“I think he needs to go to the hospital.”
“I said he was fine!”
“You don’t have to go, I’ll take him.”
Perry gritted her teeth. “Look here…” She almost said asshole. “Neal, the boy is fine. We’ve got things to do! If we waltz into the hospital with this boy, talking about something wrong with him, check him out, what you think they’ll do when they find out there’s nothing wrong with him?
“I’ll tell you what they will do. They’ll make you and me piss in a cup, wearing a paper gown, with some jerk looking over our shoulder. I’ll pass, but you…you’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”
Neal chewed on his thumb. “I guess you’re right.”
“Neal, it’s almost nine o’ clock. We agreed to help Tasha, remember? Why don’t you go get ready to leave.”
“What about Derrick?”
“What about him?”
“Shouldn’t we take him with us?”
“Uh-uh. He’s asleep. Ain’t it obvious? The boy is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. His mother has blown a fuse, he’s in a new environment, his daddy has a new wife. Sleep is his body’s way of dealing with all that. We move him now…it would be child abuse.”
Neal chewed on his thumb more heartily, the nail already down to the quick. “I guess you’re right about that, too.” He stepped to her. “Hey, let’s finish what we started in the pool.”
Perry pushed him back. “We don’t have time for that. When we get back…Why don’t you go do what you need to do before we leave.”
“There’s nothing I got to do.”
“You sure? If you wait till the last minute, you’re going to get left.”
“I’ll be ready.”
She gave him a peck on the cheek. “Good. When we get back,” grabbing his crotch, “I’ll give it a good washing, dry it off, put it to sleep in a warm bed.”
A little later, ten minutes till nine, Perry announced to Neal that it was time to go. “Let’s take your car this time.”
“Fine with me. Let me check on Derrick before we go.”
“Hurry, we’re running late.”
While Neal was upstairs, she checked her purse, a large leather bag, bought especially for this occasion. Everything was in order. Neal came back, and they walked out to the driveway and got into the Hugo.
Neal started the car, turned it off and said, “Damn!”
“What?”
“I gotta use it.”
“Can it wait? We won’t be gone long. You can use it when we get there.”
He opened the door. “Naw, I better go now. When nature calls, I answer.”
“Goddammit, didn’t I tell you to take care of everything thirty minutes ago!”
“I didn’t have to use it then.” Neal smiled at her. “Baby, you don’t want me tooting and pooting all the way there, do you?”
“Hurry up!”
Neal got out, crossed to the front door and just stood there.
He knows damn well he doesn’t have a key!
Perry stepped out the Hugo. Pissed, she tried the wrong key three times before realizing it.
All the damn work I’ve put into this, and he wants to mess it up with a bowel movement!
After opening the door she followed Neal. In the hallway he picked up a magazine. She snatched it out of his hand. “You ain’t got time for that!”
Neal slammed the door in her face.
She tapped her feet in the hallway and then knocked on the door. “Any damn day now!”
“Slows…the progress when…you try…to rush it!”
Perry wanted to scream. I oughta shoot through the fucking door!
Minutes later, Neal stepped out grinning, waving the air behind him. “I’m ready.”
Now it was five after nine. Precious minutes wasted. The information she’d obtained on the Internet said the effects of the drug flunitrazepam peaked in two hours.
Almost two and a half hours had elapsed since Tasha had taken the drug.
Waterhead may have stalled long enough for Bumpy Face to regain her senses, go next door and ask for help.
They were riding in the Hugo, following a rising moon, its luminous white hue casting an ominous glow on the road ahead.
“Neal, could you speed up a little?”
“I’m doing the speed limit. What’s the big rush?”
“I’m worried about Tasha.”
“Which hospital is she in?” Neal asked, stopping at a red light.
“She didn’t say which.”
“What did she say caused her to go in the hospital?”
“She didn’t say, I didn’t ask.”
Neal turned to her, his brown eyes fixed, suspicious. Perry turned her head, looking at the sign atop the restaurant, Say McIntosh’s Home Cooked Food.
She’d seen that look before: an intuitive, piercing glare, reading her mind, probing her soul; her prey suddenly realizing his fate.
Tyrone had stared at her the same way, so had Willie and Lester, especially Lester.
Knowing and doing something about it are two different things.
“When we find out where she’s at,” she said, “maybe we can pay her a visit.”
Neal returned his attention to the road. “It’s just strange, you know? All of it…so strange…” He let the words hang, inviting comment.
“What’s so strange about it?”
“The Tasha I know wouldn’t snap under pressure. Bend maybe, not snap. Tasha going crazy, I find it hard to believe. She dropped Derrick off with me and you. That really don’t make sense. She said Derrick staying with us wasn’t happening. ‘Over my dead body,’ what she told me.”
“When she tell you all that?”
Neal shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“Neal, people snap all the time. I had a cousin, he joined the Marines, didn’t last one week in boot camp, came back a sissy with a mohawk. Tasha, you have to give her credit for doing the right thing.”
They rode in silence.
Neal said, “I’m not sure what the right thing is anymore.”
“I wonder if Derrick would like a basketball goal. We could build one next to the pool.”
“You know what he told me today?”
She glanced at her watch, didn’t answer. It was a quarter after nine.
“He said you weren’t right. At first I thought Tasha had influenced his thinking. While I was lying beside him, watching him sleep, I realized how innocent he is, how he views people from a child’s perspective. In his eyes, how you behave is who you are. His judgment isn’t clouded by money, jewelry, expensive cars. You know what I’m saying?”
Perry said nothing.
“In the bathroom I started thinking: why can’t I be more like my son?” He chuckled to himself. “All my life I wanted to be rich, thought about it every day, fantasized about what I would do when I got the money, what I would buy, where I would go.”
Shaking his head: “You know what I fantasize about now?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Simple living. You know, bullshitting, acting a fool, having fun and not having to worry what someone thinks, or if I’m embarrassing somebody.”
If only he’d shut up, Perry thought, and concentrate on driving the damn car! She checked her watch again. Shit! Nine twenty.
Neal rolled down his window and tossed an unopened pack of Kools out. “Life ain’t all about money, Perry. It’s about people. Loving them, enjoying them, and they loving you back.” He cleared his throat and turned his full attention to her. “I don’t love you and you don’t love me. Hell, I don’t even know--”
“Watch where you’re going!” Perry shouted.
He looked and slammed on the breaks, almost rear-ending a van stopped at an orange light.
Neal sighed in relief before saying, “I don’t even know you. I don’t know you at all.”
“Would you please concentrate on driving!”
The man driving the van stuck a finger out the window when
the light turned green.
Neal ignored him. “Tomorrow, Derrick and I are leaving.” He slid the Rolex off his wrist and laid it on the dash. “I never wore the ring or the bracelet. They’re on your dresser. I won’t be coming back.”
Perry gritted her teeth and nodded her head.
“Can I ask you something?” Neal said.
“Yes,” Perry grunted.
“Why did you marry me?”
Neal drove inside the Woodbridge Apartments complex.
“Because…because I saw in you what I’d assumed you saw in me.”
Neal stopped the Hugo in front of Tasha’s apartment and killed the engine. “And what was that?”
“I saw in you the opportunity to enhance my life, and surely you, at least I thought, saw the same in me.”
Neal looked puzzled.
Perry opened her door. “Neal, honey, let’s finish this discussion later, okay? Whatever you decide to do, regardless of how much it hurts me, I’ll go along with it. I’m tired, let’s get this over with.” She got out and started toward the door.
Neal followed, patting his pockets. “Now where did I put the key?”
Perry closed her eyes. If he’d lost the key, she would have to open the door, and then he would wonder where she’d gotten a key. Fuck this! She opened her bag.
Neal said, “You know what, this can wait.” Walking back to the Hugo: “Derrick and I will come here.” Getting in the driver’s seat: “There’s no need of getting his stuff and having to bring it back.”
Perry, a hand inside the bag, stepped to the Hugo, stooped and stared at Neal. “This can’t wait.”
“Why not?”
* * * * *
Tasha sat on her fingers, her back against the wall next to the door, breathing rapidly. Sweat poured down her face and dripped onto her blue pinstripe shirt and blue twill pants.
She’d tried to open the door by slipping her fingers underneath it and pulling, but it wouldn’t budge. Somehow she would have to stand up and turn the knob, that was the long and short of it.
Let’s do it, she told herself, and took several deep breaths. Her right leg wobbled and shook and slowly rose to a bent position…Next the left…She angled the tip of her loafers upward and dug both heels into the carpet.
Now the hard part…She pushed off with her legs, both shaking like an antiquated washing machine, and seesawed her shoulder against the wall…buttocks lifted off her fingers. Her head rose a foot or so below the light switch…and then she collapsed to the floor.
A sharp pain shot though her fingers, up her arms, and coursed through her entire body. The pain told her to lay on the floor, rest a while, take a little nap and soothe her aching and tired body, then try it again.
No! “I can’t give up!”
She closed her eyes, pursed her lips and pushed. “Uhhhhhnnnnnnnnn!” Slow-ly, her head inched up toward the light switch…up…up…up…And then she stopped and locked her knees.
She opened her eyes, and a wave of vertigo engulfed her. The ceiling shifted, moving right to left, settled back into place and then repeated the illusion. She feared she would throw up.
She wondered what the hell did Perry put in the coke. Muscle relaxer? Heroin? Whatever it was, it definitely had her tore up from the floor up.
The doorknob was inches away, mere inches. Yet in her condition, inches were the equivalent of miles. She closed her eyes again and scooted her right foot sideways…and then the left. Her fingers sought the doorknob…right arm rubbed against the door trim, and she scooted some more. Then she felt it. The cheap aluminum doorknob, coated with bronze-colored paint. To her it felt like gold.
Her heartbeat sped up. She tried to twist it with one hand but couldn’t get a good grip. She scooted some more…until her buttocks and both hands were over the doorknob. She turned it…and nothing. The door didn’t open, she realized, because her body was blocking it.
Craps! No other way…She grasped the doorknob as hard as she could, turned it and leaned forward. The door opened an inch, stopping at her heels. A moment she remained there, precariously balanced, bent over at the waist, staring at the carpet. This is going to hurt, she thought, and let go.
Saving face, she fell flat on the right side of her head, her ear absorbing most of the impact. Despite the pain, the loud ringing in both ears, she immediately looked behind her…The door was wide open…She could see into the hallway, the green loveseat in the living room, one of the bar stools. She tried once more to free herself from the restraint…No go: the belt tightly secured.
The duct tape, slick now, came off easily when she rubbed her mouth against the carpet.
Tasha sensed that whatever Perry had given her was starting to ebb, not enough for her to walk but enough to quicken her crawl. Neck stretched, chin rubbed, shoulders lifted, pelvis rocked, knees and thighs rolled, feet pushed, she caterpillared through the doorway.
In the hallway, she saw the couch in the living room. She couldn’t see it, yet knew that the phone was on a glass stand right of the couch. Why hadn’t she put the phone left of the couch, near the door?
Everyone knows that you put the phone near the door just in case a psycho spiked your drink and hog-tied you in your own apartment and you had to crawl on your belly.
She was a few feet before the coffee table, an unopened pack of Newports and a Big Gulp cup on top of it. Call Bob, she thought as she wormed her way toward the couch, tell him to go get Derrick. Right now! Perry would be coming back soon. She had to hurry! She wriggled her way between the coffee table, a trail of blood behind her. What if Derrick wasn’t able to…She didn’t want to think about that now.
Then she realized she needed a weapon. Craps! No way could she have opened the trunk and got a gun. She would get a knife in the kitchen, somehow, and she would be ready. She could see the phone cord, just a few feet more…
And then the front door opened.
Chapter 27
Perry followed Neal inside the apartment.
“What the hell?” Neal said, kneeling to Tasha. Perry locked the door. “Tasha, you’re bleeding!” Perry took a pair of latex gloves out of the bag and put them on. “Who tied you up?” Perry pulled out the Glock. “What’s going on here?” Perry leveled it at the back of Neal’s head. “You into something kinky? Tasha, why don’t you say something?”
“Neal, sweetie pie,” Perry whispered.
Neal turned and his face stretched, eyes bulging, mouth opening wide enough to swallow a grapefruit.
“You want out, huh, Neal? Do you?” She shook her head and raised her voice: “Is that what you want? After all I’ve done for you, all I’ve given you! I rescued your sorry ass from a flea-infested garage, put you in a half-million-dollar home, and you don’t have the fucking decency to say thanks!”
Neal stood up, raised his hands and said, “Arrrk goook ehhhhh!” Meaning: “Please don’t shoot! I’m sorry! Thanks! Please don’t shoot!”
Perry pointed the gun at Tasha leaning on an elbow, her chin a bloody mess, clothes drenched in sweat and blood. “I thought I told you to stay in your room.”
Neal found his voice: “Perry, I’ve reconsidered. I’m not leaving you!”
“Neal, take her in the bedroom.”
“Perry, if it’s all right with you I need to use the bathroom. I gotta doo-doo bad.”
Perry pointed the gun at him. “You just went at the house.”
“You aimed a gun at me--I gotta go again. Please!”
“Shut your damn mouth! You want to live? Huh?” Neal nodded. “Then shut your mouth and do what I tell you! Pick her up or drag her into the bedroom, and hurry the hell up!” Neal knelt down and lifted Tasha into his arms. “Take all day! Just take all fucking day!”
In the bedroom, at Perry’s instruction, Neal laid Tasha on the bed.
“Neal, where does she keep her gun?”
“In the trunk.”
“You won’t get away with this, Perry!” Tasha said, voice slurred, though intel
ligible. “I called the police, they’re on their way.”
“What you waiting on, Neal? Open the trunk.”
“The key is on top of the dresser.”
“Duh! Get it! And hurry up!” To Tasha: “You’re so full of shit! You called the police, did you? Used the phone, De-tect-ive, without leaving a speck of blood on it. You weren’t so full of shit you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in now.” Neal opened the trunk. “Step back!”
Perry looked down into it…Several photo albums, a glass piggy bank, a police utility belt, and a metal safe deposit box with a combination dial on top.
Perry stepped back. “Neal, is the gun inside that box?” Neal nodded. “Take it out and open it.”
“No, Neal,” Tasha said. “Don’t do it!”
Neal hesitated.
“Open the box, Neal, I’m outta here. Nobody gets hurt. Don’t open it, I’ll blow your damn brains out!”
Neal snatched up the box and nervously worked the dial. “I-I forgot the combination!”
Perry racked the slide on the Glock. CLICK-CLACK! “Does that help?”
Neal’s memory suddenly refreshed, he dialed the combination and opened the box.
“Don’t get any wild ideas,” Perry said. “Put it on the floor and slide it to me.”
He did. Perry took out the Glock inside the box, slipped it into her waistband, and kicked the empty box toward Neal. “Put it back in the trunk. Don’t close it. Hurry up!” Neal picked up the box and tossed it into the trunk. “Now untie her and put the belt inside the trunk and shut it. Throw me the towel.”
Neal rolled Tasha onto her stomach and untied the belt, then tossed it inside the trunk and closed it. Tasha tried to get up…and fell back down.
“Going somewhere, Bumpy Face? The towel, Neal.” He tossed it to her. “Neal, one last thing and I’m outta here. Hit her!”
“What?”
“You heard me. Hit her in the face!”
Neal looked at Tasha. “No,” shaking his head. “I’m not hitting her. You can shoot me if you want, I’m not hitting her.” His eyes welled up. “I’ve hurt her enough already.”
Perry laughed. “You’ve got to be the biggest wimp ever peed standing up!” Squinting at Neal: “You really do love her, don’t you? Love her, fuck me! That’s the way it works, Neal? Huh?” Neal didn’t respond. “Okay, not a problem. I just want out of here. Neal, put your hands on your head and turn around.”
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