“I’ll give you the money,” Frank said.
Dayball began to knead Shel’s shoulders. “Money?”
“All of it.”
Dayball set his chin on top of Shel’s head. He worked his chin in a tiny circle on her scalp.
“And how much would that be, Frank?”
“Don’t hurt her.”
“How much money?”
Frank’s breathing came so fast it looked like he might faint. “Fifteen thousand,” he said.
Dayball lifted his head and put his thumbs to Shel’s temples, massaging them. The pressure was just short of painful. He said, “Again?”
“Thirty,” Frank cried. “Thirty thousand. Don’t.”
Dayball lowered his hands to her throat. With his thumb and forefinger, he found the edges of her trachea. He ran his fingers gently up and down, as though performing a measurement. Shel readied herself.
“I’ll show you,” Frank shouted, straining at the lanyard, “I’ll dig it up, take it all, don’t hurt her…”
He dropped his chin to his chest and sobbed. Tully walked behind him, delivered one hard kick to his kidneys and said, “Stop it.”
Dayball let go of Shel’s throat but remained behind her. He settled his weight on the back of her chair. “How much the twins gonna kick in, Frank?”
Frank lifted his head and blinked hard to get the tears out of his eyes. “Lonnie?”
“Tell him, Tull.”
Tully cleared his sinuses again and spat. He said, “Twins got beat.”
Dayball leaned down so his lips were next to Shel’s ear. “Bet you didn’t peg your little Frankie here for a stone-cold killer.” To Frank, he added, “You were a busy boy tonight, Frankie. Kept poor Tull here shakin’ n’ bakin’ just to keep up.”
No, Shel thought. It’s not true. They’re lying, the motherfuckers. Tully killed the twins. Then her eyes met Frank’s. She felt a surge of nausea and feared she was going to retch into her gag. She closed her eyes and fought the impulse, knowing she could suffocate that way.
Dayball said, “So tell us, Frank. Inquiring minds want to know. How’d it feel?”
Unable to face Shel again, Frank looked at the floor instead.
“Need an invite?” Tully said. “Answer him, Short.”
Frank turned back to Dayball and tried to conjure up the right answer. “It feels done.”
Tully and Dayball laughed. Dayball said, “Done like how, Short? Like it’s a fucking cake?”
“Stick a fork in it,” Tully said.
Frank pictured the remote house, the upstairs room, the identical dead boys. He recalled how quiet it was after.
“I mean it’s over,” he said. “It’s finished.”
Dayball said, “Not by a long shot, Short.” He took out a cigarette and lit it. Tully coughed into his fist.
“So you squirreled away your money,” Dayball said. “Usually, Short, you know, just to catch you up on the drill, we sort of look for a doofus like you to choke on his dough when he’s pulled a little side action like you done. But in this instance, I’ve got instructions- from Felix, Frankie, Felix- instructions to let you tell your story. You follow?”
“She didn’t- ”
“I said, ‘You follow?’ ”
“Yes.”
“Good, Frank. Splendid. Now, for beginners. This stuff you stole, Frank. Who’d you pass it off to?”
“A contractor,” Frank said. “Some guy on the north shore of the river.”
“His name, Frank.”
“Lonnie, promise me. I’ll tell you everything. Just untie her. Let her walk on out of here. I got no grounds to ask, but I’m asking.”
“What was the contractor’s name, Frank?”
Frank lowered his head and began to sob quietly again. Dayball looked toward Tully and Tully walked over, clutched the rope binding Frank’s wrists and pulled straight up, lifting Frank from the ground. Frank screamed so terribly even Roy Akers looked away. Tully dropped Frank to the floor and kicked him till he lay face flat, at which point he put his boot to the back of his neck and applied weight.
Frank began to talk. The words came out in a choked and halting stream, he was confessing, confessing to God, to the Devil, to all the living and the dead. By the time he was finished, Shel was weeping softly along with him.
Dayball waited till Frank ran out of words. Studying him on the ground, pinned beneath Tully’s foot like a snared cat, he grunted pensively twice, blinking, then let loose with a long soft whistle of awed disbelief as the import of Frank’s confession hit home. Addressing the Akers brothers, he nodded to Shel and said, “Get her out of here.”
Leaving her wrists and ankles tied and grabbing her beneath the arms, Lyle and Roy lifted Shel from her chair and dragged her down the hallway to the guest room, where they dropped her onto the bed.
Lyle, eyeing her in a sudden heat, sat down close beside her. She kicked at him, caught him in the chest, his eyes flared but then Roy dragged him off from behind and pushed him toward the door.
“Now now,” Roy cracked. “You’ll make the cows jealous.”
Lyle spun around, flushed red. “Touch me again, fucker- ”
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Roy muttered. “Moo.”
Lyle, seething, flexed his hands then turned on his heel and vanished. Roy followed him for a step, reaching the doorway, then pivoted around. Leaning on the door frame he said to Shel, “Don’t get your hopes up. You’re still gonna wish you’d been nice to me.”
He closed the door, leaving her in the dark. She lay on the bed, craning to hear, listening in particular for screams, but none came. Something like an hour passed, then quietly the door opened. A silhouette appeared in the doorway. It was Lonnie Dayball. She felt a certain relief, albeit small, that he came alone. He turned on the overhead light and closed the door behind him.
Pulling up a chair beside the bed, he studied her for a moment. His eyes were a deeply flecked blue that this particular light rendered a hazy violet. The distortion in color gave his eyes a gentle cast. It was that utterly fraudulent gentleness, more than anything, that scared her.
He reached into his pocket, withdrew a small knife, and cut the tape around her mouth. He loosened the adhesive from her skin and hair, whispering, “Sorry,” several times. Once it was free he tossed the snarled mass onto the floor and helped her sit upright.
Settling back into his chair, he said, “I’ll tell you how this is gonna happen.” He closed his knife, pocketed it, and folded his hands behind his head. “Your old man, Looney Two Shoes, in there? He’s in the bizarre position of being in luck precisely because he screwed up worse than anybody coulda thought.”
He said this with what sounded like genuine awe. He also seemed to be waiting for a reply.
“I don’t know anything about that,” she said. It came out sounding weak.
Dayball smiled. “I know,” he said. “Now.”
“Untie me,” she said.
“In a minute.”
Dayball looked at the ceiling and clucked his tongue, thinking. “Frank’s offered us a rare opportunity, believe it or not. People he dealt with, fucking Mexicans, and not just any Mexicans, oh no. The ones we had to chase on out of here not so long ago. They want revenge, the simple shits. For that little asshole we nailed to a tree out on Kirker Pass Road. They asked Frank to put them next to Felix. Can you believe it? They want Frank… to put them… next to Felix.” He chuckled at the lunacy of it. “Well guess what? We’re gonna let him do that.”
“Why not just kill him now?”
“It is,” Dayball said, “a real opportunity.” He closed his eyes, as though to contemplate the full merit of the opportunity. When he opened his eyes again, he said, “I gotta know, he gonna hold up?”
“Till when? Till you kill him?”
“Nobody’s gonna kill him, not while he’s useful. And that’s what I’m asking, how long’s he gonna be in a condition to make himself useful?”
“You tell me,” Shel said. “You saw him in there.”