Burning Time

44

The blanket didn’t move all the way out to Queens. Troland watched the dashboard clock and forced himself to look at the blanket only every two minutes. The traffic was so heavy on Second Avenue around the bridge he started muttering to himself. What if he hit her too hard. What if she was dead. If she was dead, she wouldn’t know anything. She wouldn’t even have met him. Shit. Then he couldn’t make things right. Not ever. He fumed at the gridlock. Thousands of cars trying to get into a single lane to get across the fucking bridge. And the fucking bridge was falling down. He didn’t want her dying before he fixed her.

The inside lanes were completely closed. There was one outside lane on each side that seemed to be outside of the bridge altogether. Getting across meant hanging over the water in a single lane that didn’t even have a solid roadbed under it. Looking down, Troland could see the water in the East River. To his left, the Roosevelt Island tram passed by on its wire string, high in the sky. It passed the one going the other way. The traffic was going only three miles an hour. Sometimes it stopped altogether.

He had been feeling so good. And now when he looked out at the cars halted around him and down at the motionless bundle he had gone to so much trouble for, he started feeling bad again. He put his hand under the blanket on the seat beside him. Touched a piece of bare flesh. Arm, he thought. He stroked it with his finger and was excited by its warmth.

It took nearly an hour to get back to his place. A very pale light shone from the front room, which meant the old woman was probably sitting there in front of the television with her back to the window. It gave him an unpleasant memory of his grandmother who died last month. He pushed the thought aside as he got out to open the garage door. It wasn’t automatic. He had to pull it open and shut. The light was automatic. It came on when the door went up. No one saw him.

Still, he was almost jumping out of his skin when he carried her up the stairs at the back of the garage. He had hit her hard. She was a dead weight, still out cold. He almost staggered at the top when he had to get the door open.

And then he was inside with the door closed. He put her on the sofa in the living room. This must have been where the old man had his studio, because the skylight was in here. He had noticed none of the other houses in the area had a skylight. The skylight bothered him because of the planes coming into the airport. They did that in San Diego where he worked, but there they were friends. Here, they seemed to hover directly over the house, casting a huge shadow like a giant evil bird. They seemed to be watching him somehow, getting ready to dump a load. He wasn’t thinking of that now, though. He was high again with how great this was.

Yeah. He studied her on the sofa, looking for the girl he knew. He didn’t see the soft smile, the golden hair. He started pulling at her clothes. First the short boots, then the jeans. Yeah. It was the body in the film. He frowned, studying her legs and the tiny bikini briefs she was wearing. They were white, a silky material, and looked new. She looked good like that.

He struggled to get her sweatshirt off and was a little disappointed because she made no effort to wake up. The bra matched the panties. He took them both off and held them in his hand. They had a strong fragrance he didn’t know, some kind of flower. The body looked good, real good. Well kept, clean. He liked that.

The hair wasn’t blond, but wasn’t so bad. At least her breasts were bigger than the other girl he tattooed. He liked that. And there was no excess flesh around her stomach and thighs. He liked that, too. Fat women disgusted him. On his knees, he sniffed her shoulder and then her breast. The fragrance was stronger there. He wanted to sniff all of her, but he was getting too excited. He had to pull out the Polaroid of the other girl to remind himself of his mission. He didn’t want to fuck her before she was right. Yeah, he had stuff to do.

He got up and walked into the other room with her clothes, put them in his suitcase and the suitcase under the bed. He went into the bathroom and urinated for a long time, then carefully combed his hair. Wanted to look good for her. Then he figured he better get the ropes and tie her up. He put the gun down on the table in case he had to scare her. He had a whole collection of ropes. They were all thin nylon, the kind that would cut deeply into her flesh if she struggled too much. He had planned to put one around her neck with a slip knot. Now he thought that might be a mistake. He wanted her perfect, beautifully decorated, but not marked by anything else.

Looking at her, lying on her back with her eyes closed and one arm flung out, it occurred to him that just doing the torso like the other girl was not enough. He could do all of her. Her hands, her feet. He’d even seen people with the inside of their lips tattooed, their armpits. He started sweating as he thought of tattooing her cunt. He could put anything on it. It was so exciting he had to remind himself over and over to cool down or he’d never get it done.

He tied her hands and feet loosely, considering places he could work on her where no one had ever tattooed a person before. Too bad he didn’t have a table to put her on. The sofa was low. Lower than the bed. He didn’t want her on the bed in the other room, though. The black bird was on the other side of the wall. She might hear something.

Finally he was ready. He was cool. He slapped her face a few times.

“Emma, Emma. Wake up.”

When she didn’t wake up, he put a few drops of ammonia on a paper towel and waved it under her nose. She started coughing.

“Wake up, honey.”

After a long time, her eyes fluttered.

“That’s right. Come on. Look at me. Look who it is.” He dabbed a wet towel on her forehead the way a nurse had once when he was in the hospital. He still remembered how good it felt.

Dabbed at her cheek with cold water.

Emma groaned and opened her eyes.

“Hi, Emma. Guess who.” Troland leaned over so she could see his face.

She closed her eyes again.

“Oh, come on. You’re all right.”

“My head,” she mumbled. “Car crash.”

“Hi, honey. Look at me. Say hello.” When she didn’t respond, Troland got some more water and sprinkled some on her neck and forehead.

She opened her eyes and tried to focus. “Car crash, get me out,” she cried, fighting the ropes.

“Hey, stop that. You weren’t in a crash. Look who it is.”

Her eyes moved around, trying to make a picture. “Car crash. My head …”

“It’s Tro—remember me?”

She stared at him, tried to lift her hand to touch her head. It wouldn’t move. It was attached to something.

Her forehead wrinkled with puzzlement. “Hospital?”

He laughed. “What kind of hospital looks like this?”

She groaned. “My head.” She shivered. “Where are my clothes?”

“I guess I’ve changed a lot since you saw me last.” He was wearing his leather jacket. The one like the guy in the movie had. “Don’t you recognize me?”

“I can’t … move.”

A jet thundered over the house. She looked up at the skylight. “What’s …?”

“Maybe I wasn’t so hot then, but I’ve come a long way.” He squatted next to her on his heels, ignoring her confusion. “You know the Patriot missiles. I built those. And the cruise missiles, too. I’ve done a lot for this country. Won the whole war.”

Emma groaned, frowning some more. “Car crash …”

He shook his head. “Uh-uh. Tro.”

“My head.”

It upset him that she didn’t seem to know him. He had to get up and walk away in frustration. Maybe she had a stupid concussion. He snapped open his lighter, flicked it on and off, watching the flame spurt and die. That calmed him.

Emma lifted her head and looked down at her naked body. Her hands and feet were tied. Her forehead wrinkled with puzzlement.

In a second he was back. “I’m a whole other guy. I used to have some trouble with my temper, but I got that under control. I’m a terrific guy now.”

Emma closed her eyes. She swallowed. When she opened her eyes again, he was still there, standing over her.

“And I got a better bike. Remember my knucklehead? Rigid, straight-leg frame, with a six-inch springer and a set of full apes?”

“A bike hit me?”

“No, I guess I already had the panhead, right? Yeah. Well, I got a twenty-thousand dollar bike now. You should see it. Nessy engine, everything custom made, custom painted.” He had forgotten he sold the bike.

Another jet thundered over the house. She looked up again. In the dark, the lights of the plane twinkled in the skylight.

“Where am I?” she said thickly.

“A special place.”

“Well, how did I get here?” she mumbled.

“I picked you up off the street and brought you here.”

Emma’s blue eyes closed.

“Wake up,” Troland demanded.

“Bike crash,” she muttered. “Bike crash?”

“No, honey. I picked you up off the street and brought you to a special place for a special reason.”

“What? What reason?” Her voice was still slurred and puzzled.

“My reasons. You’ll see.”

There was a moment of silence, and then she started to cry with her eyes squeezed shut. “My head hurts. I want to go home.”

“Don’t cry,” he snapped. “I don’t like crying.”

Her eyes popped open wide and stared at him, stunned.

“I’m sick. I have to go home.” Her voice came from a long way away.

“No, honey. You’re mine now. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Going home,” she said thickly. There was a pot of glue in her mouth. Cement in her legs.

“No, honey. You’re mine now. You gotta remember that. Just completely mine.”

She shook her head, her whole body trembling uncontrollably. She moved her hands and feet around in the ropes, as if to check if they were attached to something.

“Remember me? I’m Tro. You don’t ever say no to me again. Got it?”

He watched her face change. It went through a lot—deflated, paled, reddened. For a second it almost looked like she was going to choke on fear. He liked that, smiled with encouragement.

“Good, now you know me,” he said with satisfaction. “Keep it up. It’s going to be great.”

He turned around to show her the gun. They liked that kind of thing. He was sorry his bike was in California where she couldn’t see it. Still, he had photographs of it. He could show her those. He headed for the bedroom, needed the switchblade, too. He wanted to show her the switchblade.