by Jodi Compton
That memory gave me an inkling of pride. Just enough not to say, The baby’s with Lucius Marsellus.
And when I didn’t, they’d decided to try something else to break me down.
I thought I’d figured out the division of labor. Will, the short, dark-haired guy, was just hired muscle; his heart wasn’t in any of it. Babyface was in charge, and it was he who wielded the compression shears. But Quentin had center stage now, and he was clearly relishing his role as the witty sociopath. If his erection was at half-mast now, his ego was at full mast.
He leaned over me. “I gotta tell you, considering the circumstances, that was not the worst blow job I ever had,” he said. “You really got into that toward the end. Did you think it was gonna buy you some goodwill with me?”
He pulled up his trousers, got himself arranged. I rolled onto my side. The passages inside my nose were starting to swell, but I didn’t think they were going to bleed. They’d toughened up from too many hits already.
All together and spruce again, Quentin said, “Okay, let’s review what we’ve learned.” He held up a didactic finger. “This hasn’t been educational for you, actually, so much as it’s been for us. See, we’ve done only two things to you so far, but they were important things. These”-he picked up and shook the tin snips-“and that really lovely knob job.”
He set down the snips. “The thing with women is, they tend to fall into two camps. Some of them can take a lot of pain, but they can’t stand anything sexual being done to them. Other women can let a whole freak show of guys ball them, so long as you don’t hurt them physically.” He sat on his heels, the better to look into my face. “So the first thing I do, with a woman, is see which group she falls into. You might not even have known which one you were.”
He was having such a good time.
“Before I share my observations with you, why don’t you tell me which one you think you are.”
I didn’t say anything. There was no point. They really were going to kill me. Amissa mundo sum, I was lost to the world.
The one person I’d failed to protect was myself. I understood why I hadn’t, but it had also brought me to this, and this was a problem. I wasn’t afraid, but I was in a lot of pain, and eventually, I’d break.
Maybe it was best that I crack under the pain and tell the truth. Just because Luke Marsellus had said he wouldn’t start a war with Skouras didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight one if Skouras’s men came after Henry. Maybe Marsellus and his men would have these guys for breakfast.
Or maybe Skouras’s guys would wipe the floor with Marsellus’s security detail and get the baby. Then Henry, or whatever Skouras named him, would grow up rich and well-cared-for, and become a monster like his grandfather. Maybe twenty years from now, in his late forties or early fifties, one of these men would work for Henry, and he’d see Henry so regularly that the sight of his young boss wouldn’t remind him anymore of that chick he’d tortured to death for Tony Skouras.
“Hey!” Quentin poked my chest. “I’m talking to you. Which group?”
I licked my lips, still sickened by the taste in my mouth.
Quentin put his face close to mine. “You think we’re just gonna give up if you don’t talk to us?” he said. “Wrong, babe. This is fun for me. A job like this, it’s like a bright spot in my week.”
“Careful,” I said. “On an MRI, a bright spot is bad news.”
Behind us, Babyface was sitting with his legs out in front of him, elbow on knee, chin in hand. He looked bored with Quentin’s antics, like a film director watching a B-talent actor overdo a monologue.
“This is taking way too long,” he said, getting to his feet. “Get her back up on the table, I’m going to take off another finger.”
Will hauled me to my feet and dragged me over to the editing table and pushed me down, bent at the waist, so I was half lying on it, like the catfish-turned-swordfish in my Gulf Coast fantasy, getting my own blood all over the mostly bare skin of my upper body. Babyface and the guys had stripped me down to bra and panties. Even in my current state of mind, I had to admit it was smart, as was starting with fellatio instead of outright rape. Babyface was taking things in stages, making sure I had things left to lose.
The handcuffs clicked loose and Will pulled my arms straight in front of me again, walking along the table to hold them down at full length in front of me. Babyface positioned himself with the tin snips in hand.
That was when I started laughing.
I know it’s hard to explain. Babyface didn’t understand, either. “I know you’re scared, Hailey,” he said.
“You don’t know that,” I said, still laughing. “You don’t know that at all.”
With his free hand, he stroked my hair. “Come on, Hailey,” he said. “This doesn’t have to happen. Just tell me where the kid is.”
It was good cop, bad cop, all in one. Babyface was giving me some sugar.
“I can’t,” I said, trying to get myself under control.
Babyface straightened, his face turning cold. He looked at Will and said, “I’m going to speed things up a little, take off two fingers in this go.”
He took my left ring finger in his hand and I felt the lower blade of the shears slide under it. That was the point at which I finally stopped laughing and took a deep, steadying breath. Even though I wasn’t afraid, I knew the pain was coming and that it would be bad, and I closed my eyes tight. What came to mind, in that moment, was not Virgil or Marcus Aurelius but Jonah’s prayer: As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you.
Then there was a deviation from the script. A clear female voice, from the doorway of the projection booth. “Mr. Laska,” it said.
We all looked up, even me in my semi-prone chopping-block position with my arms being held out in front of me. It occurred to me to yell for help, but I didn’t. The woman crossing the floor was too calm, and she knew Babyface by name. She had to be in on this. She was not going to help me.
Babyface said, “Yes?”
She said, “Please stop what you’re doing.”
She was near to my height, wearing a black cowl-neck dress and black boots. I thought she was somewhere around thirty. She had a heavy sheaf of bronze hair and brown eyes with half-moon lids, just a hint of gray shadow in the corners, or maybe that coloring was natural. A tall, heavyset man in a suit trailed her, like a bodyguard.
Babyface said, “Do we know each other? Jimmy I know”-nodding to the guy in the suit-“but I’ve never seen you before. I work for Mr. Skouras, and I’ll stop what I’m doing when he tells me to.”
She said, “I’m afraid that’s not possible. You know Mr. Skouras had a heart attack two days ago, don’t you?”
I raised my head slightly at this unexpected news.
“Of course I know,” Babyface said. “He’s getting better. They were going to move him to the step-down unit today.”
The woman shook her head. “So I was told, but I’m afraid he had a second, more serious attack. He died several hours ago.”
My limbs were starting to shake. I wished they wouldn’t. The situation in front of me was so delicate, I didn’t want to disrupt it by even breathing too loudly. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that this woman in front of me was going to be able to back down these monsters. They’d never let me go on a strange woman’s say-so.
She was going on: “I didn’t answer your original question. I’m Teresa D’Agostino Skouras. Tony Skouras was my father.” Her speech was so precise, it almost had a British clip.
“Mr. Skouras only had sons,” said Quentin, thrusting himself into the exchange.
The woman said, “By his marriage, yes. But he’s long acknowledged me, privately at least, as his biological daughter. He supported me financially when I was younger, and now, in the absence of his sons, he’s left his estate and businesses to me.”
Babyface said, “Mr. Skouras has mentioned you to me, but I never heard him say anything about leaving his estate to yo
u, and-”
“I understand this all comes as a shock,” she interrupted, her tone smooth and civil. “Here, call Mr. Costa’s office. He can confirm everything-my father’s death, the disposition of his businesses, all of it.” She extended her hand, with a cell phone in it. Babyface looked at it a moment, as though he’d never seen a phone before. Then he said, “I have my own,” and began to fumble in his pockets.
I didn’t really believe this was happening.
Babyface walked a few short paces away from all of us. Unexpectedly, Teresa Skouras turned to Will. “For heaven’s sake, do you think you could let go of her? In her condition, if she tries to run, I could catch her myself.”
I didn’t expect him to grant her any authority here, so when he actually did what she asked, I wasn’t ready, and my knees gave out. I went down so hard my chin hit the edge of the editing table and my vision jolted like badly spliced film. I heard Quentin make a humorless snort of laughter.
Babyface was still pacing, saying, Uh-huh, uh-huh, okay.
On hands and knees on the floor, I felt and tasted blood, flowing from where I’d bitten my tongue, hitting the table’s edge. I didn’t get up. Teresa Skouras was right; there was no point in trying to run. I didn’t believe this situation ultimately was going to go my way.
Babyface disconnected and said to the guys, “It’s true.”
Neither Quentin nor Will spoke, though Quentin glanced quickly at me as if to ensure that I wasn’t already walking away.
Babyface squared his shoulders. “Listen, Ms. Skouras, I’m sorry for your loss. It’s my loss, too.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“But this is important business we’re doing here. It was important to Mr. Skouras that his only grandchild be raised a Skouras. I know you’re new to the situation; you may not understand.”
She nodded sagely. “If family weren’t important to my father,” she said, “he wouldn’t have supported me so graciously in my youth. But sadly, he died before he could see his grandchild, and nothing will change that. He’s gone, and any professional contract you had with him is now void. Including your commitment to”-she gestured at the bloody table-“this task.”
“But Adrian’s kid-”
“Is my concern, and I’ll decide how I want to proceed on that.”
Babyface stood for a moment, tin snips in hand, looking at the wall and the small dark window cut into it, the one that looked out onto the theater. Then he shrugged and said to Quentin and Will, “Let’s go.”
“What?” Both of them, in unison.
“Mr. Costa says she’s in charge now. We’re leaving.”
Babyface walked over and nudged me with his shoe. “One thing, Ms. Skouras,” he said. “Be careful with her. She’s the only one we know for sure knows where the kid is, so you need her. But she’s not the pushover she looks like she should be. I was thinking I was gonna have to take off all ten of her fingers, and even that might not have worked.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Teresa Skouras said blandly.
“I’m saying,” Babyface said, “that it’s probably not in your interests to leave her alive when all this is over. If you don’t have anyone for that kind of work, Mr. Costa has my number.”
“Thank you,” she said in the same dry tone.
With that, Babyface and his men walked past me and out.
I still couldn’t believe this was happening. I listened for the sound of their footsteps receding, making sure they were really going, that they weren’t going to come back, or wait just out of sight.
Teresa Skouras dropped to her knees beside me, lifting my injured hand to examine it. “Dear God,” she said. “Miss Cain-”
I jerked my hand free of hers and staggered to my feet. “No,” I said. “Don’t fucking help me.”
She looked as though I’d slapped her, then she recovered. “You’re in shock.”
I stumbled backward until my back was against the wall and pressed my hands against my face to keep the rage from coming out. She didn’t deserve it. She’d saved me. The fingers Babyface had been about to take, whatever else he or Quentin would have thought to do, this woman had stopped it, Skouras or not.
I lowered my hands, breathing raggedly. “I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’ve been through worse than this.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“I just want my clothes. Then I’m leaving. I’ll be fine.”
Then I took two steps forward and collapsed.
fifty-seven
Even here, Latin.
Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes, venite, venite in Bethlehem…
I opened my eyes in an unfamiliar low-lit bedroom done in cream-and-gold colors. The window curtains were open, and outside the sky was a dark blue. Someone was listening to Christmas music in another room, but it was instrumental, only my mind translating the old familiar words. A clock at bedside read 5:35. It was either before dawn or after sunset. A closer look at the digital face revealed a lighted dot next to the letters P.M. Evening, then.
I was sore all over, but in no immediate pain. Raising my hand above the covers revealed a lot of white bandaging, but my little finger was really gone. It stung, but not badly, and I wondered if I was on pain medication.
I kicked the covers aside, intending to check my body out for bruises and injuries, but instead I was drawn up short by the realization that I was dressed in pajamas with a fine orange-and-pink stripe, feminine and whimsical, like nothing I would have chosen for myself. I had no idea where I was, and now someone had undressed and re-dressed me while I was fully unconscious.
I got up, found my balance, and went over to the window. The darkened buildings outside appeared, for a moment, generic, then I saw the familiar shape of the Transamerica Pyramid and knew I was in San Francisco. I walked slowly, barefoot, to the bathroom. There, on the skirt of the double sink, was a basket full of toiletries. The labels bore the name of the Fairmont.
The evidence, at this point, indicated CJ. I must have gotten to a phone and called him, and he’d come up and brought me here. He would have needed a place for us to stay, and no one else I knew had the financial resources that made a suite in a five-star San Francisco hotel the logical choice.
I closed the bathroom door and urinated for what seemed like a small eternity, then got cleaned up as well as I could: washed my face and rubbed toothpaste inside my mouth. Then I walked out to the doorway of the suite’s main room, where the Christmas music was coming from.
I was disappointed not to see CJ, but not very surprised to see the person who was sitting on the couch: Teresa Skouras, reading papers spread out on a low coffee table.
I cleared my throat and she looked up.
“Well,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, speaking carefully, because my tongue was still a little swollen where I’d bitten it.
“Would you like to sit down?” She gestured to a chair covered in the same material as the couch.
I did so. “How long have I been sleeping?”
“Nearly a day,” she said, “but not straight through. You’re in San Francisco, by the way. We’re at-”
“The Fairmont, I know,” I said. “It’s on the shampoo bottles. I can read.”
She glanced down, perhaps taken aback by my rudeness. I was a little surprised by it myself.
She went on: “I looked in on you several times, checked your hand for signs of infection and changed the dressing. There was no serious inflammation and you were never running a fever, so I let you sleep.”
“Are you a nurse?”
“No, but I did some volunteer medical work overseas, right after college.”
“Well,” I said, “what’s Christmas without a saint?”
I wasn’t sure why I was giving her such a hard time. She had saved my life, after all. I cleared my throat and tried to start over.
“Look,” I said, “I think we
should talk. Miss Skouras-”
“Tess,” she corrected me. “And my last name is D’Agostino. Using his name last night was dramatic license.”
“Miss D’Agostino, I don’t know how else to say this: You are the last of the Skourases and I am the only person in the world who knows where the Skouras grandchild is. Are we going to have a problem?”
She smiled a deeply curved smile, like a Valentine heart. “That statement contained a rather large contradiction in logic,” she said. “The ‘last of the Skourases’ part. If there’s a grandchild, then-”
“Don’t play games with me.” I leaned forward. “Are we going to have a problem?”
She sobered. “About the baby…” She picked up her cup of tea. “You allowed yourself to be tortured and maimed for that child. I’m fairly sure you didn’t do that after abandoning him in a cardboard box somewhere.”
“But-”
She interrupted. “You tell me, then. Is he safe?”
“Yes. More than safe. He’ll be loved, and he’ll never want for anything. But for me to get him back would be difficult. Making the arrangement that I did was… fraught, to say the least.”
“That sounds like an interesting story,” she said.
“It is.”
“Maybe you’ll tell me someday.”
“That’s it?” I said, disbelieving. “You’re satisfied with that?”
“I haven’t decided if I want to take over my father’s businesses,” she said. “But I do know I’m not ready to be a mother.”
I sat back, still baffled, but silent. I wasn’t sure why I was even arguing the point.
She interrupted my disordered thoughts. “Are you hungry? I can’t imagine you wouldn’t be.”
When she said it, I realized that I was.
She said, “I’ll get you something to wear.”
“I thought you were going to say ‘something to eat.’”
“We can get room service here,” she said, “but first, I’m very particular about coffee, and I have a favorite place for cappuccino. You’ve said you feel well. You might as well get out and stretch your legs after lying down for such a long time.”