'Well, you'd better. Because I'm going to keep posted with Pete here. And maybe he and I will trade off from time to time if he's willing, just so I can see that you're doing your duty.' He beamed at her for a moment, grinning with delight at her humiliation, then waved his hand toward Jim. 'Go ahead. Two pancakes. Nothing more. I don't want him to get to feeling too good, and think he should try something. That would be too bad for him. And for your kid. Besides, food isn't inexhaustible in our present situation, and I don't want to run out because he's got the appetite of a growing boy. Pete and Butch and I come first. You and the girls come second, because you have a useful purpose.'
'That's no shit,' Pete said.
'If there's anything left over, Farmer Brown gets it. Understand?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Okay, go ahead.'
Julie took a clean plate down and put two pancakes on it. She buttered them and took a fork and sat on the floor beside Jim. His expression was unreadable. Julie took the gag out of his mouth and held up a forkful of pancake. Jim kept his month shut and turned his head away. Julie was between Jim and the others, and they couldn't see the turning of his head. She felt tears well tip in her eyes at the rejection. Leaning close to his ear, she whispered, 'Please, darling. If we're going to get away from these people, we have to keep up our strength as much as we can.'
He looked at her with an expression of surprise, and, she thought, just a bit more respect. He took the pancake this time. While he was chewing, Julie noticed his eyes sliding to the front of her robe, and she realized that it was slipping down. She had pulled it closed before sitting on the floor, and had tried to assume a position that would tend to hold it in place, but it was hard. One breast peeked out, pink-nippled, and she saw the look of pain in his eyes at the reminder of what she had been doing for these men. Hastily, she pulled the robe closed. She took the fork off the plate then, and gave him another bite of food. Julie heard a chair scrape, and Max came over in front of Jim and squatted down. He had his pistol in his hand. It was a huge thing, like Jim's Army gun, and it frightened her just to look at it.
'I don't think you two ought to be together like this without a chaperon,' Max said, grinning. 'You might get into mischief. And we wouldn't want that.' He laid his hand on his knee, with the gun pointing in Jim's direction. 'I sure do want to thank you, buddy, for being so generous. We were hungry, and you gave us your food. We were cold, and you gave us your house. We were horny, and you gave us your wife and these two very pretty girls as prick fodder.'
'How long do you think you can get away with this?' Jim asked coldly. Julie had to admire the steadiness of his voice. He had always been a brave man. Much braver than she was. Now she had to be the one to make certain that bravery didn't get them all killed.
'Well, now, I suppose I'll just have to wait and see how long we can,' Max answered. 'We seem to be doing all right so far. I don't think the cops can come searching through every farmhouse in the county, or the state. We've crossed quite a few counties.'
'I wasn't thinking of the cops. People are going to start to miss us, you know. You can't keep us here forever without someone getting suspicious.'
'No, I guess we can't. But the thing is, we have this lovely little wife of yours, and she's just too fucking cooperative for words. And she's going to head people off, baby, because if she doesn't we're going to start whittling down the numbers in this house, starting with your baby and working up in age until we reach you. Now, your sexy blonde wife knows that. That's why she's so cooperative. You better learn to be just as nice, pal.'
Jim had turned a little pale at the mention of the baby, but now his face hardened, 'If you hurt that baby, I'll…'
'You'll sit there and watch, and either cuss at us or make noises in your gag. That's what you'll do, papa, so the time to protect your baby is now, not later. Even if you manage to get loose, which isn't very likely, we have guns. Do you have a gun? Do you have anything besides your two good, strong hands? Now, I just don't think all your indignation and noble intentions, and the face that you have right on your side, is going to do much against a two hundred and thirty grain slug from this, or a blast from that shotgun. That's a very nice shotgun, by the way. Pete is grateful to you for it. It's his favorite weapon, a twelve gauge. He can make one talk, he tells me. I've never seen him use one, but I suppose he'd be happy to give me an exhibition any time I give the word. Shall I do that now?'
Jim just looked at him without saying anything. Max took the plate out of Julie's hand. 'You're a little too sassy, friend. I think you need a few more days fasting to calm you down.'
'Oh, please,' Julie said, 'he can't hurt you, tied up like that. What kind of a man would he be if he didn't get mad at you now?'
'It's what kind of a man he is that worries me, Julie, baby,' Max said. 'I think he's a very brave man, and maybe a smart and tough one, and I can't see any reason to take chances on him.'
'Neither can I,' Pete said from the table. He had been sitting with the shotgun across his lap, and now he got up, the gun moving to cover Jim. 'I can't see why we need him around at all. The women, sure. But not him. I say let's blow him in two, and that'll show everyone else we mean business.'
He moved closer, and his thumb moved something on the shotgun with a click. Julie felt her breath quicken, and she got up, struggling with her robe. She tried to move between the gun and Jim, but Pete swept her to one side and leveled the gun at Jim. Jim looked up at him, and there was a tightening of his face and a quickening of his breathing, because it was obvious that Pete meant what he said. Max dropped the plate of pancakes and put his hand on the barrel of the shotgun. He pushed it toward the floor.
'Not now,' he said.
'Why the fuck not?' Pete tried to pull the gun out of Max's hand. 'He don't serve no purpose here. He's just something we have to watch, something that could fuck us up if we're not careful.'
'He serves a purpose,' Max said.
'Yeah? What?'
'You just saw. Blondie here was willing to fuck herself into a coma just to get him something to eat.'
'She'll fuck anyway, just to keep from getting her own ass blown apart.'
'Maybe she will. Maybe. But how do we know that? And even if she will, she'll have less reason to be cooperative with us when he's dead. We'll have one less hostage. Understand?'
'Bullshit. We got the guns, we got the muscle. Nobody's gonna try nothin' while we're in a position to blow their asses off.'
'Maybe not, but how about the other stuff? Julie told me about her sister coming. She'll play ball with us all we want, but we have to have something to hold over her head. This is her husband, and she'll do whatever she has to keep him alive. Won't you, sweety?' he asked, turning his eyes to Julie.
'Yes,' she said quickly. 'Anything. Please, Pete. Please listen to Max. Please, I…'
'Shit,' Pete said, and wrenched the barrel of the shotgun loose. He pointed it at Jim again. Julie saw his finger tighten on the trigger as though she were watching a close-up in a movie. Then Max reached forward and knocked the barrel up toward the ceiling. The gun went off with a deafening roar. It left Julie with her cars ringing. She screamed, and heard Sally and Connie scream too. Plaster fell out of the ceiling.
'Goddamn you, you son of a bitch,' Pete yelled. He jumped back and swung the shotgun around, bringing it to bear on Max. It was a pump action shotgun, and he pulled the slide to the rear sharply, throwing out the empty shell. Max brought his pistol up level with Pete's belly. It was rock steady.
'Close that action and you're a dead cocksucker,' he said. His voice was raised to penetrate the din of screaming and the ringing in everyone's ears. But it was calm, too. There was no mistaking the earnestness in his tone.
The two men stood looking at each other for long seconds. The shotgun could only be fired after the slide was shoved forward. That would take a fraction of a second, long enough for Max to pull the trigger on his pistol. It was a tableau, a frozen, dramatic picture as the two men regarded each other coldly.
'Put the shotgun down,' Max said coolly.
'It looks to me like we got a Mexican stand-off here, old buddy,' said Pete.
'Not quite. All I have to do is press the trigger. Old buddy. And you'll be deader than shit. You know that, and I know it, so don't try any bluffs. Just lower the shotgun, very carefully.'
Pete looked at the pistol. It hadn't moved a centimeter since coming to bear on his belly. He lowered the
