Waltz of Shadows

21

Inside the room the reading light behind the bed was on. The sheet and blankets had been pulled off the bed onto the floor. Beverly lay naked on the bare mattress. Her arms and legs were spread wide, as if to accept a lover. Her wrists and ankles were bound with white cotton rope and the rope on both sides extended beneath the bed. A red rubber ball was stuck in her mouth. A single sts trip of white adhesive tape went over that and around her cheeks and behind her head. Her eyes were wet with tears and the tears rolled off her face in what looked like slug tracks. Her liquid pools of fear had dampened the mattress on either side of her face. Her breasts, stomach, pubic hair and thighs glistened with baby oil.

Fat Boy had a chair pulled up next to the bed. He was sitting there with his legs crossed. He was dressed in a very old leisure suit. It had once been bright crimson, but was now a kind of mottled pink. It was frayed around the sleeves and ankles. He had on an emerald green shirt and a little black string tie. He wore white, low-top tennis shoes and white socks. He had a small bottle of baby oil in his left hand, which was resting on his crossed leg. His right held a. 45 automatic with a silencer. He had the. 45 extended so that the tip of it lay between Beverly’s legs, touching her vagina. The curtains on the big glass windows were pulled open behind him and in the distance I could see the bone-white filigree of occasional lighting.

“Howdy, howdy, howdy,” he said, and grinned at me. “A goddamned big howdy to you.”

Cobra Man brought the hilt of the knife up quick and clipped me behind the ear and knocked me to my knees. “Say howdy,” he said.

“Howdy,” I said. All sorts of things came to me to say. Like: Don’t hurt her. Let her go. Leave us be. But I knew none of them were worth saying. I also sensed that any sign of weakness or pleading would merely put fuel on the fire. I started to get up. Cobra Man put a foot in my back and pushed me back to my kneeling position.

“I like you there,” he said. “You hit a little too hard not to be there.”

“This woman,” Fat Boy said. “This wife. Man, you got some good taste in women.” He moved the silencer along her vagina, into her pubic hair, and back again. “She’s got some kind of cunt on her. Me and Snake here, we’d like to use it a little. We was wondering if you’d give us permission.”

I didn’t say anything.

“What say, Mr. Movie Man?” Cobra Man, or rather Snake, said. “What’s the score? You gonna invite us for a little your wife’s pussy, huh?”

Fat Boy laughed. “That’s some question to lay on a guy, ain’t it? Hey, listen here. It’d be good, I know. Snake there, he’d like it if it wasn’t good. He’s fucked everything but a hot watermelon in the field, and he’d’ve done that had there been one warm enough for him.”

“Warm don’t matter,” Snake said. “I’d fuck ’em cold. I just ain’t had the time is all.”

“Hell,” Fat Boy said. “Ole Snake, he’s fucked chickens to death even. Haven’t you, Snake?”

“I’ve busted a few eggs in my time,” Snake said.

“Hell,” Fat Boy said. “He don’t have to fuck ’em to death. He can stink ’em to death. Ole Snake comes into a room, you don’t have to be facing him to know he’s there. But he can still sneak up on you, can’t he?”

I caught Beverly’s eyes and my soul went small and black. Her eyes told me she wanted me to do something. That’s what John Wayne would haveynelig done. That’s what any movie hero would have done. But I was Hank Small and I was a real man, not a hero. One wrong move and we were both dead. Then the children.

“I bet you’re puzzled all to shit,” Fat Boy said. “One day you’re living all right. Putting your meat in this.” He laid the automatic on Beverly’s belly and used his hand to rub her mound, eased his finger down and pushed inside her so hard she jerked.

“You sonofabitch,” I said. “Keep your goddamn hands off her.”

I had to let out with the stupid stuff after all, but I couldn’t help myself. I saw Fat Boy’s eyes light up like a pinball machine. He grinned at me.

Snake bent forward and jabbed me a short chopping blow with the knife hilt, right where the neck and the back bone connect. I felt a temporary surge of paralysis, then the feeling broke loose and my head fell forward to the floor. When I tried to lift my head, it was as if I were lifting a bowling ball. I raised up painfully, and looked.

Fat boy moved his hand, picked up the automatic and laid it in his lap. He held the baby oil bottle sideways and squirted a long stream of oil on Beverly’s navel.

“Yessss.” Fat boy said. “Right in there. Two points. I did one better than that earlier. Hit her direct on the left nipple from here ’fore you came up.”

He sat the bottle on the floor, twisted and reached across with his left hand and began rubbing the oil in slow circles on Beverly’s stomach. He looked at me while he did it. Tears streamed faster from Beverly’s eyes. She tried to squirm away from him. My shirt was wringing wet with sweat and my bowels felt loose. I felt as if my soul was almost too small to be measured.

Fat Boy smiled. He liked what he was doing. He turned sideways in his chair so he could do it better. He kept his right hand dry and on the automatic in his lap.

“You had it made,” he said, not looking at me, still rubbing Beverly with his left hand. “The good poke. Job that gave you a lot of time. Good money.”

He glanced around the room, out the window.

“Nice house,” he said. “Everything a man could want.”

“Children,” said Snake.

“Yeah, children,” Fat Boy said, looking at me. “Snake likes children. Don’t you Snake?”

“I love the little fucks,” Snake said. “Love ’em to death. Hey, Fat Boy. I know you’re having fun there, but I got a movie I wanta see. Comes on in an hour or so. I got to get you to go to the store too.”

“What is it you wanta see?” Fat Boy said. “Fucking Mothra?” He turned back to Beverly, running his oily fingers up her stomach until he reached her left breast. He took her breast in his hand and squeezed it gently. I felt as if my very heart were being pulled slowly out of me.

“Fat Boy,” Snake said, “he don’t appreciate science fiction. He don’t know that stuff comes to pass.”

“Mothra?” Fat Boy said. “Some sait="giant Jap bug? Get outta here. You see that fucking Mothra on the street, you give me a call, then I’ll like science fiction.”

“It could happen. All that radiator stuff and all.”

“Radiation, you dumb shit,” Fat Boy said.

“Whatever,” Snake said. “I want to see it. I know how you like to talk, but I want to see it. We know what we got to do here, so let’s get on and do it. ’Sides, it’s a double feature. Reptilicus comes on after. Know how hard that is to see that on the television?”

“Yeah, all right,” Fat Boy said. His hand rolled over Beverly’s breast and he pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and Beverly turned her head away and closed her eyes. Tears squeezed out from beneath her eyelids and tumbled over her cheeks and onto the mattress.

I could see the glaze of madness in Fat Boy’s eyes, and the lightning, as if on cue, throbbed along the blackness outside the window and gave the saliva on his lips an iridescent sheen.

He took his hand away from Beverly and bent and picked up the edge of the bed sheet and used it to wipe his hands. Behind me, Snake put his foot into the bend of my right knee just in case I might be thinking of getting up and jumping for the gun in Fat Boy’s lap.

Fat Boy finished wiping the oil off his left hand and turned in the chair to face me. He took a little cigar out of the pocket of his leisure suit and put it in his mouth and took out a lighter from the same pocket and lit the cigar. He put the lighter back and picked up the gun with his right hand and transferred it to his left and held it against his left knee. He reached out with his right hand and put it between Beverly’s legs and let it rest there. He puffed up a cloud of smoke and blew it out and around the cigar.

“I can shoot lefty,” he said. “Don’t think I can’t… Goddamn, Snake. You’re starting to look rough.”

“I’m cut up a little,” said Snake. “I don’t mind. Pain turns me on.”

“That’s a good thing,” Fat Boy said. “I hope ugly is all right too. And I ’specially hope that smell does something for you.”

“It’s not a bother to me,” Snake said.

“Bothers him enough he don’t do any of his own shopping,” Fat Boy said to me, as if he were telling a drinking buddy a simple fact. “And watch a movie with him, man, I got to set by an open door or have a fan going, or both.”

“It’s other people notices it,” Snake said. “I don’t mind.”

“Got a disease of some kind,” Fat boy said. “What he says, anyway. Glands are fucked up.”

“What’s him knowing my business got to do with anything?” Snake said.

“I like to talk,” Fat Boy said. “What’s him knowing something he won’t know long matter anyhow?” Fat Boy turned his attention back to me. “He puts on cologne to cover it up. He thinks. But it’s really bad then. Like shit with Old Spice on it, ain’t it, Snake?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Fat Boy,” Snake said.

“He don’t want me to fuck with him,” Fat Boy said, “and he can’t go nowhere with that smell or that damn snake on his head and he’s got to depend on me to get his groceries so he don’t get seen, and he tells me not to fuck with him. Not for me he’d be eating out of a garbage can or something, and he don’t want me to fuck with him. What is it you want, Snake? Huh?”

Snake took his foot off the back of my knee. I looked over my shoulder and saw him bring up his arm and look at his watch.

“I want we should go. That’s what I want. I don’t like to miss none of it. I like everything from the start.”

As I turned my head away from Snake, back toward Fat Boy, my sight went low and I saw a stain like mud on the top of Snake’s shoe. I knew it wasn’t mud. It was shit. Bill’s shit. It had dripped out of his pants legs and onto Snake’s shoes while Snake had held him, causing him to strangle more rapidly on the belt.

I finished turning my head. I glared at Fat Boy. He said, “He don’t want to miss none of it. Like he’s gonna remember the credits or something. Like he’s taking notes. All right. All right, Snake, my man. We’ll get on with it.”

But Fat Boy didn’t move from his chair. He sat quietly for a moment and puffed his cigar and didn’t take it out of his mouth. Ash fell off the end of it and onto his lap and he brushed at the ash casually with the automatic, making a grey streak across his pink pants. He looked at Beverly and smiled and moved his hand between her legs. “Man, man,” he said.

Thunder rumbled outside.

Fat Boy cocked his head at the thunder. “Storm’s getting serious, ain’t it? It’ll blow your movie out, Snake.”

“You don’t know that,” Snake said.

“Wishful thinking,” Fat Boy said, and removed his hand from Beverly and pinched the cigar out of his mouth. He thumped the ashes on the floor this time. “What we got here Mr. I-Got-It-Made, is a major fuck up. Right, Snake?”

“You’re the one fucked up,” Snake said.

“Part of it,” Fat Boy said. “But you got to admit, fate didn’t play right.” Fat Boy studied me for a hard moment. “Mr. I-Got-It-Made, I don’t hate to take you out at all. Not at all. But you know, I got to tell you, had the wind blown slightly different, we wouldn’t be here. You’d be coming home to a little fuzz taco tonight.” Fat Boy bent down and reached under the bed and pulled out a sheer, white nightie. It matched the panties around Snake’s hand. “She had this on when we got here,” Fat Boy said. “I like to imagine she wore them for me. But I don’t think so. She was waiting on you. All saddled up and ready to go. I like that. Wives these days, they don’t do that anymore. Or so I’m told. But here you got one does. That’s all right, man. All right.”

“You can’t rent Mothra in this town, Snake said. “I’ve called around. They don’t have it. Reptilicus neither.”

“You should have taped it,” Fat Boy said. “You should have done that.” t="

“The VCR has bad sound. Everything I tape goes up and down on the sound. You can’t hear it good. Makes you nervous to watch it. I can’t stand to watch when the sound’s bad.”

“You rent Mothra at any of your stores?” Fat boy asked me.

“No,” I said.

“Those cassettes you got downstairs? Your own collection? You ain’t got Mothra there, do you? Or this other one? What is it, Snake?”

“ Reptilicus, ” Snake said.

“You got that one?” Fat Boy asked.

“No,” I said.

“All right, Snake,” Fat Boy said. “We’re gonna wrap this up now.” Then to me: “I like to keep Snake happy. He can do some jobs I don’t like, and I got to keep him happy. Before we go, I’d like to say you and that half-brother of yours did some pretty good figuring on what was going on. Me and Snake, we took the Doc’s wife out for him. We admit it. We did it. We did it for money. Snake, he banged her. Right, Snake?”

“That’s right,” Snake said. “Doc didn’t care. He told us go ahead with whatever we wanted. And I could have done this one, Fat Boy, you weren’t so long winded.”

“He’s something, ain’t he?” Fat Boy said. “Prefers Mothra over a woman. Won’t cost him a thing to mount your piece and ain’t a thing anybody can do about it, and he wants to see some giant bug or monster thing tear up a toy truck.”

Fat Boy paused and sucked on his cigar and blew out some smoke and took interest in it till it faded. He said, “Snake here, he got the cassettes from downstairs. Took a little peek on your TV to make sure. Says ain’t much there. But some questions could be raised and I’d rather not have that. So, we’re taking the cassettes.”

Fat Boy removed his cigar and blew on the tip of it and turned his head slowly to Beverly. “Couple things got to be cleaned up. Your brother Arnold for one… That was Snake’s fuck up. But we’ll clean that up. There’s ways. The photo book though. That’s my personal copy that I was going to donate to the cause of framing your asshole nephew. I’d like it back. I don’t care who sees it long as I arrange how it’s seen. Where is it?”

“I gave it to Arnold,” I said.

Fat Boy said. “Gave it to Arnold, huh?”

He took the cigar out of his mouth and blew on the tip again. The tip turned cherry-colored. Fat Boy leaned over Beverly. “What I’m gonna do here, is stick the end of this on your wife’s tit. That’s a sensitive place, the tit.” Fat Boy leaned forward suddenly and licked Beverly’s nipple. A sound came from Beverly’s throat, behind the rubber ball. It sounded small and pitiful. I had never heard a sound from her like that before. She had dealt with things in our life up until now without that sound.

I knew it was pointless, but I couldn’t help myself. “Please,” I said. “Don’t hurt her. Take me. Leave my family alone.”

Fat Boy put the cigar back in his mouth. “Hey, I ch. r. an do any fucking thing I want. I’m gonna burn her tit off, is what I’m gonna do, you don’t talk to me about that photo album.”

I’m uncertain what prompted me to keep the lie. I suppose, deep down, I knew the truth wouldn’t change anything. And if my family was going to die, I wanted to make sure I went out without making things easy for these two assholes.

From what they’d said, my impression was Bill hadn’t mentioned the lawyer or that I had made copies of the cassettes and given them to Virgil along with the photo album. Something happened to us, Virgil might pursue things on our behalf. At this point, it was almost a moot matter. Still…

“I swear, on my wife’s life,” I said. “I gave the album to Arnold.”

Fat Boy sucked on the cigar and bent over Beverly and blew smoke in her face. She squinted her eyes and turned her head. Fat Boy looked at Snake. “What’d you think?”

“I think I’m gonna miss fucking Mothra is what I think.”

“Naw, naw, you’re not. What’d you think?”

“I think he gave it to the brother. He ain’t gonna lie now, Ole Mr. Hard Punch. He ain’t gonna do that, knowing things can be okay, he tells the truth. Am I right, Mr. Hard Punch?”

He kicked me in the kidney. I grunted. Got my breath. I knew things couldn’t, and wouldn’t be okay, but I said, “Right.”

“I believe him,” Snake said. “He likes this woman.”

“Yeah,” Fat Boy said. “I believe him too. I was him, I’d like this woman.”

Fat Boy thumped ashes on Beverly’s pubic hair. He blew on the tip of his now short cigar and made it glow bright again. He reached over without looking and stuck the cigar against Beverly’s stomach. She jerked so hard at her restraints the mattress curled on the sides. I could smell her flesh burning. I dove for Fat Boy.

I wasn’t quick enough.

He came out of the chair fast for a fat man and brought the. 45 around and slammed me just above the left ear. A flash of white went through me and blinded all vision. I came to a moment later, lying on my side. Little specks, like black sawdust in water, swirled before my eyes. The taste of vomit was in my mouth. I had convulsed and thrown up on the floor. I felt as if someone had a crowbar jammed in the side of my head and they were lifting up on it, trying to get my scalp off.

I tried to get a knee under me, but my knee cap felt as if it weighed about as much as a small car. I couldn’t do it.

Snake gave me some help. I could smell him before I saw him. He got me by the back of my coat collar and pulled me up and kneed me in the stomach and sat me on my ass, gasping. I wanted to do all kinds of things, and in my mind I was doing them. Coiling my feet beneath me, preparing to jump, but in reality I was sitting on my ass, trying to get my breath back, feeling as if a dentist’s drill was going off in my ear, burrowing and burning its way into my brain.

Snake pushed me on my side and jerked my hands behind my back and I my ay felt something go around my wrists, and by the time I got my wind back enough to actually try and do something, my hands were tied and so were my ankles.

Snake got hold of me and pulled me up on my knees. “You like that okay? That comfortable?” he said.

“Piss on you,” I said.

He laughed. “Piss on you, huh?”

He made a move with the knife hand that put it behind him and out of sight. The hand came back empty and he got me by the neck. He unzipped his pants with the other hand and got himself free of his underwear and started urinating in my face. I tried to roll away, but he caught me by the hair and pulled me close and stuck his dick in my face and kept pissing. The hot urine hit my forehead and closed my eyelids and ran down the sides of my nose and over my clenched lips. I could smell the ammonia. I could smell Snake. I heard a sad sound that made my skin crawl and I realized it was me.

“Come on,” I heard Fat Boy say. “You’re the one wants to go. We could have made a night of it.”

“I don’t know we still can’t,” Snake said. “You talk like the plan’s to make her come. So, I miss a credit or two.”

Snake’s grip on my hair tightened, and he shoved me on my side. “There’s a little gift for you, Mr. Regular Guy. A little anointment for your head.” He shook his dick at me. “I could make you suck this, I wanted. Piss on you, asshole. Piss on you, you goddamn whining motherfucker.”

I opened my eyes and looked up. Snake’s face was all smiles, the tattooed cobra was made hot and livid by a bright flash of lightning. Snake moved toward the bed, pushing his pants down below his ass. I was trembling and couldn’t stop crying. I kept telling myself if I could stop that, everything would be all right, but I couldn’t stop.

Fat Boy came over, walking as if his feet were filled with shards of glass. He blocked my view of what Snake was doing. It wasn’t intentional, but I almost wanted to thank him. I heard the bed springs squeak. Beverly made that sad horrible sound I had heard earlier.

“I had to leak,” Fat boy said, “I’d go on you too. But I got some problems. Little prostate difficulty. There’s times it’s like trying to piss a boulder out of my dick. Man, you just thought you was something, didn’t you? You ain’t a thing. You can’t take care of your woman and you cry like a baby when you know your time’s up. You’re something, aren’t you?”

Fat Boy kicked me then, in the face, and it was so swift and sure I didn’t feel it. I just went away, down into the darkness or whiteness, or whatever the true color of blankness is, and if I had any thought before my departure, I’m sure it was the sincere hope that death would come swiftly to us all.