They dumped all the ice-cube trays out of the refrigerator, dumped all the boxes in the cupboard, looked in the toilet tank, ripped the covers off all the electric outlets. They found a half-dozen tapes under the television, but their labels said they were pornographic, and when they pushed them into Rolo's cheap

VCR, pornography was what they got. They found two address books; checked his billfold and found more phone numbers. The video camera was on the floor of a closet: Rinker opened it, said, 'Empty,' and tossed it on the wooden floor, where it hit hard, and rolled. They also found a few tools, a lot of clothing, and odd bits of cheap jewelry.

They checked Rolo every few minutes. The chains immobilized him, and though he grunted at them, they ignored him and went back to pulling the house apart.

After an hour, it had become obvious that they weren't going to find the tape.

'It might still be here,' Rinker said finally, after she'd torn out the under seat lining of the couch and chair. 'We can't look everyplace – we'd need a wrecking ball.'

Carmel was in the bedroom doorway, looking at Rolo.

Finally, she walked around and ripped the tape off his mouth. He sputtered, and she said, 'Last chance, Rolo; tell me where the fuck it is.'

'In the bank,' he snarled. He'd won, he thought.

'Fuck you.' Carmel got the roll of tape and reached forward to slap it over his mouth, but he turned his head away. 'Turn your head this way,' she said.

'Hey, fuck you,' he said; and there was a tone in the way he said it.

'He's just achin' to be shot a little more,' Rinker said from the doorway.

'You'll kill me if you shoot me a little more,' Rolo said. 'I'm still bleeding from my leg. And if you kill me, the cops are going to open the safety deposit box… Hey!'

He said Hey! because Carmel had crawled on top of him. She sat on his chest, grabbed his head by the hair and pulled forward, hard, until he was choking on the chain. He thrashed some more, but had started making gargling sounds when she let his head drop. 'Keep your head straight,' she said, as he took a half dozen rasping breaths. 'You fuckin'…'

He kept his head straight and she took a half-dozen wraps of duct tape across his mouth. 'Now what?' Rinker asked, as Carmel crawled off him.

'I'm very good at cross-examination,' Carmel said. 'One thing you could do is to get out a mop, and get the broom, and brush over every place we've walked…'

'We've walked everywhere,' Rinker said.

'Yeah, you don't have to clean it, you just have to stir it up good, so if the crime lab comes through, they won't know what's old and what's new'

'The crime lab?'

'Yeah,' Carmel said. She leaned close to Rinker. 'It's pretty clear that after I cross-examine him, we're gonna have to kill him. Eventually they'll find him, and then the crime lab will come through.'

'What about the video tape?' Rinker asked.

'We'll have the tape,' Carmel said. They were in the kitchen, and she went to the tool drawer they'd dumped, and picked up the electric drill and a box of drill bits. 'We will have the tape.'

Carmel went back to the bedroom, and as Rolo strained to watch, plugged the drill into an electric outlet and said to Rolo, 'Did I ever tell you that I was crazy? I mean, absolutely fuckin' nuts? Well, I am, and I'm gonna prove it,' she said. She climbed back on the bed and sat on his legs: 'This is an eighth-inch drill bit,' she said. 'I'm now going to drill a hole through your knee cap.'

He flopped and strained against the chains and grunted, and she shook her head:

'No, no, no. No negotiation. We'd just waste more time screwing around. So I'll drill first.'

And she did it. He bucked against her, but with his neck and feet tightly chained, was unable to move enough to lose her. She rode his legs, and with brutal efficiency drove the drill bit through his knee cap, the drill whining and sputtering, bringing up flakes of white bone, and black blood, driving it in until the drill chuck touched his jeans. Rolo bucked against it, his screams muffled by the tape; at the end, with the drill silent, he made an eerie dying animal sound, a high keening groan. Across the room, Rinker turned away, finally walking to the living room, where she sat down on a chair and put her hands over her ears.

When the drill bit had gone in as far as it would go, Carmel wiggled it, and said, 'Feel good, fucker? Feel good? Tape is in the bank? What a crock of shit.. .' A little spot of white saliva appeared at one corner of Carmel's eyes; Rolo fainted.

'Now, you probably think I'm just gonna take the tape off and ask you again; but

I'm not gonna,' Carmel said, conversationally, when he was conscious again. 'I'm gonna drill a hole in your other knee instead.'

And she did it all over again, Rolo strangling himself on the chain, kicking his heels, Carmel riding his legs.

Then, 'You know what I bet would really hurt? A hole in your heels.'

And she drilled a hole through both of his heels, taking her time, developing a technique. Halfway through the first heel, Rolo fainted again; and again, halfway through the second.

'Get me some ice cubes out of the sink,' Carmel called to Rinker. 'If there are any left…'

There were a few, and Carmel dumped a bowl ofice water and cubes on Rolo's face.

A minute later, his eyes flickered open.

Carmel said, 'A guy like you, you know what would really hurt? What would hurt a lot?' Her fingers went to his belt line and she unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and started to drag them down. Rolo lay limp, unresisting. Carmel got his pants down on his thighs and then the animal keening began again, and Carmel stopped and said, 'What? You won't want me to drill out your dick? I'd be happy to do it…'

He went, 'Uh-uh, Uh-uh,' and Carmel asked, 'Are you gonna tell us where the tape really is?'

'Uh-huh, uh-huh.'

Carmel pulled the tape off his face and he turned toward her, his eyes glazed, and groaned. 'I'm dying,' he said. 'My heart busted.'

'Look, if you're gonna bullshit us, I'll put the tape back on and start the drill again. I could do this all night.'

'Tape's in the car,' Rolo said. 'In with the spare.'

Carmel looked at Rinker and she said, 'Oh, shit. How could we be that stupid?'

'I'll go get it,' Rinker said. 'You've got some blood…' Carmel looked down at her blouse: the droplets of blood looked like fine embroidery.

Rinker went out; another nice evening. She could hear music playing up the block, through an open window somewhere. She stopped to listen, but couldn't identify the music, then went to Rolo's car, popped the trunk, and pulled the cover off the limited-use spare. The tape was tucked behind it. She looked at it, weighed it in her hands, sighed, and went back inside.

'Get it?' Carmel asked.

'Got a tape,' Rinker said. She pushed it into the VCR. The picture came up immediately: and Carmel came to watch.

'Good light,' Rinker grunted.

'He had all the windows open. That's another thing I should have noticed. He's not an open-windows guy.'

'Boy…' Rinker said, as the tape wound out. 'You were gone, if the cops got this.'

"That's why I had to get it back.,' Carmel said.

'You think this is it?' Rinker asked.

'I don't know. I could go drill him some more,' Carmel said.

Rinker looked toward the bedroom. 'He looked pretty rough in there

… I don't think he could take any more, and I don't think we'll get any more out of him.

More'n what we've got.'

'So we gotta call it,' Carmel said.

'It's your face on the tape.'

Carmel looked at the bedroom door for a moment, then said. 'All right. We're done. If there's a copy, we'll have to deal with it later. But I think we're still gonna have to kill him. After the drill, he might be so pissed he'd go to the cops,' Carmel said.