“Jessica,” I called, “the battery cables. They're in the trunk. Use the ignition key and bring them here.” To pass the time I slapped his face a couple of times. “After a while, the people in the Donner party did the only thing they could do,” I said. “They ate each other.”
“Big fucking deal,” he said. His forehead was bleeding where it had hit the pavement, and it hadn't done his disposition any good. He was still nobody you'd like to be seated next to at dinner.
“It was to the Donner party,” I said. Jessica brought the cables and I wound them around his chest and waist and passed them around the oak. He took a halfhearted kick at me, but his heart wasn't in it. He knew it wasn't going to do him any good. “You see,” I said, “they didn't have any matches. They had to eat each other raw. Imagine the emotional trauma it must have caused. In the twentieth century it would have kept a squadron of psychiatrists fat for years.”
“Fuck you,” he said. The sliced side of his mouth twitched in the moonlight.
“Hey, this is serious,” I said, tying a double square knot. “For you, anyway. She and I are going home when it's over. You're not.”
“What do you think you're doing?”
“Well,” I said, “for one thing, I'm getting even. But we've got another agenda here as well. At an earlier point in our thus-far unsatisfactory relationship, you said Tssss.’ I want to know what Tssss’ means.”
“Like I said, fuck you.”
“As I said. Jesus, is it really harder to speak good English than bad? It doesn't take any more words. Do your hands hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Well, here's something to take your mind off it. Pull in your tongue.” He did, and I slammed him under the jaw with my fist. “See?” I said as his knees sagged, “if I hadn't told you to pull in your tongue, you'd be standing here bleeding to death and pleading with us in broken English. Your problem is that you don't know who your friends are.”
“Your problem is that you're an asshole and you don't know what you're fucking around with.” He was sweating, and his tongue came out to lick off a drop that was rolling past the corner of his mouth. Then he looked at me and yanked his tongue back in as though it were the retractable cord on a vacuum cleaner.
“Well, tell me,” I said reasonably.
He looked away for a moment, thinking about it. Then he gazed over my shoulder at Jessica. “Who's the pretty little thing?”
I hit him in the stomach. “As I mentioned, there's an agenda here,” I said, flexing my knuckles to make sure they were okay, “and my job is to see that we stick to it.”
He made windy huffing sounds and then straightened up and gave me the worst look he could manage. “Man,” he said, “you can talk to me all night and you're not going to learn nothing.”
“Anything,” I corrected automatically. “And you're laboring under a delusion. You don't talk, and you're the steak for the evening. Unlike the Donner party, we've got fire. Jessica.”
“Yeah?”
“Go back to the car. Get the gasoline can and the tool kit and bring them back.”
“The gasoline can?”
“Do as you're told.”
Muttering, “Yes, massa,” she went and got them. The pimp looked at the can with some skepticism.
“You wouldn't dare,” he said.
“I don't think I'll have to,” I said, pulling my belt out of my pants.
“I'm scared to death,” he said.
“Wait,” I advised him. “Tell me a little later.”
I took the can from Jessica and used my belt to fasten it to the tree above his head. Then I opened the tool kit, took out a ten-penny nail, and punched a hole in the bottom of the can. A couple of drops of gasoline hit him on the right shoulder.
“God.” He sneered. “I've never been so frightened.”
“I don't suppose you did much physics in high school.”
“I didn't do high school,” he said with some pride.
“Jessica, explain to this little beast the effect of atmospheric pressure on the flow of a liquid.”
“Huh?” Jessica said, safely behind me. Her eyes were enormous.
“I have to do everything myself,” I complained. “The flow of the gasoline is slow right now because the top on the can is tight. But when I loosen it, like this,” I said, going on tiptoe and giving it a twist, “the weight of the atmosphere— which is fourteen pounds per square inch, by the way— pushes down on the gasoline and the flow increases.”
Sure enough, the gasoline began to drip steadily onto his shoulder.
“So?” he asked, but with less certainty.
“So,” I said, “do an experiment. Find a measuring device, anything that's more or less steady. Your heartbeat would do if it weren't about to speed up, which it is. Find something that doesn't give a shit about you. The crickets will work. Listen.”
I held up a scholarly finger and all three of us listened.
The crickets shrilled in the trees with monotonous regularity. “Count the pulses of the cricket noise and then count the drops of gasoline. The crickets don't care if you live or die. Count the pulses as I open the top a little further.”
We all stood there as the crickets rubbed their hind legs together. “Three drops to a pulse,” I said. I gave the top of the can a twist or two. “Now we've got five. Atmospheric pressure, you see.”
“Big deal,” he said.
“What does Tssss’ mean?”
“Nothing. Fuck yourself with a fire hydrant.”
“Ah, vivid speech. Good for you. Spunk is so appealing. But I'm afraid you don't fully understand your position. You see, the gas is only one problem. Here's the other. Think what it would have meant to the Donner party.”
I pulled his miniature butane torch out of my pocket and thumbed it. A blue lizard's tongue of flame flickered forth. He drew in his breath with a sound like ripping silk.
“I don't believe it,” he said.
“And you shouldn't. I'm not going to set you on fire. You are. Here's the plan. Jessica, the tape.”
She got the roll of electrician's tape, and I taped the butane torch open. The flame licked at the air. I built up a mound of loose earth and put the torch on it, pointed at his ankle. “Okay,” I said. “We're going to talk. Just to cut through the bullshit, I'm going to take the top off the can.” I leaned up and did it. The dripping turned into a trickle.
“The laws of physics are in charge,” I said. “When the gasoline saturates the cuff of your pants, we're going to roast our marshmallows and go home. You're not. You're going to spend eternity, or at least as much of it as you need to worry about, against this tree.”
He mumbled something, his eyes on the flame. The reek of gasoline was overwhelming.
“Your shirt's getting wet,” I said. “What do you know about Aimee Sorrell?”
“Nothing.”
“You recognized her picture.”
“No, I didn't. I'd never seen her before.” He was blinking his eyes against the fumes, and tears were beginning to run down his cheeks.
“You recognized her and you said ’Tssss.’ ”
“I said shhhh. I wanted Jennie to shut up.”
“Let's try something,” I said. I took his knife out of my pocket and crouched at his feet. “Kick me and I'll cut your nuts off,” I said. I made five or six little slices in the cuff of his right pants leg and tore upward, creating a ragged fringe that hung from the knee. It reminded me of Ben Gunn in Treasure Island. I cut off a strip from the back of his jeans and rolled it up in my hand where he couldn't see it.
“What are you doing?” Jessica asked.
“More physics,” I said. “I'll explain in a minute.” I got up and looked at him. “Wet to the waist,” I said.
He had his head pulled as far to the left as possible to get away from the steady trickle of gasoline, and his eyes kept going down to his body and then farther down to the flame. His focus was none too steady, and I guessed that the fumes were begin
ning to make him dizzy.
“Aimee Sorrell,” I said. “Where’d you meet her?”
He licked his lips and looked down at himself again. The gasoline was seeping down onto the front of his pants. “Oki-Burger, the Oki-Burger.”
“You tried to put her on the string?”
“Sure.”
“When was this?”
“A few months ago.”
“She wouldn't do it?”
“She had some geek rent-a-cop.”
“Poor Wayne,” Jessica said. The pimp gave her a startled glance.
“Then what?”
“Then she was back on the street.”
“Who got her then?”
“Don't know.”
“Oh, but you do. And you know why somebody put out a cigar in her belly button, too.”
He closed his eyes. I went nearer to him and put up my hand as if to lean on the tree. “Fumes getting to you?” I asked. The gasoline trickled onto the strip of cloth wadded up in my hand.
He nodded.
“Tough. Who got her? Who hurt her?”
He shook his head.
“Why did they hurt her?” The strip of cloth in my hand was soaked. I took my hand away and put it behind me. “How did you know they hurt her?”
“I'm getting sick,” he said. He looked a little green.
“You're getting wet, too. It's almost to your knees. Who hurt her?”
He summoned up all his bravado and spit at me.
“Physics lesson number two,” I said, kneeling at his feet again—to the side this time, to make it harder for him to kick me. “Gasoline actually is not very flammable. It's almost impossible to get liquid gasoline to burn. You need extremely high temperatures.” I fluffed up the ragged strips hanging over his ankles. “Gasoline fumes, on the other hand, are flammable as hell. Mix those gasoline molecules with oxygen, and you've got the recipe that runs the world.” I got up, and his eyes followed me. He wasn't quite as woozy as I'd thought. “What I've just done to your trouser leg, aside from having a kind of rakish charm, has the effect of increasing the surface area of the denim. More surface area, more fumes. Like raising a wick on an air freshener. I'd say that that ankle is where you'll explode first.”
“Don't stand so close to him, Simeon,” Jessica warned. “You don't want to be there when he goes off.”
“Why did they hurt her?” I asked. Behind my back I let the saturated strip of cloth in my hand dangle free. The torch flickered blue on the ground, its sharp little tongue darting at the fringed ankle. The smell of gasoline was almost unendurable. “Down to mid-calf,” I observed. “My least favorite length for a skirt.”
“Don't,” he said suddenly.
“Let's just give it a little fluff,” I said, kneeling down.
“No, no. Don't.”
“Why did they hurt her?” I loosened up the strips of trouser leg and waved them around a little. I let the end of the fabric in my hand touch the flame, and when it ignited I pushed out breath all the way from my diaphragm and said, “Fwoooosh.”
Jessica screamed. I jumped back, and the pimp tried to rip himself away from the tree, eyes jammed closed, shouting, “Obedience school.” He shouted it twice, and it echoed from the hillsides opposite. A long moment passed. Then he realized that he wasn't on fire and he opened his eyes to see the strip of cloth burning on the ground. He sagged bonelessly against the cables, closed his eyes again, and emitted a high-pitched noise that was halfway between a giggle and a sob.
“That was dress rehearsal,” I said. “What's obedience school?”
At first he just hung there against the cables, his head down, a white caricature of a lynching. Then he said, “It's where they scare the kids before they put them out.”
Jessica started to say something, and I put up a hand. “What happens?”
“They get knocked around. They get put in a cage for a while, whipped or locked in a closet if they do anything wrong. They get left in the dark a lot. They're not allowed to wear clothes. Ever. Different people fuck them. Different ways. Everything that's going to happen to them when they're out.” He took a deep, fume-laden breath. “Once in a while, they kill someone in front of you. Someone who fucked up.”
“Tell me about the belly button.”
“That's like graduation. That's the last thing they do to you. They tie you to a table, faceup, and the guy smokes a cigar and then they put it out in your navel.”
“The guy,” I said. “Is there someone who isn't a guy?”
The pimp shook his head. “Don't ask.”
“How do you know about all of this?”
“Junko.”
“How does she know?”
He looked down at his feet. The fringed cuff was beginning to grow damp. “Could you move the torch?”
I didn't stir. “How does she know?”
“She went through it,” he said, his eyes on the flame. “They did it to her.” He sucked in a breath, full of gasoline, and leaned back against the tree. He was beginning to turn olive drab, and his face glistened with sweat.
“Tell me about when they kill somebody.”
“They get as many kids together as possible and do in whoever done wrong. Like a lesson, right? Keeps people on a pretty short leash.”
“Junko told you this?”
“Sure. Move the fucking torch.”
“Who'd they kill?”
“That's why she'll never leave me.” I took hold of his chin, and he rolled his eyes wildly to keep the flame in view.
“Who?” I said.
“One of them, one of the ones in Junko's group, was a Mongoloid, you know, one of those idiot kids who looks like an Oriental? God only knows where they found her. I mean, that kid wasn't going to tell anybody anything, but they put her through obedience school anyway. And when she made a mistake, like the little dope was bound to do sooner or later, they offed her. Junko was watching, with a bunch of other kids. Said she threw up all over the floor. Right up to the point where they cut the little dummy, she figured they were only fooling, even after what they'd done to her. They made her clean up the mess, I mean both messes, hers and the dummy's. So, see? I look like a pretty nice guy.”
“How did you get her?” I felt like throwing up myself.
“They used her up,” he said with an obvious effort. “Please move it.”
Jessica started toward it but I waved her off. “Don't touch it. He's got a minute or two, unless the fumes kill him. What do you mean, they used her up?”
“They got tired of her. They passed her around to every- one a few times and then nobody wanted her anymore. They always need new ones. New babies.”
“How old is she?”
“Now?” He looked at the horizon and tried to focus his eyes. “Sixteen. Then, she was twelve.”
“Four years? They've been at this four years?”
“Just about. She was one of the first ones.” He kicked out feebly at the torch and missed. “Please,” he said, “I'm talking to you. I'm talking to you, right?”
I reached down and picked it up. “They just let her go?” I asked.
“Sure. What's she going to do? She came to me.” He kept his eyes glued to the torch as though he thought I was going to touch the flame to him.
“How long ago?” I asked.
“About a month.” Bingo, I thought.
“Why wouldn't she go to the police?” Jessica said.
“That's the first thing they teach you,” he said. He sounded like he'd run a marathon. “Don't trust the cops.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Money,” he said. “These people are making lots of money. Cops like money, same as everyone else. You go to a cop, it might be the wrong one. Then you'd be dead, just as simple as that.”
“She didn't come to you,” I said. “You bought her.”
“Wrong,” he said.
“You bought her. You're connected with them. That's how you know they had Aimee. In fact, you gave them Aimee
, didn't you? A month ago. And they gave you Junko.”
“Please,” he said, sounding very young. “I'm getting real sick.” I realized for the first time how young he was, realized for the first time that I didn't even know his name.
“Sick, schmick,” I said. “You can still die. You took Aimee to her ‘agent.’ ”
“No way,” he said weakly. He was on the verge of tears.
“I want names.”
For the first time in several minutes he looked directly at me. “No,” he said. “I don't know any names.”
“Let's change tack,” I said. I went right up to him, and his eyes followed the flame in my hand. The gasoline fumes poured off him in waves. He didn't even see his knife in my other hand.
I stuck it through the fabric of his denim jacket and sliced down. The knife went through it like margarine. His skinny chest, slick with gasoline, gleamed at me. “We can start with skin instead,” I said. Behind me, I heard Jessica step back.
“Don't matter,” he said, looking at me again. “I'd rather die this way.”
“Well,” I said, “I don't think you know what's involved.”
“Fuck off,” he said. He closed his eyes again. “Just kill me.”
“We'll open with a nipple,” I said.
He shook his head, his eyes closed now. “So do it,” he said.
I turned around and saw Jessica looking at me with eyes bigger than Bambi's. I looked down at the torch in my hand, and then turned and walked away and tossed it into the reservoir. It hit the water with a hissing sound and disappeared.
“Untie the cables,” I said to Jessica, turning back from the water. When she did, he fell forward onto his face. His hands were still tied behind him. Then he turned his head and retched.
He retched for longer than I would have believed possible, until his stomach was empty, and then he retched air.
I put my fingers into his hair, lifted his head, and rubbed his face into the vomit. “This is for Junko's tongue,” I said. When I pulled him upright, he was covered in dirt and vomit.
“Don't move,” I said. I went behind him and cut the tape binding his wrists. I left intact the tape over his fingers and thumbs. Then I took the money and cigarettes out of my pocket and shoved them into the front of his trousers.
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