake. This isn’t the me I want to be. I want to be better for her.”

“Where did you go to dinner?”

Zillis named a restaurant. Then: “We got there about twenty past nine. We left at about a quarter past eleven because we were the only people in the place by then.”

“After that?”

“We went for a drive. A nice drive. I don’t mean we parked. She isn’t like that. We just drove around, talking, listening to music.”