“She’s your woman, isn’t she?”
“She’s her own woman, but she lets me hang out with her.”
“For the first time in a while, I want to take a bath.”
“Just a few kinds words, Herman,” I said. “You need it.”
The door to the church was open, and when we looked in Red was tied up and gagged and lying where Brett had been. Herman went inside and began untying him. I didn’t try to stop him.
When the gag was removed, Red began to sputter. “That nigger did this.”
“Ixnay on the iggernay,” I said. “I don’t like it, and Leonard, he likes it less.”
“He tied me up for talking too much,” Red said. “He said I was a nuisance.”
“You are a nuisance,” Herman said.
“Et tu Brute?” Red said.
“Where is Leonard?” I asked.
“I don’t care,” Red said. “I can’t believe this. He tied me up like a prize pig and left me here. He’ll pay for that. My mother used to put me in the closet, lock me in when she wanted to be rid of me. I told myself I would never allow another person to do what she did.”
“We’ve been doing it for days,” I said.
“That’s right,” Red said, “you have. And I promise there will be reprisal.”
“I’m going to help them,” Herman said.
“What?” Red said.
Herman nodded. “That’s right. I haven’t done much with my life, Red, and you’ve done nothing with yours. Let’s do something constructive for a change.”
“Rescuing a whore?” Red said. “Are we saving her from a fate worse than death? I have news for all you knights, Tillie’s cherry has long been removed from the box and the cherry’s consumed and the box is trampled, if you get my meaning.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” I said. “We’re not rescuing her from sex. We’re trying to rescue her from abuse.”
“She’s been abused so long she thinks it’s foreplay,” Red said.
“I think perhaps one day she figured out it wasn’t,” I said. “That’s why she wants to come home.”
Brett appeared in the doorway wrapped in a towel that didn’t cover too much. Another towel was wound around her head and hair. She was carrying a bar of soap. “It’s hard to have privacy here,” she said.
“Wow!” Red said. “Lady, may I say you could be serious money on the hoof if you wanted to trade professions.”
“No thanks,” Brett said. “I borrowed some soap and some shampoo, Herman. My suggestion is you take advantage of it as well. And these towels could use some soap themselves.”
“Herman and I were just discussing his body odor,” I said.
“I hope you weren’t discussing anything else,” she said.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “We had no idea what you were doing.”
“And you spent a while making sure you had no idea,” she said.
“We couldn’t move,” Herman said. “The blood had sunk to our lower extremities.”
“I know where it sunk to,” Brett said. “Leonard tied the turd here up so I could shower and he could nap in the car.”
“Herman is going to help find Tillie,” I said.
“That right?” Brett said, and for the first time in days she looked excited.
“Yes,” Herman said.
Brett walked over to the end of the pew where her clothes lay. She took hold of her panties, and very deftly put them on without losing the towel or giving us a sideshow.
“When do we start?” she asked.
“Today,” Herman said. “The sooner the better.”
Brett slipped on her jeans. It was like the reverse of a snake wiggling out of its skin. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s real good.” She turned, pulled the towel from her body, tossed it on a pew. With her naked back to us she pulled on her shirt while we held our breath. She removed the towel from her head, shook her hair, and when she turned the shirt was half buttoned and her hair fell against it and dampened her breasts. She pulled a long comb from her back pants pocket and began carefully dragging it through her wet hair.
“How long after you three get through looking at my titties are we going to do this thing?” Brett asked.
“We could look a long time,” Red said.
“But we won’t,” Herman said. “We’ll do this soon as the three of you are ready.”
We talked briefly and made some general plans. Brett recovered her revolver where she had hidden it outside under an overturned bucket, stuffed it in her pants, and while Herman stripped off out back and bathed, we went out to see Leonard.
