Hard Knocks

by Zoe Sharp

  “Doesn’t fucking matter,” the messenger said. “We’re already dead.”

  “My leg! I can’t move!”

  “Oh my god . . . oh my god . . .” The mousey-haired woman started to hyperventilate. Waves of tension radiated through the air.

  “Anyone have a light? A match? Flashlight?” It was Florid Face. He shifted. Again the car rocked.

  “I said don’t fucking move!” Pantsuit yelled. Her breath came in short little gasps. “Someone push the alarm button!”

  “I tried! It’s not working!”

  Florid Face found his voice. “Oh fuck, oh fuck . . .” He started babbling. “Holy Mary, Mother of God!”

  The car swayed enough that anyone who tried to get up might have lost their balance.

  “Father, forgive me for I have sinned . . .” The mousey woman prayed in a thin, quavering voice. The smell of fear permeated the car.

  “We should try to stay calm,” a male voice broke in. “If we were going to die, it would have already happened.”

  Pantsuit wasn’t mollified. “I don’t believe it. Where is everyone? Where are the lights?”

  “Shit, shit shit . . .” Comb-over Man chanted.

  Someone made a rustling sound. The elevator rocked again. Bounced a little.

  “Who’s doing that?” Pantsuit shouted. “Stop, goddammit! Don’t you understand English?”

  The messenger said, “I’m trying to climb up on the railing so we can get out, you know, through the roof . . .”

  “Yes, and when the fucking elevator rolls over, we’ll be smashed to bits. Stop it asshole!”

  “Jesus! Someone help me!” Florid Face raked his hands across the floor tiles as if he was trying to collect something precious from them.

  “Look, someone has to know we’re in here . . .” the messenger said. “Try the alarm again. Somebody!”

  Pantsuit started to reply. “I had my finger on it for over a – oh fuck! What now?”

  There was a lurch and a rumble. The elevator groaned. The lights flashed on. Off. Then on again. They stayed on.

  “Oh god! This is it!” The mousey-haired woman gripped the steel railing so hard her knuckles turned white. The man in the Oakleys clutched it too. Mousey-hair looked over, noticed the index finger on Oakley’s left hand – or most of it – was missing. She quickly looked away.

  The elevator started to descend – slowly, under control – as though nothing unusual had just happened. But Comb-over Man was still moaning, and Pantsuit’s cheeks were stained with tears. The messenger, looking wild-eyed, searched for his manila envelope, picked it up, and clutched it to his chest. Florid Face turned ashen. Rising to his knees, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped sweat from his face. His hands shook. Oakley picked himself off the floor and stood in the back, looking blank.

  After what seemed like eternity, the elevator reached the lobby. The doors whooshed open. Three security guards were waiting with anxious expressions. A crowd of people gathered behind them.

  “Are you all right? Is anyone hurt?”

  The messenger yanked a thumb towards Comb-over Man, who was still on the floor. Two of the guards hurried in to examine him.

  “What the hell happened?” Pantsuit demanded as she stepped out. She was followed by Mousey-hair, Florid Face, and the man in the Oakleys.

  One of the guards shook his head. “We’re not sure. The power dipped in parts of the building. This entire bank of elevators went out. Probably a brown out. It’s really hot out there.” He looked at the others. “But we’ll find out. If I could just get your names—?”

  The messenger cut him off. “Not me. Man, I’m never coming in this fucking building again.” He ran toward the revolving doors, pushed through, and disappeared from sight.

  The guard turned to Florid Face. “Sir, could I have your name?”

  The man shook his head. “Just let me out. Right now.”

  “You sure you’re ok?”

  Florid Face didn’t answer, just turned on his heel and walked away.

  “It’s a miracle no-one else was seriously hurt,” the guard said to no-one in particular.

  Mousey-hair gave the guard her name. Pantsuit did, too, adding she had some serious bruises. Comb-over Man was in the process of being carried out by the guards, who assured him paramedics were on their way. “Just hold on, sir.”

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?” Now that the danger was past, anger was replacing fear. “Watch it, goddammit. That fucking hurts!”

  In the commotion no-one noticed the man in the Oakleys. Turning away from the security guards, he eased his way through the crowd toward the revolving door. As he pushed through, he slipped his hand out of his pocket and looked at his watch.

  Right on schedule, he thought to himself.

  Chapter Two

  Three Days Earlier

  I found the used condom when I was changing the sheets in the guest room. Technically, it’s not a guest room – it’s my office. But there’s a daybed against the wall, and, sometimes, when out-of-towners show up, or some of Rachel’s friends spend the night, it’s put into service. As it clearly was last night.

  At first, I didn’t know what it was. Crumpled up, an off-white, beigy colour, it might have been a used band-aid. Maybe one of those footlets they give you at the shoe store. Even an empty sausage casing. I swept my hand over the sheet and scooped it up. When I realized what it was, I dropped it back on the bedcovers, ran into the bathroom, and washed my hands. Then I gingerly picked it up with a pair of tweezers and placed it on a sheet of clean, white printer paper. I picked up the paper and walked into the hall.

  “Rachel . . .”

  Her bedroom door was partially closed, but I could hear her talking on the phone. There was no pause or drop-off in her voice. I called again, louder this time, all the while staring at the condom as if it was infected with Ebola.

  I heard a grudging, “Hang on a minute,” and in the next breath, “What is it, Mom?” Her voice had that clearly-annoyed-to-have-been-disturbed tone.

  “Out here,” I snapped. “On the double.”

  A dramatic sigh was her response. Then, “Call you right back.” Rustles and creaks followed as my eighteen-year-old pulled herself off her bed and emerged from her room. Her blond mop of hair, so unlike my dark waves, fell across her forehead. Her big blue eyes that she’d learned to highlight in just the right way with liner and mascara sought mine. As tall as I, and more slender, she wore a red T-shirt and gym shorts, and all her physical attributes were very much in evidence. My daughter had turned into an attractive, desirable young woman.

  Evidently, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.

  I held the condom out in front of me. At first she squinted as if she couldn’t figure out what it was. Then her brain registered, her lips parted, and a flush crept up her neck. At the same time, she tried to hide her surprise and shot me a look that managed to be both shrewd and defiant.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You and your friends were blowing them up like balloons.”

  Her eyes narrowed, the way they do when she knows I’m onto her and the only possible recourse is disdain. “No, Mother.”

  “Pouring water into them, maybe.”

  Her eyes were little more than slits.

  “No? Pray tell how this ended up in the sheets.”

  Her eyes flicked to the condom then back to me. Her shoulders heaved, and she blew out a breath. “All right. I’ll tell you. But you’ve gotta swear not to tell anyone.”

  “I can’t promise that, Rachel.”

  “Mother, please. You have to. If it gets around . . .”

  “Tell me. I’ll decide.”

  Her face scrunched into a frown. Her lower lip protruded. There was another dramatic silence, and then she said, “It wasn’t me. It was Mary. She and Dan were in there.”

  Mary was her best friend. Dan was Mary’s boyfriend. “When?”

  “Saturday night.”

  It was Monday now. “Wh
ere were you?” She didn’t answer.

  “With Adam?”

  Adam was Rachel’s boyfriend. At least on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or whenever she wasn’t breaking up with him. Regrettably, she’d inherited my emotional intimacy patterns. Or lack of them.

  “We didn’t go upstairs, Mom. I swear. We were out on the deck smoking hookah.”

  My house had become the “go-to” place for Rachel and her friends over the summer. I kept a lid on drinking and smoking, but otherwise left them alone. The newest craze was smoking flavoured tobacco in ornate silver hookahs that would do Alice’s Caterpillar proud. But teenagers always think they’re smarter than adults, and I knew they slipped in some weed now and again. I’d done worse in my youth – I came of age during the sixties – so I pretended not to notice.

  Still, sex in my office wasn’t my idea of acceptable behaviour. “Rachel, this is wrong. It can’t happen again. Not in my house.”

  “Mother, we’re not children. Jesus. I’m going to college next year.”

  “I know. And I can’t wait.”

  “You would say something like that. You never want me around. You don’t trust anyone. You always have to be in control.” When Rachel goes into attack mode, I cringe. It was a tactic she’d learned from her father, who figured he could wear me down with belligerence. It didn’t work when he did it; it wouldn’t work now.

  “If I were you, I’d button my mouth before I found myself grounded for a month.”

  She tightened her lips, but her eyes were pools of rage.

  Then the phone rang. Her eyebrows went sky high, and she bolted into her room to grab it. Which was fortuitous. We were both on the verge of saying things we’d regret.

  “It’s for you,” she called petulantly.

  I poked my head in her room.

  “Could you please take it in your office? I need to call Julia back.”

  “We’ll continue this conversation later.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  I went back in my office, put down the condom, and picked up the phone.

  “Sounds like another fun morning at the Foreman’s.” It was Susan Siler, my best friend and possibly the wisest person I know.

  “She’s full of mother angst right now.” I started to tell her about the condom but Susan cut me off. “Ellie, I want to hear about this, but it’s got to wait. Something important has come up.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Susan rarely makes demands. Of course, her life is perfect. She has the perfect husband, two perfect kids, a perfect house, and a perfect part-time job in an art gallery. We’ve been friends for nearly twenty years, and I still don’t know how she does it.

  “I have this friend,” she said. “Sort of a neighbour, actually. Christine Messenger.”

  “I don’t think I know her.”

  “Ellie, her daughter has been kidnapped . . .”

  Copyright © Zoë Sharp 2003

  First published in Great Britain 2001

  Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd

  This edition published 2011

  Murderati Ink

  excerpt from FIRST DROP copyright © Zoë Sharp 2004

  excerpt from DOUBLEBACK copyright © Libby Fischer Hellmann 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author, nor otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published.

  All characters and events in this collection of stories, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.ZoeSharp.com

  END