"I redid your totally terrible drink." She giggled.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, I made it better, too."
"So I never went to bartending school. Come here."
"I will," she sang back. "I like this bed. Wait, let me just smoke. The train was so slow! I really needed a cigarette. Drink your drink and I'll smoke one."
"I thought that was for after."
"Gets me in the mood. You guys are always in such a hurry."
Ray could smell the cigarette. He felt a golf ball under him and quietly put it into a shoe.
"How long you lived here?"
"Four years."
"Rent or own?"
"Rent. Shoulda bought a few years back."
"Tell me about it."
"But you know, I pull down some good dollars, make a little on side jobs."
"You haven't told me if you like the drink."
"I do, I do."
"Good, or else my feelings were gonna be hurt."
"So this is kind of nice," Richie ventured. "This isn't in a hurry."
"That feels good," came the voice a few moments later.
"Want to roll over there?"
"You seem pretty relaxed," she said. "I mean, most of you is relaxed. Some guys, you know, they get nervous… first time out of the gate."
"Yeah, you know, whatever." The great lover, shrugging humbly at his own talents of seduction. "Plus, I got the home field advantage."
"I guess. Why don't you lie back, let me start relaxing you."
"Can't argue with that."
"First finish the nice drink I made you. I worked hard on it, too, just so you know."
"— right?"
"Yeah, that's it. Just lie back… good… take a breath.. so, you been living here long?"
"Four years, remember? Come on, give me a little action here."
"Keep your pants on, guy, I'm getting there."
"Thought you wanted my pants off."
"I do, definitely."
"I'll take them off."
"You go, boy."
Sound of clothes, a belt buckle.
"So you were saying about living here?"
"That's better."
"Good."
"You're good at that."
"Just relax, Richie."
"I am, very."
"Good, good."
"You?"
"Right here."
"Sleepy, kinda."
"It's okay, it's nice to lie here with you."
The room was quiet. A minute passed.
"You-" came Richie's voice.
"Shhh, it's okay."
"Wait, wait… fuckin' sleepy."
"Shh, don't worry."
"Did ya-? I'm very…"
Ray could hear Richie breathing. It slowed, deepened, and a rasp of a snore introduced itself. He hadn't heard the girl move. Maybe she'd fallen asleep, too.
Then came trill of a cell phone. It scared him and he had to stop himself from reacting. She picked up quickly, after just one ring.
"Hey. He's asleep… you owe me. I had to touch his dick! Goddamn disgusting. What? No, the door is open. I'm not moving, in case he wakes up. Just get here fast, okay?"
She hung up. More cigarette smoke.
The snoring had become a deep sawing gasp that reloaded and gasped again.
Ray tried to slow his own breathing and concentrate on not moving. Someone was coming to the house, and it made him nervous. If the girl left the room, he could run for it-maybe. Golfballs all over the floor. The room had a window. Maybe it opened easily, maybe not. He felt one foot slipping, pulled it back. Once the girl stopped watching the drugged man on the bed, her attention would begin to drift and she would notice Ray. She might not consciously hear him but she would feel him. It was a proven thing. Tibetan monks with their ears plugged and eyes covered with a satin sash could be led into a room, breathe a few times while turning in a circle, and identify in which corner of the room another monk sat motionless on a prayer rug. You see that once, you never forget it.
The girl was just sitting there in the dark. He heard her slide open the drawer.
"Guns!" she whispered aloud.
Then the door to the kitchen opened. Ray heard the heavy footsteps through the walls.
"Hey, Sharon?" came a man's low voice.
"Here!" she whispered loudly. "In here!"
The steps approached the doorway. "He's really out?"
"Think so."
"Get in the car."
"Let me put on my shoes."
"Did you let him fuck you?"
"No."
"I think you did."
"No way, he's disgusting."
"You touched his dick, Sharon."
"He made me. I was doing it for you."
"Blow job?"
"No, I swear."
"You're fucking lying."
"No, no-"
"You just better get in the car."
She left. Ray could hear the unconscious man breathing loudly. He thought he smelled something like cinnamon.
"Fucking douche bag."
"Come on," came the girl's voice down the hall, "what are you doing? There are guns in the drawer, by the way, mister jealous motherfucker."
"You touch them?"
"No."
"Get in the car!"
She left. Ray could hear the back door open and close. The lights flicked on. A line of light ran between the closet doors now. He heard the drawer slide open, the clatter of the pistols being taken, followed by the boxes of ammo.
"Hey, hey, fuckwad," came the voice. "Look at you, Richie, try to fuck my girl. Plus you fucked up, which means now you're going to fuck me up."
There came the lowest groan in the bed, as if Richie had heard this accusation and was trying to respond.
An ominous silence followed. Then came a whipping crack.
Richie gagged out a delirious, inchoate howl. The golf club, thought Ray. Another crack, this time wetter, more awful.
"Fucking made her touch your-!" Then came two, three, four, six, eight blows, in rapid and savage progression, each making the same wet cracking noise, the assailant breathing quickly, panting in a frenzy, grunting at the effort, the splatting blows ending after twenty seconds at most, whatever ability to respond that Richie might possess now obliterated.
"Ugh, fuckin'… fucked up," breathed the voice. "I fucking told you, Richie. Somebody calls me, then some guy is looking for you! You blew it, you fucked up!"
No answer came back.
There seemed to be a deliberative pause-as if the assailant was weighing what he wanted to do next versus what he needed to do. Ray heard him shift his weight from one foot to the next, lining up the swing. Then the blows came, another savage series, wet-wet-wet, so fast Ray knew the club was being whipped up as fast as it was whipped down, ten-fifteen-twenty blows or more, the assailant grunting in spasmodic exaltation, taking pleasure again and again-and then, just as abruptly, the wet whipping sound stopped, the club flung heavily against the wall.
Footsteps disappeared through the doorway, through the kitchen, and out the door. Ray heard a car start up and disappear.
Silence now.
He smelled blood.
Just wait another minute, he told himself. Be sure. Finally he pushed open the closet door and stumbled out to the floor, legs numb, pulling golf balls and shoes with him. On the bed lay Richie, his face a bloody mass-no nose, no cheeks, a hole that had been a mouth. His smooth chin had been driven into his windpipe, and in general the oblong spherical shape of the head had been flattened. Nearly every blow had hit Richie's face, cratering his skull. The few errant swings had glanced off the wet mass onto the pillow, leaving golf-club imprints. For the brief period that Richie's brain had continued to deliver information to the heart, the left ventricle had kept pumping blood up through the aorta and out the crushed face, leaving Richie's head in a pool that now faithfully followed every wrinkled depression in the bedspread, soaking downward as it went. After the heart stopped beating, lividity occurred-the seepage of fluids from the highest part of the body to the lowest, which meant in this case that blood and other fluids would continue to leak from Richie's ruined head for some time to come. Indeed, Richie's crushed forehead had now paled to a purplish white, the flesh drained. His popped eyeballs seeped blind tears of viscous matter.