Everything but the Squeal

thin squeal. The hardcase kept his eyes on me.

“Let go of her hand,” I said to the hardcase. “Let go of her hand or I'll cut out your fucking tongue and feed it to the pigeons.”

He dropped Junko's hand and lifted his own and displayed it, palm open and empty. “Hey,” he said, “am I looking for an argument?”

“You?” the fat man said in disbelief. “Mr. Flower Power?”

“He looks like a nice guy,” I said. I still hadn't gotten up, and Muhammad tugged at the back of my shirt. I sat forward and he let go with a long sigh.

“He is,” the fat man said, sitting back in his chair. “What with his widowed mother and all.”

“Am I a nice guy, Jennie?” the hardcase asked. The girl, who had been tentatively flexing her fingers and wrist, looked up at him as though her head had been jerked on a string and nodded.

“Junko,” I said, getting up. “Do you know her?”

I put the yearbook picture of Aimee on the table in front of her. She shook her head in the negative without glancing down.

“Look at it,” I said.

She turned her eyes to the hardcase, and he lifted his eyebrows in a classic gesture of indifference. The only sound was the fat man slurping his coffee. Then she looked down at the picture, and a tiny jolt of electricity went through her shoulders.

“But she's-” she said.

The hardcase slapped his hand down over the photo and said, “Tssss.” Junko sat back as though she'd been slapped, and gazed at him. “But she is,” she said.

“Tsssss,” he said again. Then he looked at me. “She doesn't know her,” he said. The knife scar above his mouth twitched. It was a thin, curved, clean slice that traveled from the side of his nose right through his upper lip.

“I know you're a nice guy,” I said. “Look at your character witnesses. But at the moment, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to Junko.”

“Junko’s not talking to you,” he said. He picked up his plastic cup of Coke and sipped at it. “So fuck off,” he said.

“There's a bug in your Coke,” I said.

He looked down at it, and I slapped him across the face. My hand caught the Coke and sent it flying. I slapped him again backhand just to let off some steam. His head rocketed back, and Junko let out a tiny scream. The ice-cream pimp's girl watched in fascination. The Coke had hit the wall and made a nice brown splash.

“I’d punch you,” I explained, “but you're not worth it.”

He got up slowly. There was a big red splotch heating up on each of his cheeks. The scar was white and livid.

“Oh,” I said, “I'd love you to.”

He had to step behind Junko to cross behind the table and get to me. When he was standing directly behind her, he gave me a crooked smile, grabbed a knot of her hair in one hand, and yanked backward. Her head went back and her eyes rolled.

“Stick out your tongue, Jennie,” he said to her. Her tongue came out all the way to the bottom of her chin, and his other hand appeared with a knife in it. It was a very shiny knife. He angled the blade down toward Junko's tongue and touched it against the pink surface. The edge was angled away from her face so that if she pulled her tongue back the knife would slice right through. “Don't move,” he said to her. Then he looked back at me.

“So,” he said, “you want to feed somebody's tongue to the pigeons?” He gave me the full chain-saw grin. “We got a tongue right here,” he said. “Good as any deli.” He let go of her throat and tugged at the tip of her tongue. “Don't suck it in, honey, or you'll lisp for life.”

The girl had closed her eyes. Her fine black hair curled on her shoulders and her body was quivering, but her tongue was as still as if it had been carved from marble.

“Okay,” I said, “she doesn't know her. Let her go.”

One of his eyebrows arched upward. “Oh, don't worry,” he said. “I'm going to let her go. Paul.”

The fat man stood up and moved behind him. “May I be of service, my dear?” he asked in a courtly fashion.

“Hold her tongue,” the hardcase said.

“A pleasure,” Paul said. He reached two greasy fingers down and took the tip of Junko's tongue between them. A knife materialized in his other hand and came to rest where the hardcase's blade had been a moment before. Junko moaned.

“You and me,” the hardcase said, stepping away from her. “Back to the pinballs.”

“I don't play pinballs,” I said, looking at the fat man's knife against Junko's tongue.

“You're not going to play,” he said. “I am.”

It didn't sound good, but there wasn't any alternative. Junko hadn't swallowed in half a minute.

“He's a cop,” Muhammad said from behind me.

“Yeah,” the hardcase said, “and I'm Cary Grant, you dumb immigrant. After you, jerkoff.”

“You do anything to her,” I said to the fat man, “and I'll come back for you.”

“Careful,” the hardcase said. “You might make his hand shake.” The fat man let loose an explosive chuckle, and one of Junko's hands flew up in a gesture of pure desperation. I headed for the pinballs.

“Against the wall,” the hardcase said, “facing me. Right between the machines.”

I backed up until I felt a cold wall behind me and a pinball machine touching either hip. Even the most optimistic real-estate salesman couldn't have called it anything but a dead end. Cold sweat trickled its way down my sides.

“Hands behind your back,” he said, glancing toward the big window that fronted onto Hollywood Boulevard. I followed his gaze and saw his point. From the street, anyone curious or stupid enough to look in would see the fat man's leather-clad back, between them and Junko, Muhammad polishing glasses, the ice-cream pimp and his lady enjoying their Cokes, and a couple of old friends having a chat between the pinball machines. I put my hands behind my back, feeling the rough texture of the stucco.

He lowered the hand with the knife in it. “Hope you hang left,” he said. Then, very quickly, he stuck me through my jeans with the tip of the knife, just to the right of my fly. I felt a pinpoint of pain and my legs turned to water. “Move and you'll leave with her tongue in your pocket,” he said. “Let's try a little lower.” He stuck me again twice, jabbing the knife in and pulling it out so fast I could barely see it move.

“Three's the charm,” he said, grinning lopsidedly at me. His teeth were rotted and brown; too much cocaine leaches away the calcium. I wished briefly that I were his dental hygienist, going after his tartar with a jackhammer. He must have seen something in my face, because he said, “But four's for fun,” and he stuck me again, deeper this time. I had to fight to remain standing.

“What you're going to do now,” he said, “you're going to go away. And you're not going to come back. Are you?” He gave me another little jab, in the hip this time.

“No,” I said. “I'm gone.”

He backed away, folding the knife and slipping it into his pocket. “Then get the fuck out of here, chickenshit,” he said. He thought better of it. “No,” he said, smiling with the half of his mouth that moved, “hold on.”

With a little grunt, he dug deeper into the pockets of his jeans and came out with something that looked like an aqualung for a skin diver from Lilliput, a flat black tanklike affair with a nozzle at the end of it. The whole thing couldn't have been more than five inches long. Well, the anopheles mosquito is even smaller than that.

He did something to the end and a needlelike blue flame flicked its tongue at me. He brought it up under my nose.

“Ever do any welding?” he asked. He was having fun.

“No.” The heat of the flame pricked against my upper lip.

“You ever want to, this'll do the job.” He held it a little closer to my face, and I let out an involuntary moan.

“Knock it off,” advised the fat man. “Or else hold it lower. People can see.”

“Skin melts,” the knife pimp said. “Next time you're back, we'll melt some. Understand?”

I nodded.