Pembroke, eyes still closed, sat up and sniffed at the cup. "What slaughterhouse? What's this shit in here?"
"The one by the river."
"Where's my bottle?"
"Drink this down, it'll wake you up." The instant grounds hadn't dissolved; they floated on the top like brown ice. Pembroke sipped it, spit a mouthful onto the bed, and flung the cup away. "Jeeeez!" Only then did he realize that there was a man in a blue suit and body armor standing over him.
"Who the fuck're you? Where's my -"
"I need your helicopter. And I need it now. It's a federal emergency. You gotta fly me to that slaughterhouse by the river."
"There? The old one? It's three fucking miles away. You can drive faster. Fuck, you can walk! God in Hoboken… my head. Oooooh."
"I need a chopper. And I need it now. I'm authorized to pay you whatever you want."
Pembroke sagged back onto the bed. His eyes kept closing. Budd figured even if they managed to take off, he'd crash and kill them both.
"Let's go." The trooper pulled him up by his Oshkosh straps.
"When?"
"Now. This instant."
"I can't fly when I'm sleepy like this."
"Sleepy. Right. What do you charge?"
"A hundred twenty an hour."
"I'll pay you five hundred."
"Tomorrow." He started to lie down again, eyes closed, patting the dingy sheets for his bottle. "Get the hell outta here."
"Mister. Open your eyes."
He did.
"Shit," Pembroke muttered as he looked down the barrel of the black automatic pistol.
"Sir," Budd said in a low, respectful voice, "you're going to stand up and walk out to that helicopter and fly it exactly where I tell you. Do you understand me?"
A nod.
"Are you sober?"
"Stone cold," Pembroke said. He kept his eyes open for a whole two seconds before he passed out once more.
Melanie lay against the wall, caressing Beverly's sweaty blond hair, the poor girl gasping with every breath.
The young woman leaned forward and looked out. Emily, crying, stood in the window. Now Brutus turned suddenly and looked at Melanie, gestured her forward.
Don't go, she told herself. Resist.
She hesitated for a moment then walked out of the killing room toward him.
I go because I can't stop myself.
I go because he wants me.
She felt the chill sweeping into her from the floor, from the metal chains and meat hooks, from the cascade of slick water, from the damp walls spattered with mold and old, old blood.
I go because I'm afraid.
I go because he and I just killed a man together.
I go because I can understand him…
Brutus pulled her close. "You think you're better'n me, right? You think you're a good person." She could tell he was whispering. People's faces change when they whisper. They look like they're telling you absolute truths but really they're just making the lie more convincing.
"Why're we selling it? Honey, you know what the doctor said. It's your ears. You can still hear now some, sure, but that'll go, remember what they said. You don't really want to start something you'll have to give up in a few years. We're doing it for you."
"See, I'm going to cut her in about three minutes, that chopper don't show up. I'd kill her I had more hostages. But I can't afford to lose another one. Least not yet."
Emily stood, hands still clasped together, staring out at the window, shaking as she sobbed.
"See" – Brutus closed his fiercely strong fingers around Melanie's arm – "if you were a good person, you were really good, you'd say, 'Take me, not her.' "
Stop it!
He slapped her. "No, keep your eyes open. So if you're not like totally good you must have some bad inside you. Somewhere. To let this little one get cut instead of you. It's not like you'd die. I ain't gonna kill her. Just a little pain. Make sure those assholes out… know I mean business. You won't put up with a little pain for your friend, huh? You…bad. Just like me?"
She shook her head.
His head swiveled. Stoat's too. She guessed the phone was ringing.
"Don't answer it," he said to Stoat. "Too much talking. I'm sick and tired…" He thumbed the blade. Melanie was frozen. "You? You for her?" He moved the blade of the knife one way then the other. Figure eights.
What would Susan have done?
Melanie hesitated though she knew the answer clearly. Finally she nodded.
"Yeah," he said, eyebrows raised. "You mean it?"
"Two minutes," Stoat called.
Melanie nodded then embraced sobbing Emily, lowered her head to the girl's cheek, directed her gently away from the window.
Handy leaned close, his head inches from Melanie's, his nose beside her ear. She couldn't hear his breath, of course, but she had the impression he was inhaling something – the scent of her fear. Her eyes were fixed on the knife. Which hovered over her skin: her cheek, her nose, then her lips, her throat. She felt it caress a breast and slide down her belly.
She felt the vibration of his voice, turned to look at his lips. "… should I cut you? Your tit? No loss there – you don't have no boyfriend to feel you up, do you? Your ear? Hey, that wouldn't matter either… You see that flick, Reservoir Dogs?"
The blade lifted, slipped over her cheek. "How 'bout your eye? Deaf and blind. You'd be a real freak then."
Finally she could take it no longer and she closed her eyes. She tried to think of the tune of "Amazing Grace" but it was nowhere in her memory.
A Maiden's Grave…
Nothing, nothing, all silence. Music can be vibrations or sound, but not both.
And for me, neither.
Well, she thought, do whatever the fuck you're going to do and get it over with.
But then the hands pushed her brutally away and she opened her eyes, staggering across the floor. Brutus was laughing. She understood that this little sacrifice scene had been just a game. He'd been playing with her once again. He said, "Naw, naw, I've got other plans for you, little mouse. You're a present for my Pris."
He handed her off to Stoat, who held her firmly. She struggled but he gripped her like a vise. Brutus pulled Emily back into the window. The girl's eyes met Melanie's momentarily, and Emily pushed her hands together, praying, crying.
Brutus caught Emily's head in the crook of his left arm and lifted the tip of the knife to her eyes.
Melanie struggled futilely against Stoat's iron grip.
Brutus looked at his watch. "Time."
Emily sobbed; her joined fingers twitched as they uttered fervent prayers.
Brutus tightened his grip on Emily's head. He drew back a few inches with the knife, aimed right for the center of her closed right eye.
Stoat looked away.
Then suddenly his arms jerked in surprise. He looked straight up at the murky ceiling.
Brutus did too.
And finally Melanie felt it.
A huge thudding overhead, like the roll of a timpani. Then it grew closer and became the continuous sound of a bowed upright bass. An indiscernible pitch that Melanie felt on her face and arms and throat and chest.
Music is sound or vibration. But not both.
Their helicopter was overhead.
Brutus leaned out the window and looked up at the sky. With his bony fingers he dramatically unlocked the blade of his knife and closed it with what Melanie supposed was a loud snap. He laughed and said something to Stoat, words that Melanie was, for some reason, furious to realize she could not understand at all.
9:31 P.M.
"You're looking a little green around the gills there, Charlie."
"That pilot," Budd said to Potter, climbing into the van unsteadily. "Brother, I thought I'd bought the farm. He missed the field altogether, set her down in the middle of Route 346, almost on top of a fire truck. Now, there's an experience for you. Then he puked out the window and fell asleep. I kept shutting stuff off till the engine stopped. This smell in here isn't helping my stomach any." The captain's exemplary posture was shot to hell; he slumped into a chair.