It was a long moment before he removed his hand.
“Okay.” Vincent said.
Lionel smiled softly. “Okay.”
Another swig.
And another.
And although Vincent was anxious to get going, he realized he needed a little time for the drugs to work, so he answered Lionel’s questions about where he’d gone to college, UW-La Crosse, and what he did for a living, managed a PR firm. In response, Lionel mentioned that he had a theater degree from DePaul and was an actor “between jobs.”
As the minutes passed, the drugs and alcohol started to have the desired effect.
“Lionel?”
“Um-hmm.” His voice was wavering, unfocused.
“Do you want to leave?”
“Your place is close?” he mumbled.
“Yes. Let’s get you to the car.”
No response, just a bleary nod.
So Vincent helped Lionel to his feet and supported him on the way to the door.
2
Apparently, two men leaving this bar-with one of them evidently drunk-was not too out of the ordinary. Nobody paid much attention to them as they left the building.
Vincent could see his breath as he crossed the sidewalk, but the November night felt brisk rather than icy cold and that would be good for Lionel, for what Vincent had in mind for him.
Earlier, Vincent had taken the backseats out of his minivan and it wasn’t difficult to help Lionel into the vehicle. Once they were inside, he closed the door and retrieved the handcuffs.
He hoped Lionel wouldn’t struggle, but Vincent had been a linebacker in college, still worked out four or five days a week, and was willing to get physical, if that’s what it took.
Vincent began to unzip Lionel’s jacket.
“What are you…?” Lionel’s words were blurred, confused.
“We need to get you out of these clothes.”
“I thought we…were going…to your place.”
“Plans have changed.” He tugged off Lionel’s coat.
Lionel eyed the handcuffs. A look that went past confusion and dipped into fear crossed his face and he tried to wrestle free. He was squirrelly and hard to hold on to, and Vincent was forced to do something he hadn’t intended to do-punch him in the face. Lionel crumpled to the floor. “What the-?”
Vincent cuffed his left wrist and when Lionel tried to get up again, Vincent grabbed his head and smacked it hard against the floor of the van. “Don’t fight. It’ll make it worse.”
“No-”
This wasn’t going well, not well at all.
Vincent bent over him. “Be quiet, Lionel, or I’ll have to do that again. I don’t want to, but if I-”
“Help!” Lionel rolled to his side, tried to scramble toward the door, but Vincent snagged his left arm, twisted it behind his back, brought the right arm around as well and cuffed the wrists together. Once he was assured that Lionel wasn’t going anywhere, he stuffed a cloth into his mouth and wrapped a few rounds of duct tape around his head to hold it in place. Lionel tried to shake free, to cry out for help, but could hardly make any sound at all.
Vincent hurried to the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Get away from the bar. You need to get away from here. Right now.
Sweating, shaking, Vincent turned the key and the engine came to life. He scanned the street, the sidewalks. A couple of men had just left the bar but were headed in the opposite direction and weren’t looking at the van. Vincent heard the muffled sound of Lionel trying to call for help, but it wasn’t nearly loud enough for the men outside to hear.
The drugs, they should have knocked him out by now.
Vincent lurched the van onto the street too fast, his heart racing, his mouth dry.
Easy, don’t get pulled over. Do not get pulled over.
Eight blocks away he paused in a deserted parking lot, turned off the headlights, and let the engine idle; then he returned to the back of the minivan. The drugs were taking their toll on Lionel. He lay on the floor, barely conscious.
Quickly, Vincent removed Lionel’s shoes, then his socks, then his pants and underwear. The fight had gone out of him and he didn’t resist, just stared vacantly at the roof of the minivan.
Using fabric shears, Vincent cut a long slit up each sleeve of Lionel’s sweater. He removed it and then went to work on his undershirt.
A few moments later Lionel lay naked and cuffed in the van.
“I didn’t want things to go like this,” Vincent told him.
Lionel rolled weakly onto his side, curling himself into a fetal position.
Vincent returned to the driver’s seat and guided the van to North Twenty-fifth Street, to the alley that ran between a ramshackle two-story house and an empty lot that was surrounded by a rusted six-foot-high chain-link fence. Two stout, brick apartment buildings lay just to the left of the fenced-in lot. The alley was empty. No one on the sidewalk that led past it. No traffic.
However, half a dozen cars were parked along the alley’s side of the street, leaving room for snowplows to drive along the other side if the weather took a turn for the worse. Vincent realized it was good that there was a string of cars already there by the curb. It would make his van less conspicuous.
He parked and crawled into the back. “Okay, I’m taking off the gag. But don’t cry out or I’ll have to hit you again, and I really don’t want to do that.”
Lionel, if he understood, did not respond. Just lay still and submissive.
Using the shears again, Vincent cut off the tape, tugged it free, and removed the gag. Then he opened the door to the van. “Go,” he commanded Lionel. “Get out.”
At last Lionel looked at him.
“Go on.” He swung Lionel’s feet around so they were sticking out the door. “Get out of the van.”
Lionel tried to leave on his own, but collapsed onto the sidewalk with a low moan.
Get away, Vincent. You have to get away. This is close enough.
But then the reality: No! They need to find him in the alley. Or else-
He hadn’t wanted to do this, but now he got out and, supporting Lionel, led him fifty feet into the alley, left him standing unsteadily, but on his own, then hustled back to the vehicle.
But he didn’t leave yet.
Once inside the van, he tried to calm himself. He looked around. Saw nothing suspicious. No pedestrians. No movement on the street. Because of the vacant lot beside the alley, Lionel was still clearly visible from the road.
Nervously gripping the keys that he’d left in the ignition, Vincent took a few seconds to catch his breath.
The brisk air seemed to be bringing Lionel out of the drug-induced stupor. He stumbled across the alley, eventually leaning for support against a telephone pole by the fence encircling the lot.
Vincent was about to pull into the street when he saw a police cruiser round the corner and come prowling toward him. Heart hammering, he glanced toward Lionel one last time and saw him drop heavily to the ground beside the telephone pole.
From there he would be visible to the cops if they looked down the alley.
Vincent ducked his head down and leaned across the front seat so he’d be out of sight. An anonymous, empty minivan on a quiet, anonymous street. Well, maybe not an anonymous street, but-
He didn’t think the cops had seen him, but it was possible-
No, no, no. You cannot get caught!
The squad’s headlights swept across the road, through the windshield of Vincent’s van, then toward the alley, toward Lionel.
They see him. They have to see him by now!
The movement of the headlights stopped and Vincent heard one of the police car doors slam shut. Then the other.
Get out of here. If you’re caught, everything will fall apart. You can’t let that happen. There’s too much-