Hard Luck

by Pascal Scott

  His glassy eyes met hers. “Do you see? Do you understand? What this means is that I am responsible for the well-being of the Omegans in my care. I am responsible for all aspects of their well-being, and that includes their sexual well-being.”

  Elizabeth felt her spine stiffen. She didn’t like the direction this speech was going.

  “Until now, sexual relations have been forbidden. I set a policy based on what I thought was right. But I see now that sex happens, even when there are rules against it. Frankly speaking, Omegans are going to fuck each other, even though that is clearly in violation of the code of ethics. But instead of meting out punishment, I see now that I must tolerate this weakness and direct it in order to show the path to higher wisdom. Man is sexual by nature. Wiser men than me have understood that sex is a low, carnal need in the human animal. Nature has given us this need and created us with sexual urges. And nature will not be denied.”

  Billy stood.

  “This is what was revealed to me in my dream. Sex will happen here at the Point, that can’t be helped. But here is what’s important. I am always the third partner in the first position. I am the apex of the triangle. The two point to one. I am the one.”

  He had moved around and was standing behind her. He put his hands forcefully on her shoulders.

  “At tomorrow’s meeting, I will announce a new rule. Going forward, all Omegans will be assigned what I’m calling a love match. I will select a partner for each Omegan based on their psychological profile, and these two Omegans will become a pair. Love matches will be required to fulfill their sexual duty to each other during a weekly two-hour session that will take place in a love room, which I will allot for that purpose. I plan to put a log on the wall outside each love room and have the couples record their time together. Afterward, my love matches will be required to grade each other’s performance so I can be sure each one is being sexually satisfied, especially the males because sex is more important to men.”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes. This was unreal. The man had completely lost his mind. Surely, he wouldn’t be allowed to go through with this. But who was going to stop him? Residential programs like Omega were essentially unmonitored once they received the blessing of the government and the media. Gossip among residents had convinced Elizabeth that Omega was not the worst of the lot and that sexual exploitation of clients by staff members was common in the rehab industry.

  Billy leaned down until Elizabeth could feel his hot breath in her ear.

  “Who will be your love match, Elizabeth?” he whispered.

  Not you, dickhead.

  “I’m out of here at the end of the month,” she said. “I don’t think those new rules should apply to me since I’m almost gone.”

  “You don’t, do you? And that release date at the end of the month? Well, that’s really up to me, isn’t it? I say when you get released, and if I say you’ve been out of compliance, well then, you’ll be spending more time with us at Omega.”

  “I need to leave,” Elizabeth said.

  She stood abruptly and moved toward the door, but before she could reach it, Billy was there, blocking her way.

  “Where do you think you’re going? We’re not done.”

  She pushed him aside and reached for the doorknob. The hard slap to the side of her face shocked her, and it took her a moment to register what was happening. By then, Billy had thrown her against his desk. Although she was strong, she was no match for the weight of him, more than two hundred pounds to her one-fifteen. As her back hit the leather pad, her arms flailed, knocking over the pencil holder and scattering pens, pencils, and papers onto the wood floor. The phone went off the hook, releasing a steady high-pitched whine. He was on top of her suddenly, spreading her legs with the force of his body before she had a chance to kick him back. His hands went around her throat. He squeezed.

  “You belong to me.” His face had flushed bright red, his eyes dilating until they were black circles ringed with blue, but his voice was calm. “If I say you’re mine, then you’re mine.”

  Her hands went reflexively to her throat, trying to pry loose his grip. When that failed, she clawed at his face. A fingernail scraped his bad eye before he could move away. Swearing, he let go of her throat and grabbed her hands. She coughed and gasped as he forced her left hand under her right, so that he held them both down with one hand.

  His other hand went to the zipper of her pants, pulling it down and tugging at her jeans and panties. She squirmed and worked a knee up enough to get a solid kick against his groin. He wailed in pain and doubled over, the veins in his neck bulging and pulsing. It was the break she needed. In his moment of weakness, Elizabeth was able to dislodge her right hand from his clasp. She reached back, frantically searching for something, anything she could use as a weapon. The paperweight? The spindle? Her fingers found the sharp tip of the letter opener and slid up the blade to the handle. Fisting it firmly, she brought it forward. As she did, she heard a guttural howl coming from her throat. It was the primal cry of survival.

  The steel point hit a muscle in his neck and stuck. His eyes grew wide in shock. Despite the adrenaline pumping through her blood, Elizabeth was cognizant enough to feel surprised that the blade didn’t go in more easily. Grunting, she pushed the steel through Billy’s tough flesh into his artery. His breath came harder then and turned sour. Elizabeth felt time slow and thicken as she twisted the blade. Billy groaned as his blood sprayed into Elizabeth’s face and chest and then began to spurt rhythmically from the wound. Forcing him off her, she watched his body fall onto the floor like a stunned bull. She was covered in blood, Billy’s and her own.

  She watched him die. It happened quickly. He bled out, covering the carpet where he lay in a pool of deep red. Getting to her feet, Elizabeth felt as if she were sleepwalking, as if she were moving through a dream. Her legs took her to the drawer in his desk where she rummaged through its contents, finding his wallet. In the billfold, she counted ten crisp one hundred-dollar bills before stuffing them into her pocket. What next? What next? She looked at his body. His eyes were open; the pupils now fully dilated, no blue at all. They seemed to have sunk back into his head, giving him the demonic appearance of a gray-faced gargoyle. His lips had turned blue. She knelt to unclip the keychain on the loop of his overalls.

  Now her legs carried her to the door and out, down the dark empty corridor toward the central staircase. No. She doubled back, looking for an exit door. It was here somewhere; it had to be. All the doors were painted gray except one, which was green. She tested the handle. Locked. One by one, she tried the keys until she found the one that fit. She opened it hurriedly. It was the exit, her way out.

  Down the stairs, four flights to the basement. Across the double door of the fire exit, a chain had been strung, secured by a padlock. How did Omega get away with this shit? She found the right key, opened the padlock, and threw it off. She set herself free. Outside in the alley, rain was falling. She looked left and then right, trying to get her bearings. The passageway was black and deserted. There was one streetlamp, its light reflected in the puddles of the asphalt. A red no-parking-at-any-time street sign. Two rust-green dumpsters. A narrow sidewalk. A cross street to her right. That would be Leavenworth. A shadowy figure, bent over and running, was hurrying down Leavenworth toward Geary. The rain was coming down hard. The rain would wash away the blood. The rain would wash her clean.

  Elizabeth began walking.

  Chapter Twelve

  Elizabeth stood in front of the locked stainless steel grill that prevented intruders from entering the front door of the Nash. Although the rain had stopped, Elizabeth was still soaking wet, but at least she was not bloody. She had left the Point wearing only a lightweight T, jeans, and sneakers. Chilled and shivering, she watched a young woman approaching, strolling down Turk Street. A creature of the night: stringy brown hair, pale skin, too much makeup, and multiple tattoos, wearing knee-high black leather boots, black hot pants, and a black tank top. Stopping
in front of the hotel, the night creature slipped the thin strap of a shiny black purse off her shoulder and removed a key.

  “Hey,” she said to Elizabeth.

  “Hey.”

  When she opened the door, Elizabeth hurried to hold it for her. The woman gave her a fuzzy-eyed nod. Elizabeth followed her inside, through the empty lobby, and up a staircase. The woman continued up one more flight as Elizabeth opened the door to the second floor. Walking down a narrow hall punctuated by yellow doors, Elizabeth stopped at 206 and knocked softly. After a minute, a sleepy-faced Denise peered around the partly opened door through a chain lock.

  “Lizbeth. What the fuck?”

  The face disappeared; the door closed, and Elizabeth heard the scratch of the chain being pulled off the track. Elizabeth let herself in, then closed and locked the door. Denise had already crawled back into bed.

  “What happened to you?” she asked. “You look like a drowned rat. And why aren’t you at rehab?”

  “You got a towel, Denise?” Elizabeth asked, ignoring Denise’s questions.

  “In the drawer.”

  Elizabeth found a threadbare white towel and mopped her hair.

  “I need to get out of these clothes.”

  Elizabeth removed her photo ID card from her back pocket and set it on the dresser. Then she stripped down, dropping her wet clothing onto the stained lime green carpet.

  “Put ’em on the radiator. That’s what I do. There’s a laundromat down the street, but it’s closed now.”

  Elizabeth laid her jeans, T-shirt, bra, panties, and socks over the hot radiator and placed her shoes in front of it. Then she dried her body with the thin towel while Denise watched her.

  “You gonna tell me what happened?”

  Elizabeth moved her jeans to make room for the towel on the radiator. “Tomorrow. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  She slipped in beside Denise’s warm body.

  “Get the light, will ’ya?” Denise said.

  Elizabeth reached over to twist the knob on the lamp. The room darkened, lit now only by strips of red light filtering in from the neon Nash Hotel sign outside the window. Elizabeth lay between the scratchy sheets, her body exhausted but still twitching with adrenaline.

  “If you can’t sleep, there are some ludes in the top drawer.”

  “Thanks. I can sleep.”

  After a while, she did. Despite everything, Elizabeth fell into a heavy sleep.

  Elizabeth didn’t sleep long. Before the sun was up the next morning, she was down in the hotel’s lobby, dressed in her radiator-dried clothes, using the public phone. When she was done, she hung up the handset and went back upstairs. Denise was awake by then, pouring a cup of coffee. She hadn’t bothered to get dressed.

  “You got a cup of that for me?”

  Denise emptied the pot into a second mug. Everything in the room was Salvation Army or Goodwill, including the coffee cups. Both were Christmas-themed, depicting carrot-nosed snowmen with charcoal eyes.

  “Where were you? I woke up, and you were gone,” Denise said.

  Elizabeth took the cup and sat on the end of the unmade bed. There was nowhere else to sit. Denise put her cup on top of the chest of drawers and slipped back between the sheets. She positioned herself against a pillow and brought the coffee to her lips. Elizabeth noticed that Denise’s nipples were erect.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” Elizabeth said. “I went downstairs to call Greyhound. There’s a bus leaving at 6:15 a.m. for San Diego. I plan to be on it. I borrowed a quarter, by the way.”

  “What time is it now?” Denise asked.

  Elizabeth looked around the room. “Didn’t you used to have a clock in here?”

  “I did, but it broke.”

  “Oh. It was 4:00 a.m. when I went downstairs. There’s a clock in the lobby. Don’t you have a watch at least?”

  “I did,” Denise said. Elizabeth got it. “But it broke,” they both said in unison.

  “When you get your million, buy yourself a Rolex,” Elizabeth said.

  “I’ll buy us both a Rolex. Why don’t you wear a watch?”

  “They aren’t allowed at Omega. Or in prison.”

  Denise tilted her head, causing a strand of bleached hair to fall into her face. She brushed it away with her hand. “You ever gonna tell me what happened last night?”

  Elizabeth hesitated. There was always that feeling she had about Denise, that reservation and doubt. But she needed to tell somebody.

  “I killed Billy.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. I killed him. Billy’s dead.”

  “Holy fuck. How’d that happen?”

  “He tried to rape me.”

  “Shit.”

  “So, I need to get out of town, and that means you and Mickie are going to do the job without me.”

  “Yeah, yeah. We can do it.”

  “So, here’s what I’m thinking. We’ll still follow the plan, even though I’ll be in Belize. After you’ve done the job, you’ll drive Mickie to San Diego and give her enough cash to see her through a couple of weeks. She’ll walk across the bridge to Tijuana, get to the airport, and catch a plane to Belize. I’ll meet her at the airport in Belize City.

  “Then you’ll do what I was going to do: get a storage locker in San Diego for the haul, and then when things cool down, you can start moving the cash to Belize. The feds may be watching you for a while because you were Mickie’s girlfriend, so you’ll have to be careful. You don’t want to do anything that would bring attention to yourself. Play dumb, like you had no idea Mickie would ever do something like this.”

  “I know how to play dumb.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Elizabeth had that same momentary feeling of déjà vu that she had experienced before with Denise. Only it wasn’t quite déjà vu; it was more like looking in a mirror, if the mirror image was more than a decade younger than the person looking at it. Denise was, what? Nineteen? Twenty?

  “How old are you?” Elizabeth asked suddenly.

  “How old am I?”

  “Yeah. You’ve never told me. How old are you?”

  “I turned twenty-one in February. On Valentine’s Day.”

  “You’re an Aquarius. I’m an Aquarius. January 20. I’m thirty-one. I’m a lot older than you.”

  “I like older women.”

  “You’re so full of it. You’re like me. You like anybody who can do you some good.”

  Denise laughed. “Maybe. Maybe we’d make a good pair, you and me.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m just giving you something to think about.”

  “Yeah, well, I should get over to the bus station and get my ticket.”

  Elizabeth was guessing the time. It was probably 4:30 a.m. by now. In an hour and a half, Omegans would start filing into the auditorium, waiting for Billy to begin the daily business meeting. When he didn’t show up, guards would be sent to check on him. They’d look in his room and then in his office where they would find his body. The police would be called. Omega would be on lockdown. Life is what you make it. Yes, it is, Billy.

  “You’ll need your new ID.” Denise got out of bed and moved to the top drawer of the cabinet. Elizabeth remained seated on the bed.

  “You’ve got it?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve got it. I’ve got yours, mine, and Mickie’s.”

  “That was fast.”

  “I know a guy.”

  “I know you know a guy.”

  “You are Kelly Anne Campbell.”

  Denise handed a passport to Elizabeth. It was brown with a golden eagle on its cover. Elizabeth looked at the picture inside. The girl had the same diamond-shaped face as Elizabeth. Her eyebrows were darker and her nose a little smaller, but other than that, it was a good likeness. Who was it who said all blondes look alike? There was still a problem, though. Elizabeth patted her bald head.

  “I thought of that.” Denise bent down to open the bo
ttom drawer and removed what looked like an apple-headed Chihuahua.

  “Here,” she said, tossing the pile of blond hair to Elizabeth. Elizabeth slipped it on.

  “You don’t have a mirror, either, do you? You live like a monk.”

  Denise was smiling. “You look good. It looks good on you. Shake your head.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. Denise stood in front of her, using her fingertips to adjust the strands so that they fell more naturally. Her taut nipples were bobbing in Elizabeth’s face. Denise stood back to look.

  “You’ll pass. Kelly Anne Campbell. Get used to it.”

  “Kelly Anne Campbell,” Elizabeth repeated. “Listen, I’ll need to stay in touch with you and Mickie. I’ll call Mickie when I get to Belize.”

  “No,” Denise said, a little too firmly. “Don’t bother Mickie. You should call me.”

  “But you don’t have a phone.”

  “We can use the payphone downstairs. This is Friday. So, Sunday? Let’s say I’ll be at that phone on Sunday at noon, waiting for your call.”

  “What’s the number?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Like I know. It should be on the phone. You can write it down on your way out.”

  “Okay.”

  There was a subtle shift in mood as Denise sat next to Elizabeth on the bedspread. She put a hand on Elizabeth’s leg and let her fingers stroke the inside of her thigh. She bent in for a kiss.

  “I’m not in the mood, Denise.”

  “I can change that.”

  “And I don’t have time.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  And she did, but only because she hurried. It was strange how Elizabeth could be in two places at once, in her body and in her head. Her body gave in to Denise’s caress without her head’s permission. Her head was urging her to think, to not be stupid, she had a bus to catch. Soon the police would be staring at Billy’s dead body. How long would it take before someone realized that Elizabeth was missing? Her fingerprints were all over everything in Billy’s office, including the Masonic letter opener, which she suddenly remembered she had left in Billy’s neck.