Where was the maid? Marta was spooked. She sensed the attack the split second before a pair of powerful hands seized her by the throat, choking the air out of her and lifting her bodily off the ground.
11
Bobby Bogosian squeezed the bitch's throat from behind and lifted her up by the neck. He held her there while she thrashed and grunted, running in the air like a fucking Road Runner cartoon. It wasn't like Bobby enjoyed the sight, because he didn't. He knew guys who got off on this shit all right, but to him it was a job. He was a professional. So when he thought the lawyer was gonna suffocate he threw her across the floor and she crashed into the dining room table.
"No!" she screamed, and Bobby thought it was funny how people always said "no." Like that would do anything. Like he could be persuaded. Just say no. He went after her.
Bobby covered the room in three bounds and shoved the bitch forward onto the table. Her head hit the glass thing in the middle and sent it crashing to the marble floor in a million pieces. Fuck! Now Bobby was mad. Professionals didn't make a mess. The fucking thing probably cost a thousand bucks. Fucking bitch.
She was howling and trying to kick and wiggle away, so he grabbed her hair and turned her around. He yanked her by the front of her blouse and slammed her head back onto the table. One shot, then another. Her eyes rolled around but she wasn't out yet. Stubborn bitch. Fine. He'd play it that way. Play it as it lays.
"What the fuck's the matter with you?" Bobby shouted in her face. "You broke that, you bitch!"
Marta tried to scream but couldn't. She gasped for air. Her throat closed. Her head exploded in pain. Tears of fright sprang to her eyes.
"What do you think you're doin'? Breakin' things! Trespassin'! You're a fucking bitch, you know that! You're a fuckin' cunt!"
Marta tried to catch her breath. Who was this man? What was going on? He was tearing the hair right out of her head.
"What the fuck do you think you're doin'?" Bobby slammed her head against the table again and shoved himself between her legs. He'd pin her to the table with his dick. Let the bitch feel it. See how she liked that.
Marta felt her legs wrenched open. Her skirt at her waist. No. Not that. She thrashed in his grip. Tried to push him away. Kick him, kill him. He banged her head harder against the table. Marta cried out in agony and terror. She fought with her hands. Clawed the air with her nails.
"You want to get in my good graces?" Bobby was screaming.
Marta was groggy from the blows. Her scalp was on fire. Warmth gushed from the back of her head. Blood. Hers. Her fear grew so intense it became remote. It was happening to someone else. She watched the violence as if from above and struggled to get her bearings. Think. Save herself. The man had been waiting in Steere's house. The man must know Steere. The maid had set her up.
"You want to get in my good graces? Answer me!" Bobby raged, spitting.
Above Marta the man's face was red with fury and hate. Her mind reeled. The man worked for Steere. Steere had sent him to stop her. Then he couldn't kill her and he couldn't rape her. She'd have to go on TV when the jury came back. Marta told herself she had the upper hand even though she was getting the shit beat out of her. Power was a state of mind.
"You want to get in my good graces? Answer me, you cunt!"
"You have graces?" Marta managed to say.
Bobby couldn't believe this whore! When it came time to do her, he might start enjoying his work. He pulled her head forward by her hair and rammed it back against the glass table again and again until she finally went out. It took two more shots than he thought it would.
* * *
Marta gasped as she bent over the sink in her hotel bathroom. Even the slightest movement sent pain arcing though her body. She must have bruised her ribs, and her back was killing her. Her head throbbed and her hands shook as she splashed warm water on her face and let it course down her cheeks. Marta was alive, but she was a prisoner. The thug was sitting in the living room of her hotel suite. He wasn't leaving until the jury came back.
Marta splashed more water on her face and tried to collect her thoughts. She'd regained consciousness in the man's Corvette, and he'd taken her to her hotel and walked her up to her room, pressing a Magnum between her battered ribs. How would she get free of him?
Marta twisted off the faucet and patted her face dry. Wincing, she reached around the back of her head, where a dozen goose eggs had hatched, and fingered the lumps to see if the bleeding had stopped. She came away with blood on her fingertips, her scalp swollen and tender. All her bruises were in back, hidden; a very professional goon. She opened the medicine cabinet stiffly and gulped three more Advil. Then she caught sight of herself in the bathroom's large, spotless mirror.
Marta's hair was disheveled, her makeup worn off. Her clothes were wrinkled and her gaze vacant. She hadn't eaten or drunk anything since lunch and her skin had a pinched, unhealthy pallor. Marta knew that face. She looked exactly like her mother after a binge. It was the last person in the world she wanted to be.
Praise God you picked us up! Our car broke down back a ways. Me and the child here. Her mother pushes Marta into the front seat next to the driver of the blue station wagon. Gets in after her. Marta is thinking, No, that's not how we do it. You go in first, not me. But her mother is too drunk to remember. She closes them inside. Marta stares at the tall, silver stem of the door lock to make it stay up. The driver's knee bumps against hers as they drive off in the station wagon.
Marta shook off the echoes. She had to get going. She checked her watch. 8:30. Time was running out. What could she do? How could she shake him? Would there be more beatings? Something told her no. Steere wanted her paralyzed, not pulverized.
Marta unlocked the bathroom door and opened it quietly. She peeked through the crack and looked past her bedroom into the living room. She tensed at the sight of the thug even at a distance; her body remembered his blows even as her mind willed them to vanish. He was sitting on the plush sofa, his black cowboy boots crossed on the polished coffee table. He must have been six foot three, with a heavy brow, curly dark hair, and coarse features. He scratched his chest through a beige silk shirt as he read a magazine. He could have been somebody's lug of a husband but for the leather shoulder holster and Magnum.
Marta turned out the light and left the bathroom. The thug didn't look up from his magazine, and she eased onto her bed in front of the TV. A special news report was on. The mayor was holding a press conference, and she only half watched as a woman reporter shouted a question at him. Marta recognized the reporter from the Steere trial, a prom-pretty brunette named Alix Locke. Alix had dogged Marta for an exclusive interview, but Marta never gave exclusives, it was like making someone else the star. She feigned interest in the press conference while she tried to come up with her next move.
"Mr. Mayor," Alix said into a tall microphone in the aisle, "it's a yes-or-no question. Is there room in the budget to plow the side streets after this blizzard?"
If Mayor Walker was annoyed, it didn't show. He stood lanky, fit, and relaxed as a talk-show host. In the rep tie and rolled-up shirtsleeves he wore most of the time, the mayor was neither a handsome man nor an ugly one, with bright blue eyes, thick dark hair, and an electable smile. More persona than person, the image Mayor Walker projected was of a hardworking overgrown kid, just crazy enough to try and reverse the fortunes of a major American city. "Yes," the mayor answered, "there's ample room in the budget to plow the side streets, Alix. Didn't you read my budget? It's almost as good as Tom Clancy."