Infected

58.

Perry knew he didn’t have much time-either the Soldiers were on their way, or Bill the Betrayer would soon bleed to death. The wet puddle on the couch grew steadily, as if Bill were pissing blood. Perry knew that if he timed it right, he could get the information and the Soldiers could save his friend. Correction. His so-called friend.

Bill’s eyes glazed over again, and his head sagged forward.

“Oh no you don’t, you little informant,” Perry said. He slapped hard with his left hand. Bill’s head shot back so fast his temple bounced off the wall. The slap sounded red, warm and satisfying.

You don’t know what suffering is, Billy Boy. But I’m going to do my best to give you a little taste of what I’ve gone through.

Bill’s scared-rabbit look returned to his blood-smeared face. How could the Soldiers use some weak-ass like this? It was probably a trick-yes, a trick. Bill was trying to lure him into overconfidence.

“That shit isn’t going to trick me, Billy Boy, no bout-a-doubt-it .” He was smarter than these fuckers. They didn’t know what they’d started by fucking with a Dawsey, because a Dawsey doesn’t take shit, no sir, no how.

Perry reached out and pulled the sock from Bill’s mouth. Bill breathed deeply, but other than that didn’t make a sound.

Perry licked his lips. He tasted blood. He didn’t know if it was his or Bill’s. Eager for the final answer, he leaned in close and asked his vital question.

“Who the fuck do you work for, and what are the Triangles going to turn into?”

Perry’s face was only inches from Bill’s. The dark circles around Perry’s eyes made it look as if he hadn’t slept in days. The whites were so bloodshot that they took on a pinkish hue. Bright red stubble stuck out offensively. There were open sores on his lips; it looked like he’d bitten through them not very long ago.

But that question-triangle?

“Perry, wha…what are you talking about?” Bill knew it was the wrong thing to say, but he couldn’t think of another answer. Perry’s eyes swelled with anger, adding to the already psychotic stare.

“Don’t screw with me, Bill.” His quiet voice carried the threat of death. “You and your little Jedi mind tricks can just fuck off. I’m not buying what you’re selling, junior. Now, I’ll ask you again, what are the Triangles becoming?”

Bill’s breath came in short, ragged gasps. What was this madness? What did Perry want to hear?

Bill tried to fight back tears of frustration and panic. Pain ripped through his body in a nonstop cacophony of raw nerves and cutting metal edges. It was so hard to think!

He struggled for words, struggled to make sense of it all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Perry. It’s me! It’s Bill, for God’s sake! Why do you want to do this to me?”

A smile crept across Perry’s face. He reached out for one of the knives that had Bill’s hands impaled on the wall. Bill’s body went rigid with white-hot tension.

“Getting a little loud in here, don’t you think, Billy Boy?”

“I’m sorry,” Bill said quickly, his hushed whisper filled with fear and pleading. “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

“Goddamned right it won’t, Billy old sport. If it does happen again, you’ll be dead before you can apologize. Your warnings are gone. You’re in Double Jeopardy now, where the points can really add up, so I’ll ask you just one more time: what are the Triangles becoming?”

Bill’s mind spun wildly for an answer, anything that would keep him alive even a little bit longer. He had to come up with some bullshit and fast, but it was so hard to think, impossible to concentrate. Perry was going to kill him.

“I…I don’t know, they didn’t tell me that.”

“Like hell they didn’t,” Perry said, never losing his predatory stare. “You’ve got one more chance, Billy, and then I’m going to carve you up.”

Bill scrambled for an answer, but he couldn’t make his mind focus past the pain, past the psychotic situation, past death that stared him in the face. What had Perry called him? The “informant?” Informant for what? For whom? What raving paranoid vision did Perry see through those bloodshot eyes?

“Perry, I swear, they didn’t tell me!” He watched the rage flare up in Perry’s eyes. Bill kept talking, his voice a nasal, pleading, pitiful cry. “It’s not my fault they don’t tell me anything! They just told me to keep an eye on you, let them know what you were doing.”

That reply seemed to strike a chord. Perry’s look changed, as if Bill’s words answered some important question, but he still looked far from placated.

Bill continued, clutching to one faint glimmer of hope. “It’s not my job to know what the hell they turn into.”

Perry nodded as if he accepted the story. “Okay, maybe you know and maybe you don’t,” he said. “Just tell me who you’re working for.”

“I think you know that already,” Bill said quickly. He held his breath, waiting for a violent reaction. The salty tang of blood mingled in his mouth with the tangible taste of fear. The flicker of hope glowed a bit brighter as Perry nodded and smiled.

Dizziness swept over Bill. The room seemed to spin. He couldn’t keep this up. “Perry, you’re out of control. You’re paranoid…you’re hallucinating…”

A shiver rippled through Bill’s body. The apartment suddenly felt so cold, so icy cold. Black spots formed in front of his eyes, and another dizzy spell threw the room into crazy, unpredictable motion.

The ratfucker was passing out again. Perry bitch-slapped him three times, three vicious lefts, each harder than the last. It felt so good to lash out like that. You can’t let people faint on you, not when you need information. All this pussy-ass narc needed was a little Dawsey-style discipline. You’ve got to have discipline.

Bill blinked a few times, but his eyes were once again clear and lucid. Perry had hit so hard that his hand stung from the slaps. The right side of Bill’s face started to swell almost immediately, growing red and plump like a Ball Park frank. kill him kill him kill him

“Shut the fuck up!” Perry screamed at the top of his lungs. He’d had just about enough of the Triangles, oh yes sir he had. They were in his house, after all, his house, and a Dawsey was always the master of his castle. He knew if he didn’t take control, if he didn’t take charge, he’d go crazy. He just couldn’t stand it anymore, couldn’t stand that voice in his head every fucking minute of every fucking day. “You shut your little mouths or I swear as soon as I’m done with the informant here I’ll turn the Three Stooges into the Dynamic Duo, no matter what it does to me!”

There was an ultrabrief burst of high-pitch as the Triangles accessed Dynamic Duo, then nothing.

He felt something inside him change, as suddenly and definitely as the switch thrown on an electric chair. The power structure had just traded hands-he knew it, and the Triangles knew it. He wasn’t afraid of them anymore.

It’s my house, Perry thought. A confident smile parted his bleeding, cracked lips. It’s my house, and you’re all going to live by my rules.

Bill’s arms grew heavy, weak, yet he couldn’t relax, couldn’t let them drop and pull against the blades stuck through his palms. Only by keeping his hands very, very still could he maintain the pain at just below a screaming level. The tension of facing that agony and the fear he felt anticipating Perry’s next move had his muscles taut with stress, tiring them quickly.

Perry started blinking rapidly. He shook his head, violently, like a dog shaking off after a swim. Then he looked right at Bill, his bloodshot eyes suddenly wide with terror.

“Bill, help me,” Perry said. The affected accent was gone. It was his friend again, not the creature that was torturing him to death.

“Perry…” Bill fought for the words. He had to act now. “Perry, you have to…call…”

He wasn’t sure how long he had before his strength gave out and his hands fell, the weight pulling down against the knives in grinding torture. For some odd reason, that thought rang worse than the concept of a knife through the eye-how much longer till his arms would give out? He already felt the burn, his deltoids and biceps simmering with fatigue. He didn’t have much time, not much time…hard to believe he was going to die like this.

“Call…the police.”

The word seemed to rebound inside Perry’s head. He’d been free, free of their control, for just a few seconds. He could have kept them at bay, too, would have, but Bill had to go and prove them right.

Call the police, Bill had said. The mothafuckin’ po-lice.

We told you.

Could they sound smug? They sounded smug. Without conscious thought, Perry let go of his friendship for Bill Miller.

Enough fucking around. He had to get the info and get it now.

“When are they coming for me, Billy?”

Bill said nothing. Perry grabbed a handful of shirt and roughly shook Bill to emphasize his words. “When are they coming to get me?”

Bill’s eyes showed clear and fearful for only a moment, then went glassy again for the last time. His head nodded down limply. He didn’t move.

Perry hit him until his own palms bled. It didn’t make any difference-Bill wasn’t coming out of it this time. Perry felt at Bill’s neck, not knowing how to check for a pulse. Perry checked his own neck, found the jugular, which beat strong and true. He probed the same spot on Bill’s neck and felt nothing.

Kill him, you have got to kill him, please do it now.

“You got your wish. He’s dead.”

The informant’s eyes remained open, fixed in a perpetual, empty, half-lidded stare. Perry stood on his good leg and looked at the corpse.

Bill was dead. A traitor’s death, and well deserved-he’d been one of them.

No bout-a-doubt it.