There was a familiar knock at the door. “Hi, Julio, come on in.”
He wasn’t quite himself as he handed her another envelope.
Now she wasn’t quite herself. “Who’s this from?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not from Ms. Branson, is it?”
He smiled grimly. “Oh, I doubt that.”
She turned it over and over. There was only her name on the front.
“Guess you haven’t heard,” he said.
“Heard what?”
“Doris Branson committed suicide on Wednesday.”
Now, that took a good piece of time to sink in. Oh, wow. So much for feeling good or peaceful.“You’re kidding.”
“She was gonna be fired ’cause of being drunk on the job. Guess she ended it first.”
“Wow” was all she could say.
Julio got his chocolate and left.
No wonder I haven’t heard anything, she thought, and then felt evil and selfish for thinking such a thing. It wasn’t her fault, was it? She hadn’t come anywhere near Doris that day, hadn’t touched her at all, and Doris did have a history, didn’t she? Doris created her own problems and was trying to blame her, that’s what really happened. There was a prior mental and emotional thing going here, had to be.
No, no, don’t even go there. You didn’t ask for any of this, you didn’t have anything to do with it, let it go.
But now she was all the more nervous about the little envelope. She picked up her nail file and slit it open. Inside was a news clipping. Oh. Maybe it was about her new escape routine; maybe it was a favorable review. Maybe …
It was an obituary. Ernest James Myers had passed away in the hospital January 31, the day after their conversation in his hospital room—if you could call it a conversation. A simple, handwritten note was paper-clipped to the obit: “Just thought you should know.”
No signature.
chapter
41
The seven-o’clock show was the beginning of sorrows. Mandy kept smiling, charming, dancing, and making ’em laugh, but every routine, line of banter, and dance step felt like climbing uphill wearing lead weights. Ernie and Doris were dead, and though she managed to empty her mind of fears and questions that could be verbalized—how else could she do the stunts?—she couldn’t shake a sixth-sense connection with those two and that hospital and a debilitating dread that whatever got Ernie and Doris was crawling along that connection on its way to her. If ever she was in showbiz, it was that night; she was putting on the biggest act, the happiest facade she could muster.
The nine-o’clock show …
Of course, the dread played right into what happened. If she hadn’t been afraid to begin with, she might have found another way to play through the difficulty, get a laugh, and move on. She’d put up with hecklers before—a tipsy lodge member now and then, a smart-aleck kid all too often—but these men were denizens of a place she’d never been, an intentional evil she’d never encountered. They got to her, they scared her, and it was the worst of all nights to do such a thing.
The show was rolling along well enough, into its second half. She could feel her inner clock ticking down the minutes before she could take her bow, call it a night, and go home to sort things out. She was sitting in a chair, mugging and bantering with two handsome volunteers from the audience: Buck—now, there was a studly name, real or not—who was in the process of tying her to the chair with yards and yards of rope; and Jim, who was feeding quarter-inch slingshot pellets from a little box into her mouth so she could spit at balloons set up across the stage.
The first alarm signals came from the rude, invasive manner Jim stuffed the pellets in her mouth. She made goofy noises and tried to talk with her mouth full to get some laughs, but he was having a strange kind of fun that told her, too late, that she’d called up the wrong volunteers.
Buck was cinching the ropes so tight they hurt, but she kept smiling, making a joke out of it. “Don’t cut off my circulation, I still have half a show to do.” He wrapped the ropes around her body and the back of the chair, then planted his foot on the back of the chair and yanked them tight, making her grunt with pain and a foreboding she made a silly face about.
Four of Jim and Buck’s buddies were in the third row, loud and obnoxious, egging them on: “All right, Buck, she’s yours now!” “Make her moan, Buck!” “Tighter, Buck, she wants it!”
“Okay, back off,” she told Jim, and though she hoped the audience didn’t catch it, she really meant it. He backed off and let her try spitting the pellets at the balloons.
Pfft! Bang! One balloon down. Cheers from the crowd. She gave them a comical face, manipulating the pellets around in her mouth in exaggerated fashion.
Oh! Buck tied one ankle to the leg of the chair and he wasn’t merciful.
I gotta get through this. Keep ’em laughing.
Pfft! Bang! Second balloon down.
Ouch!Buck tied the other ankle, this time with some extra loops. Her foot was going numb.
Okay, this stunt’s getting scratched. Never again, not in this town. What was Seamus thinking?
Pfft! She missed, but as Dane once told her, you have to show a little vulnerability so people can identify with you.
Vulnerability? How much rope was there, anyway? Buck wasn’t wasting any of it. Now he was tying her hands behind the chair, and that hurt, too. She couldn’t let the audience know. She kept smiling.
“Take her, Buck!” a goon hollered.
“How?” another joked.
“Don’t worry,” said Buck.
Pfft! Mandy popped the third balloon and looked around for Andy. She might need him. The lights blinded her. She couldn’t see him.
One balloon left. One pellet still in her mouth. She decided to keep the pellet.
Buck finished the last knot, and Mandy was so fixed to that chair she couldn’t move an arm, a leg, anything. He walked around the chair, leering at her, very proud of himself.
The goons in the third row started to whoop. “Hey, still got one balloon left!” “Forget thoseballoons!”
The show must go on. Mandy followed the script. She was supposed to have one of the volunteers time her escape. “Okay, Jim, you got a watch?”
“Oh, I wantto watch!” he said.
Some in the audience thought that was funny, but apart from the hoots of the Filthy Four, it got only a halfhearted laugh. Folks were beginning to have doubts about this show, and Mandy could feel it.
“No, a watch!” she said, keeping it all in fun. “I need you to be the timer.”
“Time you or Buck?” a goon hollered.
She wasn’t ready for it, couldn’t believe it was happening. Without warning, Buck pounced from behind her and locked his mouth over hers, making a long, lewd show of it. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She tried to turn her head away, but he stayed right on her, even gripped her head from behind and wouldn’t let her go. His buddies in the third row were on their feet, cheering. Jim threw up both arms as if seeing a touchdown, “YAHHHH!”
The crowd reaction was mixed. Most were trying to play along and be good sports, laughing, but the mood was going south.
Imprisoned. At their mercy. Icy, animal terror coursed through her. She groped at the ropes from outside herself, digging, yanking. The ropes were tight, the knots stubborn.
He put his hand on her waist, started working his way up.
She couldn’t think of anything funny. She could only feel his hand exploring her. The whole room became tea-stained; there was a low rumble and the smell of smoke; other times, other Bucks, other Jims, other Mandys began to layer atop the present …
PING! She spit the pellet into his mouth, breaking off his front tooth.
He jerked backward, staggering,
… his mouth over hers, making a long, lewd show …