'I'm building props for my son's school play, and that's why I need to use plywood, not hardwood. They're doing Oklahoma! and I've got to put together a couple of rooms that can be easily disassembled then put back up. So I'll need some brackets and some screws too.'
'Then why'd you pound a nail through it?'
'That was just experimentation. My husband, that fucking son of a bitch, won't help me, drinks all the time, won't take part in raising our son, won't show me any affection at all, well, so I've got to do it all myself.'
Marlin Jones stared at her, as if mesmerized. He cleared his throat. 'I can help you with this, Mrs.-?'
'Marry Bramfort.' She shook his hand. 'I live on Commonwealth. I had to take a bus out here because that bastard husband of mine won't fix the car. Next thing I know, that damned car will be sitting on blocks in the front yard and the neighbors will call the cops.'
'Mrs. Bramfort, if you could maybe draw what you need to build, then I could gather all the stuff together for you.'
'I don't suppose you'll help me put it all together?'
'Well, ma'am, I'm awfully busy.'
'No, never mind. That's my jerk husband's job, or it should be. It's not yours. But I would appreciate your advice. I already made some drawings. Here they are.'
She laid them out on top of a large sheet of plywood. Marlin Jones leaned over to study them. 'Not bad,' he said after a
few minutes. 'You won't have much trouble doing this. I'll cut all the wood for you and show you how to use the brackets. You want to be able to break all the stuff down quickly, though. I know just how to do that.'
She left the Appletree Home Supplies and Mill Yard an hour later. Marlin Jones would deliver the twelve cut pieces of plywood to the grade school gymnasium, along with brackets and screws, hinges, gallons of paint, and whatever else he thought she'd need.
Before she left him, she placed her hand lightly on his forearm. 'Thank you, Mr. Jones.' She looked at him looking at her hand on his forearm. 'I bet you're not a lazy son of a bitch like my husband is. I bet you do stuff for your wife without her begging you.'
'I'm not married, Mrs. Bramfort.'
'Too bad,' she said, and grinned up at him. 'But hey, I bet lots of ladies would like to have you around, no matter if they're married or not.' When she walked away from him, she was swinging her hips outrageously. 'Who knows what building props can lead to?' she called out over her shoulder, and winked at him.
She was whistling to herself as she walked from where she'd parked her car toward the Josephine Bentley Grade School gymnasium. It was Ralph Budnack's car, a 1992 Honda Accord that drove like a Sherman tank. Toby, the temporary school janitor and a black cop for the Sixth Division, opened the door for her.
His voice carried as he said, 'Jest about done, Mrs. Bramfort?'
'Oh yes, very nearly done now. You going home, Toby?'
'Yep, just waiting to let you in. Don't forget to lock up now, Mrs. Bramfort.'
'I won't.'
She was alone in the gymnasium, a vast room that resounded with her breathing, with every step she took, filling the empty air with echoes. All the nearly built props were neatly stacked in the corner. She'd been doing this a good five evenings in a row now. She unstacked all of them, laying them out side by side. Not much more to do.
She began work, her right hand turning the screwdriver again and again, digging in new holes through the plywood. Some of them were L shaped, most flat. The brackets were just to support the two pieces of plywood. She didn't have all the lights on; just the corner where she worked had lighting. It wasn't much. There were deepening shadows all around her, growing blacker as the minutes passed. Soon it would be nine o'clock. Dark outside. Darker inside.
It was the fifth night.
There wasn't much more to do now except paint. Everything he'd sent over she'd used. She rose and dusted her hands on her jeans. She'd been to see Marlin Jones several times. He was always polite, always eager to help her, seemed to like it when she flirted with him. He had dark, dark eyes, almost opaque, as if no light ever shined behind them. He had dark brows, a thin nose, and full lips. He was good-looking, built well, if a bit on the thin side. He wasn't all that tall, so perhaps then he could be called scrawny. After each time she saw him, she thought that he was just a plain man who earned his living cutting wood.
'There,' she said aloud, wishing something would happen soon, praying it would happen, knowing she wasn't going to like being conked on the head, but not caring. A drop of pain behind her ear, a headache, were nothing compared to what he was going to get. 'Done. Now let's see how easy it is to undo all this stuff.'
'It's real easy, Marty.'
It was his voice, Marlin's voice. He was right behind her. She'd never heard him come in. She wanted to leap for joy. Finally, he'd come.
Her heart pounding, she whirled about, a gasp coming out of her mouth. 'Oh goodness gracious, Marlin, you scared the stuffing out of me. Oh yeah, you scared me shitless.'
'Hi, Marty. I just came by to see how you were doing with the props. You know, you really shouldn't curse like that. Ladies shouldn't. It just doesn't sound right.'
'Everyone does, Marlin, everyone. You should hear that scum bucket husband of mine cut loose. Look at this. I'm all done. I just need to paint, but I forgot which colors go on which piece so I'll have to go home and get the drawings.'
'Not bad,' he said after a couple of minutes. He had run his fingers over the brackets, frowning when they weren't straight, frowning even more when the screws weren't all the way in.
He turned to smile down at her. 'How's your husband?'
'That asshole? I left him drinking Bud in front of the television. I'm going to leave that jerk, anytime now, I'm going to tell him to haul his saggy butt out of there and-'
It came so fast, she didn't have time to do a single thing, even be frightened, even to prepare herself for it. The lights went out. At nearly the same instant, she felt a shock of heavy pain just behind her left ear. She wanted to cry out, but there wasn't any sound in her throat, nothing at all, and she simply collapsed where she stood. She realized just before the blackness took over everything that she hadn't hit the floor. No, Marlin was holding her. Where was Toby? Well hidden, she hoped. Please, don't let him freak out and ruin the plan. No, he wouldn't. Everyone knew she had to take a hit.
She'd begged for it.
14
SHE WOKE UP TO DULL, thudding pain behind her left ear. She'd never been hit in the head before. She'd only known what to expect in theory. The reality of it was that it wasn't all that bad. Marlin knew what he was doing. He didn't want her incapacitated. He wanted her up soon, panicked, scared, and begging. He didn't want her crawling around puking up her guts from the nausea.
She held perfectly still until the pain lifted. She knew this time that she was lying on the floor, a raw-plank floor that smelled like old rotted wood, decades of dust and dirt embedded deep, and ancient carcasses, withered and stale, probably rats.
It should have been pitch black, but it wasn't. She knew what was going to happen and still she felt such terror she doubted she could even get enough saliva in her mouth to yell. She thought briefly of the other women-of Belinda-the terror of waking alone, head pounding, knowing something was desperately wrong, and it was made all that much worse because it was unknown. She was scared to her very soul even though she knew what would happen.
She wanted to kill Marlin Jones very badly.
It seemed there were some hidden lights giving off just enough light so she could see just about a foot around her. She knew she was in a big deserted building. She also knew she wasn't alone. Marlin Jones was here, somewhere, watching her. With infrared glasses? Maybe so.
She rose slowly to her feet, rubbing the back of her head. She had a slight headache, nothing more now. Oh yes, Marlin was good at what he did. She wondered how long he'd keep quiet. She called out, her voice credibly shaky, rife with rising panic, 'Is anyone there? Please, where am I? What do you want? Who are you?''
Hysteria bubbled up, making her voice shrill now, raw in that silent air. 'Who's there? You cowardly little
