18 Seconds

by George D. Shuman

  On Sunday evenings Marcia usually went home by herself, which meant a decent night’s sleep. Nicky and his brothers would pass out on their parents’ sofa.

  Last Monday and Tuesday he’d come home too exhausted to torment her. She’d wondered how his boots and clothes had gotten so dirty. Nicky wouldn’t break a sweat if his life depended on it—not at work, not at home, and definitely not unless there was something in it for him. Nicky, she was certain, was up to no good.

  Marcia cringed when she heard his footsteps on the stairs. She ran to the sink and busied herself with dishes. Nicky walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator without looking at her, and drank from a carton of milk while opening and slamming cabinet doors. Finally he went to the torn screen door.

  “I’ll see you over there.”

  Then he walked out of the house, letting the door slam behind him.

  “Go, go, go,” she whispered under her breath, leaning against the sink and praying he wouldn’t turn around. She waited a full minute before she dared to pull the curtains back and saw a plume of dark smoke from the back of the shed. A moment later he was backing his old car out toward the road.

  She ran up to the bathroom and checked herself in the mirror. There was redness over one eye and a scratch of dried blood on her neck where he’d raked her with his ring.

  The phone rang and it startled her. She ran to the bedroom and snatched it from the cradle, bringing it to her lips with both hands.

  “Hello,” she said softly.

  “You all right, Marsh? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She sniffed. “I’m fine.”

  “I saw him drive away just now. We could hear you guys all the way down here last night. When in the hell are you going to leave that man?”

  “I’ve got noplace to go,” she said firmly.

  “Hell, anyplace is better than there, Marcia.”

  “Listen, Connie, you have your mom to run to. I’ve got nothing but Nicky and his paycheck.”

  “I’m sorry,” her friend said. “I was just trying to help.”

  “I know, Connie. I know. And I’m sorry, too. I know your mom’s glad to have you home.”

  “You tell him yet?”

  “No.”

  “You going to?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Soon. I’ve got to wait until the timing is right, is all.”

  “Just tell him we’re going to my mom’s for a couple of days and that you’re working extra hours so you can leave him some money to go drinking with. He’ll be pushing you out the door.”

  “All right, all right,” she said. “I’ll say it, but there isn’t going to be anything left for me to bring to Wildwood.”

  “How much you got now?”

  Marcia started to cry. “Nothing. He found it on Wednesday, took it all. I’m not going to let the preacher’s wife pay me anymore. Not until the day before we go.”

  “Shit, girl, we only need about fifty bucks between us and I’ve got that much myself. Finish the month and leave Nicky whatever you earn. That’ll be enough.”

  “I don’t want to impose on you and your mother.” Marcia tried to collect herself.

  “Marcia. The food is cheap and the men in Wildwood will be buying us more drinks than we could finish in a lifetime.”

  Marcia sniffed and managed a smile. “Your mom really doesn’t mind me coming?”

  “She’s not even going to be there, Marsh. She goes up to Atlantic City every weekend with her girlfriend. They like to flirt with the old geezers and play the nickel machines.” Connie got quiet. “She feels real bad about you and Nicky. She’d do anything to help you, Marsh. She said you could stay down there at the beach till you got your feet on the ground. There’s lots of jobs down there in the summer.”

  Marcia looked in the dresser mirror. “And what would I do when winter came? I don’t know how to do anything but iron and sew.”

  “Maybe one of the hotels needs a housekeeper. It’s just something to think about.”

  Marcia looked at the swelling around her eye and felt a flutter of excitement in her stomach. “Really?”

  “Yeah, why not,” her friend said. “Why not?”

  Marcia hung up the phone and went downstairs to the kitchen, where she opened the front door and sat on the front step with her old dog Ding. The ground was cool on her bare feet. She looked at her broken toenails and thought how much fun it would be to paint them.

  There was a rusty skeleton of a pickup truck in the yard and a long-dead tractor behind the barn; the straight pipe exhaust had a hornets’ nest plastered around it.

  The only thing that looked new around the farm was the gleaming gold padlock on the double barn doors, which at first made as much sense as the eight-hundred-dollar magnesium wheels on Nicky’s rusty old Dodge, but then she climbed on top of the tractor and peeked through the cracked walls and saw a brand-new front-end loader in the barn. Nicky was renting the barn to someone and pocketing the money without telling her. Bastard!

  June was only two weeks away.

  I tell him tonight, she thought. Tonight is the night.

  15

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 25

  WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY

  The sun was setting on Billy Weeks’s twenty-fourth birthday—a workday for Billy in which he’d spent the afternoon pacing the sidewalk in front of Lecky’s Pawnshop, leaning into cars and shaking hands. After the dinner hour, he would move to the boardwalk at Strayer’s Pier. By 9:00 P.M., things should be wrapping up nicely.

  He’d met a girl outside the pancake house this morning, young and ever so hot in her little tube top and miniskirt. Her parents were inside with her brother while she used a pay phone to call her girlfriend back home. Billy figured her for fifteen or sixteen, but she didn’t hesitate when he asked her if she did blow. He told her to meet him at Strayer’s Pier under the demon at nine—his standard line—then he beat feet down the street before her parents came out. Parents had a way of fucking things up when they saw Billy around their daughters.

  He looked around for cop cars, saw none, and ducked down the alley. The air was ten degrees cooler in the shade, which was still in the high seventies. He was shirtless and wearing a pair of baggy shorts, a red kerchief around his neck and sandals on his feet.

  He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and counted three hundred and sixty dollars. Not bad for two hours of work.

  Cocaine sold hand over fist in Wildwood, enough to pay for his brand-new Mustang and a very cool apartment on the edge of town. The best thing about it was the risks. There were none. Not in a town like this.

  Billy knew he could never do a nine-to-fiver like his old man, bringing home a thousand bucks a week and trying to keep up with a house and four little brats in school. Nor, he found out, was he cut out for the kind of work it would have taken to get through law school. Billy made a thousand dollars on a summer evening, and selling cocaine in a beach town was more like being a rock star than a dope dealer. All the chicks came to buy from him and all of them wanted to sleep with him. Billy banged a different girl almost every night of the summer.

  He heard the drone of an airplane dragging an ad banner up the coast. He knelt to eject a piece of gravel caught between his toes and picked up a whiff of something foul. When he stood, he found himself face-to-face with Jeremy Smyles.

  “Jesus Christ, you stupid fucking idiot!” Billy yelled. “Why don’t you just fucking watch where you’re going, you stupid fucking shithead.”

  Jeremy was used to being called bad names, so he walked around Billy, stooping to pick up a discarded cup, and turned up the alley on his way toward the bay.

  Billy stood there a minute, trying to stop his own hands from shaking, then started pacing. “Fucking retard,” he said, kicking at a patch of grass in front of Lecky’s Pawnshop. He walked back to the alley to see the idiot once more, but Jeremy was already gone.

  He was creepy, Billy thought. Ve
ry fucking creepy.

  The cops had once picked Jeremy up for being a Peeping Tom, fucking pervert. That had always made Billy laugh. What in the fuck was he going to do if he saw a little tit anyhow? Yell shucks and golly?

  He shook a Marlboro into his fingers and lit it with a quivering match. The nicotine calmed him some and he blew smoke up into the awning. Tonight was going to be killer.

  It was dark when he climbed the ramp at Rio, winking at the girls and giving high fives to the guys along the way. Billy was dark and handsome, his hair thick and combed straight back over his head. Black Oakleys were perched on top of his head and a heavy gold chain hung around his neck.

  They envied him, he knew. No midterms, no minimum wage, no end to the pussy.

  Billy conducted his business near several park benches opposite Strayer’s Pier. The Strayer’s demon loomed above him, its long green talons draped over the gates, red lightbulb eyes flashing, tongue lolling about as it growled and opened its mouth to show the kiddies its fangs. Behind the gate he could hear the screams of teenagers and the deafening volume of the Beastie Boys.

  One more weekend and it would be full swing into summer.

  Summers were a sea of bodies. In no time he turned a pocket full of dust into cash.

  Billy prided himself that he was no fool. He knew a girl at the selectman’s office who always told him when the drug task force was in town. The beach town couldn’t afford a narcotics unit of its own, and state assistance was only available for a minimum number of days each summer.

  Billy knew the law, too. As long as he didn’t have more than five or six bags on him, he was below the five-hundred-milligram minimum the cops needed to charge felony distribution. He kept the rest stashed in a crumpled-up Happy Meal bag near his feet.

  If he was ever caught, a judge would have to consider his lack of criminal history, so he was always good for a first-time slap on the wrist and community service or, at the very worst, a couple months of probation. If he needed to rethink the risks of dealing then, so be it, but for now he was riding high and dry.

  Several fat ladies sat down next to him, all wearing matching sweatshirts that said “Wildwood” and eating huge ice cream cones and giggling about how they were getting it all over themselves. Billy kept kicking the McDonald’s bag away and followed it into a corner, where he pushed himself up on the handrail.

  He dealt for nearly two hours and called it a night, just before she arrived.

  She wore a white miniskirt and a skintight white top that clung to her nipples and showed off one bare shoulder. Even the unflappable Billy was moved.

  Her strawberry-blond hair complemented her freckled skin, which was tanned from the day’s sun. She carried a small cloth purse over her shoulder that matched the beige sandals she wore on her feet.

  He stepped down from the railing and casually worked his way to her, slipping his hand in hers and pulling her away from the din of the music.

  Billy saw all the heads turn, the kid working for minimum wage in the Dog House, the man scooping fries, the old scarred dude on the railing. Yeah, dream on, motherfuckers. He put his hand on her ass and led her away.

  They walked south on the boardwalk away from the lights and crowds. They kicked off their sandals and walked the beach to the water, where they sat and smoked a joint. The moon was low on the ocean and the waves broke gently before them. Billy spooned her some coke and then kissed her as the water rushed to their feet. Now and then a couple would walk past, but Billy paid them no mind as he groped her body.

  Her name was Tracy, she told him. Tracy Yoland from Nebraska. Her parents were in the insurance business. She was a junior in high school looking forward to cosmetology college. Tracy wanted to live in a big city like St. Paul or Des Moines, where she could get a car and rent an apartment of her own.

  Tracy told him her family was leaving early the next morning for Washington, D.C., and they wanted her in by eleven.

  Billy guided her by the hand until they were back at the boardwalk and then pulled her under into the dark.

  He took off his shirt for her to sit on, knelt in front of her, and kissed her until she relaxed. Then he pulled her top over her head and threw it aside with her purse.

  They heard occasional footsteps and laughter coming from overhead. Cars pulled in and out of the public lots and doors slammed. She was nervous at first, but he lit a cigarette and put it between her lips, then he pushed her down and let her smoke while he ran his tongue over her stomach, moving lower to the line of her skirt.

  “Billy—” she moaned as he lifted her hips from the sand and tugged aside her thong. “Billy, do me.”

  He took off his shorts, barely mounting her before he ejaculated and fell breathless on top of her.

  Footsteps ground across the sand-covered parking lot just behind them. A siren wailed as it raced up Atlantic Avenue, and shoes clopped overhead. Tracy heard a sound that reminded her of Velcro being pulled apart.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  “What,” he said, still breathless.

  “That noise. Did you hear it?”

  He shook his head and rolled off. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  He sat up and started brushing the sand off his body.

  “Is my top over there?” she asked.

  Billy felt around, found it, and handed it to her.

  She used the top to brush herself clean, then stretched it over her head and pulled it down; the sand was gritty and uncomfortable on her chest.

  She knelt and brushed the sand from her thighs, looking for her purse and thong.

  “You said you’re leaving in the morning.”

  She nodded.

  “Well, look, I hate to run, but I got to meet some dudes. Are you going to be okay getting home by yourself?”

  “Just leave me another cigarette,” she said.

  Billy shook two from his pack and gave her his matches. “Hey, it’s been fun,” he said, smiling.

  “Yeah, me, too,” she said.

  Billy stepped into the moonlight and walked to the steps, where he slid into his sandals, taking the steps two at a time, then rushing north toward Strayer’s Pier. Billy had to meet someone, it was true, but not a couple of “dudes” on the boardwalk. Billy had to meet the vixen Carpenter twins who had promised him a birthday ménage à trois in exchange for some coke.

  Tracy heard his footsteps receding and then all was quiet.

  The air was sticky like the sex. She kept brushing the sand from her body, thinking she might as well put her thong in her purse instead of feeling uncomfortable all the way home. Of course the sand in her clothes would still be there when she got back, but if her mother said anything, she would just tell her she couldn’t find anyone to hang out with so she sat on the beach by herself. Her mother would believe her. Her mother believed anything Tracy told her.

  She heard the Velcro noise again, but this time it sounded close. There was probably nothing to worry about, she thought. This was the beach, after all, not the big city. Probably it was just a rat or some seagulls in the Dumpsters, but she looked harder for her purse, thinking she could just as easily step out onto the beach and smoke under the stars as sit here in the dark with God knows what running around.

  “Where are you?” she whispered, looking for her purse and making circles in the dark sand with the outstretched palm of her hand.

  Waves crashed in the distance; a horn sounded on distant Atlantic Avenue. She got on her knees and climbed a foot farther into the darkness. She patted the sand around her and thought for a split second about leaving, but her purse contained her brand-new learner’s permit. One more minute—

  The air changed all at once. Something was different, something was wrong…Tracy moved faster, wanting to get out from under there. Fuck it, she thought at last, small hairs rising on the back of her neck, but as she started to back away, a bolt of electricity pierced her side and she fell to her h
ands and knees, heat spreading throughout her body so sharply, she thought she was being electrocuted.

  A second wave surged through her and she pitched face forward into the sand. Then she heard the ripping sound again and someone pulled her arms together and she felt them being strapped at the wrists.

  A hand grabbed her hair and jerked her head up from the sand, shoving something into her mouth, then propped her back against a piling. The hand began winding a spool of tape around her neck and strapping it to the post.

  The whole thing took two minutes.

  “There now,” the man whispered as he straddled her legs. Her neck was so tightly bound that she couldn’t turn her head. Her legs were thrust out in front of her and she could see the ghostly white foam of the waves breaking on shore.

  It was hard to make out his face; her eyes were tearing from the pain, but she could tell it was an old face and the neck below it was raked with thick white scars.

  “The first thing you will learn,” he told her, “is what will happen when you no longer please me.” He leaned in and kissed her mouth and forced a hand between her legs. “Then we’ll have some fun, what do you say?” She tried to scream, but the stuff in her mouth prevented it. He removed his hand and wiped it on her face, then pulled a strip of tape across her mouth and backed into the darkness.

  Tracy felt nausea stirring in her belly. There were people walking above her, footsteps clomping just above her head. She could hear a group of older women talking merrily about a man one of them had met.

  The tape that bound her neck to the piling restricted movement below the neck. She blew sand out of her nostrils so she could breathe easier.

  Hours passed, filled with footsteps and voices. People walked just above her, but none of them would ever know that she was down here. Bile climbed to her throat, something shifted in her bowels; she fought back the nausea.

  He hadn’t intended on killing her. Not yet. He said he was going to teach her what would happen when she no longer pleased him, which meant he intended to keep her for some time. Maybe days. There was still hope that she might be saved. Or maybe, she thought suddenly, he was jerking off somewhere and was never coming back. Maybe he got his rocks off like that. He could have had her right here if he’d really wanted her.