Oh, no, Vicki thought.
“Who gave you this, hmm?” queried the cracked voice.
“Yuh-you did, Cody,” she lied.
His lips stiffened. “I did? Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes, don’t you remember? You gave it to me before we got married.”
“Hmm. Well.” He jerked the pendant away, snapping the tiny gold chain. Then, right before her eyes, he rolled the gem and mount between his fingers. Eventually the mount broke, and the diminutive diamond fell to the floor.
His big booted foot ground it into the dust.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to buy you a better one.”
This secretly infuriated her, like everything else she’d made her life subject to. His eyes slid back up to hers, boring in like drill bits.
“You have a job to do now. Are you going to continue to make a nuisance of yourself, or are you going to do as you’re expected?”
Something happened then, something dangerous. Some remote part of her psyche seemed to snap like a dry, tiny twig. Her terror shook her, and the deeper she stared into the corrupted face, the more she saw the ruination of her own life. A simple wave of his stonelike hand, she knew, could send her to the hospital.
He could snap her neck at will.
But suddenly, if only for a mad, exploding moment, she didn’t care.
“You son of a bitch,” her throat rasped the words. “You want me to be in a six-way orgy with three redneck dope peddlers. I’m your wife!”
“Indeed, you are.” His grasp about her throat tightened. “And why is that? Tell me, my love. Why are you my wife?”
By now she couldn’t answer. Her eyes began to swell forward as her husband’s twisted hand exerted more pressure against her windpipe and the arteries leading to her brain.
He answered for her. “You’re my wife only because I allow you to be. Yes? Am I right?”
Vicki’s fear returned in just one beat of her heart. She forced herself, tremoring, to nod in the affirmative.
Natter’s black voice flowed on. “Yes, you’re my wife. But there’s something else that you are, yes? And what is that?”
The cuff of Natter’s hand lifted, squeezing tears out of Vicki’s eyes like water from a rag. Her heart squirmed in her chest…
His hand was lifting her off her feet.
She gasped, choking to get the words out. “I-I’m a—”
“Yes?”
“I’m a, I’m a—”
“Hmm? Tell me, my love. You’re a what?”
“I’m a whore!” she finally hacked out.
The clawlike hand released her. Vicki fell to the floor.
“You’re a whore,” he repeated. He loomed over her, dizzyingly tall. “Yes, a whore. You always have been, and you always will be.” Then his voice receded to its absolute darkest pitch. “Now go and do what it is that whores do.”
Vicki wheezed air back into her lungs, coughing. Suddenly Natter was leaning down.
“But one more thing, my love. Isn’t there something, you need?”
Vicki squinted up, her head reeling. She’d barely heard what he said.
Something… I need…
“Hmm?”
His misshapen hand opened right before her face.
Her eyes widened.
She gulped.
In Natter’s queer palm lay a baggie full of cocaine.
— | — | —
Twenty-Three
“Jesus Christ, man,” Eagle observed. His eyes looked peeled open. “The guy’s been skinned.”
“It’s a tough piece of work,” Phil said.
“Shit, who knows how much we missed ’em by.”
“We didn’t miss the guys who did this; they’re miles away by now, Eagle. Ain’t no way they did this here.”
“How do you know?”
“Take a look, man.”
The corpse lay sprawled, scarcely even resembling a human. It was the same job they’d done on Rhodes. The thing at their feet appeared coated with clotted blood, its complete surface showing sinuous crimson muscle. Flies, hordes of them, pecked over the corpse.
“There’s no blood,” Phil told him. “If they’d done this here, there’d be a lake of blood on the floor. There’s almost nothing here. The guys who did this, they did it somewhere else, then brought Blackjack’s body back here and dumped it.”
Eagle straightened out; he looked confused. “But that don’t make no sense. Why go to the trouble? Why didn’t they just bury him somewhere, or dump him in the woods where he’d never be found?”
“Why do you think? They want him to be found,” Phil said.
“Why?”
“To send a message out, man. The people you’re dealing against know what you’re doing. They left this here so you would see it, and get the gist quick.”
“To lay off,” Eagle said.
“That’s right. They want you off their turf, and they left this little reminder here to give you good reason.”
“Christ, man.” Eagle backed out of the kitchen, dizzied by the sight. “This ain’t my ballpark. I’m just a small- time dust runner; I ain’t into this shit. I mean, look what they did to Blackjack. They fuckin’ skinned him.”
“Yeah,” Phil agreed. “And we’re next. We’re in a stew pot of shit, and it’s just about to start boiling. What are we gonna do?”
“Boogie,” Eagle offered. “That’s what we’re gonna do. Look, I was just trying to make a living, but this… Fuck it. It ain’t worth it.”
“Why don’t we hit back?” Phil tried to egg him on.
Eagle looked at him as though he’d just been told that the Pope was Jewish. “Are you fuckin’ crazy, man? Hit back? These people mean big-time business, Phil, or can’t you see that? We try to hit back on them, we die.”
Don’t chicken out on me now, Phil thought. He needed Eagle to be pissed, to want to strike back. That was the only way Phil would ever find out the location of Natter’s lab.
“And I guarantee they did the same thing to Paul,” Phil lied. “You want to take this shit? We gotta fight back. We gotta hit your competitor harder than he just hit you.”
“Hey, they didn’t hit me, they hit Blackjack, and that’s hard enough. I’m out of this business, as of right now.”
“Come on, man. Who’s the other supplier?” Phil dared to ask. “Let’s show them who they’re fucking with.”
Eagle laughed incredulously. “Fuck you, man. Like I said, I’m just in this for the bread. I’d rather pump gas than have to deal with guys who’d do something like this. Come on. We’re out of here.”
God-DAMN! Phil thought. Each time he got close, it shot out of reach. If he didn’t push Eagle, he’d never find the location of Natter’s lab, but if he pushed too hard, Eagle would smell cop in two seconds.
