“You broke my nose,” Judite said again, and accepted the towel and pressed the ice pack to her nose. On the street outside, she could hear the rise and fall of an ambulance siren. She wondered if she would need an ambulance.
“Who were his customers?” Brother Anthony asked.
“What?” She didn’t know who he meant at first. And then it occurred to her that he was talking about Paco.
“His customers,” Emma said. “Who was he selling to?”
“Paco, do you mean?”
“You know who we mean,” Brother Anthony said. He tucked the gun into the pouchlike pocket at the front of his robe, and gestured to the fat woman. The fat woman reached into her bag again. For a dizzying moment, Judite thought they were going to let her go. The priest had put the gun away, and now the fat woman was reaching into her bag again. They were going to give her the money, after all. They were going to let her go. But when the fat woman’s hand came out of the bag, there was something long and narrow in it. The fat woman’s thumb moved, and a straight razor snapped open out of its case, catching tiny dancing pinpricks of light. Judite was more afraid of the razor than she had been of the gun. She had never in her life been shot, but she’d been cut many, many times, once even by Paco. She bore the scar on her shoulder. It was a less hideous scar than the ones he had burned onto her breasts.
“Who were his customers?” Brother Anthony asked again.
“I hardly even knew him,” Judite said.
“You were living with him,” Emma said.
“That doesn’t mean I knew him,” Judite said, which, in a way, was an awesome truth.
She did not want to tell them who Paco’s customers had been because his customers were now her customers, or at least would be as soon as she got her act together. She had reconstructed from memory a list of an even dozen users, enough to keep her living in a style she thought would be luxurious. Enough to have caused her to buy a gun before she embarked on her enterprise; there were too many bastards like Paco in the world. But the gun was now in the priest’s pocket, and the fat woman was turning the razor slowly in her hand, so that its edge caught glints of light. Judite thought, and this in itself was an awesome truth, that life had a peculiar way of repeating itself. Remembering what Paco had done to her breasts, she pulled the robe instinctively closed over her nightgown, using her free left hand. Brother Anthony caught the motion.
“Who were his customers?” Emma said.
“I don’t know. What customers?”
“For the nose candy,” Emma said, and moved closer to her with the razor.
“I don’t know what that means, nose candy,” Judite said.
“What you sniff, my dear,” Emma said, and brought the razor close to her face. “Through your nose, my dear. Through the nose you won’t have in a minute if you don’t tell us who they were.”
“No, not her face,” Brother Anthony said, almost in a whisper. “Not her face.”
He smiled at Judite. For another dizzying moment, Judite thought he was the one who would let her go. The woman seemed menacing, but surely the priest—
“Take off the robe,” he said.
“What for?” she asked, and clutched the robe closed tighter across her chest.
“Take it off,” Brother Anthony said.
She hesitated. She pulled the towel away from her nose. The flow of blood seemed to be tapering. She put the towel back again. Even the pain seemed to be ebbing now. Perhaps this would not be so bad, after all. Perhaps, if she just went along with them, played along with them — surely the fat woman wasn’t serious about cutting off her nose? Were the names of Paco’s customers really that important to them? Would they risk so much for so little? Anyway, they were her customers now, damn it! She would give them whatever else they wanted, but not the names that were her ticket to what she imagined as freedom. She did not know what kind of freedom. Just freedom. She would never give them the names.
“Why do you want me to take off the robe?” she asked. “What is it you want from me?”
“The customers,” Emma said.
“Do you want to see my body?” she asked. “Is that it?”
“The customers,” Emma said.
“You want me to blow you?” she asked Brother Anthony.
“Take off the robe,” Brother Anthony said.
“Because if you want me to—”
“The robe,” he said.
She looked at him. She tried to read his eyes. Paco had told her she gave better head than most of the hookers he knew. If she could reach the priest—
“Can I stand up?” she asked.
“Stand up,” Emma said, and retreated several steps. The open razor was still in her hand.
Judite put down the towel. Her nose had stopped bleeding entirely. She took off the robe and draped it over the back of the chair. She was wearing only a pale blue baby-doll nightgown. The nightgown ended just an inch below her crotch. She was not wearing the panties that had come with the nightgown when she’d bought it. The nightgown and panties had cost her $26. Money she could easily get back from her new cocaine trade. She saw where the priest’s eyes went.
“So what do you say?” she asked, arching one eyebrow and trying a smile.
“I say take off the nightgown,” Brother Anthony said.
“It’s cold in here,” Judite said, hugging herself. “The heat goes off at ten.” She was being seductive and bantering, she thought. She had captured the priest’s eye — they were all supposed to be celibate, some joke — and now she thought she’d make it a bit more interesting and spicy, tease him along a little, make a big production out of taking off the nightgown. The fat woman would go along with whatever the priest decided; Judite knew women, and that’s the way it was.
“Just take it off,” Brother Anthony said.
“What for?” Judite said, the same light tone in her voice. “You can see what you’re getting, can’t you? I’m practically naked here, you can practically see right through this thing, so why do I have to take it off?”
“Take off the fucking nightgown!” Emma said, and all at once Judite thought she’d made a big error in judgment. The fat woman was moving closer to her again, the razor flashing.
“All right, don’t... just don’t get... I’ll take it off, okay? Just... take it easy, okay? But, really, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Paco’s customers, I swear to God I don’t know what you mean by—”
“You know what we’re talking about,” Brother Anthony said.
She pulled the gown up over her waist, lifted it over her breasts and shoulders, and without turning placed it on the seat of the wooden chair. Gooseflesh erupted immediately on her arms and across her chest and shoulders. She stood naked and trembling in the center of the kitchen, her bare feet on the cold linoleum, the ice-rimed window behind her. She was quite well formed, Brother Anthony thought. Her shoulders were narrow and delicately turned, and there was a gently rounded swell to her belly, and a ripe flare to her hips. Her breasts, too, were large and firm, quite beautiful except for the angry brown burn scars on their sloping tops. Very well formed, he thought. Not as opulent a woman as Emma, but very well formed indeed. He noticed that there was a small knife scar on her left shoulder. She was a woman who’d been abused before, perhaps regularly, a very frightened woman.
“Cut her,” he said.
The thrust of the razor came so swiftly that for a moment Judite didn’t even realize she’d been cut. The slash drew a thin line of blood across her belly, not as frightening as the blood pouring from her nose had been, really just a narrow line of blood oozing from the flesh, nothing so terribly scary. Even the searing aftermath of the razor slash was less painful than the blow to her nose had been. She looked down at her belly in amazement. But somehow, she was less frightened now than she’d been a moment earlier. If this was what it would be like, if this was the worst they would do to her—