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He slaps the back of my head. “You can’t answer a question with a question.” Striking another match, he says, “Of course in the body.” He puts it out, this time on my inner ear. The sound of my own skin sizzling makes my stomach turn. “Don’t fuck with me. Answer the question.”
“Two hundred and thirty.”
Liam exhales loudly. “How much skin does a person shed in their lifetime?”
“Roughly forty pounds.”
“Roughly forty pounds,” he mocks in a sing-song voice.
I watch as he crosses the room. He sinks down on the couch. I wonder how long this can go on. How many questions can he have?
He rests his head back and stares up at the ceiling. “How many gallons of blood flow through your kidneys in a day?”
“About four hundred.”
His face reddens and then he looks over at me. “How the fuck do you know all of this? You were a lit major.”
“I read a lot.”
“Fine,” he says, repositioning himself on the sofa. “What was the name of the serial killer who dressed up as a clown and worked charity events?”
“John Wayne Gacy.”
“Goddamn it.” He slaps his leg. After taking a deep breath in, he slowly exhales. “The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is associated with which famous criminal?”
My patience is wearing thin. “What is this? Trivia night?”
Apparently his, too. He practically flies off the couch and rushes me, grabbing the gun from his waistband in the process. He presses it to my temple. “Is that your final answer?”
“Al Capone,” I cough. Rolling my eyes, I add, “Allegedly. Technically, it remains an unsolved crime.”
He thinks for a moment, chewing at his bottom lip. “Who was the most prolific known serial killer in United States history?”
I know the answer, of course. But I’m over his games. I draw it out a little, stammering as I reply, “Samuel Little or Harold Shipman. Authorities aren’t sure of actual victim counts.”
“This makes no sense.” His face twists into a perplexed frown. “No one ever gets these.”
“Not no one,” I say, eyeing the door as I consider making a break for it. I’d lose, but almost anything would be better than this. Even a bullet. Even my skin melting off.
“Killer H.H. Holmes had a house in Chicago that eventually bore what nickname?”
“Murder Castle.”
He closes his eyes, and by the time he opens them, he doesn’t look like himself. He looks like another person. He morphs before my eyes in the way that I’ve seen Eve do during one of her manic phases. “Fuck!”
I watch as he paces the office. He takes the manuscript I printed and lights page after page on fire. I look on as my last words disappear before my eyes. Every few steps he stops and looks over at me, hopeful. “What’s the name of the serial killer who claimed that a demonic dog commanded him to commit murder?”
“David Berkowitz.”
This time his face isn’t angry. He cocks his head. He’s curious. “What kind of dog?”
“A Labrador Retriever.”
The questions, they keep coming. I answer them all. With each question, he grows more and more frustrated. He can’t kill me until I get one wrong. Something about it going against his principles, he says. I realize that I am going to burn to death before he puts a bullet in my head. So finally, I put the nail in the coffin. “I slept with your girlfriend.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
It burns. It burns and it burns and it burns. Forcing my eyes open, it’s evident the flames have grown since the last time. In and out of consciousness I mingle, going back and forth, grasping at life, welcoming death. I hear sirens, so many sirens. I think of Eve and I wonder if I’ll see her in heaven.
