by Rick R. Reed
"Yeah . . . it's a deal. I'm staying at the Law-son YMCA on Chicago Avenue in the city."
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you? I wouldn't like that."
With no emotion, Joe said, "I would have everything to lose if I lied to you."
"Right." She handed him a twenty-dollar bill. "Here. If you're a good little boy I might give you some more."
"Thanks," Joe said, and hurried out the door.
As she watched him leave, there was a mixture of agony and love on her face. What's happening to me? she thought.
Joe looked up at the night sky. It was black and starless. The pace of the night had slowed down. People were tucked away for the night. Normal husbands slept curled against normal wives, their normal little children asleep down the hall after a glass of water and being tucked in. Joe wished he were like them.
But he wasn't.
He needed the taste of hot blood pumping into his mouth. The feel of life ebbing out of someone and into him.
"Where the fuck you been until ten o'clock?"
Becky stared at the man she had married just three months ago. He was still handsome, even if he was furious with her, even if she could feel the slap that was coming. The slap that would jar her teeth and knock her into the Formica countertop in their kitchen. She'd been getting a few of those ever since they returned from their week-long honeymoon at Wisconsin Dells. The dark hair still gleamed, even if his face was red and angry; the eyes were as dark and sexy as they had been when she first fell in love with him in the back seat of his car on their first date. They had been seniors in high school then. Only a year ago. Why did it seem like such a long time ago?
"I asked you a fuckin' question."
"I was out ... at Ma's. I told you that."
"I called your mom's. There was no answer."
"So? We were at the mall."
"Bullshit. You were with somebody else. You can't tell me any different. You think I don't know when my own wife is puttin' out for another guy?" He grabbed her by the front of her pink blouse, lifted her from the floor, and threw her against the cabinets.
It felt like something snapped in her sides. A rib?
Becky lifted herself from the floor. Ma was only four blocks away. The hell with him.
"Where are you goin'?"
"Ma's." She was sobbing.
He didn't say anything. When she opened the door she felt a bruising kick in her bottom. She fought to stay upright, but landed on her knees. Nothing hurt anymore. She heard him laughing before he slammed the door.
Joe was in a phone booth calling a cab when he saw her limping up Oak Park Avenue. No, he told himself, leave her alone. This is too close to the other one. You can't touch her. But as he was thinking, he was hanging up the phone and quietly opening the door to the telephone booth.
I can't do this, he thought. Somewhere inside, a voice said, "Just this one last time, Joe. Tomorrow you'll go back to Anne and start over."
No, no .. . please don't make me. . . .
He followed her for a couple of blocks, then she stopped and turned, looking back at him. She started to walk faster.
"Hey!" he said. "Don't be afraid. I'm not a mugger. Just an insomniac." Joe laughed. He caught up with her and she stopped, looking up at him, her eyes afraid.
"Please," he said, giving her one of his best smiles. "I'm not a creep. Really. I live right down the street, near eighteenth. I just couldn't sleep. Hell, I should be afraid of you. Is anything wrong? What are you doing out so late?"
She stared at him. She must have been debating whether she should talk to him. Finally she said, "I had a fight with my husband. I was going by my ma's."
"Oh, well, you know you shouldn't be out walking alone this late at night. A pretty lady like you. Listen, would you let me walk you to your mother's? I'd feel like I was doing my good deed for the day. I promise I wouldn't hurt you. I just don't like seeing someone as young and pretty as you out alone like this."
"I know you wouldn't hurt me." She looked like she was in thought for a moment. "Okay, I guess I'd probably be better off."
They walked along01 in silence for a while. Becky could see her mother's bungalow ahead. "Well, there it is. Thanks. I think I can make it the rest of the way by my—"
"Damn!" Joe shouted, grabbing his eye.
"What's the matter?" Becky turned to stare at him.
"My contact just popped out. Can you help me find it?"
Becky dropped to her knees and began groping on the dark sidewalk for something that wasn't there. She hardly felt Joe's joined hands come down hard on the back of her neck. And when her face slammed into the concrete, she was already unconscious.
Joe removed the X-Acto knife from his pocket.
16
Anne applied the last of the pale gray eyeshadow and looked at herself in the mirror. Years of modeling had taught her well how to hide distress, exhaustion, and abuse. Putting her makeup back in the top drawer of her vanity table, she told herself she was hiding her turmoil, and nothing more. No matter that her long black hair was brushed to a sheen, catching and reflecting the light, no matter that she had put on her finest pale blue silk blouse, no matter the jeans she wore showed off her legs better than any mini-skirt.
She thought of Nick MontPierre. He would be in her apartment in a half hour and Anne felt, in spite of herself, an excitement she hadn't experienced since her dating days back in college; she also felt a kind of dread. Nick had told her over the phone he had some information she would be anxious to hear. He also had photographs to back the information up. Nick hadn't told her anything of his findings, insisting he do it in person. Obviously the news wasn't good. Her mind went back to the photographs. . . . She pictured Nick on the fire escape of some tawdry hotel, taking pictures of Joe writhing on gray sheets with a woman, their bodies sweating and frantic with hours of coupling in the dark.
The buzzer sounded in the living room and Anne rose to answer it. Normally when she expected someone, she would just buzz them in without inquiring as to who was calling, but lately she was afraid of letting Joe in.
"Who's there?"
"Nick MontPierre." *
She pressed the button to admit him and hurried around the living room, straightening things. She disappeared into the kitchen and put a pot for tea on the stove. There was a plate of Mrs. Field's chocolate chip cookies on the counter.
Nick looked solemn when she opened the door, his rugged face pulled down into a frown. He came in and sat down at the dining room table. Lighting a cigarette, he said, "Sit down."
Anne seated herself, thinking the line should have been hers. "You're not bringing good news, are you?"
"I don't know. I just give my clients what I've observed and try to let them decide whether the news is good or not."
"Okay," Anne said, certain such a preface could only mean bad news. "What have you found out?"
Nick took off his raincoat and pulled up the sleeves of his sweater. He folded his hands in front of him. "I've watched your husband the past couple days. For the most part he's been staying at a hotel in Rogers Park called The Pratt, the one you mentioned."
Anne nodded.
"Anyway, he moved out of there a couple days ago and checked into the Lawson YMCA on Chicago Avenue."
Anne thought of the Lawson Y, how seedy it always looked when she walked by. She couldn't imagine Joe, with his refined tastes, living in a place like that. She noticed Nick had removed a packet of photographs from his coat pocket. He placed it on the table in front of her.
"I wasn't able to get too many shots, but what I did get, I think, is significant. I watched your husband last night. He headed up Rush Street and approached several prostitutes who wouldn't have anything to do with him. Probably because he looked like a bum." He took out one photograph and Anne picked it up. Her hand shook as she held it out in front of her.
Anne saw Joe, in the harsh light of a street lamp, talking to a black hooker, the kind he would have made fun of in the past
. Even through the graininess of the photograph, she saw the look of desperation on his face, more than need, more than lust ... a frantic obsession. And that was what probably frightened the prostitutes away, more than his disheveled appearance. Nick put two more pictures in front of her.
"He seemed particularly anxious to please this one. He spent more time with her than with the others."
Anne picked up the photo and felt an electric jolt go through her. This couldn't be her husband. Joe would never try to seduce someone like this. She was just a little girl. The makeup and clothes could never hide her youth; she couldn't have been more than twelve. God, God, Anne thought, who was this man I married?
"He wasn't successful with any of them," Nick said. "Later I was able to follow him to Berwyn."
"Where's that?"
"It's a western suburb. Anyway, he went there to the apartment of a person named Pat Young." Nick threw another, the last, of the photos in front of her.
Anne saw Joe standing in a run-down vestibule, waiting to be admitted to the building.
"Does the name mean anything to you?"
"I've never heard it." Anne's voice was breathless, almost a squeak.
"He may or may not have spent the night there. I waited for quite a while outside for him, and I couldn't wait any longer. It was too damn cold. I had to follow him by subway, so I couldn't even sit in my car."
"I guess he's having an affair . . . affairs . . . something." Anne's voice was emotionless; she didn't want to break down in front of him. She took a breath and asked, "Were you able to find anything out about this Pat Young?"
Nick slid a typewritten report in front of her. "Near the bottom of the page." Nick indicated with his finger where the information about Pat Young started. "She's lived at the same address on Oak Park Avenue for the past few years. She's an invalid, paralyzed from the waist down. Fell from an overhead crane at the steel mill where she used to work down in Joliet. Lives on disability the mill pays. Doesn't really do much, that I could find."
"So Joe isn't having an affair with her? I mean, she's paralyzed."
"I don't know what the connection is."
Anne covered her face with her hands. None of this made any sense.
She felt Nick's hands on her shoulders, kneading. She put her hands down on the table. "I don't understand any of this. This isn't the husband I knew. If you didn't show me those pictures I'm not sure I would have believed you."
"I'll keep looking, Anne. I'll find out what's going on. Okay?"
Anne turned to look up at him. Stared into the dark eyes and thin lips. She felt a growing nausea. How could Joe do this to her? She thought of all the come-ons, all the offers she had had over the years, and how she had never once even been tempted. God, to be left for some cripple . . . How could he?
Nick's hands on her shoulders felt good. His grip was warm and strong. She reached behind her and covered his hands with hers. Calloused. Rough. He was a man who must do some real work. Joe's hands were always so soft, smooth. He rubbed lotion into them. Did the whores like his touch? she wondered. Did Pat Young?
Again, she turned to iook up at Nick. He didn't realize she was looking and she saw in his handsome face a mixture: There was a calmness there, but it was tinged with confusion.
"You're fascinated by him, aren't you?" she whispered.
"What?" Nick stopped kneading her shoulders and drew his hands away. "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. I thought I saw something in your eyes . . . when we were . . . um . . . looking at the photographs." Anne watched as Nick's face clouded, the thin lips turned down into a frown. His face was beautiful, Anne thought, so rugged. So unlike Joe, with his pretty-boy good looks. Did those black sluts like that face above them as he fucked? Did the little girl tramps see a handsome prince, a daddy, as he rammed his dick in them? Anne lowered her head. No, she thought, I will not cry. I will not.
Once more she felt Nick's hands at her shoulders.
"It's gonna be okay," he whispered. "Really."
And once more she reached up to take his hands in hers. She brought them down, letting them rest on her breasts. For a moment he cupped them through the soft material of her blouse, and for a moment Anne forgot about Joe's betrayal.
"Make love to me," she whispered, her voice barely audible even to herself.
Nick pulled his hands away and walked to the bank of windows. He lit a cigarette and stared out at the winter-gray day for a long time. "I'd like to do that. I really would. But if I did, what would it make me?" He looked over at her and she was stunned to see he was trembling. "I can't fuck my clients to make everything all right again. This has happened before, Anne. A little getting even. Although I can say it's never happened with someone so pretty." He tried to smile at her, to soften the rejection, but it wasn't very convincing.
Anne thought of Joe's smile, how it could light up a room. And how fake it was. How fucking fake. She stood and walked to Nick. She stared into his gray eyes, and as she walked toward him she unbuttoned the pale blue blouse, never losing eye contact, daring him to look down, down at the breasts she would soon be exposing. "This isn't what you think, Nick. I've wanted you since I met you." She dropped the blouse to the floor behind her and went to him—wondering if some whore had done the same with Joe—went to him and wrapped her arms around him. Kissed him, exploring the inside of his mouth with her tongue when his resistant lips finally went slack, tasting a bittersweet taste . . . cigarettes and Nick. She reached down to feel the effect she was having on him, sure of what she would find. "You want me, don't you?"
"That's not the point. This isn't right." There wasn't much, if any, conviction in his voice.
Anne unzipped her jeans. She wriggled out of them, pulling her panties down with them. She stepped back to stand naked before him. "I'm dripping, Nick. I want you so bad." Staring at him, she slid a finger inside herself and brought it back out. "Taste," she whispered. "Taste what you do to me."
He opened his mouth, sucked on the finger she offered.
And then he was grabbing her and pulling her hair as he ground his face into hers, kneading her breasts and finally lifting her and carrying her to the couch. He knelt between her thighs, struggling to get out of his clothes.
"Hurry," Anne whispered, closing her eyes and then opening them again quickly because all she saw was Joe.
Finally, his clothes were in a heap on the floor. Anne glanced down to see Nick's cock peeking out of its foreskin, dripping. She bit her lip and remembered Joe, remembered looking down the same way so many times in the past.
She grabbed his hips, pulling him toward her. "Please, oh, please . . ." she whispered, raising her hips off the couch to meet his thrust. He was in her and she bucked against him, grinding herself hard against him, writhing around and trying so hard (oh, please), trying to make it hurt. She grabbed his hands and put them on her breasts. "Pinch them, please," she gasped, "hard. Twist them. Bite me," she whimpered, the tears at last coming.
She clawed his back and bit his shoulder. "Hurt me, hurt me bad," she whispered, certain that through his own moans and grunts he hadn't heard.
And still she could not get the image of Joe out of her mind.
* * *
After, she lay with her head on the curly mat of hair on his chest. It didn't work, she thought, I wanted it to work so bad and it didn't. She stood and pulled her blouse on, sat on the floor, her back against the couch. She felt his hand on her shoulder. "What's the matter? Not good?"
"Oh, it was great." Anne said. She bit her lip. No tears. "You're a great lay, Nick," she laughed.
Nick closed his eyes, wishing she would stop. This wasn't what he hoped to hear. He had never found himself feeling this way about a woman before.
"Does that bother you?" she asked.
"Yeah, it does. I don't like to think of myself as a tranquilizer for mixed-up ladies." He sat up and reached for his pants.
"Wait," she said, grabbing his arm and pushing him back
down on the couch. "Don't feel bad. It's not what you think"—(oh, yes, it is)— "I care a lot for you." She snuggled up to him on the couch. "Besides, we have things to talk about, right?" She took his chin, turned his face to hers, knowing that her eyes, her smile would put the hesitation out of his mind.
Anne picked up a plate of cookies in the kitchen and poured a mug of milk for the two of them to share. She returned to the living room and sat next to him.
"What's next?" she asked.
Nick sighed and looked at her. He shook his head for a moment, then began: "First we find out a little more about Joe. I was a little surprised you didn't know more. But I'll find out about his family, where he's from, things like
that. Sometimes those things can help put people together. Who knows? Maybe Pat Young is Joe's sister, or his mother."
Anne felt a chill. She knew so little about Joe.
"I'll watch him some more. Maybe I'll find out what's going on that way."
"I just don't know. I want to know real bad what's going on, but part of me doesn't want to know in the worst way."
"Look, there's nothing to worry about. We don't know anything yet. Maybe it's all something very explainable. Maybe he's just in need of some psychiatric help."
"Well, I don't need a private detective to tell me that."
Nick laughed. "I'm just saying all the mystery might add up to something not all that awful."
"I hope you're right." Anne got up and went to the desk in the sun-room. She took out her checkbook and started writing. "Don't feel like a gigolo; I just want to give you your first check now . . . while I'm thinking about it." She finished writing the check and held it out to him.
He took it from her, folded it, and reached over to cram it in his pants pocket. "Let's make that the last one."
"As long as I put out, I don't have to pay?"
'That's not funny." He pulled her down beside him. "This is premature and against all my good judgment about women, but I think I'm falling in love with you."
