He shook his head. He looked at her, still watching him from the doorway. “You live alone?”
She nodded.
“And Mal pays the rent?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Let’s go back to the kitchen.”
Again, she led the way. He switched off the bedroom light and followed.
They finished their coffee in silence, and then he said, “Why?”
She jumped, startled, as shaken up as if a firecracker had gone off next to her ear. She gaped at him, and slowly her eyes focused, and she said, “What? I don’t — I don’t know what you mean.”
He waved a hand, impatiently. “The rent,” he said.
“Oh.” She nodded, and brought her hands up to her face. They stayed there a few seconds, and then she inhaled shudder-ingly and lowered her hands again. Her face was no longer expressionless. Now it was ravaged. It was as though invisible weights were sewn to her cheeks, dragging the whole face down. “A payoff, I guess,” she said. Her tone was hopeless, like before.
“Yeah,” he said. He sounded mad again. He flipped his cigarette across the room into the sink. It sputtered, and he lit another one.
She said, “I’m glad you aren’t dead. Isn’t that stupid?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “You hate me. You got a right.”
“I ought to slash you,” he told her. “I ought to slash your nostrils. I ought to make you look like a witch, like the witch you are.”
“You ought to kill me,” she said hopelessly.
“Maybe I will.”
Her head sagged down toward her chest. Her voice was almost inaudible. “I keep taking pills,” she murmured. “Every night. If I don’t take the pills, I don’t sleep. I think about you.”
“And how I’m coming for you?”
“No, and how you’re dead. And I wish it was me.”
“Take too many pills,” he suggested.
“I can’t. I’m a coward.” She raised her head and looked at him again. “That’s why I did it, Parker,” she said. “I’m a coward. It was you dead, or me dead.”
“And Mal pays the rent.”
“I’m a coward,” she said.
“Yeah. I know about that.”
“I never gave him satisfaction, Parker. I never responded, no matter what he did.”
“That why he moved out?”
“I think so.”
He grinned, mirthlessly. “You can turn it on and off,” he said bitterly. “A bed machine. None of it means a thing.”
“Only with you, Parker.”
He spat out a word like a slap. She recoiled from it, shaking her head. “It’s the truth, Parker,” she said. “That’s why I need the pills. That’s why I didn’t quit this place and find some other guy. Mal keeps me going and he doesn’t ask anything I can’t give.”
The coffee was replacing the vodka. He laughed, slapping the table, and said, “Good thing the bastard wasn’t here, huh? I come barging in, he’d have two, three guys in the living room, huh? All the time, just in case.”
She nodded. “He never stayed here alone.”
“He’s worried, the bastard.” He nodded. He beat out a drumroll on the table edge with the first two fingers of each hand. “He thinks maybe I’ll come back from the grave,” he said. He laughed, and finished the drumroll with a rhythmic double crash of both hands on the table. “He’s right, huh? Yeah. Back from the grave.”
“What are you going to do, Parker?” she asked, and the quaver of fear had finally reached her voice.
“I’m going to drink his blood,” he said. “I’m going to chew up his heart and spit it into the gutter for the dogs to raise a leg at. I’m going to peel the skin off him and rip out his veins and hang him with them.” He sat in the chair, his fists clenching and unclenching, his eyes glaring at her. He snatched up the coffee cup and hurled it. It caromed off the refrigerator and shattered on the edge of the sink, then sprayed onto the floor.
She stared at him, mouth moving, but no sound coming out.
He looked at her, and his eyes hardened again to onyx. One side of his mouth grinned, and he said, “To you? You mean to you? What am I going to do to you?”
She didn’t move.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. His voice was high and hard, like it tightrope walker out on the rope, knowing his balance was never better. High and hard and sharp. “It depend on you. Where’s Mal?”
“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered.
“It depends on you,” he said again.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Parker. I swear on the Cross. I haven’t seen him for three months. I don’t even know if he’s in New York.”
“How do you get your payoff?”
“Messenger,” she said. “The first of every month. He brings me an envelope, with cash in it.”
“How much cash?”
“A thousand.”
He smacked the table with stiff fingers. “Twelve grand a year. Tax free. The setup pays well, Lynn. The Judas ewe.” He laughed harshly, like a knife slashing through canvas. “The Judas ewe,” he repeated. “Wiggling her tail down the chute.”
“I was afraid! They would have killed me, Parker. They would have hurt me and then they would have killed me.”
“Yeah. Who is this messenger?”
“It’s a different one each time. I don’t know any of them.”
“Sure,” he said. “Mal don’t trust you. Nobody trusts the Judas ewe.”
“I didn’t want to, Parker, I swear before all the saints! You were the only man I ever wanted. The only man I ever needed. But I had to.”
“You’d do it again,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not this time — not now. I couldn’t go through this again.”
“You’re afraid to die,” he said. He held his hands out and flexed them, looking at her throat.
She shrank away. “Yes. Yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid to live, too. I couldn’t go through it all over again.”
“The first of the month,” he said, “you’ll open your mouth to the messenger. You’ll say, ‘Tell Mal to look out. Tell him Parker’s in town.’”
She shook her head violently. “I’ve got no reason,” she said desperately. “I’m going down to the core now, Parker. I’m telling you the bottom truth. If I had to, I would. I’d do it all over again, everything, if I had to. But I don’t have to. Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody knows you’re alive. Nobody’s threatening me, making me turn you up.”
“Maybe you’ll play it safe and volunteer,” he said.
“No. That’s no way to play it safe.”
He laughed. “You been in the Army too? Or just nearby?”
Surprisingly, she flushed, and her answer was sullen. “I was never a whore, Parker,” she said. “You know that.”
“No. You sold my body instead.”
He got to his feet and left the kitchen. She trailed after him, and he went into the living room. He stood for a minute glowering at the furniture, and then he sprawled on the sofa.
“I’ll take a chance,” he said. “I’ll take a small chance. Mal can’t trust you, so he didn’t leave you any contacts. No phone numbers, no drops, nothing. So you can’t play Judas ewe till the first of the month, when the messenger comes. Four days from now, when the messenger comes. Right?”
“Not then, either,” she said, face and voice urgent. “I wouldn’t, Parker — there’s nobody forcing me.”
He laughed again. “You won’t get the chance,” he said. “You won’t have to make the choice.” He got up with a suddenness that terrified her, but he made no move toward her. “I’ll meet liim for you.”
“Are you going to stay?” she asked him. Fear and desire were mixed up together in her expression. “Will you stay?”
“I’ll stay.”
He turned away from her, crossed the living room and pushed into the bedroom again. She followed, the tip of her tongue trembling between her lips, her eyes darting from him to the bed.