Shotgun Opera

by Victor Gischler

  They pulled at clothes, kicked off shoes. Soon both of them were naked atop the boulder, white skin gleaming in the sun.

  He looked at the elaborate Chinese dragon tattooed from her left breast to just above her dark thatch of pubic hair. The tail of the dragon curled around her breast, the dragon’s mouth gaping, razor teeth on either side of Lizzy’s mound. A possible warning to would-be suitors? Andrew didn’t care.

  He cupped one of Lizzy’s breasts, licked the nipple.

  “Forget that,” she said. “Just get inside.”

  He put himself in, tight at first, then thrust in to the hilt. She grunted, reached around and grabbed his ass cheeks, dug in her nails. They thrust into one another, smacking and scraping along the boulder, bodies dripping sweat.

  Lizzy’s eyes squeezed shut. She threw her head back, body shuddering, grunts deep in her throat. She screamed, the climax nearly shaking Andrew off her. She sucked in a deep breath, whining utterances leaking from her as the orgasm waned.

  She began to cry, a small bleating at first, then great racking sobs, fat tears rolling down her face.

  Andrew stopped thrusting. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Keep going.”

  “But—”

  “Keep going!” She wrapped her arms around his body, pulled him against her.

  He humped until he came, collapsed against her. She held him tight, sobbed against his shoulder.

  * * *

  They lay naked on the rock, the sun baking them. Her eyes were closed, and Andrew wondered if she’d drifted off. The encounter had been abrupt but intense. He felt he could use a nap himself.

  He looked at her and now thought she was beautiful. Her curves, white skin, even the Chinese dragon. He’d always been one to fall easily, never all that popular with women, and here was a mysterious stranger, a chance encounter deep in the Oklahoma woods.

  Maybe he’d write a song about it. Probably not.

  “That probably freaked you out a little.” She didn’t move or open her eyes.

  “You can freak me out like that anytime you want.”

  A slight smile at the edges of her mouth.

  Andrew said, “But it was a little sudden.”

  She opened her eyes, turned her head toward him. “It’s been a sudden couple of days. As a matter of fact, it’s been a very strange time for me.”

  There’s a lot of that going around.

  “I don’t know why I started crying,” Lizzy said. “I didn’t even like my sister. I really don’t care at all if she’s dead. But still ” She put her hand on Andrew’s thigh. “It was sort of rushed, wasn’t it? It’ll be more normal next time.”

  Next time?

  They dozed. Birds circled. Clouds wandered across the sky.

  “We’d better get dressed,” Andrew said.

  “Why?”

  “The sun’s bad here,” he said. “It’ll scorch the skin right off us.”

  “Okay.”

  They dressed and headed back down to his uncle’s valley.

  Something had changed. Andrew didn’t miss New York quite so much. He didn’t really know Lizzy, but he made guesses about her and felt they were right. She was strange and wonderful and scary and new and everything he didn’t realize he wanted until now. At least that’s what he hoped, that was the fantasy that delighted him as they made their way down the ridge hand in hand.

  And anyway, it was a hell of a lot better than being shot at.

  33

  Linda wrapped a towel around her, bathroom still steamy from the hot shower. She felt better. A little. The last few days had been strange and stressful. She wished Mike would call. She worried about him. He was the only friend she had in this wilderness. His nephew seemed like a good kid, but she hardly knew him.

  That’s almost exactly what Mike had said. His own nephew was a stranger.

  She looked at herself in the mirror, brushed her teeth, brushed her hair. Who had she become? She’d let Mike talk her out of calling the police. That wasn’t like her. Would her husband have understood such a decision? Then she’d again had the urge to call the local sheriff when Keone’s parents had come to pick up their son’s body. But Mike had previously indicated that the boy’s parents weren’t the kind of people who appreciated law enforcement. She was in too deep to call in the sheriff now. How could she explain herself? No, she’d made her decision and had to live with it. She draped her towel over the shower-curtain rod and walked naked into the bedroom.

  Strong hands grabbed her from behind. An arm around her waist lifted her. She screamed, kicked her legs. When she felt the cold steel against her throat, she went stiff.

  “Remember me, chica?”

  Oh, no.

  He shoved her into the wooden chair she used when applying her makeup. In front of the vanity mirror. He produced a roll of duct tape, wrapped her wrists around the arms of the chair, taped her ankles to the legs. Then he looked right into her eyes, his face four inches from hers. His grin was yellow and crooked, a big gap on the side where she’d knocked the teeth out.

  Linda felt a cold knot in her stomach, dread turning her body to ice.

  “You think Enrique dead, eh? I am too hard to kill.”

  “Please—”

  He backhanded her across the face, the stinging slap knocking her head around. Her ears rang, spots in front of her eyes.

  “You’re one tough puta. Tough with an axe handle. But my head is too hard.”

  Mars held the knife an inch from her face. She saw now it was the meat cleaver from her own kitchen. It had never been used, the stainless steel reflecting her own terrified eyes.

  “You do what I say, or I hack everything off. Nothing left but parts. You understand?”

  She sucked in breath, but couldn’t find her voice. She nodded instead.

  “Bueno.”

  He took off his shirt, sniffed under his armpits. “Phew. I’ve been camping.” He laughed, took off the rest of his clothes. His brown body was marred by the occasional scar, bullet or knife wounds maybe. Linda had no idea. But the sight of his dangling penis and balls was somehow a hundred times more threatening than the meat cleaver.

  He leaned over her, his stink filling her nostrils. He tugged at her arms, but she was taped fast.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Mars cupped one of her breasts and laughed. “Maybe we have some fun. But first I must wash.”

  He left the bedroom, and ten seconds later Linda heard the water running in the bathroom.

  She jerked at the tape, twisted in the chair. It was no use. Tears welled in her eyes.

  No. Get a grip. Think.

  Where was Andrew? He might walk through the front door in the next two minutes or it might be hours. And if he did come home, he’d walk right into the middle of a bad situation without warning. He’d probably get a cleaver in the head from Mars before he could do anything to rescue her.

  She pulled at the tape again. No way.

  If she could just get loose. She’d tucked one of her husband’s old service revolvers into a chest at the back of the closet. It might as well have been a thousand miles away.

  Linda looked for anything useful on her vanity. Lipstick, cotton balls, nail polish. She thought there might be a fingernail file in the top drawer. She hoped. If she could get ahold of it, maybe she could cut through the tape.

  She scooted and bounced the chair a foot closer to the vanity, froze a moment and listened, but Mars was still in the shower. She stretched her hand and was barely able to hook her finger through the drawer handle. She couldn’t pull the drawer out, didn’t have an angle or leverage. She heaved back in the chair, and the drawer slid open an inch as the chair moved. She heaved again.

  The chair tilted back on two legs, and she locked her finger on the drawer handle, trying to right herself. But the chair went over, the drawer popping out, its contents raining onto the carpet. Linda landed flat on her back.

  Shit!

  She listened again to see if Mars had heard the crash. The shower must have covered the noise. She glanced around to see
what she’d done. Combs and curlers and sponges scattered about. An eyelash curler. Something glinted metallic nearby.

  The nail file.

  If she could just roll on her side. The back of the chair was rounded, so she’d caught a break. She began rocking back and forth, grunted, and flopped over on her side. Her hand was a half inch from the nail file.

  In the bathroom, the water shut off.

  Oh, no. No no no no no.

  She stretched her fingers, the tips brushing the file.

  The bathroom door creaked open.

  One more stretch, and her fingers covered the file. She dragged it into her palm and closed it into her fist. The point and the dull end stuck out either side of her fist just slightly. It wasn’t very noticeable. If she kept her fist closed, Mars might not even see it.

  It was so quiet for so long that Linda allowed herself the fantasy that he’d gone.

  Then the bedroom door opened. He walked in, drying his ass crack with one of her good towels. He saw her on the floor, scowled, and tossed the towel onto the vanity.

  “What’s this? Trying to squirm away?”

  She didn’t say anything, only watched him, mentally bracing herself against the inevitable.

  Mars knelt next to her. He grabbed the roll of duct tape, ripped off a six-inch strip, and slapped it over her mouth. “Keep you quiet while I catch a nap.”

  He stood, moved out of Linda’s line of sight. But she heard the bed springs, the rustle of pillows and blankets. Long seconds passed, five minutes, ten. His shallow breathing segued into light snoring. Was he really going to leave her on the floor while he slept?

  She knew the reprieve was only temporary. Sooner or later he would wake, and the horror would begin anew. She jerked her wrists against the tape even though she knew it was useless. She held the fingernail file but could not figure out how to get an angle to cut the tape.

  Her fate seemed written in stone, that she could only wait to suffer and die while a vile killer dozed on her Martha Stewart sheets.

  34

  On the way back to the house, Andrew told Lizzy about Linda.

  “I’m not sure what we should say about you,” Andrew said to Lizzy. “Linda’s a little high-strung right now. If she knows you’re the sister of the woman who tried to blast us all to hell with a helicopter, she might not take it too well.”

  “We’ll lie,” Lizzy said. “Say I’m your girlfriend from New York.”

  It was a good, simple, reasonable lie, but Andrew hadn’t thought of it. The idea of his having a girlfriend was too alien. Also, it was a lie he liked. The thought of her being his girlfriend made him grin.

  “And just what is so funny?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’ll tell you later.”

  They entered the house, and Andrew put a finger to his lips. He whispered, “Let’s keep it down. I don’t know if she’s up from her nap yet.”

  “You’re just stalling,” Lizzy said.

  Maybe. “Hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  They went to the kitchen. Genoa salami, Swiss cheese, brown mustard, lettuce, and tomato. Two bottles of beer. They chewed and drank in silence.

  Lizzy said, “You should tell your friend she has company.”

  Andrew sighed. “Let me finish my sandwich.”

  * * *

  Linda’s face itched. She knew it was psychological, her hands taped to the arms of the chair. She would have given every cent she had to be able to scratch her nose. She was so uncomfortable, feet going numb. The duct tape around her ankles was tight.

  She realized in some distant way that focusing on her minor discomforts kept her from thinking about the fate in her near future.

  She was going to be robbed and raped and killed.

  Now she thought about it, couldn’t stop herself. Mars would rape her in the cruelest way possible, revenge for the axe-handle clubbing. And he wouldn’t want to leave a witness behind, so she was as good as dead. Linda’s too-vivid imagination twisted her guts. Nausea swept through her. She panicked briefly, thinking she might vomit with the tape sealing her mouth shut. Would choking and dying on her own puke be any worse than what Mars had planned for her? Again, she felt the tears coming.

  No! She would not cry, could not allow herself to give in to despair. Her husband had been a good cop. She knew what he would say. Keep your head. No matter what happened, the first step was to keep calm and think straight; otherwise, it was all over.

  She still held the nail file, her fist aching from the tight grip. All she needed was a chance. The waiting was the worst. Mars had only been napping maybe thirty minutes, but to Linda it seemed like an eternity.

  Please just let this end. Even if I’m murdered, just let it end.

  Be patient, her husband would say. Keep your head.

  Right. No vomiting. No crying. Stay calm and be patient.

  * * *

  Andrew put the plates in the sink. “One more beer.”

  “I feel weird being in somebody’s house and not telling them,” Lizzy said. “It’s not courteous.”

  “After this beer.”

  “I don’t want her to walk downstairs and just see me.” She grabbed Andrew’s arm.

  He pulled away. Reflex. The beer bottle slipped out of his hand, broke open with a loud pop on the kitchen floor. Foam and glass across the tile.

  “Shit!” Andrew squatted, picked up the larger pieces of glass.

  Lizzy giggled. “Klutz.”

  * * *

  Linda started at the noise. Somebody was downstairs. Andrew was home. Oh, please please please. If only she could scream. She worked her mouth and jaw, tried anything to dislodge the strip of duct tape. But would she scream for help or for Andrew to run?

  It didn’t matter. She was stuck.

  Mars stirred, shifted in the bed, and Linda went cold. He grunted, and she heard him mumble something in Spanish. He was waking up. Maybe he had also heard the noise from downstairs. Linda gripped the nail file even tighter. One chance. That’s all. Just give me one shot.

  She craned her neck, glimpsed his feet swinging over the side of the bed and planting themselves on the carpet. He stood, came around to face her, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  He bent over, grabbed the chair, and tilted her upright. Relief flooded her sore joints, but she hardly noticed. She looked up at the killer with pleading eyes. Mars offered only a joyless smile in return. He stood close, bent over to grab her breast, pinched a nipple. Hard. He made grunting sounds deep in his throat as he moved his hand to the other breast and pinched again.

  Linda shivered, and Mars laughed. She felt his balls on her leg, his dick growing hard. Now she wanted to scream, do anything to get Andrew’s attention and make him come upstairs. She no longer cared if she put Andrew in danger. She’d do anything to end this horror with Mars.