“I-I never…”
“You’re made, bitch,” Oscar said, his bald head out of frame. “You’re busted.”
“We know, Jinny. So admit it. If you admit it, then everything’ll be cool. If you don’t… Just, please—don’t insult me.”
Flood’s eyes were peeled now, the drama cutting through the dark. More words flew upward, like tiny bats.
“I-I worked a car show in Tampa luh-luh-last weekend…”
Flood could see Leon standing, arms crossed, his head, too, out of frame.
“Um-hmm. And?”
The girl’s lower lip quivered, one cheek a blushing pink from the slaps. “And—that’s all.”
“Solo? Or were you working for Henry Phipps?”
“Solo!” she nearly jumped up and exclaimed.
“Hmm? Really?”
“Yes! I swear!”
“I’ve lost three girls to Henry. I’m not going to lose anymore. I won’t let you girls embarrass me like that. I take care of you all, and I don’t deserve to be humiliated.”
“I was soloing the car show, I swear to God! I wasn’t working on the side for Phipps!”
“I heard she was,” Oscar said.
“I wasn’t! I swear, I swear!”
Leon: “What do you think, Osc? You believe her?”
“No. Lemme fuck her up. Lemme bottle-job her.”
Jinny put face in hands, sobbing. “I didn’t, I didn’t. I’d never work for someone else…”
“I…,” Leon began. A beat. A gust of breeze. Then: “I believe her.”
Now her sobs were of relief.
“Thank you for being honest, Jinny. I hope we can maintain a wonderful friendship and working relationship.”
“Thank you, thank you. I made about a grand, I’ll give it all to you tomorrow.”
“Not necessary. I know you need it for your child. But you know the rules. If you hadn’t told the truth, it would be…much worse. Right? You know the rules?”
She gulped and nodded.
“Do you deserve what’s coming?”
Another gulp, another nod.
“Good girl. I’ve always liked you. You can make it hard, or you can make it easy.”
The girl stood up, head stooped, her nudity lusterless now.
Oscar seemed to be putting something on his hand. Flood’s mind flashed with the worst possibilities (Brass knuckles? A blackjack?) but then he noticed it was a glove, a large black glove. The girl turned to face Oscar, while Leon chicken-winged her from behind.
“Don’t make a sound,” he said into her ear.
By now Flood realized the glove’s uniqueness: it was a sand-mitt, something police and prison guards used as a non-lethal weapon.
Holy shit, he thought.
In the dark he reached for the phone to call hotel security and report an assault, but—
The room’s darkness around him, and the glaring image from the lit window, made him feel encased in cement.
“Not the face,” Leon said, propping the girl up by her elbows.
Oscar opened and closed the gloved hand, smacked it into his palm several times.
Call security, Flood thought.
The bald man belly-punched her once with a sound like a sandbag hitting the floor.
WHAP.
She tried to double over but Leon’s hold wouldn’t permit it.
WHAP. Another jab to the belly. Then another, and another.
The legs she stood on gave way; Leon kept holding her up, like a trainer holding a boxing pad. The fifth blow to the belly sent her head bouncing around, a ball on a spring. She must barely be conscious now.
Call the police! Flood screamed at himself, hand hovering over the phone.
His mind, somehow, felt vacant, his spirit…gone.
Then his hand drifted off on its own…
A confusion consumed him. Flood’s eyes were riveted to the window. He kept watching the brutality, knowing he should do something to help the girl, but his conscience was nowhere to be found. Oscar afforded her several more blows to the belly, then threw her down on the bed. Both men walked out of view. Jinny shuddered on the mattress in a fetal position, gasping, pain stamped into her face like a twisted mask.
God Almighty, Flood thought. What am I doing?
Without even any direct awareness, Flood had pulled his shorts down and was masturbating. His penis felt alien, the erection so hard and so complete, for a moment he didn’t believe it was his own. A final stare, then, at the girl’s brutalized nakedness, the suffering on her face…
Fresh sensations churned, then exploded; Flood nearly cried out when his orgasm broke, gusts from his groin shooting feet-long plumes of sperm through the air. The first spurts actually sailed out the window, and what was left pelted the wall. Flood collapsed.
This was a big deal to him—his first orgasm in three years.
Next morning, his confusion turned to shame. How could that have happened? he asked his own face in the bathroom mirror. What kind of person am I?
He contemplated that question for the short walk across Gulf Boulevard to the convention center. And he knew. I’m not a bad person. I don’t exploit people, or lie, or cheat, or steal. So what had happened last night?
Flood’s job at the electronics show was essentially information support: to explain marketing and sales details to any prospective high-volume buyers, which generally didn’t occur until the last day. His underlings ran the booth while he wandered the showroom, pretending to be checking out the competition’s new products—pretending because his mind was surely elsewhere. He wended through the crowd, oblivious and still shaken; he scarcely even noticed the human eye-candy that some booths sported: stunningly beautiful women in bikinis and high-heels, handing out brochures. Additionally, when competitors he knew personally bid him a greeting he could only wave back or nod in the dimmest fog. Flood felt like a single bug in a haystack.
Walking around for several hours didn’t clear his head as he’d hoped. I should have called the police immediately, or the security desk—something, anything. But what did I do instead? I stood there and jerked off because I haven’t been able to come since Felicity left me. I witnessed a girl getting beaten, and instead of doing anything about it…I JERKED OFF! What the hell is WRONG with me? It didn’t matter that it was just a few belly-punches; it was brutal and it was sick. It was a criminal assault. The situation had been easy enough to figure, nearly a cliche: “Leon” was obviously the pimp, “Oscar” the lieutenant, and Jinny the prostitute. She’d been holding out on Leon, working on the side behind his back—a supreme no-no in the field. Flood’s id kicked in a plea to rationalize: Okay, yeah, sure, she got beat up, but that happens to dishonest whores. It’s part of the turf and she knows it. She’s a whore, and prostitution is illegal. Leon and the bald guy are panderers, and pandering is illegal. They’re all a bunch of criminals, so why do I feel guilty? I’M not a criminal. If they saw someone beating ME up, would THEY call the police? Fat chance. So I’m not gonna let myself feel like shit because a girl who had it coming to her got her ass kicked…
Flood felt better for all of five minutes, then slumped again when he admitted the falsehood.
By three, the convention center had become a hive; he thought of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the only difference being that the floor of the New York Stock Exchange didn’t have voluptuous women in bikinis prancing about. That voluptuousness, though, only depressed him more. It was for every one else but…
Not for me. Never for me.
Last night was an anomaly; he knew he was back to square one. His penis felt like a flap of numb skin in his trousers.