JeriLee looked at him. “We’re going the wrong way.”
“I thought I’d drop them off before I took you home,” he said.
She didn’t answer. A sound of laughter came from the back seat. She turned around. Both boys were trying to unbutton Marian’s blouse and she was giggling while slapping their hands away. “Not fair.” She laughed. “It’s two against one.”
JeriLee turned back in the seat. She glanced at the speedometer. The needle was up around seventy. “Better slow down,” she said. “The highway patrol is on the road tonight.”
“I can handle them,” Walt said grimly.
There was no sound from the back seat now. She glanced into the rearview mirror. Marian seemed to have disappeared. Involuntarily she turned and looked into the back seat. Marian had her head in Joe’s lap. It was a moment before she realized what the girl was doing. She was holding Joe’s penis in her hand and taking it in her mouth.
She turned back quickly, a curiously sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Somehow she knew this was not the way it should be. She knew what girls and boys did in cars but this was not at all what she had imagined. She couldn’t wait until Walt dropped them off and took her home.
Walt pulled the car into the driveway and cut the motor. “Okay,” he said. “Everybody out.” He opened his door and came around to her side.
“You said you were going to take me home.”
“I will,” he said. “What’s the big deal? Last time you couldn’t wait.”
“Last time was different. You were different.”
Marian and the two boys were out of the car. “Come on.” Marian laughed. “Don’t be a party pooper.”
“Just one drink, then I’ll take you home. I promise,” Walt said.
Reluctantly she got out of the car and followed them into the house. They went right through to the pool. With a loud whoop the boys dropped their clothes and dived into the water. “It’s great,” Mike shouted. “Come on in.”
She turned, looking for Walt. She saw a light go on in the house as he went into the kitchen. A moment later music came from the portable radio on the table near the pool. Marian was dancing by herself to the music.
Walt came out with a tray of Cokes and a bucket of ice. He picked up the bottle of rum near the radio and quickly mixed the drinks. He held one toward Marian. She took it and began to drink it quickly. He held one out to JeriLee.
“No, thank you.”
“You’re not much fun, are you?”
“I’m sorry. I told you I wanted to go right home.”
“Well, you can damn well wait until I have a drink,” he said angrily, raising his glass.
“Come on, JeriLee,” Marian said. “Don’t be a pill. You’re among friends.”
“No, thank you,” she said again. She started toward the house.
Walt put a hand on her arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I can get the bus on the highway,” she said levelly.
“I said I’d take you home,” he snapped. “Isn’t my word good enough for you?”
Before she could answer him, she felt a pair of hands grab her ankles and her feet went out from under her as she was dragged into the pool. She came up sputtering and angry and striking out at the boy nearest her.
“She wants to play,” she heard one of the boys say. Then two pairs of hands grabbed her shoulders and pushed her down into the water again. She tried to wriggle free and she felt her dress rip as their hands caught her. Then she went under again. She came up gasping and held on to the side of the pool.
She looked up at Walt through eyes burning with tears. “Please take me home,” she cried.
“I will,” he said, raising the glass to his lips. “As soon as your clothes are dry.”
Chapter 10
Bernie came up to Fred on the terrace. “Is JeriLee out here?”
“No.”
“If you see her, tell her that her father called. He wants her to bring home a quart of ice cream.” Bernie started back.
Fred stopped him. “When did he call?”
“Just now. I picked it up in the bar.”
“That’s funny. How long does it take from here to her house?”
“About ten minutes by car, half hour by bus.”
“Then she should have been home by now. She left more than an hour ago.” A curious feeling of dread came over him. “You know where the Thornton kid lives?”
“On the other side of the Point. Why?”
“He was supposed to drop her off home. But he was higher than a kite and so were his two friends. I saw them inside knocking back rum and Cokes like water. He wanted her to join him at a beach party but she said she wanted to go home.”
Bernie stared at him. “I saw Marian Daley leave with those two boys. She was trying to get another girl to go with them but the girl wouldn’t.”
“I don’t like it. JeriLee should have been home by now.” He looked at Bernie. “You got a car?”
The two boys stared at each other. “I’ll get the keys and meet you in the parking lot,” Bernie said.
***
She was crying, lying huddled and naked on the grass beside the pool, trying to cover herself. She sensed a movement and looked up.
Joe was bending over her. “Stop bawling,” he said in an annoyed voice. “It isn’t as if you never did this before.”
“I never—”
“You did,” he said positively. “Walt told us about the time you came here with him.”
“Nothing happened,” she cried. “Honest, nothing happened.”
“You never stop lying, do you?” He turned and shouted at Walt. “You better get over here and do something about this cunt or I’m goin’ to belt her.”
Walt came up. He still had a glass in his hand and was weaving. “Come on, JeriLee,” he said in a placating voice. “We just want to have a little fun. Take a drink of this. It’ll make you feel better.”
“No.”
There was a sound from the other side of the pool. Joe turned around. “Well lookee over there.” He laughed.
She looked across the pool. Marian and his brother were coupled on the ground. She could see the frenzied movements of the boy, and the moaning sounds they made echoed in the night.
“Ain’t that pretty?” Joe asked. “They’re makin’ it. How about comin’ off your high horse and we can have a real party?”
She didn’t answer.
Joe got angry. “Then what the hell did you come out here for, you fucking cockteaser?” he shouted.
“I didn’t!” she cried, suddenly realizing that Walt had not told them she was going home, that he never intended to take her home. She turned to Walt. “Tell them, please. I didn’t—”
Joe knelt by her side and grabbed her hair. He forced her head back. “Gimme the drink,” he snapped. He took the drink from Walt and, forcing her mouth open by bending her head back, poured the drink down her throat.
She began to choke and gasp. The sticky sweet liquid ran down her cheeks, spilling across her shoulders and breasts. He didn’t stop until the glass was empty. Then he threw it away. JeriLee heard it breaking against the concrete.
He put his face close to her. “Now, you goin’ to cooperate an’ be nice or am I goin’ to have to get rough with you?”
Her eyes widened. She tried to hold her breath. “Please, let me go. Please.”
He moved suddenly, throwing his weight against her, pushing her flat on the ground with his body. His fingers sank into her breasts as he tried to kiss her.
She thrashed wildly, trying to turn her face to avoid him. Involuntarily she brought her knee up to his groin.
A grunt of pain escaped him. “Bitch!” he yelled. Angrily he slapped her face with his open palm. “You hold her,” he shouted up at Walt. “No bitch is gonna try to knee my balls an’ get away with it.”
Walt stood there indecisively.
“Hold her!” Joe snarled. “Time she got what’s comin�
� to her.”
Walt dropped to one knee, pinning her arms to the ground. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain on her breast. She cried out.
Joe raised the lighted cigarette. He was smiling. “You didn’t like that, did you?”
She stared back at him, unable to speak. He moved swiftly. The scorching pain burned into her other breast. She screamed.
“Yell your head off. Ain’t nobody to hear you.” Joe held the cigarette to his mouth and dragged on it.
“Walt, please, make him stop!” she implored.
“Maybe, we better—” he began.
Joe cut him off. “You stay out of it! This is between me an’ her. When I get through she ain’t gonna cocktease nobody.” He straddled her legs with his knees and brutally put his hand on her pubis. With his fingers he spread her open. A strange smile came to his face. “Now, ain’t that pretty pink little pussy?”
He bent his face forward and bit her mound. She tried to move but couldn’t. He straightened up and laughed. “Not bad. A little pissy, but not bad.” Slowly he brought the cigarette down toward her. “Now you’ll get a taste of something real hot.”
Fascinated, as if she were watching a snake, she stared, her eyes following the glowing tip of the cigarette as it came toward her. Suddenly she felt its approaching heat and she shut her eyes tightly.
***
They heard her scream as their car stopped in the driveway and were out of the car running through the house almost before the engine had stopped.
Bernie was the first one through the sliding doors. He froze for a moment at the horror of what he saw—the two boys holding JeriLee down and her mouth still open in a scream. His mouth opened. “What—?”
Fred reacted with the reflexes of one used to street fighting. He took one step and kicked Joe in the side of his head, lifting him from the ground and tumbling him backward onto the concrete walk. Walt was trying to get to his feet, but Fred never gave him a chance. Slashing viciously with his fist, he caught Walt flush on the nose and mouth, and felt the crunch of bone and teeth against his knuckles. Walt fell back as if he had been hit by an ax.
Fred knelt beside JeriLee, pillowing her head in his arms. She was crying in pain. “Don’t hurt me, please, don’t hurt me.” Her eyes were tightly shut.
“It’s okay, honey,” he said softly. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you now.”
“Fred!” Bernie’s voice was sharp.
He turned to see another boy coming toward him and started to get up. But Bernie caught the boy from behind in a tackle and they fell to the ground, rolling over and over. Joe was coming back toward him now and there was something in his hand that looked like a rock.
He rose quickly, his hand making a lightning move under his trouser leg. The knife came to his fingers and at the same time he pressed the switch and the blade flashed forward. He held the knife flat in his hand before him. “One move, white boy,” he said quietly, “an’ I’ll cut your balls off.”
Joe froze, staring at him, his hand still in the air. It wasn’t a rock that had been in his hand, it was a portable radio.
Fred stepped back on catlike feet so that he could see them all. “Get something to cover her up,” he said to Bernie. “And let’s get her out of here.”
He heard a sound from across the pool. Marian was coming around the walk, staggering drunkenly, a bottle of rum in her hand.
“What’s happenin’ to the party?” she asked.
“The party’s over, honey,” he said, his voice filled with contempt.
They managed to cover JeriLee with the remnants of her dress and a towel and get her to the car. She sat between them shivering and crying and moaning in pain, her head against Fred’s chest, while Bernie drove. She was still crying as the car pulled up in front of her house.
When Fred tried to help her out of the car, she wouldn’t move. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of now, JeriLee,” he said soothingly. “You’re safe now. You’re home.”
But an instinct told her that this was only the beginning of the horror. And she was right.
Chapter 11
The letters were scrawled in black crayon on the white picket fence:
JERILEE FUCKS. JERILEE SUCKS.
John stared silently at the words. Next to him, Bobby was still holding the wet bloody handkerchief against his nose, although the heavy bleeding had stopped. “I saw them doing it when I came around the corner, Daddy.”
“Who was it?” John asked, a sick feeling inside him.
“They were big boys,” the twelve-year-old replied. “I never saw them before. When I went to stop them, they hit me.”
John turned to his son. “There’s a can of white paint in the garage,” he said. “Get it. Maybe we can paint it over before your mother and JeriLee get home from shopping.”
“Okay, Dad. But why do they say things like that about my sister?”
“Some people are just sick, Bobby. They’re stupid.”
“It’s an awful thing to do. I wanted to kill them.”
John looked at his son. The child’s face was grim. “Get the paint,” John said gently.
The boy ran across the lawn toward the garage and John turned to look down the street. There was no one in sight. He fished in his pocket for a cigarette. It had been less than a month since that night. The night he had opened the door to find the two boys holding a frightened, beaten JeriLee between them.
***
The late show was almost over when the doorbell rang. He rose from the chair in front of the television set where he had been dozing and glanced at his wristwatch. It was one o’clock. “It must be JeriLee,” he said. “She probably forgot her key.
Veronica was absorbed in the film. “Tell her not to be so forgetful the next time. We might have been asleep.”
He went into the small hallway leading to the front door. The doorbell rang again. “I’m coming, honey,” he called, turning the lock.
The door swung open without his touch. For a moment he was transfixed by what he saw. JeriLee stood between the two boys, her clothes torn, blood running down one cheek almost to the top of an exposed breast. Bernie held one arm around her waist to keep her from falling.
There was a look of terror in her eyes as she raised her face to him. “Daddy,” she said in a weak voice, taking a stumbling step toward him.
He caught her before she fell. His arms tightened around her, he could feel the frightened flutter of her heart pounding against his shirt. “My God!” he exclaimed. “What happened?”
The black boy whom he had never seen before spoke first. “We’ll tell you what happened, Mr. Randall,” he said, “but you better get a doctor for JeriLee. She’s been hurt bad.”
By this time Veronica was behind him. When she saw her daughter she let out a small scream. “John!”
JeriLee turned her face to her mother. “Mother, I—”
A tone of anger and fear came into her mother’s voice. “What trouble did you get yourself into this time, JeriLee?”
“Ronnie!” John said harshly. “Get Dr. Baker on the phone and tell him to come over right away!” Without waiting for a reply, he lifted JeriLee into his arms and carried her upstairs to her room. Gently he placed her on the bed.
She moaned softly. The remnant of the dress which clung to her breasts fell away, revealing the angry burns welting her flesh. “I’m frightened, Daddy,” she cried.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of now. You’re home now. And safe.”
“But I hurt all over, Daddy.”
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “Dr. Baker is on his way. He’ll stop the pain.”
“He’ll be right here,” Veronica said as she came into the room. She looked down at JeriLee. “What happened?”
“Walt said he was going to take me home—”
Veronica didn’t wait for her to finish. “Walt?” she asked angrily. “Who’s Walt? That colored boy down there? You know better than to have a
nything to do with people like that!”
“No.” JeriLee shook her head weakly. “He’s not Walt. He’s Fred. He came with Bernie to get me.”
Again Veronica interrupted. “Get you? Where did you go? You were supposed to be at work.”
John saw the fear come into her daughter’s eyes. “Ronnie!” he said sharply. “No more questions. Let’s try to make her a little more comfortable until the doctor gets here. Get a washcloth and some warm water.
“It’s okay, baby,” he said as Veronica left the room.
“I don’t want to wake up Bobby,” she whispered. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”
“Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “Your kid brother can sleep through an earthquake.” The doorbell rang downstairs. “That must be the doctor.” His hand brushed some hair away from her forehead. “You’re going to be all right now.”
“Mother is going to be angry with me.”
“No she won’t. She’s just upset.”
Dr. Baker had been around a long time. After forty years of practice, he didn’t wait for verbal explanations. Without speaking, he snapped open his black bag. Quickly he administered a shot. “That will take away the pain, JeriLee,” he said. He straightened up and turned to her parents. “You two go downstairs while I look after her.”
“Will she be all right?” John asked.
“She’ll be all right,” the doctor said.
They went down the stairs and into the living room where Fred and Bernie were waiting. “How is she?” Bernie asked.
“Dr. Baker said she’ll be okay,” he said. “Now tell me what happened.”
“She was tired and wanted to go home early,” Bernie said. “Walt said he would drop her off on his way home. He had some friends with him. When you called and she wasn’t home yet, Fred figured something was wrong. That was when we went after her.”
“What made you think that?” John asked Fred.
“Walt and his friends were drinkin’ pretty good. I thought they were acting mean.”
“Who is this boy Walt that you’re talking about?” Veronica asked. “I haven’t heard JeriLee mention him before.”
“Walt Thornton,” Bernie said. “He lives out at the house on the Point.”
The Lonely Lady Page 7
