The door slammed. The lock turned.
There were two of them, and then there were three.
“Make one fucking sound and I’ll blow your heads off,” the one who wasn’t either Lucinda or himself said.
A man with a gun — Charles could see him, could see the gun, too, something stunted looking and oily black. He was panting, as if he’d just run a long distance to get there.
“I’ll give you all my money,” Charles said. “You can have it.”
“What?” The man was black but Hispanic, Charles thought, a kind of accent, anyway. "What the fuck d’you say?”
“My money — it’s yours.”
“I told you to shut the fuck up.” He kicked him again, not in the ribs this time, but lower down. Charles groaned.
“Please,” Lucinda said in a trembling little girl’s voice, a voice that didn’t seem capable of coming out of a grown woman. “Please . . . don’t hurt us. . . .”
“Don’t hurt us," the man said, mimicking her, taking pleasure in making fun. Of her fear. That little-girl voice . . . like she was going to cry or something. “Oh, I ain’t gonna hurt you, baby . . . uh-uh. . . . Now throw me your fucking wallets.”
Charles reached for his pocket, through the folds of his down jacket saturated with sweat — reached in and grabbed his wallet with a shaking hand.
This only happens in movies. This only happens on the front pages. This only happens to someone else.
He threw his wallet to the man with the gun. Lucinda was fumbling inside her pocketbook, looking for hers, the one with the picture of a five-year-old girl on a swing somewhere in the country. Somewhere other than here — the threadbare floor of room 1207 in the Fairfax Hotel.
By the time she threw him her wallet, he was already looking through Charles’s, pulling the cash out of it — quite a bit of cash, too, the cash Charles was going to use to pay for the room. But after the man took the cash, he kept looking at the wallet — grinning at something.
“Well, look at this,” he said.
He was looking at Charles’s pictures — Anna and Deanna and him. The Schine family.
“Funny,” he said. “That don’t look like you . . .” talking to Lucinda. “That sure as shit don’t look like you.”
Back to Charles. “That don’t look anything like her, Charles. ” Smirking at them.
Then, looking through her wallet and finding a picture of hers. “Ain’t that something,” he said. “Thisguy don’t look like you, Charles. Uh-uh. This guy ain't you, Charles.”
He snorted, laughed, giggled; he’d figured something out.
“Let’s see here. Know what I think? Hey” — he kicked Charles again, not as hard this time, but hard enough — “Isaid, Know what I think?”
Charles said, “What?”
“What?What? I think you guys are fucking around with each other. Stepping out on the old lady, huh, Charles? Getting some strange, my man. That what you doing, Charles? ”
Charles said, “Please, just take my money.”
“Just take your money? Just take your money? Thanks, but I already took your fucking money. See”—holding the cash out to him—“this is your money. I got your fucking money.”
“Yes,” Charles said. “I see. I promise we won’t go to the police.”
“You promise, huh? That’s fucking nice of you, that’s real fucking kind of you, Charles. I can take your word on that, huh? You won’t go to the police. Well then . . .”
He waved the gun around in little looping circles, first toward him, then her, then back again. Inky black, snub-nosed barrel. . . .
“Well then . . . if you ain’t gonna go to the police and all . . .”
Lucinda was trembling beside him, shaking like a wet stray.
“Hey, baby,” the man said. “Hey,baby . . .”
“Please . . . ,” Lucinda said.
“How is she, Charles? Better than the old lady, I bet. Nice pussy, Charles? Nice tight pussy?”
Charles started to get up. He was back in the bar and the man was insulting her, and Charles would have to set him straight, to show him what’s what. Except the man pistol-whipped him across the face and Charles went flying back again. Hearing a crack before feeling the pain—first one and then the other, first the sound of his nose being broken, then the nauseating pain of his nose being broken. And the blood starting to seep out on the floor.
“What was that, my man? I didn’t hear you, Charles. What’d you say? You said you can fuck her if you want? Why, thank you, Charles. That’s fucking kind of you. Letting me have your bitch and all.”
“No,” Lucinda moaned. “No . . .”
“No?Didn’t you hear him say that I could fuck you, Lucinda. ” It was the first time he’d said her name—in a way, it seemed every bit as horrible as kicking them to the floor and stealing their wallets. “That’s what the man said. You giving it to him—you can give it to me. Whore’s a whore, baby. Am I right, Charles? Am I?”
Charles was choking on his own blood. It was pouring down his throat and clogging his windpipe — he was drowning in it, sputtering for air.
“Sit up here, Charles.” The man pulled him up, led him over to the lone chair, which had fluff seeping out of a ripped cushion decorated with a faded floral design. He sat him down on it. “Feeling better there, Charles? Take a deep breath. That’s right—in, out. You’ll want a good seat for this, Charles. Championship fucking, my man. Twelve rounder. You don’t want to miss this.”
Lucinda ran.
She’d caught him by surprise — the man with the gun, lying there trembling like that, and then suddenly springing up and making a run for it. She made it all the way to the door.
She even turned the knob and got it half-open before he reached her and pulled her back in. By her hair. That dark, silky hair that tasted of shampoo and sweat, so soft you could comb it by hand — twisted in his fist as she screamed.
“You want to shut the fuck up, Lucinda. ” He’d put the barrel into her mouth, straight in, knocking it up against her teeth. Lucinda stopped screaming.
Charles was still wheezing through his own blood, dizzy enough to pass out, a white light searing the bridge of his nose. Watching as the man laid Lucinda onto the floor as if they were engaged in some eerie kind of dance, some modern pas de deux, laying her down and standing over her. As he pulled her skirt up above her waist. As he snorted and wolf whistled and slowly, slowly pulled her black lace panties down to her knees.
As he unzipped his pants.
TEN
He passed out, more than once he passed out, but each time the man brought him back, slapping water onto his face, whispering into his ear.
Don’t fade on me, my man. Round two . . . baby. Round three . . . four . . .
It was like bad porno . . . the kind you don’t really want to see, but your friend just happens to have it, so you watch. Even as you pull your eyes away, you watch. The woman with the dog, the scat tape where she swallows it all — sickening, really, can’t believe she’s really doing that, but she is, and you’re watching it. Your stomach churning, your guts heaving, makes you want to throw up, but you have to look at it. Don’t know why, but you do.