stop him from stapling the edge of her ear. The pain brought her around and she screamed.
“There, I do make myself clear, don’t I?” Emery said with a patience that sounded almost sincere.
I took the tape and wrapped a strip around my ankles as he directed, thinking all the while how I could buy time to save us both. When I had disabled myself to his satisfaction, he took the tape from me, stood me up from the chair, and wrapped my wrists and hands behind me in the same fashion, so that my fingers were covered.
“Tying up loose ends,” he said, and, despite his being behind me, I could almost feel him smiling to himself, his confidence growing. “Being able to make puns in a second language is very smart, don’t you think? I thought I had lost any chance of taking care of you. And here you are.” He threw me onto the floor.
After catching my breath and gaining some balance, I said, “Did you meet Peasil the same way you met Lynch, over the Internet?”
Emery shrugged his assent. “I thought Floyd Lynch really was another killer. He told me he was not when I saw him in the hospital. I assume he did die?”
I nodded.
He said, “Lynch was the mistake that has led to my losing this bar. But I can always buy another one in another place. With a different identity. And now that Cheri’s gone, start all over.”
Without explaining what he meant by starting all over, Emery tucked my pistol in the back of his pants and left the room. I turned my attention to Coleman. I needed to know what she knew, what the possibilities were. I scootched closer to her so I could speak more softly.
“Talk fast,” I said. “Are you on something?”
Coleman nodded, her eyes closed. “I’m sorr—”
I would have slapped her if I had the use of my hands. Instead I leaned my forehead against hers and said, “Look at me, Coleman. I’m going to get us out of this. We’re both going to live. So get tough now. Did he drug you?”
She stuck to essentials in staccato bursts. “Roofie. Worn off.”
“How did he get you here?”
With more strength in her voice she said, “He was waiting outside my house. Tasered. I didn’t see it coming.”
“Happens. Keep looking at me. Weapons.”
“The shotgun he used to kill Cheri. I don’t know where it … and yours. That’s all I know of.”
Coleman’s teeth started to chatter and her eyes grew vague. It looked like she was going into shock.
“How much pain?” I asked, keeping my tone as bland as if I were asking for the time.
“Not too bad,” she said.
“You’re doing great. You’re doing great. Stick with me, kiddo.”
She kept trembling, but her eyes were back on mine as she shook her head. “He kept me locked in a storage room somewhere.” I could see her struggling to think of anything else that might be useful.
“Why are you still alive?” I asked.
“He said … he said he wasn’t sure when he would need to get out of town and he needed my body to be fresh.”
I nodded, then heard a footstep in the hallway leading to the kitchen.
Forty-nine
Emery walked into the office with his shotgun and the jar of pickled pigs’ feet. He stood the shotgun in the far corner leaning against the wall and placed the jar on his desk. “I don’t want to forget to take this,” he said, and went on as if in mid-conversation. “Even though, after Kimberly’s sister—you found they were sisters, right?”
I nodded.
“—came in about six years ago looking for a job,” he ran a thoughtful hand down the side of the jar, “it lost its appeal. The whole business lost its appeal, and besides, Cheri alive made a much better souvenir. Every time I made love to her she reminded me…” He stroked Cheri’s dead hair on the way to his chair behind the desk, where he filled his pipe with the cherry-bourbon tobacco whose smell I could never hope to forget.
“You know what they say about the seven-year itch.” He lit the pipe, puffed it a few times, and pressed a button on what looked like the stereo console behind his desk. We all listened to our voices:
“Talk fast. Are you on something?”
“I’m sorr—”
“Look at me, Coleman. I’m going to get us out of this. We’re both going to—”
I said, “You made your point: the whole place is bugged.”
Emery obligingly turned off the recorder and