ZEKE’S BABY

by Evelyn Glass

  Finally, enough strength returns to me that I manage to lift my gaze. My eyes are blurry, distorting my vision, but there’s not much to see. I’m sitting on the floor in a small, windowless cell, the only light coming from one of those buzzing insect-zappers in the corner. All around the blue flashing light, flies converge, going tzz and then falling to the floor. The floor is concrete and covered in stains I don’t want to think about. I try to stand, but I’m too weak, and anyway my ankle is chained to the wall. I trail my finger along the chain. Thick, interconnected steel, enough to keep a bodybuilder chained, let alone a woman like me. I’m short, lithe. I sit back, knowing there’s no way I’m breaking out of these bindings. Listening, I hear some quiet, muffled movements in the room beside mine.

  I freeze, my mind going crazy. Julian drugged me, I guess, drugged me and brought me here…why? Dad gave me away to Julian. Maybe now Julian has given me away to somebody else. I close my legs, fighting the urge to pee. Terror grips me, terror like I’ve never felt. It’s the sort of terror I’ve only read about in books: terror which opens up and swallows me and makes it so I can’t think or do or speak. I just sit there, shivering, as the movements continue in the next room. Something is going to happen to me, something horrible, something evil. Pain is going to become my reality. I begin to cry. I try and fight the tears, tell myself crying will do no good, but I can’t. They stream freely, dripping onto the stained concrete. In the corner, a fly goes tzz.

  The door to the cell is one of those reinforced metal ones with a chunky handle. Whoever opens it goes out of their way to open it quietly. The handle squeaks slowly, an elongated scream which climbs under my skin and makes a home there, torturing me. I realize I’m panting, gasping. My heart is drumming so fast I’m sure I hear it slamming against my ribcage. I sit back, pushing against the wall, wishing I could disappear through it as the handle continues to turn unbearably slowly. Who is on the other side of the door? It might be Julian. Maybe he drugged me and brought me here for his own use. But why bring me here? As sickening as it is to think, I was given to him. He could’ve taken me anytime he wanted. No, I’m sure it’s not Julian. I’m sure it’s somebody else, somebody who’s been given me as a payment for some task. I hate that I’m thinking like this, but Dad selling me to Julian is evidence enough that these thoughts have some merit.

  The handle is eventually turned all the way. Then the door begins to be pushed open by a man. I know he’s a man from the way he’s breathing: throaty, heavy, deep-voiced. He pushes the door open slowly, just like he turned the handle, trying to make as little noise as possible. When it’s fully open, he steps into the room. At first it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the light which pours in from the adjacent room, powerful and yellow, making the man nothing more than a silhouette.

  When it finally does, I see a tall, wide, bald man covered in so many tattoos it’s difficult to make out his features. He’s wearing a black overall, with a hood drooping at the back, so just his head and his bare hands are showing. His face is completely blanketed in swirling black tattoos, and when he smiles I see that his teeth have been filed down to sharp edges. I’m about to scream. I can’t help but want to scream. But then he brings his fingers to his lips and makes a shh sound. This is made even more threatening by the long length of rebar he holds in his other hand.

  “If you make a noise,” the man says, “I am going to kill you.” He talks quietly. “We have a guest here who doesn’t know about this secret room—no friend of yours, little slut—and we need him to go away, so don’t make a noise.” When I don’t respond, he paces across the cell in two large strides and kneels down, bringing his face close to mine. “Are you going to make a sound?” His voice has an accent I don’t recognize, something Scandinavian. If he’s working for anybody, the mob part of my mind deduces, then he’s a hired contractor, not a Family guy. He leans in closer. “I said, are you going to make a sound?” He strokes my face with the bar, which is ice-cold, causing me to shiver. “It is no big thing to kill the man out there, but our employer would not be too pleased, you understand?”

  I shake my head; talking would mean making a sound.

  “Good, good girl. Because if you do, you die. You need to understand that.”

  I nod.

  What are they going to do to me? It doesn’t take much imagination to figure that out, does it? He reaches behind me, fiddles with the chain, and pulls me to my feet. “It wasn’t even locked, you stupid bitch,” he says, grinning and flashing those spiked teeth.

  He drags me by my arm into the next room, which is a small office-type room with a desk and a chair. It looks odd, though, and it takes me a moment to figure out why. There is no door, just a bookshelf set in the opposite wall. Apart from that, and the desk and chair, the room is bare. Bare, that is, of furniture. Two men lean against the desk, both of them looking sleazy and hungry, like wild animals. I don’t even see the features of the men, my eyes are so blurred with tears: silent tears, because both of the men, despite their grinning and groaning, make no noise. I know that they’ll kill me without thought if I make noise. At least, I think they will. What should I do? How do I get out of this alive? I don’t know. Part of me knows that playing up to what they want might accomplish this, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I just want to be home, in bed, curled up in a ball where I can feel safe.

  The man prods me in the back, leading me to the desk, where the two men begin pawing at me. They grab at my breasts and my belly and my legs, just grabbing and pawing and grinning without making a noise. I feel like I’m going to be sick, a churning in my belly. I swallow it, but it keeps coming back. I tell myself not to do it, to keep it down; it might make them angry. But then one of the men, for seemingly no reason, prods me as hard as he can in the belly. I keel over, coughing, but manage to keep the vomit back.

  “So they didn’t want this little cunt, eh?” one of the men says. “Can’t see why not. She’s ripe looking.”

  “What a fool.” Another man laughs.

  I can’t tell them apart anymore. They all seem the same. The same voice, the same purpose. I swallow sick, acidic in my belly, but it doesn’t go away. My heart is beating too fast, my throat is too dry. I keep thinking about how I should’ve worn something less provocative than the sparkling dress, something these men wouldn’t find so appealing. I keep wondering if it’s possible for me to get free somehow. I keep thinking about Dad, and how I stayed behind because I thought I could get through to him, break through his armor of coldness and find some humanity in there. But he sold me, sold me, and now Julian has just passed me on. Sick, sick, sick…

  “You better not make a noise.” He’s close to my ear, whoever he is. His hand is on my upper back. He pushes, bending me over. My stomach crunches up and I can’t help it. I can’t stop myself.

  I vomit violently, loudly, all over the floor, causing the three men to leap away from me as I’m repeatedly sick on my feet. I’m still wearing one heel, I notice. All this time I’ve been loping around on one heel without realizing it. I have no idea why that seems important. I’m sick until I’m empty, and then I’m just dry-heaving, eyes stinging. Somebody grabs me by the hair and throws me to the floor.

  I land, the wall slamming into my back, coughing, winded. I draw in breath, but my throat has closed. I’m panting, can’t stop panting. My vision is wavy to the point where I’m not even sure where I am anymore. Have they put me back in the cell?

  Voices come to me as though from across a cavern.

  “She’s no goddamn use. Good to look at, but has no stamina. I say we just gag her, drill her, and get out of here.”

  “I like some life in my ladies. This is a disappointment. But still, can’t let good pussy go to waste.”

  I manage to lift my head up enough to see that one man is holding a rag. A rag—to stuff into my mouth. A rag—to silence me. Even in my aching, terrified state, I understand that if that rag is stuffed into my mouth, I will die here silently and nobody will
know what’s happened to me until these men are long gone. Maybe they’ll close that secret door behind them and nobody will find me for years. Maybe Becky Morris will simply go missing. Time slows down as the man takes the rag from a desk drawer and walks towards me. If I shout, they will kill me, but if I don’t shout, they will rape and then kill me. The decision should be obvious, but the threat of that pipe, dangling like a snake ready to strike at the man’s side, is enough to make me clamp down my teeth almost until the rag is in my mouth.

  But then he keels down, rag coming at me, and I see it all too clearly: I see my shifting, juddering body; I see the life sinking from my eyes; I see the men pulling down their pants and taking turns and—and—and—

  “No! No! Help me! Help me!” I scream. “Please! Help me! Please! Stop! Stop! Help me! Help me—”

  “Stupid bitch!” the man snarls, shoving the rag into my mouth. It’s dirty, greasy, filling my mouth with an oily taste. I try and push it out with my tongue, but the man pushes it in all the way to the back of my throat, choking me. I cough, wriggle. The man goes to the desk and gets some duct-tape, wraps a piece around my mouth, around my head, three times around to make sure I can’t make any noise. Saliva pools in my mouth already. I’m going to drown in my own spit before they have a chance to murder me. I kick, flail, desperate to get away, but they hold me down as they argue over me.

  “We have to kill her,” a different man says.

  “I haven’t even fucked her yet.”

  “We have to kill her! What if he heard?”

  “We’ll take care of him. He’s just a Family man. Pussies like that, what’s he gonna do to us?”

  “I’m killing her.” I focus, and see that it’s the tattooed man who wants me dead. He moves toward me with his metal pipe, shaking his head, making a little tutting noise. “I wanted to have fun with you, little whore. I really did. But sometimes, a man has to put his life over his cock, you understand?”

  The other men move aside, muttering angrily, but moving all the same. The bald man lifts the pipe, aiming at my skull. He will hit me. He will hit me with all his strength and my head will explode like a watermelon.

  I try and scream, but all I can do is squirm like somebody whose tongue has been cut out.

  Then the shooting starts.

  Chapter Four

  Chance

  This is some sorry fuckin’ business, walking up and down with a piece of cloth and spraying bleach like I’m the goddamn cleaner. I retrace my steps, one by one, cleaning anythin’ I might’ve touched. I’m wearing gloves now, pissed at myself that I didn’t wear ’em before. A cop—a goddamn cop. I’ve worked my way back into the slaughterhouse when I hear a scream, a woman screaming at the top of her lungs, from the other side of the warehouse. “Please! Help me! Please! Stop! Stop! Help me!”

  I’m runnin’ before I think. If there’s a woman screaming in here, then that’s more witnesses I need to deal with. More Bandit bastards who might know I’m here, put this whole goddamn mess on my head. There may be cameras that need dealing with. I sprint quickly through the warehouse, down corridors, in the general direction the scream came from. For most men, five seconds of screaming wouldn’t be enough to locate exactly where it came from, but I ain’t most men. I’ve been training on this shit for years. I’ve gotta get there, and wipe ’em out. Cleanin’ this place is a fuckin’ joke. Kill ’em, get out of here, run, just fuckin’ run. Screw the Family, screw the life, take the cash I’ve got tucked away and get out of here.

  I take my pistol from the holster, steeling myself for it. I ain’t goin’ down as a cop killer, and I ain’t ratting anyone out. So that leaves one option.

  I end up in a hallway where I’m sure the scream came from—near here, at least. But all I see is a bookshelf and then—Fuck! I duck low as the man emerges from the opposite end, twelve-gauge shotgun in his hands. He’s dressed all in black like the men who did the slaughter, so I reckon the bastards never left. His shot cuts the air above me, taking a chunk outta the wall. I shoot at his arm, and then his other arm, and then his foot. He collapses to the floor, droppin’ the gun and moaning like a little bitch. The lights above start flickerin’, and then go out entirely. I must’ve shot the fuse box. I take my flashlight from my pocket, hold it in my teeth, and approach the man carefully.

  He’s pale like a ghost with bright green eyes. I kneel down next to him. “Where’d that screamin’ come from?” I say, taking my machete out and drawing a nice clean slice down his face, making him moan a little more. “I ain’t got time to fuck around with you, so tell me and I’ll kill you clean, you understand?” I cut him again. “Tell. Me.”

  I’m about to cut him a third time when he blabbers, “The bookshelf! The bookshelf!”

  On the other side of the bookshelf, I hear somebody curse in a foreign language. “You’ve been very helpful,” I tell the man, before splitting his head with the machete. Blood flares everywhere like a fuckin’ fountain. I leave the machete buried in his skull, reload my pistol, and kick through the bookshelf. One boot is all it takes, and fake books and plasterboard is flying like shrapnel all over the place. All we have for light is our gunshots and the flashlight, but I’ve fought in the dark more times than I can count. Two sleazy-lookin’ bastards crouch behind the desk. I put ’em down easily, two quick shots to the head, and then I aim the flashlight near the door to what looks like a prison cell.

  A bald guy stands there, his face tattooed to hell and back, one of his thick arms wrapped around a woman and the other holding somethin’ to her back. Might be a gun, but I can’t see it. Could just be his hand. I don’t look at the woman, since she ain’t a threat, just stare into the man’s eyes.

  “Now, let’s talk about this,” he tries. Fucking idiot. “I’m sure we can—”

  I put a bullet between his eyes and he falls to the ground like a sack of shit. I see that it was a small pocket handgun he was aiming at the girl’s back. The girl is sprayed with his blood. Her eyes are wide, and an ugly gurgling noise is coming from her throat. Fucking idiots must have stuffed the rag so far back there she’s drowning. This must be the girl Nate was talking about.

  There’s a split second where it’s obvious the right decision is to put this girl down so there are no witnesses, go and kill Nate, and then get out of town. This is mob life, and in mob life, you don’t hang around for the boys in blue. For the hundredth time, I think to myself: A dead fuckin’ cop.

  But the girl is young-looking, maybe eighteen or twenty, with eyes darker’n the sea at night, and just as deep. Her hair is straight and brown down to her chin, and her nose is like a button. Her body is tight, skinny, on display in a torn sparklin’ dress. There’s no doubt this is Julian’s piece. I have a choice. And I can’t bring myself to let her drown in her own spit while she’s watching me. If I’d chosen to do it to her, that’d be a thing. But—I reach out and cut the tape, she’s so panicked and weak she can’t get the rag out on her own. I pull it out of her mouth and she vomits, a weak string of spit and bile. The place reeks; it probably wasn’t the first time she threw up. How long has she been here? What has been done to her? How many times has she been raped today?

  This ain’t my business. My business is to kill her and get outta here before the cops try’n link me to a cop killin’, or trust that I can get out of this mess without more blood. That’s the smart move. Yeah, it’ll put a price on my head, but what’s the choice? If Julian were still in good with Giovanni, I’d bring her back and trust to their protection to get me out of this mess, but without that? If Giovanni wanted her, he would have said so. But there’s something about her that’s makin’ it damn hard to pull the trigger. Just aim at her head and pull the trigger and get outta here.

  She isn’t a fool. She must see what I’m thinkin’, ’cause she darts across the room to the desk and picks up one of the dead men’s guns. She aims it at me, hands shaking, her eyes so wide that there’s a broad circle of white around her irises. Her hand is shaking s
o bad I don’t reckon she’d hit the ground she’s standing on, let alone hit me from across the room, but I’ve seen people who’ve never held a gun before kill men from hundreds of yards out, and men who’ve handled guns all their lives miss at point-blank range. Guns are tricky bastards when you come down to it. Anythin’ can happen.

  I aim at her, just like she aims at me, only my hand don’t shake one bit.

  “You’re going to kill me,” the girl says, voice sounding all throaty and sexy. Hell of a time to be thinkin’ like this, but I can’t help it. With those pale thin legs sticking out of her dress and her innocent naïve face looking at me, I’m instantly rock hard just looking at her, the little piece of ass. But there’re more important things right now, so I focus.

  “I ain’t goin’ to kill you,” I say. It’s more like I hear myself say it. I could kill her at any moment, even with that little peashooter in her hand. And yet here I am, talkin’ with her. “Listen,” I go on, and now I’m lowering my gun like a goddamn fool, “I don’t wanna hurt you. Let me get you outta here, alright? Let me get you someplace safe. I know who you are. You’re Mikey’s kid. Julian was gonna have you, right? I know who you are. I’m here to help.”