He turned around and took the wine off the table. What I wouldn’t have given for a big glass of water and a handful of sleeping pills. I wasn’t particularly interested in how he’d found me-I’m not a detective-story freak. But what else could I do, except listen? I breathed out of my mouth-my nose was plugged with blood. He drained the last drop of wine, then stood up. One of his hands plunged into my hair.
“Come over here,” he said. “I can’t see you where you are.”
He dragged me over to the table and sat me down on a chair under the lamp. Three drops of blood plopped into my bowl of chili. He walked around the table and sat down in front of me-he pulled out his gun. He aimed it at my head, leaning both hands on the table for stability. His fingers were knitted around the butt, except for his index lingers, which were wound around the trigger. They didn’t have much room to move-I hoped he wouldn’t sneeze. Each second that passed made me happy to be alive. He smiled.
“So, to finish the story,” he went on. “I came across this woman who had written a check for her ironing board, and she told me: ‘Oh yes, Sir, I did see this blonde woman, loitering in a yellow car. I even noticed that it was a yellow Mercedes, with a local license plate, and even that she was wearing sunglasses.’ Well, I can tell you… it was a Sunday afternoon, not too late, and I went and sat down at a sidewalk café, thinking of you-thanking you very much for the help. I’m the grateful type, see. Cars like yours… there aren’t a whole lot of them in these parts-in fact, there’s only one.”
I jolted ridiculously-the kind of jolt I’d tile under Taking a Kick at the Great Wall of China. I tried to play coy. I shook my head.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I’ve had that car stolen from me twenty times…”
Henry got a big kick out of this. He grabbed me by the T-shirt and yanked me onto the table. I felt the tip of the silencer against my throat. I was putty in his hands. It might have made a difference if I had tried to defend myself, who knows-he was older than me and was starting to get pretty drunk. Maybe if I’d really gone nuts I could have turned things around-it’s not impossible. But I knew that I didn’t have it in me. I couldn’t have gotten my motor to turn over. Try as I might, I couldn’t get mad, I just couldn’t. I was too tired-more tired than I’d ever been. I would have been right at home on the side of the road somewhere, a small lukewarm sunset for my nightlight, a few blades of grass, and basta.
The young one came back just as Henry was starting to say something. He threw me back in my chair so hard that I tipped over backward and sprawled out on the tile. I was like a bump on a log with my dead arm. I went down hard, like at the end of a fifteen-rounder. I decided to stay down for the count. Nowhere was it written that I had to stand up and go calmly toward the torture chamber. I didn’t budge, I didn’t even move my leg, which remained twisted in midair, my heel coming to perch on a leg of the overturned chair.
I asked myself if the light bulb that hung from the ceiling wasn’t a 200-watter-if that wasn’t why I found myself blinking, or was it perhaps the satchel that the young one was holding in his hands. He looked rather pale. He lifted it up slowly, though it wasn’t very heavy. It took quite a while for him to maneuver it onto the corner of the table. We wondered what the hell was wrong with him, Henry and I.
“I found this,” he murmured.
Suddenly I felt sorry for him-he seemed to have lost his faith in everything. He seemed sad. Henry didn’t try to console him: he grabbed the sack of bills and opened it up wide.
“Oh, Jesus…!” he said.
He shoved his hands into it. I heard the crinkling of bills, but what he took out were my falsies and my wig. He held them up to the light, like a river of diamonds.
“Oh my God in Heaven!” he wheezed.
I couldn’t tell you why I’d kept those old things, or why I’d decided to put them back in the satchel. I assume I’m not the only one who does things he doesn’t understand, for whom things seem to organize themselves to their own ends, dizzying him, pulling him by the hand and God knows what else. Had I been able to dig myself a hole in the kitchen linoleum, I certainly would have.
“It’s Josephine…” the unhappy fellow sighed.
“No shit, Sherlock!” said Henry.
All at once the kitchen changed color-it turned all white. My ears started ringing at full speed. Before I could get my leg out of the way, Henry took aim at my big toe and fired. The pain went up to my shoulder-I saw blood spurting from my shoe like a poison fountain. Oddly enough, it was then that the feeling came back into my arm. I grabbed the chair leg with both hands, pushing my forehead into the floor. Henry jumped on me and turned me back over. He was breathing heavily, sweat beading in his eyebrows and dripping onto my face. His eyes were two baby vultures with their beaks open wide. He grabbed my T-shirt.
“Come here, pretty boy, come here, baby… I’m not finished with you yet!”
He picked me up and threw me onto a chair. He was smiling and grimacing at the same time. He was really into it, running his tongue over his lips and talking to the young man:
“Okay, now we’re going to take him for a ride. Find me something to tie him up with…”
The young one shoved his hands in his pockets, looking like a beaten dog.
“Listen, Henry, I think this has gone far enough. Let’s just call the police…”
Henry made an obscene noise with his mouth. I was looking at my foot-the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
“You poor kid,” he said. “You’re really a little jerk. You don’t know me very well…”
“But Henry…”
“God damn it, you asked to come with me, now do what I say! I’m not about to give him over to the cops, so he’ll be out in three months. Jesus Christ, after what he did to me… Jesus Christ! You must be kidding!”
“Yeah, but Henry, we’re not authorized to…”
Henry went crazy-I thought he was going to start beating on him. They argued, but I couldn’t understand all that they were saying-I had just noticed a small stream of lava spurting out of the west flank of my shoe. It burned so much that I couldn’t get near it with my hand. I don’t know what they decided, but when I lifted my head back up Henry was putting the falsies on me. He got a little worked up over the hooks in back. The other one was standing in front of me. We stared at each other. I sent him a silent message. Help me, I told him. I’m a doomed writer. Henry screwed the wig onto my head.
“So… now do you recognize him?” he shouted. “This the little whore, or what? Is this what you got all weak in the knees about? This?”
The young one bit his lip. I just stayed there, not moving. There was obviously nothing that could get me angry-l wondered if there ever would be again. Just then, though, I felt myself flowing toward the waves, sinking into the ocean. Henry looked like an oil well on fire. His fury had turned him red-orange. He grabbed my last-hope’s arm and threw his head between my breasts, then started throttling the two of us.
“All right, God damn it!!” he screamed. “Is THAT what you want? Is that what you had in mind, you fucking little creep…?”
The young guy tried to get away. His hair smelled of cheap cologne. He whined and cried in a smothered voice. I was afraid he was going to step on my wounded foot. Then Henry pulled him backward and flung him into the table. The chili almost went all over him. The kid was on the verge of tears, red splotches all over his face. Henry put his hands on his hips-a horrific smile on his face, and his stench permeating the room.