Blood on Their Hands

by Lawrence Block

  “Your wife got you Ashley,” Barry said with a knowing smile. “Welcome to the club.” I didn’t know if Barry was talking about the gym, or some other club. I didn’t care, either. A blonde walked out of the Staff Only door, and I couldn’t stop staring at her.

  She looked like a cross between Wonder Woman and the captain of the girls’ volleyball team. She was tanned to a golden brown and wearing a black spandex sports bra and short-shorts that revealed eye-popping development, front and back.

  She had muscles, but she wasn’t gnarly and knotted like those women in the bodybuilding magazines. Ashley was sculpted like a statue. Her breasts were high and round and real. Her eyes were blue-green, like the ocean on a summer day. Her long golden hair rippled in sunlit waves.

  “I’m Ashley,” she said.

  “Jake,” I said, which was all I could manage with my stomach sucked in.

  Ashley had me work out with what she called light weights. After that, I had to do two hundred push-ups, then run on the sand for two miles.

  I went home so exhausted, I fell into bed and slept until the next morning. I missed dinner, but I didn’t mind. I dreamed of Ashley, looking like a blonde goddess in black spandex.

  I met with Ashley three times a week. Sometimes I slogged through the sand. Other times, I lifted weights. Always, she barked orders: “Slow down! Watch your form! Point those feet straight ahead. No penguinning!”

  I was lying on a slant board while a beautiful blonde yelled at me.

  I loved it.

  I also loved that all the other guys stared when Ashley and I ran on the sand together. I was the envy of every man on the beach. Even the lifeguards looked at me with new respect.

  “How’d you get so lucky to get Ashley?” asked Nick, the bartender at the Beachside Bar.

  “My wife bought her for me,” I said.

  “Yeah, right, and my wife bought me Britney Spears,” he said.

  Nick didn’t believe me. I could scarcely believe it, either.

  Ashley had definite ideas about fitness. She wanted me to ditch my Diet Coke for bottled water. “Too many chemicals, dude,” she said. So I laid off the Diet Coke, and started drinking eight bottles of water a day, the way Ashley wanted. I wouldn t tell anyone, but I liked the taste better.

  After six weeks, the chicken skin on my arms began to disappear. After eight weeks, my gut began to deflate. Women were giving me the eye again. My Francie started calling me “stud muffin.” I hadn’t looked this good in twenty years.

  “I’m making progress, Ashley,” I said. “But I can’t seem to lose more weight.”

  “What are you eating, dude?” she said.

  “Not much. That’s what is so strange. I skip breakfast and lunch, then eat a big dinner.”

  She shook her head. “Bad idea. Your body can’t run efficiently on no fuel. You’re not eating enough.”

  “That’s not what my wife says.”

  “You need to eat every three to five hours. But you need to eat right,” Ashley said firmly. Everything about her was firm.

  She put me on a protein diet. I should have been happy living on mostly meat, but this wasn’t what I called meat. Ashley wanted me to eat white meat of chicken and turkey, water-packed tuna, and broiled fish. I could have an egg-white omelet, but no butter or cheese. The only bread was whole wheat, and none of that after three in the afternoon. I could have a baked potato at lunch if I ate the skin, green vegetables like broccoli, and when I was feeling wild, graham crackers. That was it except for cranberry juice and two cups of coffee a day.

  “Where’s the steak?” I said. “Where’s the hamburger?”

  “Red meat’s bad for you,” said Ashley, looking commanding but adorable, like a dominatrix in a porno movie.

  “Ashley,” I said, “you are what you eat. I am two hundred pounds of red meat. I am a red-blooded male. I need my red meat.”

  “Mark my words, dude, red meat will kill you,” Ashley said. She was right.

  But I loved my porterhouses, filet mignons, even flank steaks. Red meat. Bloody meat, oozing deliciously on my plate.

  I ate broiled chicken breast, though it tasted like warm Kleenex. I had whole wheat buns, though they were dry as old attic insulation. And egg-white omelets, though they tasted like nothing at all. I drank bottled water until I felt like one long stretch of plumbing. I sweated at Jamal’s Jym, with Ashley barking orders, for two months on this dull diet.

  I didn’t lose an ounce.

  Hmm, said Ashley. “I know this diet can be slow to kick in, but you must be doing something wrong.”

  She gave me a little notebook and said, “Write down everything you eat each day.”

  The notebook was her first gift to me. “My diet diary,” I joked.

  It’s amazing how your sins add up. I saw my life as one unending stretch of virtuous eating. I forgot about the jar of cashews I ate at four o’clock, the candy bar I sneaked at six, the occasional steak to break the monotony. I didn’t think a little sour cream and butter on a dry baked potato was a big deal. I sure didn’t think a couple of drinks were a problem.

  But Ashley did. Lord, the lecture that woman gave me when she saw my diet diary.

  “Listen, dude,” she said. “I thought you were serious about this bodybuilding.”

  “I am,” I said, mesmerized by her pectoral development. She’d built an amazing body.

  “Then you’ve got to get serious about your food,” she said, showing me those fat-free buns as she bent over to pick up a pencil. That improved my heart rate, let me tell you.

  Ashley graded my diet diary like a kindergarten teacher. The turkey, fish, and egg-white omelets got smiley faces. The red meat got a frownie face. The martinis got “THIS IS TOO MUCH ALCOHOL!!!”

  “Ashley, this is like being in prison,” I said, because back then I didn’t know anything about prison. “Even the doctors say a glass of wine is good for your heart.”

  “You can have one—only one—glass of wine with dinner,” she said sternly.

  I showed Francie the Ashley-corrected diet diary. I thought she would make sarcastic remarks about the smiley faces, but Francie only patted my newly bulging biceps and said, “Ashley has done wonders, Tiger. Listen to her.”

  I smiled. Those thirty-two smile muscles were the only ones that didn’t hurt.

  That was something I didn’t talk about. I hurt. All over. All the time. I looked better than I had in years, but those toned muscles let me know how they felt about getting back in shape. My shoulders hurt. My torso ached. My legs hurt.

  When I say my legs hurt, I mean my calves, thighs, ankles, even my feet were sore. Each part hurt in a different way. My stretched calves were a dull ache. My sore feet were a sharp pain. My glutes shrieked when I sat down.

  I was sixty years old, for god’s sake. This was too much.

  I told Ashley about the constant pain, but she only said, “No whining, dude.”

  Francie didn’t take me seriously, either. “If that’s all you have to complain about, you’re doing pretty darn good.”

  I admit all the compliments made me feel better. Take the night we were having an early dinner with four friends (I had to see Ashley at seven the next morning). They showered me with “you-look-terrifics,” and “you’ve-been-working-outs.” When I told everyone that Francie had bought me Ashley for my birthday, they could hardly believe it. The guys, Harry and George, winked and nudged each other.

  Kaye said, “How do you feel about him working out with a twenty-three-year-old blonde, Francie?”

  “Every woman should have an Ashley,” she said. “For years, I’ve been telling him that he eats the wrong food, but would he listen to me? Oh, no, I was just a wife. I was just a nag.

  “But when Ashley says he needs to eat more vegetables, it’s bring on the broccoli, boys. When Ashley says he’s eating too much red meat, he switches to fish and chicken. When Ashley says he drinks too much, he cuts back to one glass of wine a day.

  “
Could I get him to do that? Not me. I’m only a wife. But Ashley can. That’s why every woman should have an Ashley. I wish I’d had her twenty years ago.”

  Everyone laughed, but I thought I heard a nasty edge. My delight in Ashley diminished just a bit.

  I began noticing little things. Like how many times I saw Ashley running on the sand with paunchy guys between forty and sixty. Guys who looked ready to drop from exhaustion. I wanted to talk to them, but Ashley made sure they kept moving. She’d wave at me and never stop. The paunchy guys trotted along beside her.

  So I asked her outright: “Those other guys you run with, did their wives buy you as a gift, too?”

  Ashley said, “No talking, dude. It breaks your concentration.”

  Six months into the workout, the pain stopped. That’s when I made my final, fatal mistake. I said, “Ashley, it doesn’t hurt so much anymore.”

  I wanted to celebrate. But Ashley said, “Then we need to step up the workouts, dude. We can’t have you enjoying yourself. No pain, no gain.”

  When she said those four stupid words, that was the first time I wanted to strangle her.

  Then Ashley brought out the blue bands.

  They didn’t look like much: four feet of rubber tubing with triangular handles on the ends. Such simple things, but so many instruments of torture are simple. A simple electric drill in a kneecap can cause excruciating pain. A simple tire iron can break every bone in your body.

  Ashley’s exercise bands tripled my misery. She made me wrap them around a palm tree and pull them, while I held my hands and feet at impossible angles. We’d—no, I’d—work out in humiliating poses while fat red tourists, buttered with coconut oil, stood around and laughed.

  “Come on, dude, work harder,” Ashley would command. “Pull! Pull! Pull!”

  I would pull until my arms quivered and my neck ached, but it was never enough for her. “Come on, you’re not crippled!” she would scream, entertaining the slug-butt tourists.

  I smiled through my pain, but that night I went out and had a Diet Coca-Cola. Then I wrote it defiantly in my diet diary. It was my way of getting even. Diet Coke upset Ashley more than beer. She said beer at least had some natural ingredients. “Diet soda is nothing but chemicals, dude.”

  I felt ashamed when I drank my Diet Coke. I used to down martinis and single malt scotch. Now I was chugging Diet Cokes—and worse, feeling guilty. All because of Ashley.

  I couldn’t even get any satisfaction in my rebellion. Ashley only said, “You’ve come a long way, dude. Who’d have thought an old boozer like you would be sneaking sodas and feeling guilty about it?”

  Then she laughed. The cords in her short, powerful neck stood out, ugly as tree roots. I was so mad, I wanted to kill her.

  That night, I dreamed I strangled Ashley with one of her own exercise bands. I knew it was time to stop.

  Next day at the gym I asked, “Did my wife buy you for one year?”

  “A year? No, she got you the deluxe package, dude. This is a life sentence.” She smiled, but her mouth was harder than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s abs.

  Life? I said. I felt the prison doors closing on me. I would never know another pain-free day. I would never eat another steak without feeling guilty. I wouldn’t even drink another sinless soda.

  Look, Ashley,” I said. “This has been fun, but it’s time to stop. It’s been a year. Refund Francie her money and I’ll go quietly. I’m sick of all this good health.”

  “Can’t, dude,’’ she said. “No refunds. Francie knew that when she paid up-front.”

  “Well, I’m sorry she’ll lose her money,” I said. “But I quit.”

  It felt good when I said that. I wanted my old life back, and if my old body came back with it, so be it. Maybe I didn’t used to look good, but I felt good.

  I saw myself ordering one of Nick’s straight-up martinis with an oily slick of vermouth and a sliver of lemon peel. Then I’d have a long wet lunch of red wine and rare steak. Red meat for a red-blooded male.

  “Quit?” said Ashley, and her lip curled. Even her blonde hair curled in contempt. “What will you tell everyone? That you’re not man enough to keep up with me? The whole beach knows we work out. Stop now, and I’ll tell everyone you weren’t tough enough to work out with a girl.”

  I remembered all those lifeguards and beach bums grinning as I made my proud progress on the sand, Ashley at my side. I remembered Nick the bartender’s envy. I saw my friends at dinner, nudging each other. I’d never be able to explain how tired I felt. I’d be a laughingstock.

  I’d been given a blonde for my birthday, and I was too tired to enjoy her.

  “I don’t care!” I said. Jamal came over then. I guess we’d been talking louder than I thought.

  “Anything wrong?” he said, looming over me like a mountain.

  I shook my head. I was too tired to do anything else. I hurt in places I didn’t know I had.

  I showed up as usual for my next session. I was tied to Ashley until death parted us. For the first time, I actually looked forward to keeling over on the sand. Eternal rest took on new meaning.

  Now that I couldn’t escape her, everything Ashley did irritated me. I hated that she called me “dude.’’ I couldn’t stand those silly smiley faces in my diet diary. Not that I saw many. I was not only drinking Diet Cokes, I was piling mayonnaise on my grilled chicken—at six fat grams a spoonful. Yet now I didn’t gain weight.

  “Can’t you just lie like everyone else?” Ashley said, as she read my acts of dietary defiance. We were working out on the empty, sun-bleached beach.

  “Who’s everyone else?” I said, furious at all the frownie faces.

  “The other guys whose wives bought me. I’m a paid nag, dude. It’s my job to buff up the old boys, tell them to eat their vegetables and drink less. Wives pay me well so they don’t have to say those things.”

  “You mean my wife... My wife knew that you...” I could hardly breathe, I was so angry. Ashley ignored my anger, just as she ignored my pain. She kept hitting me with her taunts. Each one was another slam to my tortured body.

  “They all do. Every woman in Sunnysea would love to have me, but not the way you would. They know old guys are suckers for sweet young things.” She laughed, a cruel, cutting laugh.

  “That’s what I am—one of your suckers?” I’d never felt more humiliated. Ashley didn’t notice that, either. She handed me the hated exercise bands.

  “Hey, don’t bust a gasket, dude,” she said, still laughing. “It’s not your fault you can’t get it up, old man. Energy-wise, I mean. Let’s work on your upper body strength.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, wrapping the blue band around her neck and squeezing as hard as I could. I kept my elbows at a perfect ninety-degree angle. I kept my knees slightly bent to support my lower back. I kept my feet straight out, not splayed to either side, so Ashley couldn’t say “no penguinning.”

  Ashley couldn’t say anything. She was gagging, gasping, and clawing at her neck. She was strong, but I was stronger. I had another eighty pounds of solid muscle. She’d worked hard to build my arms. I pulled the band tighter. Her struggles grew more frantic. Her legs kicked futilely. I kept pulling, all the pain and rage I’d endured strangling my reason.

  Ashley stopped struggling.

  She was dead.

  Slowly, I became aware of my surroundings again. I’d strangled a woman to death on Sunnysea Beach at two in the afternoon. I was fifty feet from a lifeguard cabana. But the guard, whose head was as thick as his neck, was staring at three squealing kids hitting one another with boogie boards. He didn’t notice us.

  The storm-shuttered windows of the WaterEdge condo were blind, too.

  Even the tourists weren’t out on the boardwalk in this heat.

  If I’d lost my temper in the high season of December, some cop would be reading me my rights. But this was July. In Florida, on a summer weekday, the beaches could be as empty as a gym rat’s head.

  No one saw me.
I was lucky. Better yet, I got out of half my class.

  But how long would my luck last? I couldn’t leave her there. Everyone at Jamal’s Jym knew I worked out with Ashley at this time.

  My condo was a mile away. No way could I carry her body there. How was I going to get Ashley off the beach?

  Don’t panic, I told myself. Think.

  I unwound the blue band from around Ashley’s throat and shoved it in my pocket. Her face looked awfully red. I put my sweat towel down on the sand, then put Ashley on top of it, lying on her stomach. I turned her head so her long hair covered most of her face. I put my water bottle near her head, to further block the view of her face. If you didn’t look too close, she seemed to be napping on the beach.

  No one noticed me doing this. More luck. I ran all the way home and got my car. A 1997 Lincoln has lots of room.

  I found a meter, another lucky break, and parked a block from where Ashley was on the sand. I only had a quarter, which buys fifteen minutes in Sunnysea.

  Now came the hard part, getting Ashley off the beach and into the car. I knelt down on the sand, and shook Ashley gently, pretending that I was waking her from a sound sleep. Then I talked to her, as if she could hear me. I wanted it to look like she was my daughter or my girlfriend, and she was a little sun-sick or tipsy.

  I rolled her over on her back, then sat her up. She leaned against me. Her right arm flopped back down and nearly dented my quads. Her face looked swollen and awful, but her hair was hanging down, covering it. I got behind her, put my arms under her pits, and pulled her into a standing position.

  I now knew what a real deadweight lift was. What did Ashley weigh? One hundred twenty pounds max? She felt like two hundred. I got her up and leaned her against me. She was oddly rubbery, but more cooperative than usual.

  I draped her right arm over my shoulder and put my arm around her waist. She leaned against me like a drunk. That was good. I had a little spiel ready. “Out cold,” I planned to say, with an indulgent smile. “Too many pina coladas.’’