Selena

by Greg Barth

  There was an unashamed vulnerability in that face.

  Oh god. He’s fucking gorgeous.

  I was finishing on stage, collecting my last few tips. We made eye contact and I blew him a slow, sensual kiss.

  I went to the dressing room and grabbed my clutch purse, then hit the bar for a drink. April approached me.

  “You’re doing a great job tonight, Heather,” April said.

  “You’re gonna regret not having me tip out the club,” I said.

  “Actually, I think we are going to ask you to come back. Soon.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Mr. Hawkins, Bernie, wants to see you in his private office upstairs.”

  “Should I get dressed?”

  She smiled and shook her head.

  “Hey, that Bernie. He’s kinda cute, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah, he really is,” April said. “He’s had a tough life, but he’s loaded.”

  I smiled back. “Okay. Just show me the way.”

  She led me around behind the bar and through a set of batwing doors. I followed her down a narrow hallway and through a door that opened to the right. We climbed up a narrow flight of dark stairs, went through a set of black curtains, and then we were on the balcony looking down at the stage. The floor boards creaked beneath my steps.

  April knocked on the door. After a moment it was opened from inside.

  “Mr. Hawkins? Miss Belle is here to see you.”

  A rich voice said, “Thank you, April.” And to me, “Come in, Miss Belle.”

  I stepped into his office. The room’s long, windowed wall looked down on the stage. The tinting made everything below look darker than it was. Inside the room was a sofa and a computer desk. A wet bar was set up along the far wall. There was a bookshelf filled with books by the desk. I liked to read, so I took a few seconds to glance at the titles. It seemed he was into crime fiction. There were several by Richard Stark and Elmore Leonard along with some other names I did not recognize. Ken Bruen, I recognized. I knew he was good. I noticed one paperback laying face-down on the sofa. The cover was black and gray and had a series of windmills on it.

  “That one good?”

  “Monson? Yeah, he’s great.”

  I picked it up and read a few lines.

  “Are you a reader?” he said.

  “Uh, yeah. Mostly romances though.”

  He nodded. “You are quite the entertainer.” I liked his voice—humble, without emotion. Felt like he put a lot of thought into his words.

  “You’re a great observer,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I think you are too. I’m having some wine. Can I get you some?”

  “Sure.” I set my clutch purse on the sofa. My knife was inside.

  “Old Vine Zinfandel okay? Or are you a Chardonnay woman?”

  “Red is fine.”

  He took a wineglass from the wet bar and poured me a glass. He handed it to me.

  I took a sip. “If I had known we were going to have wine and discuss books, I would have worn more clothes.”

  “Then I’m glad you didn’t know.” He stepped over to me, pressed me against the wall and kissed me.

  My heart pounded in my chest. It was a good kiss.

  FIFTEEN

  I went out an emergency exit. I didn’t have a chance to do much in the way of clothing. I was still in the pink getup, but covered most of it up with a miniskirt and white t-shirt.

  I strode across the gravel lot as quickly as I could in the awkward high heels and shifting rock beneath my feet.

  I grabbed Emily’s cell phone from my purse and pushed the button to call her room. It took four rings but finally she picked up.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Emily, listen to me.” My breath came in gasps as I hurried across the lot. “Get out of there, Emily. Get out of there now.”

  “Selena,” she said. “What happened? Did...did you do it?”

  “There’s no time right now. Just leave. Go now. Run out of there as fast as you can and get away. Go to that place across town where we had dinner a couple of times. The place near our favorite customer. I’ll meet you there. I’ll find a way. But you have to leave right this second.”

  “Selena, what...”

  “Look! You have to go now. I didn’t do it, okay? I didn’t kill him. I just...I couldn’t.”

  “Selena,” she said. “They’re here with me now. In the room with me.”

  “What?” I stopped walking. “Who? Who’s with you?”

  “Harvey and his brothers.”

  Fuck.

  Someone approached me from behind, and I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Do they know what I just told you?”

  “Uh, yeah...they...they’ve got you on speaker phone.”

  “Okay,” I said. I closed the phone. I had to get back to the club before the driver was alerted. Maybe Bernie could help me somehow.

  I turned around and collided with the man approaching me from behind. I realized too late that it was the driver who’d been sent to the club with me. He had a stun gun in hand and gave me a long zap with it on my stomach. The jolt hurt like hell and seemed to go on forever. Then my nervous system was jumbled, my muscles let go, and I collapsed to the pavement. I’m pretty sure I wet myself.

  Without saying a word, the man picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. He carried me back to his car. I heard him fumble with keys and the next thing I knew I was being placed in the trunk of the car. He stood there in silhouette as he raised his hand and closed the trunk.

  Everything went black.

  ***

  By the time the trunk opened again, my scrambled nervous system had returned to normal. My muscles were weak, but I could move them.

  I heard Harvey’s voice. “Get her out.”

  Buck’s large frame eclipsed the trunk opening. His rough hands gripped me and I was pulled from the trunk. It took me a few seconds to get my feet under me in the high heels.

  I looked around. We were parked on the edge of the woods near the shed that Wayne had taken Emily and me to a few nights ago. Harvey, Buck, Wayne, and Emily stood in the darkness by the open trunk of the car. I could only make them out from the glow of the car’s taillights. The driver was nowhere to be found. I assumed he had been replaced by one of the three brothers at one of the stops I felt us make along the way.

  Emily, as always, was stunning. She was dressed simply in jeans and t-shirt. She looked distraught.

  I smoothed out my short skirt to make sure I was covered. I noticed that the knees of my stockings were torn from where I fell in the parking lot.

  “You let me down, girl,” Harvey said.

  “I couldn’t do it,” I said.

  “I had you all set up. All you had to do was what you do.”

  “I know. I came close. I just couldn’t. There has to be another way.”

  “Well that’s too bad. Actions have consequences. Now I need you to come with me.” He walked around the side of the car to the front where the headlights shone.

  I did not move.

  Harvey sighed. “Buck,” he said.

  I was shoved from behind. I walked forward. Emily joined me by my side. I looked at her. “I’m so sorry,” I said. She took my hand.

  When we got to the front of the car, Harvey sood next to a fresh-dug hole in the ground. A couple of spades stuck out of the mound of dirt to the side of the hole.

  This was going to be my grave.

  My feet stopped. My breath caught in my throat. My knees trembled. Tears streamed down my cheeks. “Harvey,” I said. My voice was little more than a dry croak. “Listen to me, please.” I started sobbing.

  “There’s nothing to listen to, Selena. You had your chance. You blew it.”

  “Please. Don’t.”

  “Wayne,” Harvey said.

  This was it. I lowered my head and closed my eyes. I wanted my last thought to be something happy, something that wasn’t laced with fear. A warm memory maybe.

>   I came up with nothing.

  Every muscle in my body jerked when I heard the pistol shot. I fell to my knees. I waited, eyes closed, but there was nothing.

  “Noooooo...” I sobbed. I would not open my eyes. I would keep them closed forever if I had to. Suddenly I wanted to be dead. More than anything. I didn’t want to face reality. “No, no, no...”

  “Get up, Selena,” I heard Harvey say. “You’ve got work to do.”

  “No.”

  A hard slap across my cheek startled me out of it, and I opened my eyes.

  Emily lay on the cold ground, the back of her head a bloody mess. Her eyes were out of focus and staring at the blades of grass in front of her face.

  “Oh god,” I said. “Oh, you son of a bitch! Why?”

  “Get up. We don’t have all night,” Harvey said.

  “She didn’t do anything.”

  “Yeah? Well, neither did you. You should have done what you were told to do. Now get up. You’re gonna bury this girl.”

  It took effort, but I stopped my tears. I looked up at Harvey. “I am not responsible for this,” I said.

  “Yes you are. You know you are. Now get up and start shoveling, or I’ve got no use for you either.”

  I got up.

  “You got to put her in the hole,” Harvey said.

  For a split second I thought about running off into the woods. I knew I wouldn’t get far in my shoes. If I kicked them off, they would know what I was up to.

  I looked down at Emily. I am so sorry.

  I grabbed her by the arms and pulled. Her body was limp and heavy. I couldn’t get her to move.

  “Jesus,” Harvey said. “Buck, help her out.”

  Together we pulled her and placed her in the ground. Seeing her body in the dirt was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of shoveling dirt onto her face. “I need something to cover her with,” I said.

  “Well we ain’t got nothing for you to cover her with,” Wayne said.

  “Please. Just a towel or something. I can’t put dirt in her eyes.” I began to cry again.

  “Use your shirt,” Harvey said.

  I took it off. I still had my bra on underneath. I wrapped her head in my white shirt. The look of her face with the spark of life gone was more than I could bear. While wrapping her, I knew that the shirt was just more evidence tying me to yet another murder and that Harvey was still manipulating me. I didn’t care anymore.

  I got out of the hole and went to work. I don’t like to think about burying Emily. I don’t want to describe it. It took me an eternity, but I did it by myself. The shoes didn’t help. My lack of clothing didn’t help. There were times when I had to close my eyes and drop the earth blindly into the hole because I couldn’t bear to watch the grave consume my friend.

  SIXTEEN

  I was inside the shed cuffed to one of the crude crosses someone had fashioned to the support posts. My hands were chained above my head.

  I was alone.

  Before leaving, Wayne told me, “It’ll be a few hours before Faranacci’s guy gets here to pick you up, so just get as comfortable as you can.”

  I was exhausted. The dancing, the stun gun, the shovels of heavy dirt had all taken their toll on me. But even in my weakness, I tried. I pulled against the cross beam with all my might. I worked it back and forth, hoping to find some weakness in it. It wouldn’t budge.

  It was hopeless.

  As I stood there, I thought about all that had led up to this point. I had made so many mistakes that had resulted in Emily’s death. If only I had done any one of a hundred things differently, none of this would have happened.

  I cried every tear that my body had to give.

  My mind sought a way of escape but came up with nothing.

  I can’t say that those hours hanging by the crossbeam in that barn were the worst in my life. Everything was softball compared to burying my friend.

  In the predawn hours, Buck came into the shed. He was well over six-feet tall and easily weighed 350 pounds. He walked up and stared at me. His breath stank of beer. His thinning hair was tousled on top, and I assumed he had walked from the motel through the trees and the field to get to me.

  I said nothing.

  He reached out a hand and touched my hair.

  “Faranacci’s guy is coming.” It was the first time I had heard his voice. I was actually surprised that he could talk. His voice was softer than I would have expected, but nasally sounding, like the mouthbreather that he was.

  “Let me go, Buck.” I hated the pleading tone in my voice.

  “I’m taking you back to the office,” he said. “We’re going to have some fun with you before they get here. You ever pull a train before?” He grinned as he said this.

  “You’re not a bad guy, Buck. Let me go. You’re not a rapist.”

  He laughed at this. “Oh yes I am.” He touched me with his hands while I was chained to the post. He didn’t remove any of my clothing, but he felt me through the thin material.

  I squirmed under his touch. “Let me go, Buck.”

  “You’re coming back to the motel with me.”

  He reached up and unlocked my wrists.

  I moved in a violent rush. I stomped his foot with my high heeled shoe, kicked him in the shin, then kneed him in the groin. He was not at all fazed by this sudden burst of violence. He pushed me hard against my shoulders and I fell to the ground.

  “Maybe we don’t wait until you get back to the office,” he said.

  Before I could think, he was on top of me, all three-hundred and fifty pounds of him. I fought with everything I had. I slapped at his face, kicked at his legs, tried to raise my knees up to his groin. I used my thumb and gouged at his eye.

  I couldn’t get him to budge. He reached down with one hand and he pushed his pants down.

  This wasn’t going to happen.

  His crushing weight forced the air from me and I could not regain it. He slapped me hard and took my hands and pinned them above my head.

  I couldn’t move, but neither could he without letting some part of me go.

  “Are you going to be good?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Please, Buck. Don’t hurt me.”

  “It don’t have to hurt.”

  It occurred to me then that he had seen the video of me with Jack Jefferson. “Okay, okay. Just let me get myself ready, okay? I’ll make it so it won’t hurt me, and it’ll be better for you too.”

  He lay on top of me and looked down at me.

  “Just one hand,” I said. “That’s all.” I looked him in the eye and nodded encouragingly.

  He released a hand. I did the trick with my fingers, sucking them to get them slick with saliva. I could taste dirt and blood on my fingers.

  Emily.

  When my fingers were nice and wet, I put my hand down between us as though to get my labia moist. Instead, I grabbed Buck by the balls and squeezed with all my might, my nails like bird talons ripping at his flesh.

  He screamed and rolled off of me. I didn’t release my grip. He had to rip himself away from me, taking some fingernails with him.

  I jumped to my feet and stood over him. He cupped his balls with both hands.

  But I wasn’t going for his balls anymore.

  I raised my foot and stomped down hard on his face. The five-inch heel of my shoe punctured his left eye. He brought his hands up and tried to push me away. He gripped my ankle with both hands and pushed with all of his desperate might. My ninety-five pounds and lean muscles pushed in the opposite direction. Slowly I gained ground. I pushed against him, inch by inch until the heel of my shoe was fully embedded in his eye. His grip on my foot relaxed. His body convulsed.

  I withdrew my heel from his eye socket. His body writhed and spasmed on the dirt floor.

  I went over to the work bench where Emily and I had sat with Wayne a few nights back.

  I wrenched the sharp machete free from the table. It was
heavy in my small hand. I returned to Buck. I leaned over and spit on his face. I kicked him in the side. I stomped at his face with my shoe.

  I raised the machete high over my head and brought it down on his neck. Blood erupted from the gaping wound and splashed onto my chest.

  I pulled the blade free, raised it high, and brought it down again. And again.

  And again.

  SEVENTEEN

  I walked through the empty field in the predawn night. The blood smeared across my body looked black in the darkness. The starlight revealed the path in front of me. The dim point of light from the motel in the distance was my beacon.

  I was covered in dirt and blood. My stockings were in tatters, and I stank of urine. My shoes were not equipped for the terrain, so I kicked them to the side and went barefoot.

  I carried the bloody machete at my side.

  The night air was cool against my bare skin, and I picked up my pace as much as I could.

  The field faced the back of the motel. When I got to the building, I walked along the back and around the side to the front. I stopped at the side and peered around the corner to the parking lot. Wayne’s Sheriff’s car was right in front of the office. I didn’t see Harvey’s car.

  I edged around the front and walked up to the office door. I looked inside. The lights were on, but I didn’t see anyone.

  I stepped through the door.

  “Harvey?” I heard Wayne call from the back room. “That you?”

  I didn’t say anything. I crept carefully in on my bare feet.

  “Buck?” Wayne said.