One Night Stands & Lost weekends - By Lawrence Block Page 0,18
hard muscle.
His hair was clipped close to his scalp; his eyes were small and beady. His nose looked as though it had been broken once.
He was wearing clothing that looked familiar. It took me a minute to recognize it.
It was prison clothing.
There was a gun in his right hand that looked like a cannon.
“Out,” he said. “Get out of the car.” The words came out in a snarl.
I glanced at Rita. She was clutching her blouse around her, trying to button it but having a tough time. Her fingers were numb with fear.
His lips curled into a sneer. “Don’t bother,” he told her. “I’ll just have to rip it off. Now get the hell out of the car.”
We got out. There was nothing else to do.
“Over here,” he said, motioning with the gun. We walked a few yards from the car into a clearing.
I said, “What do you want?”
He looked at me and smiled. Then he looked at Rita and the smile widened. She stiffened in terror. Her whole body shook.
“Guess,” he said.
I guessed.
“I don’t have much money,” I said. “But you’re welcome to it. And I suppose you’ll want the car—it’s not new by any means but it’ll get you where you’re going.”
“Yeah,” he said. He was still looking at Rita and I knew what he was thinking, what he was going to do.
He turned to me. “Chuck your wallet over here,” he said. “And don’t try anything. This thing works,” he added, motioning with the gun.
I took the wallet from my inside jacket pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it easily with one hand and flipped it open, counting the money.
“Peanuts,” he said. “Less than thirty bucks.”
“It’s all I have.”
“With the heap you’re driving, that’ll hardly cover the gas. And I bet it burns oil by the gallon.”
I didn’t answer. His eyes went back to Rita and I wished he would stop looking at her, wished he would go away and leave us alone.
“You’re nice,” he said to her. “It’s been a real long time.”
She seemed to go limp. I think she probably knew what was happening all along, but as soon as he said those words the full impact of it hit her.
“A long time,” he went on. “Too long. You got any idea what it’s like?”
I looked at him.
“You,” he said to me. “You know what it’s like being without a woman for four and a half years? Huh?”
I almost started to laugh. I felt like asking him if he knew what it was like being with Rita and not making love to her.
But I didn’t say anything.
“Naw,” he said. “You wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know what it’s like sitting in a goddamn cell every night and going crazy. Sitting there forever.”
For a second his face seemed to relax. Then it went rigid again and he broke off.
“What did you do?” It was Rita talking this time. I wanted to tell her to shut up, to leave him alone and just pray he would go away without doing what I knew he was going to do. The words stuck in my throat.
“Huh?”
“What did you do that got you in jail?”
He smiled. It wasn’t a pretty smile.
“Oh, I did lots of things.”
“I mean—”
He walked over to her, keeping the gun trained on me as he did so. Neither of them said anything until he was standing inches away from her. He reached out a finger and chucked her under the chin as if she were a little girl.
“I took something,” he said, “something that didn’t belong to me.”
“What was it?”
He chuckled. “It was a she. A broad. Looked something like you, come to think of it.”
She said, “Oh.” Her voice was flat and empty, almost lifeless.
“Not quite the same as you,” he said. “Wore her hair long but it was a shade darker. Built a lot like you, though.”
Without warning his hand snaked out and ripped her blouse all the way open, exposing her breasts. She took a step backward, drawing in her breath sharply as she did so.
He followed her.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “Understand?”
She nodded dumbly.
He reached out and fastened a hand on her, and I could see how she shrank from his touch. For a moment I had a wild impulse to charge him. Maybe, with a little luck…
But I didn’t move. Even if the gun wasn’t loaded, even if he didn’t manage to shoot me, I still didn’t stand a chance. He could take me apart with his bare hands.