He closed the front door, flushing slightly, as Juno finished putting the basket down. “Well, that was almost scary.”
She looked at him as she stayed crouched on the floor by the basket, picking through the fruit. “They were oddly sweet. Though Brent seemed more interested in my tits than anything else...” Juno spaced out for a moment and changed the subject. “Cadence has a major crush on you.” He smirked, rubbing his cheeks, as he looked back at her. “You think I’m joking, but I haven’t seen anyone try to shut down that hard since the first time I kissed a boy. I’m sure she’s not all that familiar with male attention.”
“Why would you say that? She’s just old fashioned. Like Brent mentioned.” He paused. “Definitely unbelievably shy.”
“You think? She couldn’t even look at you. And you didn’t see her face when you touched her. Jesus. I think she soaked her panties when you kissed her hand. If she’s extremely old fashioned, maybe that was like oral sex or something.” Juno laughed as she picked the basket off the floor and moved it into the kitchen and onto the counter by the sink.
“You’re way over-analysing it.” David followed her into the kitchen and pressed himself against her back as he touched his nose to her neck and she brushed him off. “Brent would have said something if that were the case, don’t you think?”
“Mister personality? Brent? He was the one who started with the hand molesting. It was like he was tasting me. He definitely needs to get laid.” She giggled. “Maybe I’m jaded. Or maybe they’re swingers. That could be fun. You looked into it. Tell me that wasn’t Cadence’s old fashioned ass you were admiring when you watched them go.”
“Maybe they’re just normal people,” he said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve known any of them. Only you could meet ‘Joe Puritan’ and Miss ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ and think swingers. I’m pretty sure we gave her the creeps. Besides, what do you care what I look at?”
“A little tact would be appreciated.”
“I’m almost positive she didn’t notice.”
Juno glared back at him. “I meant around me, you self-absorbed shit. Anyway, I hope they are just nice, normal people.”
“I’m sure they are,” he said. “It’s going to be weird when the day comes that people like us seem strange to people like us.”
“Yeah. Well.” She turned around and kissed him on the neck, running her tongue up to his earlobe. “If that homely little bitch does have a thing for you, they’re not going to like me for long.” She breathed out softly, cooling the trail of saliva she’d left on his cheek.
“What the fuck is it with you? She wasn’t homely at all. And aren’t you not in the mood, or did I mishear you earlier? And why would it be a problem if she did have a thing for me? You dumped me already. I got the message loud and clear. Several times.”
“Whatever. You can admit she’s south of pretty, Davey,” she said. “They can’t hear you. That man’s got himself a nasty looking girlfriend. She redefines ‘prematurely grey’ and she talks like she just finished sucking a balloon full of helium, so let’s not overdo it, okay?”
“What are you talking about, Junie? She had a pleasant voice. And her hair was—”
“Jesus, Davey. She’s tall enough to play basketball and has a figure like a pipe cleaner. Not to mention her skin. The bitch looks like she fell asleep in a tanning bed. You don’t need to pretend every other woman in the world is a threat to me anymore. Especially that one. I know I’m better looking than she is. I think Brent’s a good looking man. I’d do him if he was available. That doesn’t bother you, does it?”
He shook his head. “No. I guess not. If that’s what it takes to get you interested, though, maybe I should just forget—”
“There you go. Now admit she wasn’t all that good looking.”
“Fine. She was... cute.”
“You are so full of shit.” Juno giggled as David blushed. “Like I’d feel threatened by that thing, if we were still together and they weren’t a couple. Please.”
“Funny you should mention that,” he said. “According to your new man, they’re not a couple. They’re room-mates. Like you decided we are. I can’t wait to see how you mix your signals now.”
“I’m still not threatened.” Her face turned red as she grabbed his hand, stuffed it down the back of her sweatpants and kissed at his neck more passionately. He looked away. “And don’t you worry about my signals. The fact that I don’t want an exclusive relationship doesn’t mean you can do whatever you like.”
In minutes, Juno had stripped herself bare and dragged David back to bed. And, though he begged to a certain degree, Juno refused to let him inside her unless he role-played being someone other than himself. So David pretended he was Juno: Stripping himself naked, turning his back to her, hogging the sheets and falling back asleep. She sulked, swatted at him and then grumbled as he ignored her, before drifting off too.
Richard and seven Guatemalan goons broke in the door to David and Juno’s city apartment around four-thirty in the afternoon. Franklin had suggested the tape might still be there, if they forgot to bring it wherever they ran. Though that seemed like a bullshit story designed solely to buy time, he had to check it out.
They ransacked the place in under twenty-six minutes. It was a disaster area. Dirty and filled with useless crap. Nothing worth fixing, nothing worth fencing and the living room with the soiled mattress on the floor by the window smelt like a urinal.
“How the fuck do people live like this?” he asked the goons, who looked back and him and giggled. Not understanding a word he spoke. If he wasn’t telling them to shoot something, or perform some other routine task, Paul’s goons didn’t ever get where he was coming from or what he meant. At least they did what they were supposed to.
He found the kitchen phone, checked it for a dial tone and called Paul.
“Hello?” Paul asked. “Who is this?”
“It’s me,” Richard said. “There’s no tape here.” He looked around at the goons, who were still turning the place upside down. “But the squad you sent with me is still looking. This place is fuckin’ disgusting. Let me ask you. Do these guys you sent with me... Do they know what they’re looking for?”
“Yeah,” Paul said, “I told them what to look for. You know, if you’d take the time to learn a little Spanish, they’d be a lot easier to work with.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay. Well, we’re looking, but I have to say again, I think Franky’s story about this place was a play for time.” Richard watched as the goons continued to tear the place apart, finding nothing but more garbage, getting dirtier and smellier as the search progressed. “You find anything on him the Guatemalans didn’t?”
“Yeah. A scrap of paper in his car’s glove box, with a number on it. Not an area code I recognise. Tried calling it a while ago. It’s live, but no answer.”
“Let me get that from you. I’ll give it a call and see if anyone answers. I’ll keep calling until somebody does. You got someone working on getting the reverse listing for it already?”
“What am I, the fuckin’ help?” Paul asked before he rattled off the number.
“No, sir. Paulie. I just meant—”
“I’m just fuckin’ with you, Ricky. I already had it checked. It comes up with no reverse listing. I’ve got queries in. It’s a safe house, for sure. Maybe where everything we’re looking for is at. Davey, Junie, the rest of the money and the tape. You think?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Richard said. “Franky didn’t have much time to hide everything and everyone. They’re probably all in the same place. Like I said, I’ll keep calling while your boys in the department work on getting an address. If Davey and Junie are at that number, one of their dumb asses will pick up eventually.”
“Talk to you soon. Let me know if you find anything.” Paul laughed as he hung up the phone.
Richard hung up on his end.
The goons were still busy destroying the place. The walls or the floor would p
robably start collapsing soon, given the rot. He picked up the phone and dialled the number. Anticipating the terror in Juno’s voice, as he smiled.
David and Juno woke for the second time that Saturday, at around five in the afternoon, to the sound of their kitchen phone ringing. Neither of them noticed it at first, but when the phone rang for the twenty-sixth time, Juno realised she wasn’t dreaming the noise.
She smacked at David’s stomach. “Davey, are you awake?”
He rolled away from her. “No. I’m not interested. Not anymore. Leave me alone.”
“Davey, my phone is ringing.” She sat and began dressing herself. By the time she was done, the necessity of being fully clothed to answer the phone no longer made any sense to her, but, as she was waking and wondering, it felt like the right thing to do. “Wake up, Davey.” She played with his hair and made him swat her hands away until he came to.
“All right.” He got up and threw on his clothes. “What’s going on? Are we late?”
“No,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know. What time is it?”
“There’s a clock on the stove. I think it was right.”
“Well, get up. Someone’s calling. On my phone. I don’t even know my phone number. What is it?”
“Maybe it’s on the phone?” David suggested. “Why?”
She got off the bed and began crawling out the bedroom door. Looking back, she motioned for him to follow her. “Come on. Let’s check it out.” Her voice had dropped back to a whisper. More fear. That made David realise he didn’t know their phone number either, and he wasn’t sure who would. Except Franklin. Then, by default, Richard and Paul. Even if the phone was listed, it wouldn’t be under their names. And then he wondered how in the hell they were supposed to pay their bills and why he hadn’t thought of that earlier. Maybe they did have a reason to be afraid. Maybe Franklin really had brought them out to the boondocks to be executed in isolation. He got on his knees and crawled after her.
“Maybe it’s someone calling for the previous owners?” He grabbed her left thigh and pushed her forward.
“Stop it.” She scowled and backed into his face. “I’m not hurting for a fix right now.”
“Don’t worry. I’m done playing that one-sided game. Just move your ass.”
“What? No, just... Brent said this place was empty for a while, right?” He shrugged, then nodded. “It must be Franky, yeah?”
“Let’s go find out. And stand up. The blinds are all closed.” He stood and picked her up by her armpits.
She squealed as he tickled her, and turned around to pull his head down and lightly slap him. “I said knock it off. Or I’m going to start charging you.”
“Really? I should be charging you by the headache. Lets go see,” he said, as she continued forward.
“See what?” she asked, fuming.
“Who’s calling.” He took her left hand in his and turned her around, placing his right hand on the back of her neck and nudging her forward. “I swear you have the attention span of a guppy.”
“Oh yeah. That, you dick.” She pushed him back again. “For fuck’s sake. Davey. Enough.”
“God forbid I should move you out of my path.” He bit his lower lip in frustration. “And quit pretending I’m trying to fuck you every time I have to touch you. While you intentionally get in my way. That head game doesn’t even work on strangers half the time. Get some new material.”
“You’re being an asshole. I’m just hungry.” She opened the refrigerator. It was clean, but there was nothing inside except empty shelves. “It’s down to fruit. Thank God the neighbours are feeding me tonight. I’ll go shopping tomorrow. Test out whatever my new car is. Hopefully it’s got gas in it.” She took his hand and nibbled on the fingers. Licking and sucking his thumb. More confusing signals. “Until then, you’ll have to do.”
He looked over at the stove and saw the clock on it was moving. Old fashioned. Out of date. Peeling plastic number stickers on slow rolling discs. “We should get ready.” She bit him a little harder. “It’s five twenty-four. Don’t we have to be next door at seven?”
“Yeah.” She moaned softly, a hint of disappointment in her posture. So desperate to have him, now that it wasn’t possible. “I know it’s stupid, now that I’m out of that crappy little apartment, but I kind of want to stay in with you and do nothing.”
“Me too.” He brushed back her hair.
She swatted his hand away. “But I did promise our new neighbours.”
He batted her lightly on the back of the head. “That’s the last time I’m falling for your bullshit. Knock it off, you fuckin’ tease.”
Juno ran to take a quick shower and, soon thereafter, they were all set to leave and arrive at the Strange household courteously early.
The phone rang again and they both jumped. She let out a restricted scream, before covering her mouth with her hand. They looked at each other as the phone rang again. It was cheap and plastic, a receiver with a holder nailed to the wall.
“Should we?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I’ll get it.”
“Okay. Just, don’t talk first.” She looked at him quizzically. “Trust me. Seriously. Wait and see who it is.”
She waited for the phone to ring one more time before she lifted the receiver. The other end of the line was quiet. Not dead, but no one was talking. It sounded like the call was coming from a construction site. Or maybe a destruction site. As she waited, she bumped David on the shoulder and pointed to their phone number, which was typed on a small sliver of paper crumpled into a clear plastic holder on the phone.
“Hello?” the voice on the other end of the line asked as David moved closer to Juno and she tipped the receiver’s speaker so he could hear. “Is anybody there?”
She looked at him, arching her eyebrows and covering the receiver’s mouthpiece, and he shrugged. He whispered into her free ear. “Do a fake voice.”
She nodded and began to open her mouth, when the voice on the other end of the line asked, “Davey? Junie? Is that you?” She held up her finger as she pressed the speaker to her ear. “Is that you crazy kids? Come on. You may as well talk. I know you’re there.”
She covered the mouthpiece again and whispered. “Fuck. I think it’s Ricky.” Her pupils dilated and her breath became shallow. He took the phone from her and put it to his ear to listen.
“Come on. Don’t make me wait all day for you idiots,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “I got this number from a friend of yours. Someone you used to trust. Answer.”
Juno grabbed the receiver from David’s hand as he began to speak, and slammed it back on its holder, hanging it up. “Holy shit.” She brought her hands to her temples and rubbed them as she stretched out her mouth. “Holy shit, they know where I am. They’re going to come take me. Oh my God, they know where I am. Already.”
“Franky.” He grabbed her and held her shaking body in his arms. “I knew we couldn’t trust that mother fucker.” He ran his hands through her hair, patting her on the head, trying to calm her. “He said he wouldn’t go through the trouble if he wanted us dead. I guess the other option was the correct one.”
“What do you mean?” She started to panic. “Oh fuck me for ever believing in you.”
“I mean, maybe he did go through the trouble for Ricky and Paulie’s sake. So they could come out here. Far away from the city. Kill us in a community where there’s no law enforcement. Just bury our bodies out in the corn and go back. Who would miss us?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She looked at his hands and saw they were shaking too. “You’re all I’ve got. I should have known this wasn’t going anywhere good. Nobody else in the world would miss me. No one.”
“Except maybe the neighbours,” he said, shrugging. “For however much effort they’d put into solving the mystery of the two strangers who popped into town one night and didn’t stick around.”
The phone rang again. This time, neither of them
jumped, but she grabbed hold of his hands and pulled them around her waist, running her arms around his neck and burying her head in his chest. “I’m so fuckin’ screwed. I’m going to have to run. Pray that car out back works and, if it doesn’t, then just run on my own two feet. What else can I do?”
“Nothing,” he said. “We either wait here to die or we run.”
She began to hyperventilate as the phone rang again. “I was just getting used to the idea. I’m so stupid. I thought I could make a new life here. I thought I could be happy. I trusted you. Stupid.”
“We can be happy. Just maybe later than we thought. Maybe somewhere else. Maybe apart.” The phone rang again. “Hold on.”
He picked up the phone and pressed the receiver to his ear. The voice on the other end of the line was definitely Richard. “Are you idiots ready to talk, or are you still mute?” David began to speak, but Richard cut him off. “You know we’re going to find out where this number goes, right? Maybe not this second. Maybe not today. But soon. It’s going to happen. And, when we do, we’re going to come visit. Why don’t you save me all the trouble and aggravation and we can work something out.” The line went silent for a moment, then Richard continued. “Look. You have something of ours, and we want it back. Maybe, if you quit acting like little school kids, we can work something out where no one gets hurt. We get what we need and you clowns can live out your pathetic lives in cow country. Come on. There’s got to be something we can work out.”
Juno shook her head as David answered. “What do you think we have? We don’t have anything that belongs to you.”
Juno put her head next to the speaker as Richard’s voice came through a bit more loudly. “There you are, Davey. You slimy little junkie piece of shit. Is Junie there with you? Is she listening too? You there, Junie?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m here. What do you want?”
Richard laughed.
Juno turned pale. Then she begged, “You leave me alone. You leave me alone,” as she ran back down the hallway.
“You mean ‘us’, right?” David asked as Juno disappeared.
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