“It’s not enough that you’re planting an agent on the Court you want me to seduce Truitt, too.”
“We’re just counting on you to do what you do best Lisa,” Shank said.
“And what would that be?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “Say it!”
Shank moved closer, drilling her with his dark eyes. His face was just above hers, invading her space, making her skin crawl, as if she’d just walked into a cobweb. She fought the urge to flinch and turn away.
Max, how could you let this lowlife bully me?
When Shank was close enough for Lisa to see every acne crater and smell his sour breath, when he filled her entire range of vision,. when she felt both a distinct revulsion and a palpable fear, he spoke in a snarl, “You’ll fuck him, Lisa. You’ll fuck him real good.”
“Bastard!” She whirled toward Max. “Did you hear that? This has gotten way out of hand. Since when am I taking orders from your rent-a-cop flunky?”
Shank laughed again, the sound of a rottweiler barking. “Is that what you told her, Max, that I’m your flunky?”
“Now see here, Shank…,” Max said, making a jerky gesture with his arm and spilling his drink, his voice trailing off.
Lisa looked at Max in astonishment.
“ Now see here?” Like some effete character in a tux straight out of Noel Fucking Coward.
“Get the hell out of my apartment, both of you!” Lisa shouted.
Seemingly amused again, Shank turned to Max. “How ‘bout it, boss man, should we leave? Should we vacate the premises?”
Max started to say something, but nothing came out. He seemed to be nailed to the sofa and to have lost the power of speech. He meekly turned his palms upward in a gesture of surrender.
“Max is plumb out of ideas,” Shank said, “so I’ll do the talking. In case you missed it the first time, you’ll fuck the judge till he’s blue in the face. You’ll fuck him till he’s cross-eyed. You’ll fuck him till he’s deaf, dumb, and blind. You’ll turn him upside down and inside out and suck him dry. And when he’s so dizzy he doesn’t know his own name, you’ll get his vote because he’ll do any damn thing you ask.”
Stunned, a flood of bitter memories swept over her: her father telling her that she’d always be able to make a living on her back, the guys at the Tiki offering her wads of bills to meet them in the parking lot after closing, Crockett trying to pimp for her, then beating her up when she wouldn’t go through with it. Max had protected her then; now, he was pushing her into it. The realization came to her with sickening clarity. After all these years, Max had become her pimp!
“In short, Lisa,” Shank went on, seeming to enjoy every moment, licking each word with his tongue, “you’ll do the judge just like you did old Max here, though frankly, jailbait pussy was probably sweeter. That so, Max? Was it better in the old days?”
“Now Shank, there’s no need for that,” Max said, standing up but not moving toward the other man. Not leaping across the room and decking the foul-mouthed pig, which is what Lisa imagined Scrap Truitt would have done. She pictured Truitt slugging the swine, breaking his jaw, citing some principle of natural law that empowers a man to defend his woman’s honor.
“Oh, ex-cuse me,” Shank said, dragging out the words, taunting them both. “You two were in love. The horny executive whose wife didn’t understand him and the stripper with the genius IQ who could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.”
She slapped him, the cr-aack of hand on skin seeming to echo in the apartment. Finally, Max moved, dancing around the coffee table, coming up to Shank, apologizing, begging forgiveness, the girl doesn’t get it yet, it’s not her fault, Jeez Shank, it’ll be okay.
“Shut up, Max,” Shank said with a certainty that his order would be followed.
It suddenly occurred to Lisa that if Max was afraid of Shank, she probably should be, too. Who was he, anyway?
Shank turned back to Lisa and lowered his voice to a frightening whisper. “You’re not fully aware of the situation here, Lisa, and I’m taking that into account. Max has protected you, and I let him. I didn’t want to embarrass him, to cut off his balls in public, so I always walked two steps behind him, like the wife of the Japanese emperor. Except now, I’m a little tired of getting fucked up the ass. It’s important for you to know exactly how it is, to appreciate Max’s position and your own.”
He’s talking about Max as if he weren’t here. But then, he really isn’t.
Shank smiled at her, but it was the smile of the wolf contemplating the hen. Then his right hand shot out, quick as a snake, and seized her by the. wrist. His left hand grabbed her above the right elbow, and he twisted hard, spinning her around, bending the arm painfully until the back of her hand pressed against her shoulder blade. She couldn’t see his face as he spat out the words, “You’re nothing but a little slut who’s forgotten where she belongs. You think you’re smart, but if you were, you would have sized up the situation long ago. You would have shown respect. You would have had fear.”
He cranked her arm higher, and a searing pain shot through her shoulder. She thought of a chicken’s wishbone snapping in two.
He leaned even closer to her, brushing his lips through her hair, exhaling foul breath. “Do you know why they call me Shank?”
“It’s… it’s your name,” she said, confused.
“No! My name is Shakanian. A shank is a blade that cuts fast and deep. I’m a knife, and I’ll cut right to the meat of you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” But she didn’t understand. It was beyond comprehension.
“What do you know about me, Lisa?”
“Nothing,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
“So let me tell you. I live alone. I don’t have a wife or a friend or a parakeet. What I’ve got is a lot of time to think. Lately, I’ve been thinking about you and how much you owe Max here, which really means how much you owe Atlantica. Do you follow me, Lisa?”
Wordlessly, fighting the pain, she nodded.
“Good.” He released the pressure on her arm slightly but did not let go. “Do you like the movies, Lisa?”
Whether it was the pain or the fear, or the utter inanity of the question-for a second, she thought he was asking her out-Lisa couldn’t answer.
“I’ll bet you do,” he said. “I’ll bet you like foreign films with subtitles or love stories with sappy endings. Me, I go to the movies by myself, and I like to laugh, forget my troubles. So I see the comedies. Reservoir Dogs, Bad Lieutenant, Natural Born Killers. Ever see any of them?”
“They’re not comedies,” she heard herself say.
“Sure they are. Take the scene in Reservoir Dogs. One of the robbers has a cop tied up. He wants to know who’s the informant in the gang. The cop won’t tell him, so the robber cuts his ear off.”
With his free hand, Shank roughly grabbed Lisa’s ear, twisting it, painfully. “Now, here’s the funny part. I’d already done it. I cut a guy’s ear off maybe ten, twelve years before I saw the movie. So I’m watching it, thinking you don’t get that much blood from an ear. That wasn’t realistic. But the screams. The screams were real.”
He’s a madman, and he’s going to cut me.
She knew a girl from the Tiki whose jealous boyfriend slashed her breasts to keep her from dancing. Lisa was paralyzed with fear. Her eyes searched frantically to see if he was holding a knife.
He let go of her ear and his hand brushed against her neck, seductively, stopping to fondle the single pearl earring. Then he kissed her neck, and unleashing his tongue like a serpent, he licked her. With a repulsive slurping sound, his tongue slithered up the slope of her neck.
I’m going to throw up. Jesus, if he doesn’t stop, I’m going to…
His tongue withdrew and his teeth clenched the pearl earring, holding it there a second, freezing her with terror. Then he wrenched his head downward, ferociously tearing the post through her earlobe, yanking it free with a twist of his head like a pit bull mauling its prey.
She screamed as the pain shot through her, the sensation of her own shredding skin terrifying her.
Max stood, frozen in place.
Shank twisted her arm even higher against her shoulder blade. “Do you have fear now, Lisa? Do you have respect?”
