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Hefor the hand

Besides, as he read about it in the newspaper for the second ti other than the note taped to his refrigerator The mannequin with six hands

With the fists at the ends of its arms, it had held steak knives that were rammed into its throat

Its feet had been replaced with hands, the better to grip the spear-point iron stave hich it abused itself

A third pair of hands had been severed from a donor mannequin They sprouted from the brsts of the six-handed specioddess Kali

Although the three other mannequins in that roogested Zillis ht have a hand fetish In the photos on the covers of those pornographic videos, the women’s hands had often been restrained With handcuffs With rope With tightly cinched leather straps

The fact that a hand had been harvested fro

Billy was reaching Stretching He didn’t have enough rope to fashion a legitimate noose for Steve Zillis Have I not extended to you the hand of friendship? Yes, I have

Gross, juvenile hu those very words He could hear the-bartender voice

Suddenly it seemed that so much of Zillis’s act at the tavern involved his hands He was unusually dexterous He juggled the olives and other iteht-of-hand He could "walk" a coin across his knuckles, make it disappear

None of this helped Billy tie a better noose

Soon it would be two o’clock If he was going after Zillis, he preferred to do it under the cover of darkness

The liquid bandage on the puncture wounds in his hand had been put to a thorough test It had cracked at the edges, frayed

He opened the bottle and painted another layer over the first, wondering if it was significant that the proh his hand

If he went after Zillis, he would first have a conversation with hi worse Just a serious talk

In case Zillis was the freak, the questions would have to be asked at the point of a gun

Of course, if Zillis proved to be just a sick creep but not a killer, he would not be understanding; he would be pissed He es for forced entry, whatever

The only way to keep hiht be to intimidate him He wouldn’t likely be intiet his attention and unless he believed that he would be hurt even worse if he called the police Before he went after Zillis, Billy had to be sure that he had the capacity to assault an innocent man and brutalize hihtly stiff left hand Flexed and opened Here was a choice not entirely forced upon hiht have to hurt and intimidate an innocent man--or delay, think, wait for events to unfold, and thereby possibly place Barbara in greater danger The choice is yours

It always had been It alould be To act or not to act To wait or to go To close a door or open one To retreat from life or to enter it He did not have hours or days to analyze the quandary Anyway, given tiht wisdom learned from hard experience and applicable to this situation, but he found none The only wisdom is the wisdom of humility In the end, he couldmore than the purity of his ht not be known He started the engine He drove away from the truck stop

He couldn’t find the moon, that thinnest palest sliver of a moon It must have been at his back

Chapter 60

At 2:09 AM, Billy parked on a quiet residential street, two and a half blocks from Steve Zillis’s house

The lower lihts, and across the lamp-yellowed sidewalks, leaf shadows spilled like a treasure of black coins

He walked unhurriedly, as if he were a lifelong inso in these dead hours

The s of the houses were dark, the porch lights off No traffic passed hiiven back a lot of the stored heat froht was neither hot nor cool

The twisted neck of the bread bag was looped around his belt, and the bag, lined with a dishtowel, hung at his left side In it were the handcuffs, the s froht hip: the Wilson Combat holster The loaded pistol filled it

He had pulled his T-shirt out of his jeans, to wear it loose The T-shirt somewhat concealed the pistol Froht, no one would recognize the telltale outline of the weapon When he reached Zillis’s place, he left the sidewalk for the driveway and then followed the wall of eucalyptus trees past the garage At the front, the house had been dark behind the drawn blinds; but lights shone softly at some rear s Zillis’s bedroo the property, alert to every nuance of the night He let his eyes forget the Street lamps and adapt more completely to the darkness

He tucked his T-shirt into his jeans once more, to make the holstered pistol accessible

Froloves, slipped his hands into thehborhood was quiet The houses were not far apart He would need to be careful about noise when he got inside Screaunfire not well muffled by a pillow

He left the yard for the covered patio, on which stood a single aluh the panes in the back door, he could see the kitchen lighted only by two digital clocks, one on the oven and one on theloose from his belt and withdrew from it the can of Mace The dishtowel liner softened the sound of the shifting handcuffs He twisted the neck of the bag and looped it securely around his belt again On his first visit, he had stolen a spare key from a kitchen drawer He inserted the key cautiously, turned it slowly, concerned that the lock ht carry too well in the ses whispered with corrosion but did not squeak

He stepped inside and shut the door behind him

For a minute he did not move His eyes ell accustomed to the dark, but he still needed to orient himself

His heart raced Maybe that was partly the caffeine tablets at work As he crossed the kitchen, the rubber soles of his Rockports squeaked slightly on the vinyl flooring He winced but kept going

The living room was carpeted He took two silent steps into it before stopping again to orient hi There weren’t many obstructions to worry about in the dark

Billy heard faint voices Alar

Having expected to find Zillis alone, he considered retreating But he had to know lowroom to the two bedrooht entered the far end from the open doors of the last two rooms

Those rooms faced each other across the hall As Billy recalled, the one on the left was the bathroo by pitch and tiht there were two voices, one ht hand, thuer

Instinct whispered that he should trade the Mace for the pistol Not every instinct wasZillis, he had nowhere to go Hethe hall, he passed the make-believe abattoir where the mannequins sat in bloodless mutilation

The better he could hear them, the more the voices had aa bad perforested they issued from the speakers of a cheap TV The woman suddenly cried out in pain, but sensuously, as if her pain were also her pleasure

Billy had nearly reached the end of the hall when Steve Zillis exited the bathroo paja to see as on the television in the bedroom His eyes widened when he spotted Billy He spoke around the toothbrush:

"What the fuh--"

Billy Maced hihly effective up to a distance of twenty feet, although fifteen is ideal Steve Zillis stood seven feet from Billy Mace in the mouth and in the nose will somewhat inhibit an attacker You can stop him hard and fast only if you squirt him liberally in the eyes The stream doused both eyes, point-blank, and also hosed his nostrils Zillis dropped the toothbrush, covered his eyes with his hands, too late, and turned blindly away from Billy He collided at once with the end wall of the hallway Making a desperate wheezing sound, he bent over, retching, and spewed gobs of toothpaste foa in his eyes was hellacious, his pupils open so wide that he could see only a fierce blurred brightness, not even the form of his assailant, not even a shadow His throat also burned with the ches tried to reject every tainted breath that he drew

Billy went in low, grabbed the cuff of a paja, and jerked thethe air in search of a wall, a doorway, so, Zillis dropped hard enough to asps and wheezes, between fits of choking, he shrieked about his eyes, the pain, the stinging brightness

Billy drew the 9- the side of the head with the barrel, just hard enough to hurt