Certain Prey

second.
    “Get me some ice cubes out of the sink,” Carmel called to Rinker. “If there are any left.”
    There were a few, and Carmel dumped a bowl of ice water and cubes on Rolo’s face. A minute later, his eyes flickered open.
    Carmel said, “A guy like you, you know what would really hurt? What would hurt a lot?” Her fingers went to his belt line and she unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and started to drag them down. Rolo lay limp, unresisting. Carmel got his pants down on his thighs and then the animal keening began again, and Carmel stopped and said, “What? You don’t want me to drill out your dick? I’d be happy to do it.”
    He went, “Uh-uh, uh-uh,” and Carmel asked, “Are you gonna tell us where the tape really is?”
    “Uh-huh, uh-huh.”
    Carmel pulled the tape off his face and he turned toward her, his eyes glazed, and groaned. “I’m dying,” he said. “My heart busted.”
    “Look, if you’re gonna bullshit us, I’ll put the tape back on and start the drill again. I could do this all night.”
    “Tape’s in the car,” Rolo said. “In with the spare.”
    Carmel looked at Rinker and she said, “Oh, shit. How could we be that stupid?”
    “I’ll go get it,” Rinker said. “You’ve got some blood . . .” Carmel looked down at her blouse: the droplets of blood looked like fine embroidery.
    Rinker went out; another nice evening. She could hear music playing up the block, through an open window somewhere. She stopped to listen, but couldn’t identify the music, then went to Rolo’s car, popped the trunk and pulled the cover off the limited-use spare. The tape was tucked behind it. She looked at it, weighed it in her hands, sighed and went back inside.
    “Get it?” Carmel asked.
    “Got a tape,” Rinker said. She pushed it into the VCR. The picture came up immediately, and Carmel came to watch.
    “Good light,” Rinker grunted.
    “He had all the windows open. That’s another thing I should have noticed. He’s not an open-windows guy.”
    “Boy . . .” Rinker said as the tape wound out. “You were gone, if the cops got this.”
    “That’s why I had to get it back,” Carmel said.
    “You think this is it?” Rinker asked.
    “I don’t know. I could go drill him some more,” Carmel said.
    Rinker looked toward the bedroom. “He looked pretty rough in there . . . I don’t think he could take any more, and I don’t think we’ll get any more out of him. More’n what we’ve got.”
    “So we gotta call it,” Carmel said.
    “It’s your face on the tape.”
    Carmel looked at the bedroom door for a moment, then said, “All right. We’re done. If there’s a copy, we’ll have to deal with it later. But I think we’re still gonna have to kill him. After the drill, he might be so pissed he’d go to the cops.”
    “You wanna do it?” Rinker asked. “I mean, you yourself?”
    “Sure. If you want,” Carmel said.
    “Not if you’d feel bad,” Rinker said.
    “No, no, I don’t think I would, not really,” Carmel said. “What do I do?”
    Rinker explained as they went back into the kitchen. Rolo saw them coming with the gun and didn’t bother to struggle. “See you in hell,” he said.
    “There’s nothing as silly as hell,” Carmel said. “Don’t you know that yet?” And then, to Rinker, “What, I just put it at his head, and pull the trigger?”
    “Easy as that.”
    Rolo turned his head away, and Carmel put the muzzle of the pistol at his temple and then waited a few seconds.
    “Do it,” Rolo said.
    “Made you sweat, didn’t I?” Carmel asked. Rolo started to turn his head back; a little hope? She could see it in his eyes.
    Carmel shot him six times; then the bullets ran out. R INKER AND C ARMEL spent another ten minutes in the house, closing up, obscuring anything that might even theoretically provide evidence against them.
    “We can drop the guns in the Mississippi—I know a good spot down by the dam,” Carmel said.
    “And burn the tape,” Rinker said.
    “As soon as we get back to my place. We oughta go back to my place and change, and get rid of these clothes, and get showered off and everything.”
    “Maybe we could go out someplace tonight,” Rinker said. “My plane isn’t until the day after tomorrow.”
    “That’d be fun,” Carmel said. “Maybe we could rent a movie or . . .”
    She stopped in midsentence, looking back at the kitchen. “What?” Rinker asked.
    Without answering, Carmel went back to the kitchen,