They mobbed the bitch, a rushing dog pile, pinning down her arms and legs before she had a chance to wriggle free of Squealer’s grip. They had to get her off the path and well away, back in the trees, before they could have any fun, find out what she was made of.
“Move it!” Monster snapped. And they were moving it, all seven hanging on, when she gave out a single piercing scream.
The jogger called herself Latoya. It was not her given name, of course—she wasn’t black or even world-famous yet and not even distantly related to a certain famous family—but it was stylish, like a stage name ought to be.
She was a would-be actress who had run the gamut of employment since she came to L.A., all the way from topless clubs to serving veggie burgers in a joint in North Hollywood. A little modeling from time to time, and silent walk-ons in a couple of commercials that were cut before they aired. She had a twenty-three-year-old’s inimitable faith in what tomorrow might bring. Her break was just around the corner, waiting for her—maybe in the two-line part she’d landed in a low-budget indie black comedy, with the rehearsal starting late next week.
A movie gig meant she had to stay in shape, in case there was somebody who saw it and liked her face and her personality. And with the waitress job from eight to five, no extra cash on-hand for health clubs or aerobics classes, staying fit meant running after dark.
She knew about the park, but the streets were hardly any safer in Latoya’s neighborhood these days, and she was still too young to jump at shadows, letting fear dictate the way she lived. The triple locks on her apartment door were one thing, but she would be damned if she was going to be driven off the streets by animals who ought to be in jail. Besides, no one was really safe these days—the President had bullets flying through his windows, airplanes crashing on the White House lawn—and there were some risks still worth taking for a sense of freedom in the world. Latoya knew she had a problem when she heard the whistle, though. It wasn’t like when the construction workers tried to get a rise out of her on the way to work. This was a signal, and she didn’t have to guess about its meaning when the human hulk jumped out to block her path.
Her first instinct was to cut and run. The walking hulk was big enough to smother her, but she was betting he couldn’t run that fast. If she could get a fair head start, Latoya reasoned, she could leave him in the dust.
About that whistle, though. The sound came from behind her, dammit, and she was expecting trouble even as she turned to run. Another would-be rapist, blocking her escape, but she would have to risk it.
What she got, instead, was six. That made it seven, with the hulk, and she could feel her stomach twist into a painful knot.
‘What do you want?” The tremor in her voice embarrassed her to tears.
“We’s gonna have a party, mama,” one of them replied, “an’ you’s the en’ertainment.”
That was all she had to hear. A swift glance toward the shadows on her right, and she took off, put everything she had into the sprint without a clear idea of where she meant to go or how she would get there.
Latoya made it halfway to the trees before one of them tackled her and brought her down. She skinned her palms on asphalt, had the wind knocked out of her, but she wasn’t about to take it lying down. The little pricks would have to kill her first, and while she guessed they wouldn’t mind, Latoya didn’t plan to make it easy for them, either.
Kicking back, she missed her captor’s genitals and connected with his thigh. The young man cursed her, wheezing, and his fist went home, between her shoulder blades.
The others mobbed her then, a rush that flattened her against the pavement, pinned her arms and legs at painful awkward angles. At least they couldn’t rape her this way, lying in the middle of the path, facedown, with seven bodies piled on top of her. Small favors.
“Move it!” someone snapped, and in another heartbeat they were climbing off of her, hands clutching at Latoya’s arms and legs, her waist, her breasts. They lifted her, propelled her toward the darkness as if they were off to storm a castle and her body had been chosen as a ram to smash the gates.
She saw one chance and took it, sucking in the cool night air and putting everything she had into the scream.
“Shut up, bitch!”
Someone clapped a hand across her mouth. She bit it, and a fist glanced off her skull, came back to strike a second time.
“No noise,” a harsh voice cautioned, almost in her ear. “You yell again, I cut yer tits off, hear me?”
They were cloaked in darkness now. Latoya felt herself flipped over in midair, dropped on her back, with grass beneath her. Hands were clawing at her sweats, undressing her. She fought as best she could, with fists and feet, but there was always someone pinning down her limbs, while others cut and tore her clothes.
She felt her bra go, and her panties, and she struggled as a pair of wet mouths found her nipples. Clumsy fingers tried to worm their way inside her, hurting. Someone kissed her, and she bit down on his lower lip, hung on when he began to squeal and punch her, tasting blood, uncertain whether it was his or hers or both together.
AIDS, she thought, and then dismissed the fear. They were bound to kill her, anyway; She had seen faces. They couldn’t afford to let her live.
Hands locked around her ankles, and her legs were wrenched apart.
Then one of the punks was kneeling in between her legs and fumbling with his belt, the pants so baggy that he seemed to have some difficulty with the snap and zipper.
She was winding up to scream once more, when a strange voice issued from the darkness, somewhere to her left, and froze her captors where they stood or knelt.
“Is this a private party,” asked the stranger, sounding casual, “or can anybody play?”
Just in time, thought Remo as he stepped into the clearing, counting heads. Aloud, he said, “Is this a private party, or can anybody play?”
Two minutes, maximum, since he had heard the scream and homed in on the sound. A glimpse of pale flesh told him that the punks weren’t wasting any time, but they were still on the preliminaries, maybe working up their nerve, or simply savoring the moment for themselves.
The last thing they expected was an uninvited audience.
The would-be rapists scrambled to their feet when Remo spoke, except for one who hung back, kneeling by the lady’s head and pinning down her arms.
That made it six-on-one to start, but Remo wasn’t bothered. He surveyed the teenagers, two or three of them with switchblade knives in hand. No guns among them, which at least might help their chosen victim, with no threat of ricochet.
“You be smart,” the leader of the rat pack told him, “you gwan run along now.”
Remo put on his most engaging smile. “Let’s try again,” he said. “Does anybody here speak English?”
“Man, you fuck wid us, we be gwan fuck y’alls up, know what ahm sayin’?”
“Let me guess,” said Remo. “You’re a UN delegation from a new, emerging Third World nation, and you’re looking for the embassy?”
“Yo, muddafuck, ah don’t be playin’ wid yo’ ass. How’s ’bout me an’ da homies get to slice an’ dice, digit?”
Two more strides, and Remo said, “If you’ll hang on a minute, I can send for an interpreter.”
“Y’alls hang on dis, smart muddafuck!”
The leader rushed him, leading with a wicked looking knife, two others circling left and right to cut off his expected flight. Remo stood his ground and let the pointman sacrifice himself. A sidestep to avoid the blade, and when his hand whipped up to crush the young man’s face, it moved too swiftly for the eye to follow. Out and back again, a flat slap that connected with a solid crunch and threw the boy back out cold, and out of circulation for a long time.