I patted Maverick's arm. "I'm going up to the door for a better view." Maverick nodded, his hand poised over the camera controls.
I slipped through the curtain and sat on the floor in front of the door. Despite the textured surface of the glass, the view through it was relatively clear — a little like viewing an underwater scene, but I could still see well enough to make out Larry's infuriated expression. The sounds from the dungeon came clearly through the speakers on the console.
Larry gasped and stared when the door to the dungeon opened. I realized Larry wouldn't have been able to hear the bell that signaled Ted's approach, and his startlement was no doubt genuine. Larry brought his thighs together with a slap. With his legs apart, you could see his silk briefs up the legs of his shorts. He watched cautiously as the figure entered, his jaw thrust out belligerently.
Ted was dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, the hood pulled up. In the dimness of that end of the room, his face was lost in the shadow of the hood. He stopped just inside the entrance, watching Larry.
His teeth gritted, Larry rasped out, "You better let me out of here, now! You have no idea how much shit I can bring down on your head."
I could just make out that Ted's mouth was slightly open. The lower half of his face radiated complete astonishment. Like everyone else who had known in advance that Larry would look and sound like Zeke Hillcrest, he had still not been prepared for the perfection of the impersonation. Slowly, the corners of the open mouth curled upward into a smile. "I don't think you have access to your shit right now, Zeke."
Larry's lips were pressed together, his shoulders straining as he tried harder than ever to pull his wrists free of the cuffs. He gave up finally, breathing hard, and glared again at the intruder. "Who the hell are you? What do you want?"
The meerkat reached up and pushed the hood back. His headfur was brushed back and held in a pony tail, and I was sure he had worn it this way in high school. "I'm somebody who wanted to be your friend once, Zeke."
Larry started angrily, "Am I supposed to know..." He stopped, and leaned forward as much as the chains would allow. His eyes went wide. He finally said in a whispery voice, "Ed-Edward?"
Ted laughed delightedly. "It's so sweet of you to remember! Do you remember all the little people you stepped on along the way, or should I consider myself special?"
For the first time, a look of fear crossed Larry's face. "L-look, Edward, I never meant... I mean, it was all kind of... for fun, you know?"
The good humor disappeared instantly from Ted's face. "Fun! Oh, yeah, I'm sure it was. Think of all the fun I had sitting in jail. Wondering what they were going to do to me. Wondering if they were going to execute me. They would have if I'd been eighteen, you know. I wasn't sure how that worked. Were you sure, Zeke? Did you check into the laws? Did you think they might hang me?" He took a step closer, his fists clenched, glaring, spitting out the words, "Did that thought ever come into your head while you were having fun?"
Larry pressed himself back against the wall. His voice quavered as he spoke. I had a feeling that Larry was as deep into the fantasy as Ted was. Larry was not the professional actor he was impersonating, but I believed Larry was not having to pretend to be afraid of Ted — at least, not consciously. He had spent two months immersing himself in Zeke, acting like him, trying to think like him. Today, now, he was Zeke. In his conscious mind, he believed he was the person who had tormented Ted all those years ago. "Ed-Edward... You know they're looking for me. And I mean, this isn't just your average missing persons case. This is going to be big news everywhere!" Some self-confidence and defiance was coming back into his voice. "How long do you think you can hide me?"
That was one of the "conversation points" Ted had wanted Larry to bring up. I knew what Ted had planned as a response. Ted gave Larry a grim smile. "Do you remember how you got here, Zeke?"
Larry bit his lip and shook his head.
Ted giggled. "That's one nice thing about that drug. Short term memory loss. You do remember going out for a drive this morning, right? Just you and your hot little convertible? Top down. Beautiful day today." Zeke was known to do that, during his down time between movies. Larry nodded, and Ted went on. "My associates rear-ended you at an isolated intersection out in the boondocks. Do you remember that much?"
Suddenly infuriated, Larry snarled, "You better not have messed up my car..."
Ted laughed again. "Have some perspective, Zeke. You're in a lot more trouble than your car is. Anyway, when you and my associates got out of your cars to look over the damage, they gave you a little injection. And here you are!" Ted gestured grandly at the surroundings.
Larry glared at him. "They will find me. I couldn't be that far away. A drug wouldn't put me under that long."
"Well, distance is the least of your problems. You see... oh, wait." Ted looked at his watch. "The news should be coming up. That should clear things up for you."
Ted picked up a remote on the table nearby and thumbed a button. The ending of the popular song "Consume My Heart" filled the room from unseen speakers, followed by a female voice saying, "Stay tuned for the news on the hour, including the latest on the Zeke Hillcrest mystery." After a commercial, another voice started speaking. The first voice had been Garrett, playing a DJ. The second was Safford, a Second Year sambar, who had been judged to have the sort of calm, authoritative voice favored in radio newsreaders.
Safford's pre-recorded voice began, "The car belonging to missing actor Zeke Hillcrest has been found in the last hour. An alert passerby spotted the car partially submerged in the Planque River, not far from Hillcrest's Forest View home. Police spokesmen say Hillcrest was not in the car. Tire tracks indicate the car was driven into the river, and police speculate Hillcrest may have lost control of the vehicle. The seat belt was unused, and it is possible Hillcrest may have been swept out of the car by the current. There is no information as to whether Zeke Hillcrest may have found his way to shore following the accident, but the police are cautiously hopeful. They are now awaiting the arrival of divers, who will begin searching the river shortly. Stay tuned to this station for the latest bulletins." Safford paused. "In other news..."
Ted switched the "radio" off. He smiled at Larry. "I'm sure you see the problem, Zeke. Everybody's going to be looking in the wrong place! They think they know where you are, and that's where they'll stay, combing the bottom of that river, probably for days! It won't occur to them to look anywhere else, certainly not in an underground bunker on the estate of a person nobody will think to associate with you! Not in the amount of time you have left."
Larry gawked at him. "W-what do you mean? About 'time I have left'?"
Ted reached toward the wall and pushed a button. A panel in the ceiling, invisible until it moved, opened above the center of the room. A length of rope with a hangman's knot in its end dropped through the panel. The noose bobbed and swung at the end of the rope, gradually becoming still.
Larry shrank back against the wall, his shoulders hunched. "No! You can't do that to me!"
Ted looked at him curiously. "Why not? You didn't care if I was hanged."
Larry shook his head violently. "You can't, you can't! I've got so much longer to live! I just..." His eyes widened, and he spoke rapidly, hopeful. "I just signed a contract with City Lights Studios. They're going to pay me one million dollars a year, over the next fifteen years, and at the end of that, I've agreed to do a snuff film for them. You can have that money! I don't need it! Think about it, Edward! A million dollars every year, for fifteen years! And when I do the movie, you can come on the set and watch me be snuffed! And get part of my fur after! I'll tell them you have to be there!" I was proud of that story. I'd come up with it myself.
Ted laughed more heartily this time. "Money! You think that will fix it. Tell me, Zeke, have you kept track of me at all? Do you know what I've been doing lately?"
Larry shook his head blankly.
Ted gave him a nasty grin. "Well, offers of money don't mean a lot to me. I'd barely notice a few more millions. But being able to hang you myself..." He looked at Larry intently and spoke slowly. "...that means everything to me."
Larry stammered quickly, "Th-there must be something I can do! Edward, you could hang anybody! I'm not just anybody, I'm Zeke Hillcrest! I can get things done for you. I'm not just talking about money. Tell me what you want. Anything!" Ted had suggested that "Zeke" remind Ted that he was an actor. Larry decided that Zeke wouldn't do so directly, and had settled on this oblique reference to his exalted place in the scheme of things.
Ted's eyes lit up. I thought Ted's smile, in some way, seemed genuine. Obviously things were going as he had intended, and he seemed both relaxed and very excited — he must have been worried that the acting out of his fantasy would fall short of his imaginings, but Larry's appearance, his vocal impression, and above all his realistic Zeke-reaction to the situation was making it easy for Ted to slide into the fantasy wholeheartedly.
Ted was biting his lip thoughtfully. "You know, you may have something there, Zeke." After a long pause, with his eyes glued to Larry, Ted asked, "Are you ready to take on the most important roles of your life?"
Larry looked at him blankly. "Wh-what do you mean?"
"I mean I want you to be an actor for me. I've got a few roles in mind for you."
Larry gave him a tentatively hopeful look. As if Zeke were thinking there might be an easy way out of this after all. "So tell me about it."
Ted smiled. "The first one should be easy. Let me describe your character for you. For about the next... oh, twenty-four hours, you'll basically be yourself. Think you can handle that?"
Larry glared at him and waited for him to continue.
"I'll be me. The important part is the relationship between our characters." He paused, and his smile grew wider. "We've been lovers for years."
Larry gasped suddenly and shook his head slightly. Ted laughed softly at Larry's reaction. There wer rumors that Zeke wasn't attracted to males. Larry had just "confirmed" that for him.
Ted went on, "But you've been gone so much lately, making one movie after another. You've taken me for granted. And you've just now realized, for the first time, you're in danger of losing me. You've sensed a certain coolness between us. And along with that you've realized, for the first time, how much you need me, and how terrified you are by the idea of losing me. You're determined, even desperate, to show how much you want me. How much you need to be part of my life, how much you need me in yours. You know that I've always valued our sexual intimacy, but that's not enough, by itself. You know you have to show how special I am to you. Have I illustrated your character well enough?"
I stifled a laugh, I was too close to the door. Larry was breathing fast, seeming horrified to a level only slightly below that inspired by the threat of hanging, but I knew that, buried underneath his Zeke-personality, Larry must love the challenge he was being presented.
Without responding directly, Larry asked, "If I do this, then you'll let me go?"
Ted shook his head. "You can't imagine I can let you go, Zeke. My life would be over if I did that."
"Then what's my..." He stopped.
Ted laughed. "So actors really do say that, do they? 'What's my motivation?'" He folded his arms. "You haven't asked me what I'll do with you after I hang you."
Larry said hopefully, "You'll give my friends back my body so they can use my fur?"
Ted smiled again. "Well, that's if you're a very good boy. I could get you back to them, anonymously... well, minus your head. I'm keeping that. I plan to sleep with it between my legs, every night from now on." Ted laughed again at the expression on Larry's face. Behind the door, I choked back another laugh. However appalled Zeke would be at that idea, Larry would love the thought of his head servicing Ted for years to come.
Ted sighed happily, and went on. "But if you're not a good boy..."
Larry scowled. "You'll keep my fur for yourself."
Ted shook his head. "No, I'll just weight you down and toss you into that river, where you're supposed to be now anyway. Well away from where they're looking for you, though. Your fur will have rotted long before they find your bones, if ever."
Larry suddenly gasped convulsively and jerked against his restraints. Ted had no reason to do that to Larry, And he wouldn't be allowed to do that to a Hanging Boy anyway. Larry knew that too. But the part of Larry that was Zeke was convinced that Ted would indeed dispose of Zeke that way. Larry shouted, "NO!! You're a prey species yourself! You would never do that to any prey, no matter how much you hated him! We live our lives to be fur! You can't take that away from me!"
Ted leaned forward slightly, and his stare at Larry seemed sufficient to bore a hole through him. "I won't take it away unless I have to. You owe me something, Zeke. If I get it from you, you get to live on around the people you love. If I don't, you can rot in the river. It's all up to you."
Larry still looked stricken. "If I do everything you want, how do I know you won't just dump me in the river anyway?"
Ted said bitingly, "You know because I'm the only honorable and trustworthy person in this room. I've never lied to anybody or led them on. I do what I say I'll do."
Larry looked at him for what seemed to be a long time, breathing hard through his nose. At last, he simply nodded. He twisted slightly to bring his hands into view. "You'll have to let me go for this."
Ted nodded. "Obviously. But before I do..."
Suddenly Larry squeaked in seeming pain, his whole body convulsing suddenly and going limp. After about thirty seconds, he began moving again, his forehead wrinkled in pain, his muscles slightly jumpy. In a shaky voice, he asked, "What did you do to me?"
We had known that was coming at some point. Ted now explained to Zeke what Larry already knew. His wrist and ankle cuffs hid an elaborate electrical system, powered by batteries within the cuffs that had been charged through wires in the chains running from the wall. Tiny probes on the inner surfaces of the cuffs passed an electrical shock through Larry's skin to his nerves. Ted had sent the cuffs to Larry at the Academy to try them out, weeks earlier. The shocks could be delivered in two strengths, the lower strength painful, the higher much more so and temporarily paralyzing. Larry had insisted I give him the higher level shock once a day for three days running, to train his body to react to it. From that time on, he reflexively panicked in reaction to the shock even at the lower, essentially harmless level. Ted should be using the lower strength shocks now. Larry's initial reaction was a conditioned response, and the ensuing paralysis was feigned.
At least I hoped it was feigned.
Ted held up his right palm. "The control button is embedded under my skin. I'll always have access to it, and you can't take it away from me. If you decide you want to attack me, all I need to do is jab my fingernail into my palm and you get a repeat of what you just felt. And I can get that noose around your neck before you can recover. But I'm not going to need to press that button again, am I, Zeke?"
Larry shook his head slowly. He slumped in his restraints. Resignedly, he said, "Let me loose now. I'll do what you want me to do."
Ted produced a key that opened the padlocks. He did not, of course, remove the cuffs at Larry's wrists and ankles. Nor the collar.
Sighing, unsmiling, Larry stood and smoothed down his shirt. Seemingly casually, as if stretching his muscles, he moved his right hand behind his back and wriggled his fingers. The gesture was out of Ted's sight, and out of view of the camera. It was meant for me. I sighed out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. It was the signal that everything was okay. Without looking at Ted, Larry asked in a dull voice, "So, are we married?"
Smiling, Ted responded, "No, that's never come up, but we've been living together for several years."
"How have I figured out our relationship is strained? I've been away, right?"
Ted nodded. "We just had a fight this morning. You got back home last night after a movie shoot of several weeks. You were too tired to make love. And you went too long without calling me while you were away. That's what the fight was about."
Larry finally looked at Ted, and nodded in turn. "Just basic neglect. Okay." He reached up and tugged at his metal collar. "Could you at least take this thing off? It's going to make it harder to get in character."
Ted shook his head. "It'll remind you that you belong to me now. Deal with it."
Larry sighed and shrugged. "Do you want to go out there," he pointed to the door, "And come back in? You've been... okay, you went out for a drive to cool off. You come in, returning from that."
Ted looked a little too excited at present to carry off the impression of a pissed-off lover, but it was his show. He nodded vigorously.
As Ted turned toward the door, Larry said, "Give me a few minutes to get my head in the right place, okay? I need to... feel the part."
Ted smiled. "Of course, Zeke dear. I want you to be at your best." He patted Larry's shoulder, turned and walked to the entrance door of the dungeon. He looked back at Larry. "I'll give you about ten. I'll miss you." He opened the door and left, closing it behind him.
Larry stood for a moment after Ted's departure, his gaze sweeping around the room. At last he walked over to the overstuffed chair. As he turned to sit, he noticed the camera had not yet turned to follow him. Quickly he looked at the door I sat behind, and, with his fists clenched in front of him, his eyes shining, he mouthed, "This is so cool!!"
The camera now turned. Larry ignored it, curled into the big chair, wriggled to get comfortable, and waited.