“Max? You want—?”
“Where is he?” the first man repeated, glancing nervously toward the main area as a car engine wheezed down the exit spiral.
Temple shook her head in confusion, in disbelief. “I don’t know—”
She heard the oncoming car draw near, its tires peeling over the rough concrete like tape being pulled free, the cramped steering wheel squealing as it took the torturous exit curves.
The noise covered her yelp as the first man suddenly twisted her right arm behind her at a shoulder-wrenching angle.
Pain paralyzed her. The tote bag slid off her left arm, hitting the concrete with a solid clunk followed by the brittle shift of its contents.
“Where is he?” The second man’s face leaned down to hers, so that his unwelcome breath warmed her cheeks, her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she began again, trying to figure out what they wanted her to say, why they wanted her to say anything.
She stopped when the second thug’s big hand circled her throat and clamped it to the concrete wall. The dry, piercing pressure on her windpipe made her want to cough.
“We don’t want to hear that,” the first man whispered almost intimately in her right ear. His breath tickled, and smelled of radishes.
“The police don’t even know!” she managed to gag out.
“We know that,” the second man said. “That’s why we’re asking you. You’d better tell us. You were his girlfriend. They always know.”
“No point in being a martyr,” the first riffled into her ear.
Martyr? The man illustrated his remark an instant later. His fist jabbed into her side, jolting her against the concrete wall for a secondary buffeting.
Temple doubled over despite the grip on her throat, pain exploding in her midsection. Before she could absorb the incredible reality of the assault, another fist followed the first, even as the other man’s meaty, salty hand clamped over her nose and mouth. Breathless, she felt pain rising like a sudden tide, pulling her down into the watery dark.
But the men wouldn’t let her sink. Hands slapped her back to startled consciousness. “Where? Tell us. Where is he?”
Her arms pinioned, she began kicking frantically, fighting unconsciousness. Keep afloat, she told herself. Keep moving, don’t let the sharks get a good grip on any part of you.... Temple felt her spike heels graze shins and bounce off bone. Her angry, frightened cries were muted by a palm slimed with her own saliva. She bit into the meager pleats of flesh her teeth could find.
Then her right wrist, elbow, shoulder seemed to be twisting off in another direction. The men hemmed her in, fists pummeling, just hurting her now, not asking anything. She heard their hard, exhausted breaths, glimpsed faces ugly with unreachable violence.
Brakes shrieked.
Someone yelled. A man. An angry man. In Temple’s mind, her assailants had divided like amoebas, had multiplied and invaded the entire universe, inflicting pain, pain, pain in a kind of manic rain.... Blood gurgled in her mouth. At least at the dentist’s they let you lean over into the white bowl and spit it out—no, not done anymore, not for a long time. Now they vacuumed it out.
“Goddammit!” a furious male voice exploded on the other side of the wall. “You nearly ran into me. I just had the goddam car waxed. Watch where you’re going!”
“Listen, you barreled around that corner so fast it’s lucky you didn’t get a new buffing job all along the side.”
“Freaking screw yourself!”
“Same to you, buddy!”
Their deep, raw voices, despite their anger, sounded distant and sleep-inducing, like the murmur of visiting relatives in the kitchen on a rainy Sunday morning.
Temple flailed to pull herself above an enveloping tide of dreamy dark water, away from the crimson stingers of the jellyfish and the bloody white teeth of the circling sharks.
When she finally reached up and her shoulder shouted with pain, she listened and let her arm fall back limply. Something was fading away. Shapes large and not quite seen. The quarreling drivers continued berating each other, their words growing clearer, though no more meaningful for Temple.
She looked around through the blur in her eyes—not tears, because she didn’t think she was crying. She was too shocked to cry.
The world seemed vaguely askew. She took a cautious step forward, away from the wall, clammy despite the Las Vegas heat. The whole world jumped. She looked down, dizzy, and saw the contents of her tote bag scattered at her feet. Inching her back down the wall, her left hand touching it for balance, she finally crouched on the balls of her feet and began sweeping her things back into the bag one by one.
The men still shouted. Now one wanted the other to move his car out of the way. “Over my dead body!” the other vowed.
Their belligerent voices kept her anchored in reality. She leaned past her fallen personal effects and spit out the sour, tangy saltwater in her mouth.
A red blob blossomed on the gray pavement. Sidewalk spit revolted her, something only crude men did, but this was her own, an oddly disassociated lovely red phenomenon, like a blooming rose.
Her fingernails scraped the sandpaper-textured concrete as she shuffled papers, pencils, makeup bag, card case, keys back into her bag. No. Not keys. Would need keys. Her right hand clasped them, an aching gesture shooting up to her shoulder.
She was about to rise when she saw something odd lying in front of her. About three inches long, tapered. And purple. Oh. Her heel. One of her heels had broken off.
Anger flared in Temple’s anesthetized brain. Her favorite Liz Claibornes!
She scooped up the heel in the same hand that clutched the keys, and—again using the wall as a support—pushed herself slowly upright. Her lips, mouth and jaw were burning now. She knew she was hurt. What to do? The other men—even as she listened she realized that they were gone.
Her car. Must get to her car and lock the doors. But first she must unlock them. Keys in hand, she edged around the pillar, not sure what she would do if two tall men were waiting.
No one there. Only the noncommittal humps of parked cars. Her own wasn’t far. She had almost reached it. A miss is as good as a mile, an inner voice mocked. Left. Facing the outside of the ramp. Aqua.
She limped along, carrying the tote bag in her left hand, because it freed the right hand to use the keys, because the arm hurt too much to carry more than a ring of keys and a broken heel. She had to brace herself on the trunks of cars she passed, hearing her car keys chime on metal, wincing and hoping she wasn’t scratching the paint. Couldn’t look. Couldn’t stop. Need help. Find help. Find car!
The Storm’s cheerful aqua hit her hot, blurred vision like a splash of cooling water. She staggered along the driver’s side and slung the tote bag onto the hood while she fumbled with the keys. The heel kept getting in the way, but she had to hang on to it. For a moment she couldn’t remember whether the key turned left or right, couldn’t remember ever knowing that.
And then instinct resurfaced. She wrenched it right—a sharp hot needle of pain jabbed all the way up to her collarbone. The door opened to her left hand. She was easing herself in when she remembered the tote bag, straightened and retrieved it. She paused for a minute, panting, before the open door. She needed to get in, to lock it. But how to get the heavy tote bag past her first, into the passenger seat?
Sighing, Temple swung it with her left arm, letting its weight pull her arm back and then tug her arm inward. She loosened her grip. The tote plopped upright in the passenger seat like a bag of groceries.
Temple eased herself into the car seat, let her right foot reach in and her knees bend—that felt all right—let her torso bend—that didn’t—and her head dip forward... oh. She was seated, gripping the steering wheel, watching its spoked circle whirl around and around in her gaze.
Her left leg still trailed out the open car door. She pulled in the foot with the heelless shoe. At least she didn’t have to drive with it. Her left arm pulled the door shut. Such a nice sound. Solid and safe. Her forefinger hit the door locks, and they snapped to attention.