“Wake them up.”
A swift kick in the side. She couldn’t hold back a whimper, so she masked it with a low mumble. Dull thuds were heard as they kicked Jimmy, but not a sound came from him. After another kick she felt it was time to change the scenario. Whimpering, she moved her head and mumbled something incoherent.
“The broad is coming to!”
Twitch the eyelids, look confused and groggy. Be careful to survey the surroundings. Four leather-clad guys and a little blond girl, also in leathers. Jimmy lay next to her, less than a meter away. He was unrecognizable, covered with mud, his face swollen. At least he was alive. His chest heaved up and down.
“What were you and the shithead doing here on our property?”
It was the tall, thin one who was aggressively leaning over Irene. Safer not to lie. Not too much. She was very dizzy and had a hard time finding the words, but she did her best. She slurred, “We were on a stakeout. . narcotics. . police.”
She closed her eyes and pretended to pass out again. Then the telephone rang. Squinting through half-closed eyes she saw the fat leader, bewildered, looking at the phone he was holding in his right hand. The thin one snatched it from him and unfolded it.
They could all hear a worried female voice say, “Irene? It’s Birgitta. What’s going on?”
At first he cast a dubious glance at Irene, but suddenly he raised the phone to his mouth.
“Fuck you!” he yelled.
Then he folded it up and broke into a contented grin. “That’ll give the bitch something to think about!” he said happily.
The leader reared back and took a powerful swing. The blow from his fist landed squarely on the other man’s chin. From Irene’s perspective it looked as if he jumped straight up in the air and simply vanished. But from the thud that followed she knew that he had landed against the door.
The powerful leader massaged his knuckles as he screamed, “You stupid fuck! If a cop’s phone rings, you ought to know there’s another fucking cop on the other end!”
Another one of the gang could be counted out. At least for a while.
“Shit! She said it was the Narcs! God damn it!”
The fat one went over and stuck a heavy motorcycle boot into the left side of her ribs. There was a dry crack-at least one rib had gone. There was nothing feigned about the moan that came from her lips.
“Answer, you fucking slut! How long have you known about this place?”
“Don’t remember. . got a tip. . a tip.”
“Was it that shithead Bobo who tipped you? Answer!”
At first she was so surprised that she almost opened her eyes. There it was! A connection! But she quickly regained her composure. “Don’t know. . I didn’t. . answer.”
“Did the tip come by phone?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
Good heavens! When? When would be logical? She had to trust her intuition.
“This morning.”
The leader took a deep breath before he screamed furiously, “That fucking asshole! He split with the bread. Then he sets the cops on us while we sit here with our pants down! I knew we couldn’t trust that miserable shit!”
He paused to ponder the new facts that Irene had served up to him. It seemed to ring true to him.
“You should be damned glad that we don’t have a lot of time. But. .” He turned to his pals. Even the thin one was now up on wobbly legs, staggering toward them. A malicious grin slid across his flabby face when the leader continued, “What does a Hell’s Angel do with the fucking cops? Right! Like this!”
All four of them lined up in a row. They pulled down the zippers on their leather pants, pulled out their dicks, and started to piss, on Irene and Jimmy. The little blond laughed so hard she howled, slapped her knees, and had to lean against the wall.
It’s nothing dangerous. It’s only urine. This can’t be happening! We won’t die of it. Good God, let it be over soon. Silently Irene repeated this incantation to keep her hysteria in check. The stench of the hot piss on her face made her start to vomit.
Then it was over. The light was switched off and they went out, laughing. Before he slammed the door, the leader turned and said, “Don’t you dare open the door if you want to live. Besides I’m putting on the padlock.”
The way Irene was feeling, she wouldn’t be able to move for quite a while. Her first reaction when the door closed behind the gang was an incredible sense of relief. They were gone. She could hear the heavy motorcycles in the sea of mud outside. They had been parked along the front of the barn.
Suddenly, she was aware that it was completely quiet outside. With all her senses on full alert, she sat up. Her rib hurt but she hardly noticed it. Carefully she stood. Stooping, half crawling, she moved over to the window by the door. Cautiously, she peered out from a corner of the broken windowpane.
The lamp attached to the wall outside cast a faint circle of light, and at the very edge she could discern the contours of four motorcycles and the gleam of leather overalls. On command they all started their machines at once. Three of them drove off, but the fourth lingered. Irene could see him make a throwing motion with his arm before he too took off. He had tossed something in through the broken window and instinctively she wanted to take cover. But several years of experience as a goalie on the police women’s handball team now served her well. The little ball was surprisingly heavy. A Hell’s Angel had thrown it, so it must be a hand grenade. The deep grooves in it confirmed what her intuition had told her. Without a conscious thought she flung it back out the window.
The hot pressure wave of the explosion seared her face. A magnesium-white light set fire to the darkness and arced out in all directions. The blinding light sucked away all sensory impressions and left her for a second in a cold, dark vacuum. The blast deafened her. Soon the total silence was replaced by a powerful pain and a shrill whistling sound that tore at her ears. Spots danced before her eyes in all the colors of the rainbow. Her field of vision was constricted from the sides, and a new wave of nausea rose up from her diaphragm. Her sight vanished; she was blind. The uncontrolled shaking returned, but it wasn’t because of the cold. She sank down with her back to the wall. Whimpering, she slowly began to move toward where she thought the door was. Finally she felt the dry planks of the old stable door under her lacerated fingertips. She got it open by flinging herself desperately against the wood with her full weight, breaking off the rotten hasp. She staggered out into the rain and sank down on her knees, sat back on her heels, let her hands rest lightly on the tops of her thighs, and closed her eyes. She went into Mokuso while the rain rinsed away the piss.
That was the position they found her in.
Chapter Thirteen
SHE HADN’T BEEN IN the hospital since she had the twins. At first she protested at being kept overnight, but a determined and motherly nurse explained to her calmly and objectively, “You’ve had a blow to the back of your neck, which could cause bleeding and breathing paralysis. You could die before you got back to the hospital! And we don’t want that. Here we can check you during the night and see right away if any complications arise. Agreed?”
A little upset, Irene agreed. She had a sharp pain in her neck all of a sudden. She carefully lifted the ice pack and touched the swollen area. As big as a small hen’s egg. Sore. She was feeling dizzy and a bit nauseated. Most of all, she was tired and wanted to sleep. But it would have to wait. After a hot shower she had to put on a clean hospital gown, which was about as sexy as a garbage bag. Doctors and nurses ran in and out of the room. They talked to her to check that she wasn’t about to slip into unconsciousness, took her blood pressure, and shone flashlights into her eyes to check the size of her pupils. When she ventured to ask a pimply youth why, he replied glibly, “If one pupil gets bigger than the other, it’s all over!”