Dew Angels

by Melanie Schwapp

  There and then, looking into Hopey’s weeping eye, Nola realized something – She did not want to die!!

  She did not want to die! She did not want to say goodbye to Kendra, or Aunt May, or Nathan, or Mrs. Lyndsay. She did not want to leave Ab or Mams, or even this deformed eye staring at her from the doorway.

  Pedro gave Hopey a rough shove and slammed the door. Then he sauntered to the bed and dropped the gun on the bare mattress. “You think you smart. You think you smart, and you think you nice. You think I never notice how you used to cut your eyes at me at the Rasta shop?”

  She hadn’t even been aware that he’d noticed her, much less acknowledged the dislike on her face.

  As he removed his shirt, her breath stopped within her chest. He didn’t want to get blood on his shirt when he shot her!

  “Eric did want to finish you right here, you know? Him come outside to get him irons to done you right in here. Him did want just pop you so,” he used two fingers to imitate a gun barrel at her forehead. “But I say, Nah, man! That girl have to bring down to size first. She can’t disrespec’ big man so, and get to dead without learnin’ her lesson! Me tell Eric, gimme a chance to teach her a lesson, then you can deal with her when me done.”

  Nola gasped. How stupid she was! How stupid not to have remembered Barry’s horrific torture. Of course Eric was going to kill her! Of course she was one of the ‘special’ ones! But she had to have her lesson first—a lesson that involved Pedro taking off his pants.

  Nola recoiled as he circled the bed to approach her, his crotch bulging like a scandal bag wrapped around a large Haden mango. He grabbed the knot of cloth at the top of her shoulder. Her legs stumbled forward as the cloth scraped roughly against her skin. She thought she heard herself whimper, but she could not be sure, for her mind was racing with disbelief. Not this! Her hands flew up to cover the black bra that was exposed as the cloth fell at her feet. She felt the release of the little bulge in her waist as Aggie’s package and Necka’s beard fell into the midst of cloth.

  Pedro grabbed the straps from her shoulders and hauled them down to her belly. His fingers scraped away her skin as he grabbed the waist of her panties in the downward haul.

  She moved one hand from her breast to cover the shadow between her thighs, closing her eyes, unable to look into the eyes beneath that shelf. She didn’t want it to be her last memory.

  She shivered, but decided she would not fight. The quicker it was over, the quicker she could get into that field with Grampy and Ellie.

  “Open your eyes, gal, and look on big man!” His breath stank. It smelled of rancid sleep. “Open your eyes before I open them for you!” He hissed again.

  Pedro stared down at her body, and when she shivered and her small breasts shook, he covered them with his hands.

  Nola swallowed the bile that swarmed her throat.

  “Why you shakin’ gal, like you ‘fraid? Nuh bother with the pretense, like you innocent. Barry tell us how him used to work you good, how you love your rudeness, so stop gwaan like you nice.” His voice sounded so strange, now—fast and thick, like it had grown plump in the narrow space in his throat.

  Her shivering stopped as the meaning of his words hit her. A rush of anger stiffened her back—no wonder Barry hadn’t been able to look her in the eye that last night!

  “Him was so boasty, that one,” Pedro continued, “Him wasn’t so boasty when him was beggin’ for him life though!” (Chuckle) “That’s why I make them chop out him tongue first, teach him not to boast round big man! By the time them done with him, him was mewing like a puss!”

  Nola swallowed hard again, he was goading her. He wanted her to fight, to give him a reason to punch her till she begged for her life.

  Suddenly he released her breasts and shoved her towards the bed. “Turn round and lay down!”

  She gave him a confused look despite herself.

  “Lie down on your belly—I don’t want see that ugly grin on your face while I doin’ me business.”

  A hundred thoughts ran through her mind. Her eyes flew to the gun on the bed and he gave a chilling laugh.

  “Don’t bother with it, gal! By the time you reach it, me done sail a bullet straight through that grin on your face!” He pointed to the mattress. “Lie down!”

  He shoved her hard, and she fell flat onto her belly across the bed. She closed her eyes and waited. She thought she would hear the loud explosion before the nothingness came, but there was no sound. Pedro was neither shooting her, nor touching her. She turned to look behind her and saw that he was still standing above her, still in the red briefs, but the mango had shrunk. He was staring, his mouth pulled into a tight, disgusted scowl.

  “What’s that all over your back?”

  Nola sat up quickly, turning her scarred back away from his scowl and covering her breasts with her hands. It was funny how she’d forgotten about the chords of raised flesh that had been her greatest shame in Redding.

  “What’s that on your back?!” He demanded again.

  Nola crossed her legs, feeling even more naked now than when he’d first torn off her rags and panties.

  “My papa …”

  “Your papa what? You father beat you!” he sneered down at her, answering his own question and shaking his head in disgust. “You nasty, man! You is damaged all round, eh? Scar pon your face, scar pon your back!” He sucked his teeth. “Nah, man. Pedro Ellis have too much nice gal around to go nasty up himself with a mullet like you!” He picked up the rags from the ground and flung them at her. “Put on your tings.”

  Nola swallowed. “What?”

  “Cover your nasty self!”

  And with that, he bent to pull on his own pants.

  So many years! So many years of that very same look on Papa’s face, and she’d felt so humiliated. And now—now she was free?! That very same disgust that had once caused her to be whipped till her skin split open, was now releasing her from a final humiliation before her death? Those scars that she’d painstakingly hidden from the world were saving her from a horrible torture! Wonder of wonders, Papa had saved her!

  She scrambled off the bed and hurried to haul on her underwear and gather the cloth around her body. Her hands shook with a mixture of relief and disbelief, and they fumbled so much with the cloth that she gave up trying to tie it and just rolled it tightly around her waist. As she stuffed Aggie’s package and Necka’s beard into the twist, she checked anxiously to make sure Pedro had not changed his mind and was about to push her onto the bed again.

  But he was fully dressed, pushing the gun into his waist.

  As Nola watched as he pulled his shirt down to cover the weapon, she froze. It was as if a ray of light had broken through the painted clouds in the ceiling and was illuminating the man in the centre of the room. Val’s muffled words from behind the padding of sheets were coming back to her, and Nola realized that it wasn’t that she hadn’t heard what the woman had said, it was that she hadn’t understood!

  Peter! That was what Val had mumbled over and over. Peter! Of course! Nola had known him as Pedro, so the muffled name had made no sense then, but now, with Pedro’s statement—‘Pedro Ellis have too much nice gal around’—it all became very, very clear. Pedro Ellis—Peter Ellis!

  “Peter! Peter Ellis!” she sputtered, pointing excitedly at him.

  He spun around, pointing his double-barreled fingers at her face. “Pedro! Me name is Pedro! Is that bitch, Val, eh? Is she tell you that me name Peter? That bitch won’t call me by me right name! Watch me and her out there!” He turned to scowl at the closed door.

  “Yes, but, isn’t Peter your real name?”

  “What the hell that have to do with you, gal?”

  “Peter Ellis—June 23rd—17 Pine Crest.” Nola almost choked on the words.

  That day in the parking lot, when she’d snuck up behind Eric and Winston, it was Pedro they’d been speaking about!

  Pedro froze for an instant. Before she could speak again, he was in front
of her, gripping her cheeks in the same spot that Eric had grabbed earlier. Her jaw sang with the awakening bruise, but she was too worked up to pay it attention.

  The man leaned close to her puckered face. “Where you get that address from?” His voice was so cold that it made her numb to the bitterness of his breath.

  “From Eric, the day I sneak up behind him at the supermarket. Him was tellin’ it to Winston, the police downstairs,” she mumbled.

  Pedro shook his head and spoke in the same threatening tone. “No police was downstairs, just Necka and the brother for the gal who you lock up in the room with Eric. Speak the truth, gal, before I cut that smile cross to the other side of your face! Where … you … get … that … address … from?”

  Nola pointed agitatedly at the door. “Winston is a police! Is me call him here cause him was the one Eric send to question us ‘bout Barry. I thought him could help me get Petra outta here! Eric was tellin’ him that the others round you is cool, that them know where them bread butter.”

  Pedro stepped back, and there it was—that shifting, sideways look! That flash of fear.

  Nola got the answer she’d been searching for. Eric and Pedro had been afraid of each other! They’d sat together at Ab’s, conversing and laughing like the best of friends, when all along they’d been deathly afraid of each other. It had just been a matter of time, who would have turned on whom first.

  Pedro backed away, and Nola immediately felt a fresh surge of power flow through her. She could see his mind reeling, his eyes shifting like a ping pong ball.

  “Imagine, all that time, not eatin’ or drinkin’ or smokin’ from anybody else, and this whole time is your friend who was settin’ you up! What him was plannin’ to do, Peter?—kill you there?”

  Nola continued, her voice gaining strength from the shock on his face, “Pedro, now you owe me! Now you have to save us—me and Val and Petra and Hopey! Get us outta here before Eric kill us like him was plannin’ to kill you!”

  In a flash, he grabbed her shredded cheeks even harder than before. “Who you think you talkin’ to, gal? Pedro don’t owe nobody nothin’! You hear me? Nothin’! Me dust off men three times bigger than me own self. Me not ‘fraid of nobody! If I want blow off your head right now, nothin’ can stop me, you hear me, gal?”

  He shoved her head away and she stumbled to the floor. He looked down at her for a while, scorn spitting from his eyes once again, then turned and walked to the door.

  “Get up,” he commanded over his shoulder. “Some people have some explainin’ to do!”

  And he kicked the door open.

  CHAPTER

  50

  As she walked from the room, Nola’s eyes locked immediately with Eric’s. He was sitting in the reclining chair, and he turned to watch her with amusement as she walked out in front of Pedro.

  He was dressed now, in a pair of cream pants and a shirt so lightly peach that it could have been mistaken for pink.

  Leaning casually against the staircase was Winston, and on the floor a few feet away from Eric’s chair was Necka. No one else was in sight. Neither the woman from Eric’s bedroom, Hopey, Val or Petra. She searched the floor for traces of blood, but, to her relief, there were none. She noted that Hopey’s bedroom door was shut, and she prayed that they were in there—alive.

  Eric’s eyes eventually slid off of her and fell onto Pedro. “So, yout,” he said with a conspiratory laugh, “You done with her, now? Me can deal with my business now?”

  “Where Petra?” she asked in the most nonchalant voice she could muster.

  Winston sucked his teeth and raised himself from the staircase. “But what do this gal, eh? Shut your mouth before you lose every teeth in it!”

  The unfrozen side of Nola’s lip lifted into an involuntary snarl, and a shiver rocked her spine.

  “Winston …” she said, “Winston, Winston, Winston! Where’s your sister, Policeman Winston?”

  Silence filled the room, and an unmistakable look of warning flashed between Eric and Winston. Winston was the first to gather himself, sucking his teeth again and pointing ‘gun-barrel’ fingers at her forehead, just as Pedro had done earlier.

  “A wha’ do this gal, though Eric? You don’t see she disrespectin’ big man and beggin’ to dead!” He turned the two fingers on to Pedro, cocking his head to the side. “Oy, Bredren, you is a man or a mouse? You never teach the gal any manners in the room deh? She come out just as feisty and full of chat like she did go in!”

  Pedro did not answer. Instead he walked slowly up to Eric’s chair and stood silently behind it.

  Winston touched the bulge in the waist of his pants and jutted his chin at Eric. “You want a real man deal with this gal for you, Eric, or you goin’ deal with tings right now?”

  “Easy, Star. Don’t tell me when to do my business! I want to deal with she and the one name Petra at the same time.” Eric looked up at Nola from his reclining throne, his eyes holding a gleam of promise. “I want this one to see when her friend dead, then I will deal with her after!”

  Petra was still alive!

  “Nah, man!” Pedro’s voice came with its cold chill from behind Eric’s chair. “Me interested in meetin’ this man’s sister, too.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows casually on the back of the chair, looking down onto Eric’s shiny head.

  On hearing the man’s voice above him, Eric quickly made to get up, but as he tried to stand, Pedro pushed his shoulders back into the chair.

  Necka gave a gasp and jumped up from the floor. In one fluid movement, the switchblade was out of his pocket and flicked open towards Pedro. It was the same one that had hacked Ab’s locks.

  “What you think you doin’, Bredren, puttin’ your hand on my boss like that? Who you think you disrespectin’ so?” Necka crackled, taking a step towards Eric’s chair. But before his other foot took the next step, he froze.

  Nola spun to see what had shocked him, and her gasp was simultaneous with Winston’s hand flying once again to the gun in his waist.

  Pedro’s gun was at Eric’s head, pointed downwards from the top of the chair like a thick, black arrow!

  “Don’t bother with it, my yout,” Pedro cautioned, nodding at Winston’s hand. “If you don’t want see your boss’ brains all over this chair, I would throw that ting over here right now!”

  Nola did not see what look passed between Winston and Eric, for she was too busy staring at the gun over Eric’s head, but whatever the look said, it made Winston remove a silver pistol from his waist and kick it across the floor. It skated towards her, and without thinking, she put her foot out and caught it. Her instep tingled on the cold metal.

  “You too, little yout!” Pedro nodded at Necka. “Fling that ratchet over here! And make sure that blade don’t land nowhere near me, or this trigger goin’ definitely pull tonight!”

  Necka obediently threw the knife, but it sailed over Nola’s head and landed with a clatter by the bedroom door.

  “What this all ‘bout, Boss man? Is what goin’ on why you stressin’ out so?” Eric’s voice sounded tight from his throne. His pretty peach shirt had developed two large wet circles beneath the armpits.

  “Is the little gal sweet you so why you actin’ like this, man? You actin’ like you never get pum-pum yet! And it’s not even good pum-pum!” He gave a dismissive wave at the vicinity of Nola’s crotch. “You don’t see how she mash up, man? Me can get you some nice, quality pum-pum, man! This one can fling away on the roadside, Boss.”

  Nola moved before she could stop herself. She walked right up to the chair and leaned forward, staring into Eric’s eyes. They squinted, as she knew they would, and his lip lifted with disgust.

  “Wha’ppen Eric? Don’t like my clothes? Don’t like these rags?” She imitated his sneer. “Well, is cause of these rags, not my pum-pum,” she cringed inwardly as she repeated his crude words, “why I’m standin’ here, and you’re sittin’ in that chair with a gun on top of your head!”

  He didn’t
get it. He still looked scornfully smug as he stared back at her.

  “June 23rd—17 Pine Crest,” she whispered.

  And the squint gave way to a blink.

  “What? How the gal know ‘bout that move?” Necka squawked from behind her.

  “From them!” Nola pointed at Eric and Winston. “I sneak up behind them at the supermarket, and I hear them talkin’ ‘bout it! Them was settin’ up to kill Pedro!”

  Eric shot a look at Winston. The policeman remained silent. Then Eric laughed. “You see wha’appen when you don’t know ‘bout tings and you just chat shit?” Eric shook his head in mock sadness. “Pedro, don’t tell me that you believe this little country gal? Of course I was tellin’ Winston ‘bout the move, him is the man goin’ keep the heat low. Him is the man in control of all the police, Star, goin’ set it up so no heat don’t fall on us, you check me?”

  Pedro’s head jerked slightly at Eric’s mention of the word ‘police’. “So …” he eventually said, “let me get this straight. The heat was comin’ too close to you, so you told me that me and Necka was supposed to go to the house on June 23rd, and steal the Benz. Then me was supposed to shot Necka in the car to make them think is him who was behind the whole car ting, take the heat off of you.” (Gasp from Necka) “And now, what you sayin’ this bredren was goin’ do?” He jutted his chin at Winston. “Take the heat off of me? So tell me someting, my yout, what the rass you think me was goin’ do when me spot this bredren, who me don’t know, come up on the scene? Hail him up? Introduce myself? You think me stupid, Star?”

  Winston hmmphed and crossed his arms across his chest, but he still said nothing.

  “Boss,” It was Necka’s turn to shake his head disbelievingly at Eric, “After all me do for you, is so you was goin’ to fix me up, Star?”