Thirteen West (25 page)

"You want to fight or get out?" Charlie said.

"I can take you," Willie snarled. "You ain't nothing but chicken shit."

"Don't bet on it."

Alma
brought the two men into focus as they circled one another. "Kill him, Charlie," she croaked from her aching throat. "Kill him."

Luba stared from her bloody hands to Barry. "Talk to me," she begged, touching his face with the back of her hand. "Please talk to me." His eyes stayed closed. He didn't move. Spotting the blade of the knife beneath his thigh, Luba eased it out, staring from the knife to the men pummeling each other. That one had the knife, she told herself. He tried to kill Barry. Maybe he had.

She eased to her feet, knife in hand, a roaring in her ears. It seemed she floated rather than stepped toward the men, edging behind them. She watched her hand rise and fall and saw with amazement the knife hilt pull free of her fingers, the blade embedded in the killer's back. He half- turned, sank to his knees and fell forward, all in slow motion.

Luba dropped to the floor beside Barry, her mind blank.

"Don't!"
Alma
gasped at Charlie. "Don't take the knife out. If he's still alive that might kill him. Leave it alone." She got up from the lounge and staggered to Charlie, who put his arm around her.

"Take it easy, sugar. We got one hell of a mess here."

"Let me look at Barry." Trying to ignore the throbbing in her head,
Alma
eased away from Charlie and knelt beside Luba.

"Get me a towel," she ordered.

Luba stared at her mindlessly.

"I'll help," Charlie said.

"No, you got to take the car to a pay phone, got to call an ambulance for Barry, for them both. Try that all-night gas station down about seven blocks on
Opal Street
." She gestured. "Tell them to come there and you wait till they do so you can show the way here. Don't tell them anything except two men are bleeding."

Charlie hurried out, closing the door behind him.

Alma
pinched Luba's arm hard, making her wince.

"Listen up, girl," she said. "You get me some towels for Barry, you hear? I'm a nurse and I'll help him. Get the towels and a sheet."

Luba blinked, her eyes focusing. "Where?" she faltered.
Alma
told her, grabbing the towels and sheet from her when she returned. "We're going to bind his chest and arm," she said. "Do as I say. We need to stop the bleeding."

Barry moaned as they worked on him.

"He's watching us," Luba whispered.

"What?"
Alma
glanced at Barry's face. "No, he's still out of it."

"I mean—the other one." Luba jerked her head toward Willie.

Alma
saw she was right. Willie's eyes were open, his fingers scrabbling at the floor.

"Don't move, Willie," she warned him. "Got help coming, don't move."

He didn't seem to hear her, kept on scrabbling at the wood. Mean mother deserved to die. Too bad she couldn't let him do just that.

"Will Barry be all right?" Luba asked. "There's so much blood."

"I don't think he got cut deep,"
Alma
told her. "Willie's another story."

Barry opened his eyes and turned his head toward Luba. "What're you doing here?"

She burst into tears.

"Are you clear?"
Alma
asked him. "I mean, can you think okay?"

He started to shift position.

"No, don't move. Listen, she knifed Willie and I left the knife in his back. Could be in the heart or a lung or both. Left the knife in—that's right, isn't it?"

Barry swallowed. "'S right. Don't take it out. Dangerous. Hemorrhage. Cardiac tamponade." He swiveled his head until he could see Willie. "Jesus. Luba did it?"

"He tried to kill you," Luba sobbed. "He tried to kill you."

"Charlie's off calling an ambulance,"
Alma
said. "They'll have the fuzz on us. We got to think, got to all be telling the same story."

* * *

Sally washed the day's accumulation of dishes, then curled up in the living room to read the paperback she'd bought in town. It had been a dark, damp, discouraging Sunday. It was too early to go to bed, it wasn't yet nine—or twenty-one hundred hours, the way they figured time here.

In the book, the heroine, a headstrong girl, had just slashed an arrogant rogue with her riding whip when someone knocked on Sally's door.

She got up and said through the wood, "Who is it?

"Frank."

Sally tensed.

"It's cold out here," he complained.

She really didn't want to let him in, but he was right—it was cold out. Besides, it wasn't all that late. She unlocked the door.

"I've been standing down there for over an hour," he said once he was inside.

She moved away from him. "Why? It seems like a senseless thing to do."

"Yeah. But I didn't know if you'd let me in."

"Maybe I shouldn't have," she said uneasily.

He didn't reply and they stood confronting one another in silence. She noticed he looked tired and somehow older. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"No."

Sally retreated into the kitchen. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Okay, thanks."

"You didn't work this weekend either, did you?" she asked as she fixed the coffee.

"No."

"I went into town," she began, determined to keep a handle on the conversation. "I wanted to—"

"I couldn't wait till tomorrow," he interrupted.

She frowned. "For what?"

"To see you."

To control her leap of alarm, she busied herself setting two mugs, a small plate of Oreos and paper napkins on the table. Frank sat down in normal fashion, not backwards on the chair. Somehow he wasn't so frightening this way.

As he reached for a cookie, she noticed a tremor of his hand. Maybe he really was ill.

"How'd you know I liked Oreos?" he said.

"I bought them for me. Your hand's shaking—are you sick?"

"Haven't been sleeping."

She'd been about to pour coffee into his mug but now she held. "This isn't decaf," she warned.

"Doesn't matter." When his mug was full, he wrapped both hands around it as though to warm himself.

"Is it still foggy out?" she asked, unhappy with silence.

"Beginning to get worse."

"I don't like this weather—it's depressing. Then I found something out today that made it worse. I coaxed Richard's full name from the Duchess and tried to track him down by calling information in
L.A.
His last name's unusual enough so I thought I had a chance."

"And?"

"He's dead—has been for almost two years. The sister keeps the phone listed in his name. She'd never heard of a Margaret Flowers."

"Too bad."

"I hate to tell the Duchess," Sally said.

"I don't think you should."

She stared at him. "If I don't, she'll go on believing he'll come for her one day."

"Is that so bad?"

"But he's dead. He won't ever come."

"Let her keep her dream. Not many of us get to."

"Her dream can't come true—isn't that what's important?"

"Not necessarily to the Duchess." He took a long swallow of coffee. "Why did you open your door to me?" he asked.

"I—you asked to come in. You said you were cold."

"You didn't have to open the door. If you're afraid of me, why take a chance?"

"I thought—I expect you to behave."

"But I won't. You know that, don't you, Sally? It's taken a while but it finally occurred to me that, though you shrink away, you keep giving me access, so to speak."

Fear and another emotion she couldn't identify, bubbled inside her. "I don't know what you're talking about. I've never invited you here, I don't want—"

"Don't you?" Frank rose from the chair, grabbed her arm and pulled her up. Before she had time to think, he'd wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet, carrying her into the bedroom.

"Put me down!" she cried. "No!"

He threw her on the bed, yanking her shirt over her head but not all the way off. While she was flailing and struggling with this, he pulled off her jeans and panties. When she tried to scream, her own shirt muffled the sound. Half-suffocated, she writhed and moaned as he spread her legs and thrust himself on top of her. In her. She gasped for air, somehow the pain not as important as breathing. But it hurt. It hurt. She couldn't stand it. Why didn't somebody come. Why didn't her mother come to help her?

"No, no, no," she sobbed. "Don't, don't, I'll be good, Daddy Keith. Don't hurt me anymore."

He was huge as a bear, a monster. She'd be crushed, smashed. Where was Mama? Her head whirled dizzily. She was going to die....

When she became aware again, she heard someone chanting. Em? No, Em was dead.

"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus..."

A man. The pain and terror rushed back and she cringed away from the sound. Daddy Keith, he was here in her room. No, he couldn't be, Daddy Keith was dead, too, drowned dead a long time ago.

Frank!

Sally gasped and sat up. Her shirt was around her neck and she slipped her arms in, pulling it down over her breasts. She stared fearfully at Frank's bulk, a dark outline hunched on the end of the bed.

"I didn't mean—" he began, but the words trailed off. He didn't move.

Sally, still half-naked, shivered.

"It was like the other time with
Doris
," he said. "The same damn thing. I swore it wouldn't happen again."

She heard a slapping sound and realized after a moment he was pounding one fist into the palm of his other hand.

"Go away," she quavered.

"I'm sorry you got in the way, Sally," he said without turning.

"Get out," she said.

"She was only fourteen. I didn't mean to. I was twenty and knew better."

Why didn't he go? What was he talking about?

"We were cousins. She used to like to kiss me. That's how it all started. Only I knew better."

Sally edged past Frank, stood up and groped in the closet for her robe. She slid in on. "I don't want you here," she said, the words hissing out. "I never want to see you again."

"
Doris
cried and cried and she told her mother and everyone knew. I didn't mean to hurt her."

"I don't care about your cousin Doris," Sally cried. "Just get out of here." She flipped on the bedroom light. Frank blinked and looked up at her. His face was wet with tears.

"I hate you," she said. "I wish you were dead."

He got up and she shrank away. But he paid her no mind, shambling out of the bedroom. She followed and, if she hadn't thrust his jacket at him, he would have left it.

Once she'd attached the chain behind him, Sally leaned her forehead against the door. Rape. That happened to other people, girls who weren't careful with strangers, who walked alone at night. His words rang in her ears, "Why did you open your door to me?"

Why had she? It was almost as though she'd been compelled to. She fled into the bathroom, took a shower, then huddled in bed with the light on, unable to sleep.

I should have called the police, she told herself. He ought to be put in jail. I hate him. He's an animal.