One Night Stands & Lost weekends - By Lawrence Block Page 0,19
hand tightened on her and she gasped.
“You’re built better than she was,” he said. “Bigger in the chest anyway. Let’s see how your legs stack up against hers.”
She didn’t move.
“Come on,” he said. “Get the skirt off.”
It took her a moment to respond. Then she unhooked the skirt and stepped out of it. She wasn’t wearing a slip—only a pair of black lace panties that matched the bra which was now in the backseat of the car.
I couldn’t help staring at her. Even knowing what was going to happen to her, knowing that we would both be dead in an hour or two at most, I still couldn’t help staring at her and realizing how breathtakingly beautiful she was. Her legs were long, with trim ankles and rounded calves leading up to swelling, full thighs.
“Nice,” he murmured. “Very nice.”
Her mouth opened and closed without any sounds coming out.
“The panties,” he said suddenly. “Get ’em off.”
“What—”
“Come on,” he snapped. “I don’t have time to waste.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
The smile was back on his face, leering and open and ugly. “You damned little fool,” he said. “Now what in hell do you think I’m going to do?”
She didn’t say anything. I could see the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
“I’m going to make up for four and a half years,” he said. “Now get the pants off.”
“Wait a minute,” I said.
He spun toward me and glared at me.
“Look,” I said, “if you let us go I’ll get you more money. I’ve got a few hundred at home. It’ll get you out of the state.”
He laughed. “Don’t be a damn fool all your life,” he said. “We couldn’t even make it to your home, and we’d never make the state line. They got the roads blocked off all around.”
“They know you escaped?”
“They sure as hell ought to,” he said. “I broke out with half the prison watching me.”
“But—”
He didn’t let me finish. “I haven’t got a chance in hell,” he said. “By now they’ve got the whole area sealed off and they’ll be closing in soon. They’re going to get me.”
“Look,” I began. “If you let us alone and if you give yourself up maybe they’ll go easy on you.”
This time his laugh went through me like a cold wind. “Cut the crap,” he said. “I was doing life for rape. You think they’ll commute my sentence because I gave myself up?”
“But—”
He laughed again, even harsher this time. “I killed a guard on the way out. Shot another one in the gut and he’s probably croaked by now. Still think I should give up? Or do you have any more bright ideas?”
I didn’t say anything this time.
“I’m just out to get what I can,” he said. “Right now I’m going to have some fun with your broad here. Then I’ll probably kill the two of you, depending on how I feel. Then when the law comes I’ll see how many of them I can take with me. And that’s all—no more time in stir, no more nights in a cell. See?”
I saw.
He turned back to Rita. “The pants,” he said. “In a hurry.”
She took off her panties, slipping them down over her hips and thighs and stepping out of them. She was shaking like a leaf. It wasn’t hard to figure out why.
“Please,” she said suddenly. “Please—don’t.”
This got him mad. “You little bitch,” he said. “I’m going to be dead in an hour or two—what the hell is it to you if I have some fun first? It’s not like I was taking something away from you.”
She hesitated. “I…I never did it before.”
He stared at her. “Huh?”
“I’m a…a virgin.”
“Sure,” he said flatly. “Sure, so am I. We’re all virgins. You and him—the two of you were just playing doctor in the backseat. Sure.”
“I mean it,” she protested. “Jim and I…we never went all the way.”
He turned to me. “She telling the truth?”
I just nodded.
He looked at her again. Then he looked at me.
Then he started to laugh.
“You little punk,” he said when he stopped laughing. “A guy like you, you wouldn’t know what to do with a broad like this. What’s the bit—just sit around necking?”
My cheeks were burning. But Rita was nodding very earnestly.
“Hell,” he said. “I outgrew that when I was in junior high. I guess some people take awhile to grow up.”
I still don’t understand it exactly. When he touched her, when he told me what he was going to do to her,