By Jake Parralta
Maya made her run across the bar room. Augie’s
Bar and Grill was longer than it was wide, but there was still room for a small
dance floor and a row of booths on the wall opposite the bar. The tables were
randomly placed and Maya zigzagged through them like a rabbit in a corn field in
her fear-fueled race to the door . If she couldn’t get around it, she went over
it or under it. More than once, she knocked tables over and sent chairs tumbling
across the creaky old floor. Drinks flew and glass broke as the startled
patrons tried to get out of her way. As she tore by them, she saw Cold Mike
half get up from his chair and the twisted and angry face of Augie behind the
bar. It kinda seemed to her like she was screaming as she turned the corner
where the bar bent around towards the door.
One of Augie’s hoods, the one called Posey, tried to
clothesline her as she skidded around the corner and came into sight of the
door. Maya saw the outstretched arm and, even though there was no time to duck
under it, she was able to lower her head just enough to butt it aside. Posey
yelped and, for just a second after that, she thought she was going to make it
and she almost laughed. There was the door right there and nobody between her
and it.
But there was something funny with the door. She got to
it okay, but the door just wasn’t right. Before she could fumble it open,
before she could get a good look in the gloomy light of the bar, someone had
her from behind. A hand reached deep into her hair and twisted it up tight
against her skull. The same hand yanked
her head back so hard that she thought her neck had snapped. Her feet were slow
getting the news and they ran right out from under her.
It was Cold Mike. He had recovered from his surprise and
managed to run her down and haul her in. As he drug her across the floor by her
hair, back towards the dark corner, she could hear them laughing. Augie was
saying something about if she had spilled anyone’s drink they could come up to
the bar for another one.
“Hell,” he said, “make it two drinks. Looks like the
basement whore just had one of her little drug related episodes. Pay it no
mind.” There were some grumbles and bitching from the patrons, but mostly, they
laughed it off. Just another wild night down at Augie’s. It would be something
to talk about tomorrow.
Cold Mike released her hair and threw her back across the
corner table, the dark one where the dirty work was done, and began to slap her
hard, first the right cheek, then the left, back and forth. She wanted to
scream, but he had her by the throat with his free hand, cutting off the air.
She told herself, yeah, this is it.
In a
way she was glad. She could still hear that damned guitar in her mind and she
could hear everyone still laughing their asses off at her and she wanted
nothing more or less than to fall way down into complete, black oblivion.
“Jeez,
Mike, quit slapping. You wanta screw up her face?” It was Augie. He was livid
with anger, but still practical. He shoved Mike aside, pulled her up roughly so
she was sitting on the table. He got his face two inches from hers and snarled
at her. “There’s no excuse for what you just did. There’s gonna be no mercy.
But you’re gonna tell me just exactly what the hell has gotten into you!”
“That
john is dead down there,” she blurted
out.
Sharply,
Augie glanced over at Cold Mike.
“Uh,
yeah, Augie, that sleaze of a bookie went down about fifteen minutes ago. Joe,
I think it is. He ain’t come back up yet.”
“He
won’t, either,” said Maya. “He’s dead.”
Augie
looked back at her. “Dead how?” He shook her till her teeth snapped.
“I
don’t know exactly. But he’s dead. I was
scared, Augie.”
“So
scared you come running out of the basement like a maniac? Did it ever occur to
you that you don’t have a stitch of clothes on? Just how stupid are you?”
“Sorry,”
she said. She decided it was best to not mention John Lowe, or the butt viper.
Let ‘em find out on their own. Augie would send someone down to check on the
dead john in a minute. Maybe, she thought brightly, he would go himself. The
thought of Augie screaming on the floor with a butt viper chewing its way out
of his asshole was practically enchanting.
“Get
down there, Mike. Check it out.”
“I’m
on it, boss.”
“You
better be telling the truth,” he told Maya. “Otherwise, there’s gonna be a dead
whore found in an alley tomorrow.” He hollered for Gilda to bring him a drink.
Gilda
shuffled over with his straight up scotch. Augie grabbed it and threw it down,
then shook his head from side to side. “Damn, all this excitement and now I gotta
pee. We ain’t had such a show since last month when Cora Brown sliced that
sailor up with the razor. Watch her Gilda.”
“Okay,”
said Gilda unenthusiastically. “Go pee. But hurry. The whole damn bar says they
got their drink spilled and they’re wanting their refills.”
When
he was gone, Maya thought about making another run. Gilda, who was said to be
the original basement whore, was too old to hold her back if she decided to go
for it. But she could see Posey across the room guarding the door. Posey was a
small, but powerful man who wore one of those stupid English bicycle riding
hats. Posey liked to use a knife and she had the feeling from looking at him
that he would like nothing better than to slice her up like a stack of cheese
singles. That was out.
“He
told me to tell you something, Gilda.”
“What?
What are you talking about?” Gilda looked to the boy’s room door as if she were
hoping to see Augie coming back to relieve her of guard duty.
“That
man that was down in the basement. I told Augie, but he don’t believe me. But
there was a man down there playing the guitar and he told me to tell you
something.”
“Oh,
gawd. You’re talking crazy. I don’t want to know. Just shut up till Augie gets
back.”
“He
says to tell you Hoodoo Johnny knows what you threw away in the dumpster.”
Abruptly,
Gilda sat down in the chair and clutched at Maya’s knee. Even in the dark Maya
could see the gleam of fear glint like little silver coins in her eyes. “I
throw lots of stuff away in the dumpster. I throw things away every day. I
don’t know what you’re talking about. Just stop it.”
“You’re scared, ain’t you, Gilda? You know who
he is. You know what he is.”
“Ain’t
no such person,” she said. “He’s been dead for years and years. He’s like a
joke that’s been going around for ages.”
“Who’s
that?” Augie was back from the bathroom.
“Don’t
matter,” said Gilda. “One of the johns musta been telling this girl scary
stories.”
Cold
Mike was really too stupid to feel fear and he had no problem with dead bodies,
but it was still kind of creepy going down the wooden basement stairs with the
way they creaked and all. The basement was almost completely dark, with only a
rolling circle of light at the base of the stairs where the hundred-watt bulb
was shining down on the concrete floor and the stinky old mattress. As he
stepped carefully down, he noticed that the music from the jukebox was getting
louder. It was some kind of guitar solo.
He
told himself, it’s a good thing I brought along the flashlight.
And
the funny thing was, the jukebox kept on getting louder with every step down he
took. Not real loud, by any means. But louder. He stopped for a second and
plugged up his ears with his fingers. There was no change. For a second, he
thought the music was playing in his head, like one of those commercials you
hear that stick in your mind somehow and keep playing over and over. After
mulling it over for a second, he decided that it was impossible for a person to
have two things going on in their mind at the same time and, since he was
thinking about the dead john, he discounted the idea that he was imagining
guitar music. It had to be some kind of weird echo from the jukebox bouncing
around off the basement walls. He went on down to the bottom of the stairs and
stood there for a moment, peering past the light and trying to make out the
body of the dead john. In a minute, he found himself actually listening to the
music.
It
had a way of pulling him in. It was like the rest of the world was ice cold and
the only warmth was that guitar melody. He found himself wishing there was some
way to breathe in the music. He was hearing it very clearly, now. Without
doubt, it was coming from behind him, from underneath the stairs. With an
abrupt start he suddenly realized that he wasn’t imagining it and he wasn’t hearing
the jukebox from upstairs. There was someone down in the basement and they were
playing their damned guitar right behind him. Cautiously, he turned away from
the light and took a few steps towards the sound. It was like descending into
something without boundaries, into a cave without walls or a vast and starless
universe. With his left hand, he
splashed flashlight light on the floor. He kept his right hand in his coat
pocket, snugly wrapped around the walnut grip of his piece.
“So,
let me see if I got this right. This John Lowe was like a folk singer, or an
old time blues man, who traveled from town to town playing the guitar and
singing and dancing and drinking and gambling and fighting. So, what happened
to him, Gilda?”
Maya
was still on the table, only now Augie had her in an arm lock from behind and
Gilda had thrown an old coat that some long ago patron had left behind over her
nakedness. Augie had just downed another scotch and, to pass the time while he
waited for Cold Mike to come back from checking out the dead john in the
basement, Augie was getting the story out of Gilda. Since Gilda was giving up
her story a little bit at a time, Augie filled the dead spots by jacking Maya’s
arm up until she would yelp.
“Well,
nobody really knows,” said Gilda. “The story is that he sold his soul to the
devil for a magic guitar. This guitar can play right inside people’s heads and
make them crazy. They started calling him Hoodoo Johnny. And then, a few
years later he got in some trouble in
“Okay,”
said Augie, “the guy is dead, now, right?”
Gilda
took a long time thinking up the answer to his question. Augie applied the
pressure to Maya’s arm. She squealed in pain and he laughed.
“I
dunno,” she said. “There’s stories that he comes back sometimes. I heard from
my grandmother that if somebody sings one of his songs, or prays to the devil,
Hoodoo Johnny can comeback for a little while.”
Augie
chuckled. “This is a great story, Gilda. Keep it going. What happens when this
ghost man comes back? Sounds pretty scary, don’t it, Maya?”
“Whatever,”
she told him. He snapped her arm back again.
“Not
as scary as me, though, right?”
“Ouch!
That hurts, Augie!”
“You
don’t know what hurt is,” said Augie.
“Well,” said Gilda, finally, “he just kills a
lot of people, then he goes away.”
“So,
how come? Why should he kill a bunch of people?”
“Because
they’re bad people. People…people like us, Augie. He’s supposed to take all
their souls and put them in a little suitcase.
He’s like a tax collector for the devil, something like that, Augie.
Just stupid old stories is all.”
“And
you believe every word of it, don’t you, Gilda? I think I heard a story like
that before. It’s one of those urban legends. Which is another way of saying a whole
lotta crap. Right, Maya?”
“He
says he seen what Gilda threw away.” Maya remembered that he had also told
Augie to let her go free, but this didn’t seem like a good time to remind him.
“Oh,
yeah, that’s right. You were like talking to this guy, right?”
“I
know you don’t believe me, Augie. You just think I’m tripping, but he’s down
there in the basement.”
“Yeah,
right. Him and the dead john who probably just passed out, or something. When
Mike comes back up, you and me are going down there with ‘em and we’re all
gonna have a hootenanny.”
“Jeez,
Augie, I said I was sorry. Don’t hurt me. Please.”
“Depends,”
he told her. “If Mike comes back up here and tells me there is no dead john
down there, I’m gonna hurt you.”
“What
makes you think Mike is coming back up?” she asked.
Down
in the basement, Cold Mike whipped the flashlight around to shine in the corner
of the basement under the stairs. As soon as he did, the music stopped. There
was nothing there now, but he was sure he’d seen something. It was like the
light cut through something that he couldn’t make out, something that moved
quickly and smoothly out of the light and into the darkness. He blinked his
eyes and looked again at the puddle of light in the corner. There was nothing.
A piece of newspaper and an old rubber boot.
Behind
him, on the opposite side of the basement, the guitar started playing again.
That
did it. He pulled the nine from his coat pocket and walked towards the left
hand corner at the farthest, darkest end of the basement. Now the music was
throbbing in his feet and he actually had to stop himself from bouncing to it
like when you first walk out on the dance floor and start picking up the
rhythm. As he got closer, the beam of light crawled across the floor ahead of
him until it smacked into the corner.
For a second, he thought he had the bastard when the flashlight seemed
to strike a pair of men’s shoes, but all of a sudden, they were gone so quick
that he had to believe he really hadn’t seen anything at all. The light bloomed
up the wall and there was nothing to see but corner. No shoes, no nothing, and,
now, no more music. He flashed the light along the wall, left and right, both
ways from the corner. Nothing but concrete with moldy stuff growing on it.
He
heard something, faint and far away. It was the music again. At first, he could
just barely hear it, it was so soft. But it was like the closer it came, the
louder it got. It picked up in volume and in speed until it had a drive behind
it, a push that made Cold Mike’s blood rush hot to his face. He was getting
mad, now. He wasn’t used to being fucked with. He thought of spinning around
and snapping a couple of caps in that direction, but he told himself it was a
bad idea. He didn’t like the idea of dodging the ricochets in a dark basement..
So,
thinking better of it, he turned slowly and then moved towards the music again,
which now seemed to be coming from where he had started; back towards the area
of the stairs. It was beginning to get a very creepy. On the other hand, this
chasing the music from corner to corner wasn’t exactly the sort of thing he
could go back up and report to Augie. One way or another, he had to come up
with a body: either the dead john, or the wiseacre who was fucking with him.
“I
ain’t sure how you do it,” he said to his unseen prey. “You gotta be on the
small side to move so quick. You gotta be light on your feet to move so quiet.
But it won’t matter in the end. Because I’ll move in on you, inch by inch. I’ll
cut you off again and again until I catch you in one of the corners,” he
promised. “Then, my little friend, it’ll be my turn to have some fun.”
The
music stopped suddenly. Mike waited for a second, but it didn’t pick up again.
He continued to move towards the light
that was between him and the base of the stairs.
And
suddenly, he saw the big man sitting there. It was like he just happened out of
nothing and nowhere. It was tough to make him out because he had to squint his
eyes to see through the glare of the overhead light and squinting his eyes
prevented him from seeing what he was trying to see. But definitely, there he
was, the hazy silhouette of a big guy wearing a hat and holding what looked
like one of those old, wood type guitars.
Cold
Mike thumbed up the safety and brought the barrel of the pistol up and in line
with man’s torso. After all that, it was going to be so easy.
“That
won’t work,” said the hazy man on the stairs. He stood up, giving Mike a much
better shot.
Cold
Mike took it. It wouldn’t be the first time Augie’s customers had heard a
couple of gunshots. With the bastard dead in his sight, he sniggered and quickly
squeezed off a couple of rounds.
Nothing
happened. There was no recoil, no blast from the muzzle. He didn’t even hear
the hammer fall. He tried again. And again. It was frozen, locked up and
jammed. He swore and asked himself how that bastard knew that his gat was
jacked up. He dropped the useless nine back into his pocket, took a deep
breath, and began to move in carefully, but quickly, just in case the bastard
was thinking to play some more cat and mouse. In the back of his mind, he
wandered how somebody so big could have moved so quietly. There was nothing he
hated worse than taking on someone his own size. Or, worse yet, bigger.
Mike
said, “Gotcha now, funny man. And I don’t care how big your are, I’m going to
kill you.”
The
man chuckled contemptuously. “Now, how are you going to do that, Mike? You
can’t get behind me like you did that drug dealer who shorted Augie last
summer. I’m not asleep like old man Vincent’s wife was when you put the pillow
over her face so he could spend the insurance money on that little hottie he
was keeping over on the North side. So, how do you think you’re going to do
that?”
Mike
stopped his advance. Only two people knew about the clip he emptied into the
back of Danny Reynoso’s head in the park on a July Friday night and that was
him and Augie. And no one knew about pillow over Lotta Vincent’s face except
him because old Vincent had finally drank himself to death six weeks ago in
“They
call me Hoodoo Johnny,” said the guitar man. “I’ve known you since you were a
baby, Mike, since way before what your brother Frank did to you in the closet.
I know all about you. So, come on over here, Mike. Let’s get acquainted face to
face.” And again, the contemptuous chuckle.
“Just
wait right there,” said Mike as he moved around the mattress on the floor and
approached the base of the stairs and the dim outline of the man that stood
there. He spoke boldly, but as he closed in, his heart was pounding and there
was a lump in his throat. It was obvious that this Hoodoo whatever character
wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of him. He wished he could get behind
the bastard and, more than that, he wished the damn cheap-ass piece wasn’t
jammed up like a plastic toy from a dollar store in his pocket. He told himself
to get a very good grip on the flashlight, to hold it tighter because he knew
there was going to be lots of slippery blood when he bashed in the bastard’s
skull and he didn’t want to lose his hold on it.
As
he quickly closed the distance that separated him from his prey, the man
actually moved in his direction like he was meeting him and, for just an
instant, Cold Mike saw him clearly. Hoodoo Johnny was a large man in one of
those loose, old time suits with the wide lapels and a kind of Indiana Jones
fedora. He had a guitar on a strap slung under his arm. And instead of meeting
him in the middle, he disappeared like a ghost the second he stepped into the
cone of light from the overhead bulb. He just went away, like when you turn off
the TV.
Cold
Mike pulled up short. He knew he had seen what he had seen and it just wasn’t
right. Hell, it just wasn’t possible. That bastard melted into nothing the
second the light hit him. It just wasn’t right. “That was a good trick,” he
said. “I swear I don’t know how you did that, maybe you’re some kind of
magician, right? I musta blinked or something.”
There
was no answer. The only thing he heard was that damned music start playing in
his head. There was no gradual buildup this time, it just came on loud and
pounding like a radio alarm going off at full blast. It beat against the inside
of his skull like a hammer on a train track. Mike started moving again. He
could see the chain hanging down from the light bulb and it gave him an idea.
He would switch off the light. Before that Johnny dude knew what was happening,
he would run like hell up the stairs and get the door open and get back inside
the bar. Then he would tell Augie to shove it up his ass and get the hell out
of the bar. He would go to his apartment and throw some shit in a suitcase and
get down to the train station and take the first train to anywhere. When
unexplainable shit could start happening down in basements underneath bars, it
was time to find a new town. He took a deep breath for the run up the stairs
and reached up to grab the string.
“You
know, Mike, if you turn that light off, I’ll be completely real and nothing
will stop me from ripping open your stomach and pulling your guts out like
groceries from a shopping bag. Nothing at all. That’s what I want you to do,
Mike. Turn out the light. Go ahead, Mike. Turn out the light and let me
happen.”
The
voice was in his ear, but Mike was too frozen up to turn and look at the
whisperer. Besides, he could see out of the corner of his eye and there was
nobody there. He had his fingers two inches from the light chain and he didn’t
know what to do. The music was screaming now, deep inside his head and he
literally felt his eyes bugging out. “And if I don’t?” he asked, trying to
sound at least a little bit tough. But his voice was a croak and his tongue was
dry and sticking to the roof of his mouth and his heart was beating so fast it
was burning. He remembered the feeling from when he was a little kid. It was
fear.
Hoodoo Johnny laughed,
dryly. “If you don’t turn off the light, then I won’t be real and I’ll be able
to get inside you, Mike. I can crawl right in. It’s gonna be like two people in
a tight sleeping bag. You know, like you and your brother in the closet, only
lots worse.”
“Oh,
I think he’ll be coming back up,” said Augie. “Yep. I can hear him coming up
the stairs right now. He’s almost to the landing.”
Maya was able to see the door clearly from where Augie
had her shoved down on the table. Now, she could hear the footsteps on the
landing. Slowly, the doorknob turned, the door swung out and open and Cold Mike
stepped in to the bar. He didn’t look so good. His face was so bloodless that
it seemed to glow in the dim light.
Maya saw it right away, but Augie didn’t seem to notice
the glazed, frightened look in his eyes or the way he was walking funny. It
seemed like Mike couldn’t get his feet up all the way off the floor when he
took a step. He was kind of shuffling along, having to twist his hips in order
to move his legs forward.
“Well?” he asked. “Did you find her dead john down there
anywhere?” Augie yanked her up to a standing position.
“No,” said Cold Mike. “That Bookie Joe guy wasn’t down
there.”
“Nah, I didn’t think he would be. Take the whore back
down where she belongs and wait for me. I’ll be along in a minute, or two, and
then we’ll get her straightened out, once and for all.” Augie jacked her arm up
one last time and then shoved her forward into Cold Mike. He swung her around
like twisting the top on a garbage bag and, as Augie had done, jacked her arm
up until her hand was between her shoulder blades.
“I ain’t going back down there,” said Cold Mike. “No way
in hell. I had some kind of a nightmare down there and now I just want to go
home and rest, Augie. I don’t feel good.”
It was like Augie didn’t even hear him. He just turned
and walked towards the bar. Augie was moving with kind of a bounce to his walk,
like he had a groove on for some hot song that was playing in his mind.
“Hey, Augie,” Mike shouted behind him. “Kiss my ass; I
ain’t going back down there!” Even as he said it, he turned, forcing Maya to
turn with him and pushed her towards the door. His mouth was saying one thing
and his body was doing another. “I ain’t going back down in the basement,
goddamnit!”
Even
though he was almost screaming, Maya realized that she was the only one who
could hear him. Augie was behind the bar, coolly cracking the lid off a bottle
of beer and Gilda was delivering drinks to a long party table at the other end
of the room. The twenty or so patrons were clearly oblivious to the bleating of
her captor. The game was on and the juke box was rocking out that damn song and
not one of them turned their head away from the TV.
She realized that she wasn’t too wild about the idea of
going back down to the basement, either. A few feet before they reached the
still open door, she dug in her heels, but Mike pushed her inexorably forward.
As her bare heels scraped along the old wooden floor and she kicked back
against his weight, she couldn’t believe how strong he was. The bastard was big
and powerful, but there was no way he should be pushing her along like an empty
shopping cart. Maya took a deep breath and screamed, too, but his huge hand
clapped over her mouth and silenced it quickly.
“Oh, jeez, somebody help!” screeched Mike. She suddenly
realized that he, too, was struggling
against the force that was pushing them both towards the basement door.
To Maya’s amazement, Cold Mike began
to blubber like a baby. But he still kept moving forward until he pushed her
through the door and onto the landing of the basement stairs.
Going down the
stairs was like dancing on ice with a zombie. Maya struggled against the
strangely clumsy, but incredibly powerful man who wrestled her down the stairs,
one step at a time. Twice she almost fell, but twice he caught her. That was
another tip-off that something was really wrong with Cold Mike. He was more the
kind of guy who would just shove her down the stairs then have a good laugh
about it. When she finally made it off of the stairs alive, he quickly forced
her down on the cruddy mattress and pinned her arms with his knees.
Maya looked quickly around, peering in to the dark. “You
know there’s someone else down here, don’t you? There’s a big guy with a little
suitcase and a guitar.”
“No shit,” said Cold Mike. “I know all about Hoodoo
Johnny. He’s crawled inside of me. Like two people in a tight sleeping bag. You
ever try to get away from something inside of you?”
“All the time,” said Maya.
“I feel all sour inside. Like when you eat bad fish. But
I feel light, too, like I could jump up and start flying around the room.”
“So, why don’t you?”
Cold Mike brought his arm up and back to slap her. But
before he could bring his open hand down on her unprotected face, his arm froze
in mid-air for a second and Maya saw the hand fold into a big, meaty fist. He
swung in a short, tight arc and just before she instinctively shut her eyes,
she saw Cold Mike punch himself in the nose.
He hit himself hard, much harder than she thought a
person could possibly hit himself in the nose. She heard the crunch of cartilage
breaking and saw the blood running in a dark flood from his smashed nose to his
chin. Mike gasped in surprise, then howled in pain. Abruptly, he stood up like
someone had grabbed his collar and yanked him to his feet.
“He don’t want me to hit you,” said Cold Mike. “He wants
me to give you all the drugs you want. Here’s your kit. Help yourself.” Mike pulled the little box of joy out of his
inside pocket and dropped it on her chest. “He wants me to sit down on the
stairs now because if I don’t I’ll be sorry ‘cause there’s a butt wiper – or
something like that -- loose down here.”
Under
the bar, lying on its side behind the shotgun and the aluminum baseball bat,
was Augie’s burnzamatic torch. He had traded a few rounds of drinks to an old
plumber to get it a couple of years ago just for an occasion like this. He
picked it up and set in on the bar for a second while he rummaged around and
found the striker and a pair of wire cutters. Then he finished off the last
half of his beer and told Gilda to watch the bar for a few minutes.
“And turn the jukebox up,” he told her. “Get it up as
loud as it will go.”
“For Gawd’s sake, Augie, don’t do
nothin’ to her! She’s just a kid,” blurted Gilda.
“Time she grew up,” he said. He gathered up the stuff in
his arms and moved towards the basement door.
Maya
wasted no time. By the time Mike sat down on the stairs and got the blood wiped
off his chin with his coat sleeve, she had the needle in her arm and was doing
a big time slam. Almost instantly, she started to buzz a little, but before she
could enjoy it, Maya heard the blast of music from upstairs as the door to the
bar opened up and Augie appeared on the landing above, silhouetted in the
doorway. The jukebox was wailing loud, louder than she had ever heard it before
and it was still playing that damned Hoodoo Johnny song. But what the hell, she
had her dope. She thought, thank you devil, god, whoever, for the blessed dope.
She knew she was going to need it to get through this. Augie was so mad, she
could feel his anger like a hot wind blowing down the stairs
Augie
came stomping down one step at a time, swearing under his breath. When he came
in to the light, she could see he had an armful of stuff: the torch and
striker, the wire cutters and a roll of duct tape. Cold Mike stood up and let
him go by.
Quickly, Maya called out to him. “I said I was sorry,
Augie. I know I fucked up and it won’t happen again. I swear to gawd.”
He ignored her. He told Cold Mike, “Hold her down. Sit on
her chest and keep her arms down. Hey, what happened to your nose, Mike?”
“I hit myself,” said Mike.
“Now, that’s kinda
stupid. Sheesh. Just keep the bitch down for me. This won’t take long.”
He dropped his armload on the floor where Maya’s feet
stretched out over the mattress. She didn’t get a chance to see much of it
before Cold Mike sat back down on her chest, but what she saw was enough to terrify
her: a torch, some clothes hangers and a roll of gray duct tape. The drugs
started kicking in and she developed the vague, irrational hope that this was
all just part of the bad trip that had started out with Hoodoo Johnny stepping
from out of nowhere and into the basement. She told herself, yeah, that’s it.
I’m still tripping on those bad drugs.
Augie
was cutting up a clothes hanger, straightening it out into a long piece of
wire. She could see him working over Mike’s shoulder. Augie grinned at her and
she wanted to plead again but couldn’t. She just hated the bastard too much too
much to beg anymore. She wished she could claw his bloated face off and shove
the bloody mess down his throat.
Augie turned away, then grabbed her left leg and pulled
it up so he could hold it between his own legs. As he wrapped the wire tightly
into a tourniquet just above the ankle, she heard herself scream a little, but
she still clung to the bad trip theory.
“Oh, crap,” said Augie. “I forgot the tape. Grab that
duct tape and shut her up.”
While Cold Mike stretched a length of tape over her
mouth, Augie repeated the procedure on her right leg. As the heavy clothes
hanger wire bit into her skin, she had to let the bad trip idea slip away. It
was hurting too much. Cold Mike’s weight was on her like a pile of rocks and
she couldn’t even put up a struggle.
Augie dropped her leg suddenly and then moved off towards
the basement wall on her left. “Shine the light over here, Mike. I know it’s
over here somewhere.”
Cold Mike leaned over to pick up his flashlight that was still
lying on the floor, just off of the mattress. It was already on and, in a
second, he was able to shine it in the direction of Augie’s voice. She turned
her head in time to see the white blossom of the flashlight beam bloom large on
the basement wall. They all saw what Augie was looking for at the same time,
hanging dusty and rusted on the concrete wall. Right then she knew what was
coming and she screamed so hard against the duct tape that her eyes started
popping out and an eardrum blew.
“Thanks,” said Augie, “I got it, now, so you can get that
damn light out of my eyes!” He held it up so she could see it as he walked back
into the tent of light from the bulb above the mattress. He bent it and snapped
it and made it go “boing”.
“Yep,
my old saw, hanging up right where I left it.”
Maya
tried another scream, but it turned out no better than the first one. She was
drowning in screams that had nowhere to go.
“You
know,” said Augie, “you don’t really need feet in your line of work.” He was
standing over her, letting her get a good look at the saw. “So, I’m gonna saw
‘em off. Then I’m gonna use the old torch to stop the bleeding. It’s gonna hurt
like you can’t even imagine. But your gonna live, even if I have to get a
crooked doctor down here to take care of you.”
She
told herself he was just kidding, just trying to scare the crap out of her to
teach her a lesson. In a minute, he would laugh and cut the wire off of her
legs and go back upstairs and leave her alone and then the sailors would start
coming down to bone her and everything would be okay, everything would be back
normal like it was yesterday.
“And
I guarantee you won’t be coming back up the stairs and running around nekid
again. Not on a couple of stumps, you won’t. You’re gonna spend the next ten
years or so down here flat on your back making money for me. And when you’re
all worn out, I dunno. I ain’t thought that far ahead.”
Augie
turned, walked around Cold Mike to the other end of the mattress where he knelt
down close to her wildly kicking feet. It took him a couple of seconds to grab
her ankles, but when the did, he picked up her right leg, crossed it over her
left leg and started sawing her foot off.
END OF PART
TWO