“Fuck you, fucker.”
“Don’t tell me. I don’t want you to tell me. I’d rather tie you in a chair and burn the bottoms of your feet till you tell me.”
That made Infante nervous. “I tell you, I don’t know where he is. Somebody, some friend of hers, is keeping him. All I know is it’s not far from here.”
“Is that the truth? Believe me, I’d get a kick out of burning your fucking feet.”
“It’s the truth! I don’t know where the fuck he is.”
Nolan nodded; he believed Infante. Goddammit.
And Infante whipped the towel off his lap and at Nolan’s face, and it stung, stunning him, and the naked Infante was on him, and Nolan went over backwards.
Then Nolan was on his back, and Infante’s hands were on Nolan’s throat squeezing, and the world was turning red.
“You shouldn’t have killed Sally, you fucker! You shouldn’t have killed Sally!”
Nolan fired the 9 mm, and Infante took it in the gut; his hands loosened around Nolan’s neck, and Nolan pushed him off. Infante lay on the floor like a fetus, clutching his stomach, looking up at Nolan, dying.
“You shouldn’t have killed Sally,” Infante whimpered.
“You shouldn’t have killed my dog,” Nolan said.
15
BY midafternoon, Jon wasn’t afraid of her anymore.
She was really just this poor, sad person, Ron was, somebody who got stuck with the responsibility of her family in such a way that it, well, made a man out of her. She wasn’t stupid, though smart wasn’t the word for her, either. Just this poor, uneducated, pathetic case, who he’d feel very sorry for if she didn’t have him handcuffed to a bed in what was apparently an old house out in the country somewhere.
He guessed he’d been raped. It was a new experience for him, maybe even a learning experience: he understood better what women had been going through all these years. Still, he had a hunch he could put up with being raped better than most women would, as long as it wasn’t a man doing it.
If he’d been pressed about it he’d have to admit that he’d found some enjoyment in it This strange, hungry, mannish woman sitting on him, grinding, coming like crazy, which was the good part: that made her beholden to him, in a way. Afterwards, still on top of him, she’d smiled and stroked his cheek and then suddenly her face had fallen and she seemed embarrassed or something, and got off him and ran out of the room, scooping up her clothes as she went.
She came back in T-shirt and jeans, with breakfast.
“It’s afternoon,” she said, shrugging, “but I figured maybe you oughta have something to eat, and... I don’t know... this seemed right.”
She’d made him sourdough pancakes and link sausages and American fries. On a nice plate, with a big glass of orange juice. It looked great. She had it on a tray, which she handed him.
“How about undoing this?” he said, nodding toward his cuffed hand.
She shook her head no. “Can’t do that.” She seemed embarrassed about that, too.
She went over and let up the shade, and sun came in.
He ate the breakfast.
“This is terrific,” he said.
She sat on the edge of the bed, watching him, smiling just barely; saying nothing.
When he was done, she took the tray away and was gone for over an hour. At one point he heard water running. Was she taking a bath? Then he heard a hair dryer.
When she returned, she was wearing a white peasant blouse, lacy in front with long sleeves; and jeans. She had a little makeup on: pale lipstick; blush on her cheeks. Her head was a mess of curls: ducktail no more; she had hot-curled her hair, evidently, after washing it. The perfume she had on was a little strong, an evergreen fragrance, like a room deodorizer, and it hit him as soon as she stepped in the room. But it wasn’t an unpleasant smell, and he found it kind of touching.
She came over and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Who are you, anyway?” she asked.
“My name’s Jon. I play rock’n’roll. You know that.”
“No,” she said, not looking at him, still embarrassed, “tell me about you. I want to know about you.”
He told her about himself. About living with various relatives while his mother, the “chanteuse,” worked the Holiday Inn circuit or whatever; about his aspirations to be a cartoonist, which really seemed to interest her.
“My brother used to read Spider-Man,” she said, grinning. “I still got some of the books.”
“No kidding?”
She got up and went over to the dresser. She opened a drawer and took out a three-inch stack of comics, then came back and sat on the edge of the bed and put them in Jon’s lap.
They were early issues of Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, well read but not in bad shape; not the very first issues, but within the first twenty of each. Toward the bottom of the pile he found Amazing Fantasy 15, which had the first Spider-Man story.
“Do you know what this is worth?” Jon said, holding it up for her to see the cover, which showed Spider-Man dragging a bad guy to justice in the sky.
“I’d never sell it.”
“It’s probably worth five or six hundred bucks.”
She shrugged. “It was my brother’s. I wouldn’t sell it.”
“Well, if you ever need a few bucks, these books are worth something. Particularly the Amazing Fantasy.”
“You can have it if you want”
“I can have it?”
“Sure. My brother would want you to.”
“Ron. I might not be alive tomorrow.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Let me go, Ron. You can’t keep me here like this.”
She frowned. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He let it pass. For the moment.
“Listen,” she said. “Before, when we... you know.”
“Yeah?”
“It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
He smiled. “It wasn’t so bad.”
“You mean, you... liked it?”
“I liked it.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“No.”
“You’re not just trying to get on the good side of me?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She sat there and thought about that.
Then she undid his pants again.
She stayed beside him in bed a while, curled up next to him in peasant blouse and panties, till it got dark. This time of year it got dark early, so it was probably only about five or five-thirty. He hadn’t been here a full day yet, and to his knowledge, Julie hadn’t been in contact with his keeper yet, either. As Ron lay sleeping beside him (or pretending to be asleep, he didn’t know), he considered again the possibility of overpowering her. He could slip an arm around her neck, but unless he was prepared to kill her, that wouldn’t do him any good. Not unless the key to the handcuffs was in the pocket of those jeans of hers, tossed over on the dresser. And there was no guarantee he could drag himself, by somehow dragging the bed with him, over there to find out. And the way she was softening to him, maybe keeping up the good behavior was the best way to go. But just how long he could — well, keep it up — he didn’t know.
Pretty soon she rose and stretched and smiled at him, without embarrassment now, and went and put her jeans on, moving with a lack of shame and a confidence that seemed more like the old Ron, but not at all masculine.
At the doorway she stopped and turned and said, “I’m not much at cooking, except breakfast and sandwiches and that. I usually eat my meals in the kitchen at the Paddlewheel. It goes with the job. But I can stick a TV dinner in the microwave for you.”
Somehow it seemed incongruous to him that she would have a microwave.