Hailey's War

CJ’s hands, the ones that cupped my nascent breasts at thirteen, now spread through my hair and against the bones of my skull. “Everything’s all right, baby,” he said.

The lightbulbs swayed in the wind, and I closed my eyes and concentrated on his rhythm.

“Hailey,” he said, “Hailey, I love you,” and his hands tightened convulsively in my hair as he finished.

And suddenly I was on the floor, my face against dirty, industrial-gray carpet, coughing and choking. The fantasy broke up because when Quentin finished making me give him head at gunpoint, he pulled me off him and shoved me unceremoniously facedown on the floor. I hadn’t been able to break my fall because my hands were cuffed behind my back.

Jack Foreman had said that Skouras sold off his line of X-rated movie houses years ago, but maybe he couldn’t get rid of all the holdings, because here I was, in the projection booth of a long-closed theater. There was a big rectangle of carpet missing where the projector had been wrenched up to be sold off. But there was still an editing table in the back. From my position on the floor, I could see the drying blood that had dripped off the edges of the table, and a little more on the carpet.

That was why, in the fantasy, my once-broken finger had been stinging so badly. I no longer had a once-broken finger. Babyface had taken it off with a pair of tin snips, while one of his two helpers held my arm in place. They hadn’t bandaged it. It had clotted and stopped bleeding on its own, but that had been the main part of the torture: watching my hand spurt blood and not being able to put pressure on it. Humans are hardwired to do almost anything to keep our blood in our bodies where it belongs. The pain of losing a finger had been secondary to that psychological drive to do anything, anything, to make the bleeding stop.

I wasn’t strong. I’d actually said, “Marsellus,” while I was watching my hand spurt blood. None of them had understood it. Babyface said, “What?,” and before I could repeat myself, I’d heard an inner voice say, You got up. You got up and walked.

And it was true. In Mexico, Skouras’s men had taken me off the road to shoot me, far enough away that I wasn’t supposed to have been found and helped. They’d left me there. At some point after, I’d opened my eyes and seen the rising moon, and somehow, with two holes in me, I’d gotten up and staggered to the road’s edge, because that had been the only way I was going to live.

That memory gave me an inkling of pride. Just enough not to say, The baby’s with Lucius Marsellus.

And when I didn’t, they’d decided to try something else to break me down.

I thought I’d figured out the division of labor. Will, the short, dark-haired guy, was just hired muscle; his heart wasn’t in any of it. Babyface was in charge, and it was he who wielded the compression shears. But Quentin had center stage now, and he was clearly relishing his role as the witty sociopath. If his erection was at half-mast now, his ego was at full mast.

He leaned over me. “I gotta tell you, considering the circumstances, that was not the worst blow job I ever had,” he said. “You really got into that toward the end. Did you think it was gonna buy you some goodwill with me?”

He pulled up his trousers, got himself arranged. I rolled onto my side. The passages inside my nose were starting to swell, but I didn’t think they were going to bleed. They’d toughened up from too many hits already.

All together and spruce again, Quentin said, “Okay, let’s review what we’ve learned.” He held up a didactic finger. “This hasn’t been educational for you, actually, so much as it’s been for us. See, we’ve done only two things to you so far, but they were important things. These”-he picked up and shook the tin snips-“and that really lovely knob job.”

He set down the snips. “The thing with women is, they tend to fall into two camps. Some of them can take a lot of pain, but they can’t stand anything sexual being done to them. Other women can let a whole freak show of guys ball them, so long as you don’t hurt them physically.” He sat on his heels, the better to look into my face. “So the first thing I do, with a woman, is see which group she falls into. You might not even have known which one you were.”

He was having such a good time.

“Before I share my observations with you, why don’t you tell me which one you think you are.”

I didn’t say anything. There was no point. They really were going to kill me. Amissa mundo sum, I was lost to the world.

The one person I’d failed to protect was myself. I understood why I hadn’t, but it had also brought me to this, and this was a problem. I wasn’t afraid, but I was in a lot of pain, and eventually, I’d break.

Maybe it was best that I crack under the pain and tell the truth. Just because Luke Marsellus had said he wouldn’t start a war with Skouras didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight one if Skouras’s men came after Henry. Maybe Marsellus and his men would have these guys for breakfast.

Or maybe Skouras’s guys would wipe the floor with Marsellus’s security detail and get the baby. Then Henry, or whatever Skouras named him, would grow up rich and well-cared-for, and become a monster like his grandfather. Maybe twenty years from now, in his late forties or early fifties, one of these men would work for Henry, and he’d see Henry so regularly that the sight of his young boss wouldn’t remind him anymore of that chick he’d tortured to death for Tony Skouras.

“Hey!” Quentin poked my chest. “I’m talking to you. Which group?”

I licked my lips, still sickened by the taste in my mouth.

Quentin put his face close to mine. “You think we’re just gonna give up if you don’t talk to us?” he said. “Wrong, babe. This is fun for me. A job like this, it’s like a bright spot in my week.”

“Careful,” I said. “On an MRI, a bright spot is bad news.”

Behind us, Babyface was sitting with his legs out in front of him, elbow on knee, chin in hand. He looked bored with Quentin’s antics, like a film director watching a B-talent actor overdo a monologue.

“This is taking way too long,” he said, getting to his feet. “Get her back up on the table, I’m going to take off another finger.”

Will hauled me to my feet and dragged me over to the editing table and pushed me down, bent at the waist, so I was half lying on it, like the catfish-turned-swordfish in my Gulf Coast fantasy, getting my own blood all over the mostly bare skin of my upper body. Babyface and the guys had stripped me down to bra and panties. Even in my current state of mind, I had to admit it was smart, as was starting with fellatio instead of outright rape. Babyface was taking things in stages, making sure I had things left to lose.

The handcuffs clicked loose and Will pulled my arms straight in front of me again, walking along the table to hold them down at full length in front of me. Babyface positioned himself with the tin snips in hand.

That was when I started laughing.

I know it’s hard to explain. Babyface didn’t understand, either. “I know you’re scared, Hailey,” he said.

“You don’t know that,” I said, still laughing. “You don’t know that at all.”

With his free hand, he stroked my hair. “Come on, Hailey,” he said. “This doesn’t have to happen. Just tell me where the kid is.”

It was good cop, bad cop, all in one. Babyface was giving me some sugar.

“I can’t,” I said, trying to get myself under control.

Babyface straightened, his face turning cold. He looked at Will and said, “I’m going to speed things up a little, take off two fingers in this go.”

He took my left ring finger in his hand and I felt the lower blade of the shears slide under it. That was the point at which I finally stopped laughing and took a deep, steadying breath. Even though I wasn’t afraid, I knew the pain was coming and that it would be bad, and I closed my eyes tight. What came to mind, in that moment, was not Virgil or Marcus Aurelius but Jonah’s prayer: As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you.

Then there was a deviation from the script. A clear female voice, from the doorway of the projection booth. “Mr. Laska,” it said.

We all looked up, even me in my semi-prone chopping-block position with my arms being held out in front of me. It occurred to me to yell for help, but I didn’t. The woman crossing the floor was too calm, and she knew Babyface by name. She had to be in on this. She was not going to help me.

Babyface said, “Yes?”