THE TRAP

by Tabitha King

  FIREFIGHT

  Rough Cut #6

  Jungle track. Dogfaces in camouflage glide through jungle swamp to the edge of a clearing. The point man is the sergeant, Court. The faces under the mud and beard stubble are unmistakably American, though the spectrum is from the peeling, blue-white skin and spit-colored eyes of the red-neck-hillbilly Jackson to the sunburnt fair skin and blue eyes of Taurus the Michigan Irishman to the admirable tan and liquid brown eyes of Denny Corriveau, the Cajun, to the blue-black skin and flashing black eyes of Ratcliffe. The only somehow un-American face is Court's. He is a broad-chested, short-legged tartar, too substantial to be Charlie, yet in his features there is a kind of bridge between the races at war.

  The Cajun sucks on a huge bomber joint and passes it, with a nudge, to Jackson. The hillbilly grins, showing numerous gaps among his small, brown teeth. His teeth are as bad as the antique hags, the Charlie-mamas, who wash clothes for the G.I.s because they are too old, in their thirties and forties, to be whores anymore.

  Beyond Taurus, two other members of the patrol become visible in the shadows. One of them is a big, balding black private with a gold earring. He is sweating profusely, and his eyes roll nervously as he tries to see in every direction at once. The other is a white man, his six feet of height diminished by the stature of the black, so his slimness seems slightness. Horn-rimmed glasses pinch a rather Judicial Establishment nose, with an authoritative hook, but thin enough to breathe the rarified air of saintly, overbred Boston. The eyes behind his lenses are hazel. Nervously, he brushes a lock of fine blond hair off his high intellectual brow. He wears insignia that identify him as a lieutenant.

  The lieutenant passes to the front and squats briefly with Sergeant Court. The two examine a map and hand signals are exchanged, first with each other, then with the other men. The sergeant and the lieutenant assume the point and step into the clearing. The other men wait nervously. The lieutenant stops and looks around, then turns and signals to come ahead.

  At that instant a fusillade explodes, cutting him down, knocking the sergeant backward into the swamp. The G.I.s fall to the ground or into the water, take cover anywhere they can, and return fire. Ratcliffe crawls into the swamp, and drags the sergeant to a more-protected position. Court is badly, perhaps fatally wounded. The gunfire is deafening, and it quickly becomes apparent that the Americans are badly outnumbered.

  Court grasps Ratcliffe's wrist. "Call in the choppers," he gasps.

  Ratcliffe, sweating, ashen, signals the others. The radioman, the other black, does as he is ordered. But the shooting goes on. It is a long, terrifying time before the sound of the choppers overwhelms the ripping, rending sound of the machine guns. The choppers pour on the lead while the G.I.s hug the mud. There is an enormous, blinding explosion that shakes the ground as one chopper takes a direct hit and plunges into the jungle only yards away. Now a sheet of fire flares behind the trees, rendering black, twisted abstractions like Chinese ideograms. Beneath the roar of the fire a great ripping and tearing and rending as of some enormous monster feeding, and huge black shadows, the giant armored bulldozers, are soon silhouetted against the fire's light.

  When the enemy gunfire finally fades away, and the battle moves forward, the dozers following, and only the hungry hiss of the fire remains, Ratcliffe takes command, because the sergeant is either dead or unconscious, and signals to call off the choppers. Taurus finds the radioman nearly cut in two by the chopper fire. Taurus takes the radio from the dead man and calls them off, requesting medical evacuation.

  Ratcliffe crawls back into the swamp, keeping his head low in case of less-than-dead or otherwise ambitious Charlies, and drags the lieutenant's body out. As he lies next to the sergeant, the lieutenant is nearly unrecognizable. One side of his face appears to have been shot away; mercifully, it is so covered with mud and blood that the gory details are only hinted at. But on the side of his face that remains, one half of his glasses, the lense cracked and dirty, still hangs from his ear.

  “That’s my dad,” said Travis. “It took four hours to put all that gunk on his face so it looks gross and bloody like that.”

  Yeah, thought Liv, and it makes me want to puke. She had worried about Travis seeing it. But it had upset her, and still upset her, a lot more than it did him.

  “Kids are pretty good at sorting out fantasy and the real world,” Pat had assured her, and it seemed he had been right, at least about this.

  She nudged Travis. “Bedtime.”

  His fingernails dug into the palm of her hand.

  “Better sleep in my room,” she said. “I think your room is a little too cold tonight.”

  Travis looked relieved. He stopped digging into her palm.

  Rand stood up and tossed a cigarette butt into the fireplace. “Put the kid in his room,” he said.

  Liv was suddenly frightened. “He’ll never go to sleep in there tonight.” She pulled Travis close. “How about Sarah’s room instead?” she asked.

  “Why can’t I sleep with you?” Travis asked.

  Ricky Nighswander guffawed. A look from Rand shut him up.

  “Not tonight,” Liv said. “Tomorrow, okay?”

  Travis gave up. There were blue shadows under his eyes.

  Rand followed them to the bathroom, and then to Travis’ bedroom, where Liv unplugged the E.T. nightlight. It looked out of place in Sarah’s bedroom down the hall, but Travis seemed comforted by its presence. He hung his bathrobe with its pockets full of G.I. Joes on the bedpost, and climbed in willingly. Liv sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to pretend Rand Nighswander was not standing in the doorway, watching and listening.

  “I wish you could stay right here,” Travis said.

  “So do I,” Liv said. “I’ll be right handy, though. Okay?”

  Travis nodded, but Liv, her hand on his chest, felt the tension in him. He was frightened again, too. And she didn’t know how to reassure him. She couldn’t imagine that he would be able to go to sleep in such a wound-up state.

  She kissed him. “I’ll be right back.”

  In the hallway, she stopped Rand. “He’s not going to go to sleep very easily. He’s too keyed up.”

  Rand shrugged. “So what.”

  “I’ve got some Valium,” Liv said. “I’d like to give him some in a cup of cocoa. He’ll sleep deeply that way.”

  Rand looked at her. “Maybe that’s a good idea.” His eyes glittered. He put one hand on her hip.

  Liv stepped backward so his touch barely grazed her. If he touched her again, she might scream, or go for his face. She didn’t know what she might do, and she was almost as afraid to lose control of herself as she was of him.

  “Go do it,” he said.

  She hurried to her own bathroom. She hooked the small bottle that contained a few 2-mg. tablets of Valium from the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. Just as she started to shut the door of the cabinet, the rest of what was on that shelf registered. Ricky and Gordy hadn’t made such an efficient search after all. Or perhaps the medicine cabinet was the last place they looked for drugs. Or maybe reading the labels was too much trouble. That didn’t matter. What counted was they had missed it. Container after container of narcotics—a half dozen white tablets that looked like generic aspirin but were really 50-mg. Talwins, seven or eight fat red lozenges of 100-mg. Darvocet-N, nearly two dozen little pink capsules of 65-mg. Darvon, a baker’s dozen of red-and-white capsules of Darvon Compound-65, nine 400-mg. Motrins that looked like orange Reese’s Pieces, five yellow tablets of Percodan—forgotten, left behind at the end of the summer, legacy of the summer’s bad tooth. She looked quickly back over her shoulder.

  Rand was in the bedroom, lighting another cigarette, looking out the windows at the snow.

  “Excuse me,” she said in a rushed voice. “Call of nature.” She shut the bathroom door and locked it.

  “Wait a minute,” Rand said, and realized he was too late, even as he rattled the doorknob.

  She listened to him, breath
ing heavily, on the other side of the door.

  “I’ll take this fucking door right off if you’re in there too long,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said, pretending testiness, which she thought sounded more innocent than apology or showing fear. “I’ll be right out.”

  Unzipping her jeans with one hand, she snatched a hand towel from the towel bar. She plucked the pill bottles from the top shelf carefully into it, trying not to rattle the contents. Then she put the rolled towel on the floor in front of the toilet. She pushed her jeans and underpants down over her hips, sat on the toilet and made water. As she did, she bent between her knees and opened each bottle, dumping the capsules and pills into a little pile on the floor. As soon as she was done, and had her pants up again, she flushed the toilet. Under cover of the water, she inserted capsules and pills into the tops of her ankle socks, and pushed them down, so they collected under the high arches of her feet and in the niches between her toes. She tucked the empty containers behind the toilet and inside the toilet brush holder. She turned on the faucet and washed her hands. When she unlocked the door and opened it, she had the towel in her free hand. She continued to dry her hands with it.

  Rand was right there, sucking on his cigarette impatiently, thoroughly vexed. “Don’t you shut no more doors in my face, O-liv-i-a,” he said.

  “You like to watch women pee?” Liv asked him. “Are you some kind of freak?”

  He backhanded her so swiftly she didn’t see it coming.

  She staggered backward. The bathroom doorknob smashed her right kidney. She dropped to her knees, in agony.

  “You bin askin’ for that,” Rand said softly.

  She looked up at him. “You wanted to,” she gasped.

  Rand reached down and grabbed her elbow. He hauled her roughly to her feet and shoved her toward the bathroom. “Get the goddamn sleepin’ pills for the kid.”

  The Valium was where she left it on the counter. She picked it up and put it in her shirt pocket. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and hastily turned away.

  In the kitchen, she reheated the leftover cocoa from supper and dropped one of the 2-mg. tablets of Valium into it, stirred it until it dissolved, and carried it back to Travis. She ignored Rand as he watched her. He thought he had taught her a lesson.

  As she expected, Travis was still wide-awake, and sat up when he saw her standing in the doorway. She hesitated, but apparently he had not heard the brief commotion in her bedroom.

  “I brought you some cocoa,” she said. “Thought it might help you sleep better.”

  “Good idea, Liv,” he said solemnly.

  She sat down next to him while he drank the cocoa. Travis took his time, and watched her over the edge of the cup every time he took a sip. At last he handed her the empty cup. He sighed hugely.

  “That was good cocoa, Liv,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she said, and ruffled his hair. “Mind if I sit with you a little while longer?”

  He shook his head. He reached up and touched her face where Rand had struck her. “Your face is red,” he said.

  “I walked into the bathroom door,” Liv said quickly.

  “Does your tooth hurt?” Travis asked.

  “No,” she said.

  He closed his eyes.

  She glanced at Rand, then turned her back to him and snuggled up to Travis. After a few moments, she sensed he had gone away, and when she peeked, the doorway was empty. From the living room she heard the sounds of movie gunfire, and Ricky’s voice cheering it on. Next to her Travis had relaxed, his breathing evened out.

  She remembered when she had come home from having her tooth out, she had gone directly to the bathroom to take some aspirin and wash her face. Travis had followed her.

  “Can I see?” he asked.

  “It’s pretty gross,” she warned him. “And it stinks, from the blood.”

  He shrugged, so she opened her mouth and showed him the bloody socket. He admired it a few seconds, and then patted her shoulder to comfort her.

  “If you put the tooth under your pillow,” he confided, “the fairy’ll leave you some money.”

  She hadn’t expected to be laughing so soon afterward, and her jaw was stiff and sore when she did, but she had to. And then she had hugged him. A tooth wasn’t so much to lose.

  “Don’t go away,” he said with his eyes still closed.

  “No,” she said.

  Her face throbbed where Rand had struck her. The kidney that had been rammed into the doorknob ached. She felt stiff and tired as if she had worked hard at something physical, chopping wood, or washing windows, or gardening, all day. But she wasn’t sleepy. She envied Travis the swift working of the Valium. She wondered if she had enough to put herself to sleep, hard enough so nothing would wake her in the night. Then whatever Rand Nighswander did to her, at least she wouldn’t be aware of it. She shivered, thinking about how he looked at her. And there was always Ricky and simple Gordy to consider. What if he couldn’t or wouldn’t continue to restrain them? Everything old Joe Nevers had said about them came back to her, and seemed more threatening. But she couldn’t go to sleep. She had to take care of Travis. All she had was her socks full of pills.

  Liv stopped to look back at Travis. Posters of Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons and Miami Steve Van Zandt and Roy Bittan looked down at him from the walls, like the four angels in Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Maybe the creeps would be gone before he woke up in the morning. She drew the bedroom door closed behind her.

  Chapter 14

  Rand Nighswander’s hand dropped onto her shoulder.

  “You bastard,” she hissed.

  He smiled and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Relax, mother.”

  She tried to pull loose and he clamped his hands around her wrists and nudged her back toward the living room, murmuring, “Good girl, now.”

  Gordy and Ricky were sprawled on the floor, watching the TV. They were both intensely involved with the action on the screen. Ricky’s left hand rested possessively on the half-empty jug of wine. When Rand bent over and hooked his fingers around the jug’s throat, Ricky reacted instinctively and lunged for it, missed it, and settled for Rand’s ankle.

  “Son of a bitch,” he cried. He was at that stage of inebriation when the fight in a man is sorrowfully tempered by an undeniable failure of coordination. He was beaten by his own drunkenness before he could begin.

  Rand shook him off casually.

  “Son of a bitch,” Gordy cried in imitation. Gordy clenched his fists and pounded his own thighs. “I found it! It was mine!”

  Rand patted Gordy’s shoulder. “You’ve had more’n you can hold, old hoss, now ain’t you?”

  Gordy settled back down onto the rug with a mournful “Sheee,” like air hissing out of a tire.

  “You’ll be puking on the rug next.” He nudged Liv toward her bedroom. “Come on, now. Let’s you and me have another glass a wine and relax.”

  Ricky and Gordy stared at them open-mouthed. Rand winked. Ricky and Gordy broke up in sniggers.

  Liv took a deep breath. “I don’t really want any wine,” she said. “Why don’t I make more cocoa for everybody?”

  Gordy sat up on his elbows. “I’d like some.”

  Ricky knocked Gordy’s right elbow out from under him. “Nobody gives a fuck what you’d like.”

  Rand took Liv’s elbow firmly. “Nobody wants any cocoa, O-liv-i-a.”

  “Oh.” Liv went blank and let him lead her away. She had tried and they hadn’t bought it. She could dope the wine and maybe make Rand pass out and then what? Offer what remained to Ricky and Gordy and hope it was enough to knock them out, too, before they had any dangerous ideas of their own? What if she doped the wine and Rand forced her to drink it, too? Everything she could think to do was too unpredictable.

  Rand shoved her at the bed. She caught herself on the bedpost and faced him angrily.

  Rand put the jug on the dresser. “Goddamn,” he said. “I forgot the glasses
. Well, we’ll just have to swap spit on the bottle.”

  “No,” said Liv.

  “You rather toot a little, O-liv-i-a?” Rand asked, patting the sleeve in which he stored his cigarettes.

  She shook her head.

  He sighed. “I hear your old man likes his coke. No wonder, living with a tight-ass like yours.”

  “Fuck you, Mr. Nighswander,” Liv said.

  Rand stared at her. He fumbled in the sleeve of his sweater, as if for his cigarettes.

  It was the wrong sleeve, Liv thought, then he showed her the gun.

  “Cute, ain’t it? Cheap little half-assed nigger-blaster is what it is. Your dumb neighbor, the silly bitch with the stupid little dogs—what are they? Shits-zoos?—she left this for me. Thoughtful of her, wasn’t it? Of course, next summer, she won’t have anything to stop a moose from raping her, will she?”

  Suddenly he reached out and caught Liv by the hair and shoved the gun in her face. “I could make you eat this, bitch.”

  Liv spat at it. Rand seized the back of her head and slammed her mouth into the gun. Then he jerked her head back. Blood gouted from splits in her lips. She gagged, and spat broken teeth and shards of caps over the gun and Rand’s hand. He shoved her onto the bed.

  “Stupid cunt,” he muttered, and shoved the gun back up his sleeve.

  Liv hid her face in her hands. My teeth, she thought, Jesus God, my teeth. The initial burst of pain seemed to come from the outside and explode inward. She probed the jags and gaps with her lacerated tongue, noting the taste of blood, shredded edges of gum and lip. Her front teeth had taken the brunt of the damage. At her core, she was numb with shock.

  “Sit up,” Rand ordered.

  He had to haul her into a sitting position. He held a wet hand towel against her mouth. The cold water stung, but it also numbed a little.

  He let her go again. She curled up into a ball on the bed. He shook her by the shoulder. “You got any painkillers?”

  She gagged laughing. She couldn’t very well tell him they were all in her socks.