by Unknown
Funzi and Beez led the firefighters to the front door, and their voices carried easily up to the bedroom. They sounded almost jovial, like a bunch of guys going to the bar after a softball game.
“I think I’ll have my wife and son go stay in a hotel for the night. You know, don’t want the little guy breathing that smoke,” Funzi said.
Chrissy paused and Stella wished she could pat her shoulder or comfort her in some way, but after a second Chrissy attacked the knots with renewed vigor.
“Not a bad idea, sir. If you call the station tomorrow they can give you the name of a couple of outfits that deal in smoke damage. You know, for the drapes and what-all.”
“Yeah, I guess the rest of it’ll keep us busy for the weekend. So much for fishing.”
“That’s a damn shame.” Another voice. “Hope to see you back on the water soon.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Just then, Stella felt Chrissy pull the loosened strands free, shoving them out of the way with her fingers, and Stella opened and closed her fists a couple of times to get the feeling back, noting with dismay that they were slick with her own blood.
She closed her fingers over the handle of the rotary cutter just as Funzi and Beez stomped up the stairs and into the room. She prayed they wouldn’t see the blood seeping under her hands, staining the bedspread beneath her and Chrissy.
Funzi stood in the doorway and leered in. He looked almost maniacal, a grin stretched across his otherwise grim features.
“Isn’t that great?” he said. “Nice to see your tax dollars at work like that, huh?”
Behind him, Beez tagged along. He didn’t look one bit happy. Stella could sympathize. The evening wasn’t exactly a smashing success for anyone so far.
“Ought to rip your head off right now,” Beez muttered.
“You nearly screwed us with what you did to Roy Dean,” Funzi said, his manic voice edging higher. “Leaving him lying out on the ground for anyone to see. Good thing Beez got down there fast. He put Roy Dean into the cushion box. Big old Rubbermaid thing we keep the cushions for the outdoor furniture in? I mean, the thing was perfect, like it was made for holding a body. Only Roy Dean started to wake up. Fucking beat that. He starts to wake up and what’s Beez supposed to do, we got the fuckin’ fire department down our shorts, can’t have Roy Dean making noise and pounding on the box, now, can we? So Beez had to put a bullet in his brain.”
Beez looked away, his face darkening, and Stella felt her face go rigid with horror. She remembered the feel of Roy Dean’s pulse under her fingers, and she couldn’t help thinking that he had been alive, he’d still been breathing when she left him lying on the patio.
She hadn’t killed him. But he was dead anyway, and he wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for her. Did that make her guilty? Did it matter? Before the night was out, more people were going to be dead. Probably her and Chrissy—but not if she had anything to say about it.
“You might as well been the one who pulled the trigger,” Funzi added, as though he were reading Stella’s thoughts. He prodded her tied ankles with a meaty hand. “You cost me one of my men. I might have to, you know, express my displeasure with you before I shoot you.”
Stella looked at the pale skin of Funzi’s stomach, a band of which hung over the elastic waist of his pajama bottoms. She imagined sinking the rotary blade in right there, rolling a nice big slice out of him. Now wasn’t the time, though, not with both of them focused on her and Chrissy. She needed to get one of them alone.
“Marie! Get down here!” Funzi hollered down the hall. His wife appeared in the doorway, holding Tucker in her good arm, with a diaper bag over her shoulder.
Chrissy strained against the ropes and grunted frantically against the tape against her mouth. The sound was heartbreaking. Tucker heard it, and his little blond head whipped around and he arched away from Marie, leaning out with his arms and screaming.
The boy recognized his mama, even with her battered face and tape over her mouth.
Stella figured her heart was going to break right there. Then she made herself take all that anguish and turn it into honed, sharp fury, pictured it swirling in her gut, ready to burst out and take down all the evil in the room.
Marie struggled to get the boy under control with her good arm, the bag slipping to her elbow and dangling there. Tucker wasn’t a dainty child. He was pink and round and big, and Stella figured it would be a miracle if he didn’t wiggle out of her one-arm grasp, Marie red-faced with the effort of hanging on to him.
Marie didn’t look toward the bed. Stella wanted to scream at her: Look here, right here, this is Tucker’s real mother. The woman your husband is going to shoot down like a dog, just so you can playact at being Mommy. She willed Marie to look, but the woman turned away.
“Jesus fuck, Marie, get him out of here,” Funzi said, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket. “Take the Escalade. Go to the town house. I’ll be there later today. Move.”
He gave his wife a perfunctory peck on the cheek and a little shove, and she staggered down the hall without a backward glance.
That peck on the cheek—noisy, brief—Ollie used to kiss Stella like that, but only if there were other people around. She’d be standing with a group of women at the Knights of Columbus barbecue and he’d come over, flush with a few beers, bringing the conversation to a halt with his lurching, leering presence. The women would all watch as he winked broadly and kissed Stella. Sometimes he’d pat her butt, too. And then he’d wander off to find his buddies and another beer, and there would be this little silence before the conversation started up again, and even though it was a matter of seconds, it was excruciating, and Stella knew what they were all thinking.
That she was a saint to put up with Ollie Hardesty. And that somebody ought to stop him from doing what they all knew he did.
And then someone would mention that her niece was having surgery for a fibroid the size of a tennis ball, and Stella would stand quietly with the trace of the kiss burning an invisible scar on her cheek.
Stella felt a little sorry for Marie. It was going to be a tough drive, wherever she was going, probably up to the city, fifty or sixty miles with her arm screaming in pain. Maybe they’d get pulled over for not having a car seat—but what would that accomplish? If she and Chrissy didn’t walk out of this place, even if Tucker somehow escaped Funzi and his wife, he’d be headed straight for social services. Foster care. The start of a whole other kind of no-good life.
There were no two ways about it: she and Chrissy had to come out of this alive.
Funzi gestured at the women. “So Beez, what do you think of taking the ladies out for a boat ride?”
“Sure,” Beez said, but he still looked pretty crabby.
“Go get the keys, I think they’re still on the cooler out in the garage. Or maybe on the hook in the game room. Somewhere down there, anyway.”
Beez left the room.
“Here’s the thing, girls,” Funzi said, going to the corner of the room where he had thrown Stella’s holster. He picked up the scissors, examined them carefully, admiring the curve of the blades. Then he came over and sat next to Stella on the bed. “You ladies are the plus-size variety. That’s a problem. Beez and I are gonna have a hard time carrying a couple of heifers like yourselves out of here, so you’re going to have to cooperate.”
Stella glared at Funzi. He was enjoying this. Having fun at their expense. As if to confirm her suspicion, he pulled the hair away from her face, almost delicately, and put the tip of the scissors to the edge of the duct tape gag. Slowly, carefully, he worked the blade under the edge of the tape and cut through it. He was cutting into her skin, too, Stella was pretty sure, given the sharp pain she felt.
Once he got the cut started, he picked at a corner of the tape with his thumb and forefinger. He leaned in close to her face, and Stella could smell him: sweat and body odor and traces of some fruity aftershave.
There was a ripping sound and suddenly her fac
e was a world of pain. Funzi had yanked the tape away in one furious motion, and it felt like it had taken a couple of her stitches out and opened up all her gashes again and stripped a few layers of skin as well. Her lip dribbled blood, no doubt split further than before. She gasped involuntarily and then worked her jaw back and forth, trying to get some sensation back into it.
“Not much of a looker, is she?” Funzi laughed, addressing Chrissy and pointing to Stella with the scissors. “They say she took out her husband. Poor guy, he probably wasn’t sticking it to her enough. That what got you so mad, Stella? Huh?”
He chuckled at his own humor, and Stella squeezed the rotary cutter hard, the handle sticky with her blood.
“But it’s kind of hard to blame him. I mean, even without the shit kicked out of you, it’s not like you’re gonna win the Miss World title, you know? Now you—” pointing at Chrissy with thumb and forefinger cocked, gun-style. “You got some potential. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings, calling you a heifer. You see my wife? See how damn skinny she is? Man, she ain’t had anything decent to eat in years. Drives me bat-shit. I’m like, Marie, have a fucking French fry, for Christ’s sake.”
More mirth. Funzi was able to amuse himself pretty easily. “Yeah, but I like you. I do,” Funzi said softly, letting his gaze travel up and down Chrissy. “Nice and soft, probably feel pretty good to sink into, and you’d have plenty to hang onto, you know?”
He leered suggestively, but Chrissy shot him a glance that Stella figured made it pretty clear what she thought of the idea. Good girl, she thought. Stay angry.
“You’re not her type,” Stella muttered through her bloody lips. “You ain’t anybody’s type, ’cept your own. Too bad you couldn’t just fuck yourself so you could be with someone who loves you back.”
Funzi’s eyebrows shot up, and then he was laughing, but his laughter had a hard, mean edge to it now.
“Now see, there’s that bitterness again. Woman, you are desperately in need of a good screwing, but I’m sorry, that’s just not going to happen. Maybe in your next life.”
The humorous tone was gone now. He had lost his patience; he was done playing with them, and Stella tensed, sensing the moment was near.
“You know,” he said, pointing at Chrissy again, “you ought to be thanking me. Your boy’s gonna have things you’d never have been able to give him. Private school, soccer and baseball, decent clothes, a car on his sixteenth birthday. And you know what?”
He leaned across Stella, getting as close to Chrissy’s face as he could, and it was clear that he was enjoying her pain, enjoying dishing out the cruelty.
“He won’t remember you,” he said, voice soft and silky. “Don’t fool yourself about that little episode a few minutes ago. This time next week he’ll be calling me Daddy.”
Stella found herself staring into his ear, a fleshy, large, knobby thing with hair on the inside. As she swung her arm from behind, up and over in an arc, she was able to make a detailed observation of Funzi’s ear hair—it was one of those moments that seems to stretch on forever, even though it lasted a mere fraction of a second. Evidently Funzi hadn’t done any personal grooming in a while, because the bristly black hairs were a quarter of an inch long, as though he was growing a wire brush inside his ear, and as Stella brought the rotary cutter down across his neck and blood came flying out of the severed artery in a spray whose volume surprised even Stella, Stella who’d brought forth the blood of a dozen men before, Stella who’d knocked the life blow by blow from her husband’s cruel eyes, the thought that went through her head in slow motion was that she might not be beautiful, but because of her, the world was going to be short one truly ugly son of a bitch.
Funzi jerked back, hands flying to his neck, blood pumping between his scrabbling fingers as he tried to scoop it back in. His eyes widened and his lips moved, and some of the blood splashed across Stella’s face and more of it landed on her shirt as she instinctively pulled away. There was blood on her lips, she sputtered as some of it got in her mouth, spat out the blood of the man who’d wanted to kill her, and she pulled her bound ankles in toward her body as far as she could and then kicked them hard and Funzi was shoved off the bed onto the floor, making choking sounds of horror all the way down.
From her peripheral vision Stella saw Beez burst into the room, watched his glance fly from her to Chrissy, who was struggling to get up off the bed, and Funzi on the floor in his bath of blood, twitching now, fingers extended out stiffly, eyes rolled back in his head.
Beez had his gun up and got off a shot before Stella could react, and Chrissy jerked back against the headboard. A neat hole blossomed red in her chest and then she started to tilt slowly to the side.
Stella dove off the bed on top of Funzi, reaching for the scissors that had fallen from his grasp onto the white carpet. Her fingers brushed against the blades as the sound of another shot exploded way too close. As she grasped the handles there was another shot and she felt a giant wallop in her left shoulder and thought holy shit he got me—but she palmed the scissors, rolling over onto her back on top of Funzi as Beez seemed to fly through the air toward her. She grabbed the handle with both her bloody hands and held the scissors in front of her.
For a fraction of a second she saw Beez’s eyes widen as he flew toward her, and then he crashed on top of her as the gun went off once more and the scissor handles jabbed hard into her sternum and knocked the wind out of her. Stella struggled against his weight, trying to figure out if that last shot had connected, but she was still moving, her shoulder burned but she was moving, she was kicking and clawing and holy mother she wanted to be out from under him, and then she was, crab-scuttling away on her one good arm and only then did she see that the scissors were sunk into his throat and blood was leaking out fast, Beez lying now halfway on top of his boss, on Funzi, the two of them going still and cold even as their blood continued to leak out.
If they weren’t dead yet they would be soon but what good was it going to do with Chrissy dead and Stella shot twice shot twice oh shit how had she been so lucky for so long how had it worked out that a washed-up fucked-over dried-out shell of a disappointed woman had managed to keep it going as long as she had -
- and as her hands found the holes in her flesh, felt her own blood leaking out, heard her own whimpering, Stella knew the answer, knew it as sure as she’d known anything in her entire life:
- she’d had the luck of someone who just didn’t care, who didn’t much give a damn if she lived another day, who didn’t believe life had any more gifts to give her, who believed that death would be every bit as satisfying as rattling around that empty house, as waking up in the early morning hours and feeling loneliness like a huge weight pressing on her chest—
- and then she’d gone and done the one thing that she’d never thought she could do again—she had cared.
And caring was what had got her dead.
Sweet fucking irony. Stella fell down in degrees, feeling her strength ebb out as she grabbed for the bed frame, felt it slip out of her fingers, unable to hold on. She felt woozy, circling clouds of hot red in the outskirts of her vision.
There was no more movement from the men on the floor. With an effort that felt like it took about a year, Stella forced herself away from them, catching sight of Funzi’s staring eyes, no longer mean, just empty.
Slowly, painfully, she pushed herself to her forearms and looked over the bed.
Chrissy lay on her side, turned toward the wall away from Stella. Her cap had come off and her pale, curly hair spilled out prettily. Stella couldn’t see the wound from here. Couldn’t see the blood.
Stella dragged herself the rest of the way up, until she was almost sitting. The crime scene guys were going to have a field day in here—four bodies, all bleeding out. By the time the cops came, no one would be left to tell what happened. And Goat—would they call him? Was he going to have to see her like this, banged up and wearing the blood of too many other people? Was that going to b
e what he remembered years from now when somebody happened to mention her name in passing?
From somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, Stella thought no.
It was a small notion, but as she sat on Funzi’s floor with a couple of holes in her, it bloomed and grew until the word itself crowded out all her other thoughts and rang in her ears: No. It was too much. It was just too damn much. NO.
She’d been humiliated, beaten, taunted, and now shot, but no one, not even the entire Kansas City mob, was going to leave little Tucker motherless and take away Stella’s chance to get her hands on Sheriff Goat Jones on the same day.
“God . . . damn . . . ,” she mouthed as she edged her way along the bed, pulling at the frame with her fingers, until the side-table phone was in reach.
It took a couple of tries to get the receiver off the base, and then Stella sank back down on the floor, exhausted from the effort of trying to stay upright. She brought the phone close to her face, and as the numbers swam blurrily, she tried to remember where the hell she’d left her reading glasses this time.
But she could see just well enough to press the buttons. It took a while, and she went slow, because she wasn’t sure she had the energy to do it twice if she messed up, but then she heard Goat’s voice, Goat’s sleepy deep sweet voice saying hello, and Stella closed her eyes and breathed through a smile:
“Come and get me, big boy.”
And then she let the clouds swirl on in.
NINE
When Stella woke up she didn’t open her eyes at first. Didn’t quite feel up to the job, with her head fuzzy as if it had been stuffed with fluffy cotton, and the rest of her body suspended in a kind of swimmy grogginess.
Then the pain made its appearance. What it lacked in immediacy, it made up for with sheer intensity. It felt as though there were a burning ember on the left side of her stomach, and a dull ache that radiated out from her shoulder. Her entire torso felt as if it had been stomped on by someone wearing heavy boots.
