False Allegations (14 page)

I closed the grille behind me. When I turned back to face her, she was already walking down the hall without a word. I stepped behind her, not too close. Her hands went to her waist, came away with the sash. She shrugged her shoulders and the wrap slid off. She kept walking, barefoot, naked except for a red garter high on her thick right thigh. Released from the bondage of the corset she’d been wearing the last time, her body was still curvy, but soft and fleshy, shimmering with every bouncy, assured step she took.

As she turned the corner into the big open room, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. I stopped too, just in time to keep from blundering into her. She spun on her heel and whirled to face me, a left hook coming up from around her hip, catching me right under the cheekbone. I dropped with the punch. As I hit the ground, I whipped my left leg around on the slick hardwood floor— the toe of my heavy boot cracked hard into her ankle. Her leg wouldn’t hold her and she fell forward, right on top of me. I took her face into my chest as I fired a two–finger strike into the side of her neck. She gasped in pain and tried to claw at my face, snarling some foulness I couldn’t understand, but I had my forearms crossed and she never got through. I turned under her, just in time to take her knee on the outside of my thigh, pulled my right hand free and hit her with a sharp, digging punch just under her ribs— I felt her breath go. I spun with the punch, got her facedown on the floor, and rammed my knee into her spine as I reached forward and locked her jaw with both hands. “One snap and you’re in a fucking wheelchair for life, bitch!” I whispered in her ear.

Her whole body shook, but she didn’t try to break the hold. “You done?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said quietly, her body limp.

I backed off her, carefully. She stayed facedown on the floor, pulling in ragged breaths. A muscle jumped right over the red garter on the back of her thigh.

A minute passed. I slipped my right hand into my jacket pocket, palmed a roll of quarters, made a fist. Waited.

She slid her knees forward so her hips were elevated, but she kept her face on the floor. It was a submissive position, like an animal calling off a territorial fight. “Can I get up?” she said.

“Do it slow,” I told her.

She tried to put some weight on her left leg, but it was no go. She gave it up and turned to face me on her knees, eyes on mine, gazing up. She didn’t look submissive any longer— her orange eyes were as cold and watchful as a lizard’s.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked.

“A warning,” she said, still short of breath, but her voice hard. “It was supposed to be a beating. Just to show you. I thought, if you saw me naked all of a sudden, you’d be…frozen. And I could get the first shot in, before you realized…” She gulped down another breath, eyes still steady on mine. “I thought you’d take it— I didn’t think you’d hit a woman.”

“You had bad information,” I told her.

“No,” she said. “I had good information. But I didn’t listen. He always warns me about that. Not listening.”

“You’re
still
not listening. I asked you: What
was
that all about, jumping me?”

“A message. That you better not play him wrong. If you do, I’ll kill you.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, you crazy bitch— I’m done with this.”

“You
can’t
,” she hissed. “He’ll…”

“What?”

“He doesn’t know anything about this. I mean it. He’s not even here. He didn’t know you were coming today. This was all mine. I read your file and I was…afraid for him. This is important.
Really
important. You’ll never know how much. It means everything to him.”

“You got a funny way of— “

“And he means everything to
me
,” she cut in.
Everything
, you understand? I did it wrong, okay. You want to kick my ass now, that’s okay too. Go ahead— I won’t say anything.”

“I don’t care
what
you say,” I told her, meaning it.

“You
have
to do it,” she said, looking down at the floor, her voice soft. “Please.”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise. I’ll make it worth your while. Just tell me what you want…”

I stepped carefully around her, kept going all the way to the front door. She called something softly at my back. I closed the door behind me, leaving her there.

I
could feel my face swelling under the skin, but I didn’t think the cheekbone was broken. Putting my fingers to the pain, I couldn’t feel my pulse in the damaged flesh. Not too bad, then.

The subway glass reflected back my image, just starting to go swollen and discolored, the eye already closed. Nobody but me was interested— straphangers see worse every day.

I spent the rest of the ride reading the posters. My favorite was from a law firm:

BABY BORN BRAIN–DAMAGED?

YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO A LARGE CASH AWARD!

FREE CONSULTATION— NO FEE

UNLESS WE GET MONEY FOR YOU!

Back at the office, I cracked open one of those Insta–Cold packs they sell in drugstores, squeezed it in the middle until the liquid formed inside, and held the artificial ice against my cheek while I reached out for Mama on the cellular.

“That woman call. Call twice. She say, you call her, okay? Very, very important. Call right now.”

That was quick. “Anything else?” I asked her.

“Girl call too. Bondi. Say to call her too. Very important also, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You need Max?”

“I’m all right, Mama.”

“I get him here. You call later, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“
Okay
,” I told her.

“T
hat’s a beauty, isn’t it?” Bondi whispered, looking at my face under the gentle reflected light from one of the baby spots. I was lying on her couch, shoes off, a pillow under my neck, darkness just coming outside through the closed blinds of her showplace window.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “Not too bad.”

“Ah, a tough boy you are, huh? You let them X–ray it?”

“I didn’t go to the hospital. It was a punch, that’s all. An amateur punch.”

“What happened to the other guy?”

I watched her face to see if she knew something, but her grin was innocent— impish, just playing. “It’s all done,” I said. “Finished. Don’t worry about it.”

“She called here. Heather…that big fat woman I told you about.”

“So?”

She leaned over me, eyes narrowing in concentration, working hard to make sense out of whatever she was going to say. “She said there was money for me. A…bonus, like. What I needed, I mean, what I needed to
do
, I had to get you to meet with her.”

“Meet with her where?”

“
Anywhere
, luv, that’s what she said. Said it just like that, too. But it had to be soon.”

“Soon?”

“Tomorrow,” she said softly.

“And how much is your…bonus?”

“Five thousand, she said. In cash. And Burke…”

“What?”

“She said she’d give it to you. For me, I mean. She’ll give it to you when you meet with her.”

“So she knows— “

“Oh I don’t know
what
that damn witch knows!” Bondi snapped at me. “I’m not a player, am I? Never a player. Me, I’m always the goddamned game.”

“Why you biting at me, girl? This isn’t mine, and you know it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I know it’s not you. It’s not even just…men, now. Not with…her in it. I wish I’d never started with that miserable bastard.”

“The guy— “

“Yes! The man across the street,” she said, voice hardening. “That’s right. Him.”

I closed my eyes, drifting with her rhythm. “How’re you supposed to tell her?”

“She’s going to call. At eight tonight. I told her I’d reach out for you. But I couldn’t be sure if you’d— “

“It’s all right, Bondi. Tell her I’ll do it, okay?” Then I told her about a certain park bench.

I
t was eight on the nose when the phone rang. Bondi left the couch, punched one of the lines on the phone console.

“Yes?”

…

“Yeah, I did that.”

…

“Tomorrow, then. Seven in the morning.”

…

“Yes, in the morning— that’s what he said.”

…

“I don’t
know
, do I? He just said seven in the morning, that’s all.”

Then she told the voice I couldn’t hear where to come.

“M
aybe cats have the right idea,” Bondi said, her face so close to mine it was out of focus. In her bedroom, the queen–sized bed walled in with suitcases, all packed and ready.

“About what?”

“About licking their wounds,” she purred, coming close, her pouty breasts brushing my chest, tongue flicking across my cheek where Heather had hooked me.

“Bad idea,” I said, wincing from the little stab of pain.

“No,” she whispered. “Just a bad place.” She licked my stomach. Gentle, tip–of–the–tongue licks. “See?” she said softly.

“I
‘m leaving tomorrow, honey,” she said later. “I hate this place. I hate this life. I’m going home.”

“The man across the street— “

“— doesn’t matter to me anymore. It was a bad idea. Maybe just someone else using me the way they always do, I don’t know. But if you want to mail the money to me— her money, what she’s going to give you tomorrow— I’ll leave you my address at home. If you…”

“I want it anyway,” I told her, the words coming so smoothly out of my mouth that I didn’t stop to think if they were true. But they bought me a smile, her small white teeth flashing in the darkness.

T
he phone rang, a sharp intrusion. My eyes blinked open. The digital clock on the nightstand said 12:44.

“It’s him,” she said, wide awake, not moving.

“So fucking what?” I asked her. “Guess he’s gonna miss his little show for once.”

The phone rang again. Three times more. Then it stopped.

“Ah, it’s my fat bum he wants tonight,” Bondi said, an ugly edge on her voice. “I never liked that one.”

“What difference— ?”

“I know how I can do it,” she said, suddenly sitting up in the bed. “I know what would square it. How I can get him. Right now.”

“Bondi…”

“Will you help me, honey?”

“I’m not going over— “

“No,” she said softly, her lips to my ear. “I know a better way. Please…”

W
hen the mini–blinds opened a few minutes later, whoever was watching saw Bondi’s last performance. She put everything she had into it, doing it all.

Only this time, she had a co–star.

“Y
ou pick up the stuff?” I said into the cellular. It was about four–thirty in the morning. The city was still dark through the windshield of the Plymouth as I worked the West Side Highway downtown.

“Made the call, got it all,” the Prof came back. “Heavy package too. When you need it?”

“Couple of hours, if that’s okay. I need something else too: a triangle. At the park bench. Can you do it?”

“I can do two, that’s always true. But has the third heard?”

“I can do that part, I think.”

“What time does it rhyme, bro?”

“I made it for seven. Got to shade it at least a half hour.”

“How many for breakfast?”

“One.
Better
be one. Any more than that, it’s a red zone, got it?”

“Dead and buried, Schoolboy. What’s the rules? Got to keep hands showing, what?”

“It’s not like that. Just watch, okay?”

“Yeah. One person you said. Looks like….what?”

“A woman. Big woman. And she’ll be limping.”

I
got hold of Mama, wondering for the thousandth time if she ever slept. And where. She said she’d get Max to the spot in plenty of time. The Mongolian would eyeball Clarence and the Prof first, then he’d fit himself into the triangle.

Pansy was glad to see me. And overjoyed at the cold filet mignon Bondi insisted I take from her refrigerator. “I’m not one to let good food go to waste, honey. And when he comes over here, he’s not gonna find anything except the bare walls, I promise you. And I plan to leave him a little something there too,” she said grimly, an uncapped red lipstick in her right hand.