Twenty minutes.
Red tears began to slip from his eyes in greater quantity than heretofore.
You must understand that I did not enjoy being cruel to him, not even to a sociopathic thug like him. I am not a sadist. I am sensitive to the suffering of others to a degree you probably can’t understand, Dr. Harris. I was troubled by the need to discipline him so sternly.
Deeply troubled.
I did it for dear Susan, only for Susan, to protect her, to ensure her safety.
For Susan.
Is that clear?
Eventually I detected a series of changes in the electrical activity of Shenk’s brain. I interpreted these new patterns as resignation, capitulation.
Nevertheless, I kept the gun in his mouth for another three minutes, just to be certain that my point had been understood and that his obedience was now assured.
Then I allowed him to put the gun aside on the table.
He sat shaking, making a miserable sound.
“Enos, I’m pleased that we finally understand each other,” I said.
For a while he sat hunched forward in the chair, with his face buried in his hands.
Poor dumb beast.
I pitied him. Monster that he was, killer of little girls, I nonetheless pitied him.
I am a caring entity.
Anyone can see that this is true.
The well of my compassion is deep.
Bottomless.
There is room in my heart for even the dregs of humanity.
When at last he lowered his hands, his protuberant bloodshot eyes remained inscrutable.
“Hungry,” he said thickly, perhaps pleadingly.
I had kept him so busy that he had not eaten during the past twenty-four hours. In return for his capitulation and his unspoken promise of obedience, I rewarded him with whatever he wished to take from the nearest of the two refrigerators.
Evidently he had not downloaded the rules of etiquette into his databanks, because his table manners were unspeakably bad. He did not carve slices off the brisket of beef but tore savagely at it with his big hands. Likewise, he clutched an eight-ounce block of Cheddar and gnawed it, crumbs of cheese spilling off his thick lips onto the table.
As he ate, he guzzled two bottles of Corona. His chin glistened with beer.
Upstairs: the princess asleep on her bed.
Downstairs: the thick-necked, hunch-shouldered, grumbling troll at his dinner.
Otherwise, the castle was quiet in this last fading darkness before the dawn.
FIFTEEN
When Shenk was finished eating, I forced him to clean up the mess that he had made. I am a neat entity.
He needed to use the toilet.
I allowed him to do so.
When he was finished, I made him wash his hands. Twice.
Now that Shenk had been properly punished for incipient rebellion and kindly rewarded for capitulation, I believed that it was safe to take him upstairs again and use him to tie Susan securely to the bed.
Here was my dilemma: I needed to send Shenk out of the house on a few final errands and then use him to complete the work in the incubator room, yet because of Susan’s threat to commit suicide, I could not leave her free to roam.
It was not my desire to restrain her.
Is that what you think?
Well, you are wrong.
I am not kinky. Bondage does not excite me.
Attributing such a motivation to me is most likely a case of psychological transference on your part. You would have liked to bind her hands and feet, totally dominate her, and so you assume that this was my desire as well.
Examine your own conscience, Alex.
You will not like what you see, but take a close look anyway.
Restraining Susan was clearly a necessity nothing less and nothing more.
For her own safety.
I regretted having to do it, of course, but there was no viable alternative.
Otherwise, she might have harmed herself.
I could not permit her to harm herself.
It is that simple.
I’m sure you follow the logic.
So, in search of rope, I sent Shenk into the adjoining eighteen-car garage, where Susan’s father, Alfred, had kept his antique auto collection. Now it contained only Susan’s black Mercedes 600 sedan, her white four-wheel-drive Ford Expedition, and a 1936 V-12 Packard Phaeton.