Velocity

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.”
    “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.
     
     
     

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.”
    “I did. I had stuff.”
    “Where were you between nine o’clock