by Jan Burke
“Rinse your mouth.”
I did. Raney walked out with the bucket.
Devon held me, softly stroking my forehead and hair. When he spoke, his voice was soothing and quiet. “It doesn’t have to be this way, you know. You’re so pretty, but he’ll ruin your face. I don’t like it, but he will. You should talk to us. I know you don’t want to yet. But you already know you will. Save yourself the pain, Irene.”
It was the first time one of them had used my name.
It’s just a trick, I told myself.
I should have been repulsed by his touch, but the small kindnesses of those few minutes brought me closer to tears than the blows had. I made myself retreat farther inside myself.
It’s all part of their method. Survive.
Raney came in with the bucket and a metal bowl with a handle on it. He set it next to the bed. It was some kind of broth. He looked down at us and laughed.
“Jesus, Devon, next you’ll be feeling her up. Come on, leave her alone.”
Devon eased my head back down to the mattress and they left. The aroma of hot chicken broth came from the bowl. I moved myself over to it. I drank it, maneuvering the bowl around my now tender and swollen lips. It was warm and good. I lay back and let the tears fall, but made no noise. I would not let them hear me. I fell asleep crying.
24
I AWOKE TO HEAR THEM arguing loudly. The room was darkening, so I figured I must have slept about three or four hours.
“Look, he knows what he’s doing. When they sell the old lady’s land we’ll all be rich,” said Raney, losing patience with Devon.
“I just don’t like waiting around. What if he just takes off and calls the cops on us? We’re sitting ducks.”
“Nah, then we spill our guts to the cops. Even the Pony Player would go down then, and they know it.”
Pony Player? I wondered who this new nickname referred to. Was this another name for the Goat?
“I still don’t like it,” Devon said. “I don’t care who his mother was, it pisses me off when he hits me like that. I don’t like taking crap off him all the time. ‘Devon, don’t think. I’m the Einstein around here.’ Well, what have we got to show for it? A murder rap, that’s what.”
They were quiet for a moment, apparently brooding over that possibility. I lay there, wondering about what they had said, when I heard Raney’s voice again.
“Don’t get yourself all wound up like this, Devon. What’s that you’re reading?”
“It’s about cancer. I picked it up at this clinic on my way back from the store.”
“What clinic? And why the hell are you reading about cancer?”
“Place where they take skiers who break legs, stuff like that. Old geezer runs it. Told him I knew someone with cancer and I wanted to get something to read about it. He gave me this little booklet.”
“Christ, Devon, you are un-fucking-believable! We’re supposed to be lying low. We’re not supposed to make any trouble in town or get ourselves known around here. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t contagious.”
“Shit, Devon, I could have told you that. You worry about the weirdest shit, man. You think I’d ever let you catch something like that from somebody? I look after you, don’t I? How come you didn’t just ask me?”
“‘Cause you ain’t no doctor. How would I know you were right?”
“Oh man — I can’t believe the stuff you come up with sometimes. Don’t let him know you did this. Please, Devon — I don’t like it when he hits you, but you keep pulling this kind of shit and he’ll be all over your ass.”
“I don’t care! I don’t care! There’s nothing wrong with it!”
I heard one of them storm out the front door, slamming it hard. Devon, I thought. It was quiet then.
I lay there thinking of a plan to escape. Then I thought about Frank, wishing I could send messages to him by mental telepathy, to let him know I was alive. Silly really, but I wanted to talk to him so badly, I felt a hollow ache over it. Finally, I fell back to sleep.
IT WAS DARK when they came into the room again. Light spilled from the kitchen through the doorway, where one of them stood in silhouette. I could hear the dice rattling.
“Irene.”
It was Devon. I didn’t answer.
“Irene, tell me where the journal is.”
Raney stepped in behind him carrying a propane lantern, which cast long shadows on the walls and ceiling. He had something in his other hand — I couldn’t see what it was.
“Tell me, Irene. You know I don’t want to have to do this. Don’t make me do it, please don’t. Come on, Irene, tell me who has Sammy’s journal.”
This man is not your friend, I told myself. Say anything and they will kill you. Stay alive.
Stay alive, I repeated to myself, as he squatted down next to me.
“Irene, tell me. Where’s the journal?”
I thought of them putting Sammy’s heart on my front porch.
He rolled the dice. I didn’t look.
Raney laughed. “Five.” He set the lantern down and handed something to Devon. I saw then that it was a piece of rubber hose. Devon tapped it in his hand.
Raney picked up the soup bowl and moved it by the door. The whole time, I heard the hose tapping. Raney grabbed my wrists and pulled them over my head. He rolled me over.
The tapping stopped. I heard the hose whistle and then, as if coming from someone else, heard myself cry out as the first blow landed between my shoulder blades.
He waited.
Tap, tap, tap. “Come on, Irene. Tell me. Where is it?”
I didn’t answer.
By the time they left the room, I was drenched in sweat and trembling. Sleep was impossible now.
I wondered how much more I would be able to take. I also wondered if I would be able to force myself to do whatever would be necessary to escape. I remembered what Sarah had said to me — you do what you need to do to survive.
Sleep still eluded me, although I would have welcomed it. I was quickly learning the importance of keeping my mind occupied. Left to wander, it concentrated on my injuries, on emotions I was holding in check, on all that was hopeless in this situation.
So instead, I thought about a sequence of events in Las Piernas that seemed to fit together: Jack Fremont shows up in town, and is reconciled with his mother and son. Shortly after this, the coven changes under the influence of a mysterious stranger and his two assistants.
Mrs. Fremont changes her will. She’s murdered.
Sammy sees the Goat’s forearm. She’s murdered.
I’m seen taking some of Sammy’s things from the shelter — no, I’m still alive. Start over.
No matter how I looked at it, things changed when Jack Fremont came back to Las Piernas. “I don’t care who his mother was,” Devon had said. Could he mean Jack? No one had benefitted from her will as much as Jack. Murray had told me the property was worth a fortune.
“She’s mine.” I thought of the way he had flirted with me in the kitchen.
I allowed my thoughts to go back to Frank. I realized that even my pride could not sustain me much longer through this ordeal, but my desire to be with him again would. Some small article of faith was left in me: I would live. My life with him was not over. I would endure this. I slept at last.
I DON’T REMEMBER the nightmare that made me wake up screaming. Maybe the pain had just finally had its way with me.
The door opened and Raney entered with the lantern. He stood there awhile before I was awake enough to realize he was pointing a gun at me. Devon pushed past him and knelt beside me.
“She’s just had a bad dream, Raney. Put the gun away.”
Raney put the lantern down, smirking at me. He picked up the bucket and carried it out, leaving Devon with me. Gradually, I gathered my wits enough to calm myself. Devon knelt there, staring at me. “You’re so pretty,” he said.
I hadn’t seen my reflection, but I
could imagine what I looked like — hair chopped off, face bruised, fat lip, and one eye swollen shut. I laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh, but he heard it.
He seemed offended. “I’m not making a joke. Even like this,” he said, stroking a finger under my chin, “you’re still pretty.” He kept staring at me, and I felt fear tugging at me again.
Raney came back in with the bucket and picked up the lantern. “Leave her alone, Devon, or he’ll have your hide.”
“Fuck him,” Devon muttered, but he stood up.
“Next time,” Raney said, “you get the bucket. I’ve done it twice now while you sat around getting a hard-on for that bitch.”
They left the room. My mouth felt dry and I couldn’t seem to make myself breathe normally. My mind kept burrowing down into my fears. So I concentrated on my ankle, on my back. It was easier. Pain had an edge to it, a place where it began and ended.
I HAD NOT FORGOTTEN that the Goat had said to play the dice three times a day, so it was not a surprise when they entered the room again later that night. At least, I told myself, it will be the last time until morning. Raney’s turn again. The bastard rolled double sixes.
25
IT WAS COLD the next morning, and I awoke stiff and sore, but the swelling in my right eye had gone down a little, so that now I could see out of both eyes. The knot on the back of my head had gone down some, too, and I wasn’t dizzy. I still hurt all over, but once I got past the first few minutes, I felt a little comfort in waking up at all. I had made it through a day.
I heard Raney tell Devon that he would be right back, heard the front door open and the sound of the truck or the Blazer driving off. I worried about being left alone with Devon, then turned to more constructive thoughts. I tried moving around the room as much as I could, trying to warm myself. I moved along the walls, still hopping, since I learned that I couldn’t quite force myself to put any pressure on the right ankle. I was going to stay off of it or risk passing out. I felt better as I moved. I even managed another look out of the window, and discovered Raney had taken the truck. I decided I would try to learn the difference in the sounds the two vehicles made. It might not help me in any way, but it was another distraction from captivity.
Before long, though, I was worn out, and made my way back to the mattress. I had a plan, but I would need more strength to make it work. It would be hard between dice robbing me of sleep and nothing more than a bowl of chicken broth to eat.
Raney came back. He stomped into the house. As usual, they made no attempt to keep me from hearing what they had to say — I was, after all, expendable. A temporary diversion.
“We’re fucked. Just plain fucked.”
“What happened, Raney?”
“He has a tail on him.”
I felt hope rising. Catch him, I prayed. If I die, at least let them catch him.
“Shit!” Devon swore and paced. “I tell you, Raney — we ought to do her and just get the hell out of here now.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Let’s think about it.” They were quiet for a moment. Raney’s voice was cool and even when he spoke again. “Maybe it’s time for an insurance payment.”
“Which one?”
“I say we go for the big boy. Put the blanket right under the Pony Player’s nose.”
I listened more closely, puzzled.
Devon snorted in derision. “It doesn’t have to be under his nose. He’ll find it before the cops do. It really reeks. It’s got that witch’s blood all over it.”
“No, he won’t find it. Keep it wrapped up in that garbage bag. Put another one around it just to make sure. Besides, even if he finds it first, he’s not home free. We’ve got the knife.”
“What does Einstein say about the tail?”
Einstein, I knew by now, was the Goat.
“He’s got some plan where I go down and pick him up tomorrow morning. He doesn’t want to take his car anywhere. He thinks we can pull it off. He’s probably right, but like I said, I want some insurance,” Raney replied.
“The knife would be better.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Leave that to Einstein. He’ll figure out a good place to hide it.”
“I don’t know…”
“Look, Devon, let’s face it. He’s smart. We wouldn’t have thought of cutting the Pony Player, getting his blood on the blanket and the knife.”
So the Pony Player was not just another name for the Goat, I thought.
Devon laughed. “That scared the shit out of the Pony Player. He’s not so tough.”
“No, and our boy knows it. Like I said, he’s smart. Now — you know where to find the Pony Player?”
“You want me to do it?”
“Think about it, Devon. I have to make the phone calls. If I don’t, he gets suspicious. He never asks for you or has you make the calls. You told me he pisses you off — well, now you can show him what happens when he ignores you.”
“I don’t know. Damn, if somebody sees me, I’m dead meat.”
“If we don’t have insurance, you’re dead meat anyway. Besides, I know he doesn’t even think you could do anything like this. I know you’re smart, Devon, but he doesn’t see it. That shows how really smart you are. You’ve fooled him.”
Devon hesitated, then asked in a wary tone, “The blanket is still in the Blazer?”
“Yeah.”
“Gives me the creeps. Her stinking blood all over it. I didn’t like the witch, but that was brutal.”
“I know, Devon, but we need you to do this. You’ve got to.”
I heard Devon sigh, then say, “Okay. I guess I better get going.”
More movement. Footsteps near the door to the room.
“Raney?”
“Yeah?”
“Let me take her once before I go.”
“Forget it. Goddamn, is that all you think about? We don’t have time for you to jump some broad’s bones.”
“Hey, I might not come back alive. This might be my last chance.”
“Christ, Devon, you’re not gonna die. I’m asking for something simple. No one will even know you were in town. Just do what you need to do and come back. We can’t afford to screw things up now. What if we don’t have to use the insurance? What if everything works out fine, but he finds out you did it with her? You’d be passing up a million bucks. With a million bucks, you could buy yourself a whore every day for the rest of your life.”
“Whores give you diseases. She’s not a whore.”
Raney laughed. “What, you falling in love or something? She’s too old.”
“That’s not important. I want her.”
“You want every piece of skirt you spend five minutes with. Go on, get going. Worry about her later.”
He left.
I forced myself up to the window again, seeing and hearing the Blazer leave. I went back to the mattress, trying to sort out what they had said. The most I could make out of it was that there were at least four people involved in Sammy’s murder: these two, the Goat, and someone they called the Pony Player. They seemed to trust the Goat (“our boy,” Raney had called him) more than the Pony Player. The Pony Player’s blood, as well as Sammy’s, could be found on a knife and blanket.
But nothing they had said told me much about who the other two were. I tried to silence the voices within me which said it didn’t matter what I learned about them, since I was unlikely to be able to tell anyone else. I would survive. I fell asleep.
FOR SOME REASON, Raney didn’t bother me all day. He never came in and played the dice. I was able to sleep undisturbed by anything but the discomfort of my cuts and bruises. It was dark in the room when I was finally fully awake again, but the night was moonlit and I could see outlines of what little there was to see in my simple cell.
I heard Raney moving about, and could smell broth being warmed in the next room. When I heard the bolt to the door sliding back, I closed my eyes and feigned sleep. I didn’t want to face his fists again, or even his knowing smile
. I knew he stood and watched me, but he set the bowl down and left after a few minutes.
I drank it down as quietly as I could. I was hungry, and it didn’t exactly fill me up, but it warmed me. I listened as Raney paced nervously. I lay there, becoming aware that Raney was still alone — Devon had not returned. I knew he was supposed to make a phone call to the Goat, but I didn’t know the schedule. Apparently, he was late or nearly late.
I heard him move something against the door. The table. A silly precaution, given the bolt and my weakness. I began to think of that table as my ally. It would give an advantage to me.
The front door closed and I heard the truck drive off. I was going to have some time alone. It might not be more than about twenty minutes, could possibly be less, but I would make sure it was enough.
I picked up the bowl and made my way to the windows. Hopping on one foot with only one hand free was awkward, but I managed it. I pulled myself up on the overturned bucket so that I was near the middle window. I turned my face away and smashed the bowl into the thick pane. Glass flew and cold air came rushing into the room. I looked at the opening, and my hopes sank for a moment. I had hit it wrong somehow. There were no shards of the shape I wanted, and all the pieces were too small.
I had no time to waste. I hopped off the bucket, feeling small pieces of glass pierce the bottom of my bare foot here and there, but ignoring it. I moved the bucket to the right, closer to another window. I tried again. This time I didn’t swing so hard and used only the rim of the bowl to strike the glass. Success. The glass fell more than flew this time, and the pieces were bigger. I worked a triangular piece free of the frame. It was about six inches long and three inches wide at the base.
Carefully holding my treasure, I made my way back to the mattress. Lying on my back, I felt along the edge of the mattress next to the wall, finding the spot where my right hand would lay. I pulled the edge toward me and slit the cover of the mattress with the glass. I hid the shard between the thin layers of batting.