Seven Deadly Pleasures (7 page)

The bone finally snapped and a hurl of momentum threw me against the back of the tub. Shampoos and conditioners that had been perched on the edge rained down on me and hot clouts of pain swarmed my left hand in an angry rush. On the other side of the tub my thumb was dancing a bit in the air, doing small twists and pendulum swings from its chain. It looked alive and I looked away. I curled my mangled hand in to my stomach and crawled to grab hold of my lighter.

I glanced back at the clock. Twenty seconds.

I flicked the lighter's dial to the highest setting. I gripped the towel in my teeth a second time and thumbed up a flame. Slowly, like a mad chemist, I brought the flare to the gaping wound.

There was a fusion of fire, torn flesh, and bone. My eyes blurred over and I shrieked myself silent as the gash was burned burgundy black. It popped and sizzled and I forced myself to keep the flame in place for a full five seconds.

I dropped the lighter. There was a hard pulse of anguish between the area of my recently evicted thumb and my forearm, and I wanted to curl to a fetal position to cradle the hurt. But my time was almost expired, so I heaved myself out of the tub, fell on my face, and made a three-legged shuffle for the door.

The timer went off as I was half through the archway and I gave one huge lunge.

I fell to the carpeted floor of the foyer and sobbed at the ceiling.

"Was it good enough, you bastard? Have I come clean? Did I get out in time? Fuck you!"

I heard something strange, a sound quite loud and out of place. At first I thought it was the mad ringing of the timer in my head, but it was not. It was a car horn honking and honking outside of the house. It sounded close enough to be coming from the welcome mat. I got up as quickly as I could, stumbled down the stairs, and threw open the front door.

My car was backed up on the front lawn, almost to the door, and rocking back and forth in Tina's flower bed. The Reaper was in the front seat and laughing in a broad display of rotten enamels.

"Wouldn't it be funny if everyone lost the mask?" he said. "Wanna see what that would be like? This is going to be fun!"

He melted. Bone and black cloth merged and swam like a mass of cartilage tornedoed in a slow-motion blender. The wet lump shifted, cracked, and made sucking sounds as it reformed.

It became Thelma.

"Hi, sweet thang." She gave a parade wave that jangled the many silver bracelets on her wrist. Then she spun the tires in a harsh, rubbery roar that kicked up dirt, mulch, and small stones to pepper the walls and shutters. I half closed the screen door and took cover behind it as she tore donuts into my lawn, sending up a confetti spray of grass, tulips, bulbs, and lilies to the warm summer breeze. Just before her sharp turn across the sidewalk and over the curb, she ran down Tina's flowering fig for good measure.

A horde of children had been watching and the weird event made them go mad with glee.

It became a dirt-pile free-for-all as they infiltrated and began sliding, stamping, kicking, and rock throwing. I still had not moved. The pain was too close, the visual chaos outside too surreal, like the symbolic representation of something I could not quite put into focus.

I snapped out of it when they started to break my windows. Two small boys in OshKosh B'Gosh overalls aimed for the panes upstairs. A girl with pigtails and horn rims walked the plowed up garden and stamped her Mary Janes down on the flowers that remained standing. The bigger boy who lived across the street hefted a large cornerstone and waddled it over to the wounded flowering fig. He dropped it and broke the small tree at its base with a wet snap.

The sound of it was similar to my thumb's last words, and I marched outside. Children scattered. The woman across the street was standing in her doorway and shaking with laughter.

I strode down my soiled walkway and broke into a run to tell her my thoughts. My thumb stump was still smoking. I was covered with blood.

By the time she looked up and registered my approach, I was right in her face. There was no choice for her but to step back and suddenly I was in the strange house, backing her into a corner.

"You rotten witch," I said. "Do you know how hard my wife worked on that garden?"

"Get out of my house," she said. I had to lean in a bit because she was whispering. She backed from me farther but kept the low tone through her thin lips. "I've despised you and your wife from day one, it's obvious you hate women, and deep down I know you've always wanted my body."

She had mean-spirited eyes but now looked a bit too frightened to make them work their magic. Her shaky voice seemed to complement the cheap, outdated wallpaper and the pastel furniture wrapped in vinyl slipcovers.

"I'll call the police," she said.

That turned my momentary confusion back to rage and I was tempted to stamp my foot and cry, "I called them first." Instead, I said,

"Try this."

I reached for my pants button but my lack of a thumb denied me firm grasp. She brought her hands to her face and screamed,

"Rape! Rape! Help, Oh God, rape!"

"Shut up," I said. "I was going to flash a moon, don't flatter yourself." She kept screaming and I moved even closer. "Believe me, I couldn't lie to you even if I wanted to. I was going to shine a moon at you, that's all."

She kept screaming.

I turned my back to it, ran out into the sunshine, and made a path straight back to my house. A score of neighbors were watching from lawns, walkways, and patios, and I could feel their greasy eyes on me right up until I threw myself into the living room and slammed the door tight.

"Jesus," I said.

I heard the drone of a siren in the distance. My hand had settled for a dull, pounding throb and I climbed the stairs with weak legs. Then I halted in the bedroom doorway. There was a strange form leaning into the opened closet with a rag-tag pile of ripped cloth hangers at his feet. His coat was stuffed with Tina's antique jewelry and by the bulges in his pockets it looked like he had just about gotten it all.

It was my buddy the cab driver and part-time cat burglar. He turned and, with a gloved hand, leveled a pistol at my chest.

"Don't try anything stupid, kid. I don't want to waste you."

My bladder cut loose. He saw it, gloated, and rode the fear factor for all it was worth.

"This is loaded with hollow points. They would pierce your stomach like a dime and come out your back the size of a basketball. By the way, kid, you look terrible."

There was a peal of tires outside. Our eyes jerked simultaneously and he waved me over to the window. One-handed, he snapped the lock and lifted the frame. Now the gun was pressed to my temple as we both looked through the screen.

A weather-stained red pickup was parked in the middle of the street. On its side was a phone number and block letters that read "D'GIDEO PLUMBING." The thick-browed, tattooed bruiser who owned it was rooting through the job box bolted to the back bed. He was red faced and pissed.

"Who's that?" the cabby said.

"It's my neighbor from across the street," I said. "Probably got a distressing call from his wife about a rapist."

The plumber lifted out a long crowbar and started for my walkway. His fickle wife leaned out of her doorway and begged him to stop. Over his shoulder, he shouted back at her in Italian. The cabby shoved me away.

"Sit down," he said. "Now! On your butt Indian style. Hands in the back pockets, move!"

I complied and muffled a scream when my left-handed wound scraped the top pocket band. The cabby spoke through his teeth. His voice had a sort of whistle to it.

"From that position, you won't be able to get up in time to jump me clean, and if you move I'll shoot you like a dog."

"Please, no."

He punched out the screen, walked back a step into the shadows, and pointed the gun downward. He fired twice out the window. There was no roar and echo like the movies, just a pair of hearty pop sounds. I heard screams and moans outside and noticed that the sirens were closer.

My captor walked over and sat on the bed. He rested his forearms on his knees.

"Go take a look, son."

I struggled up and made it to the window. The plumber was flat on his back with his eyes open. There was a jagged area where his forehead used to be and the balance of his scalp lay in the grass like a hairy, down-turned soup bowl.

"I killed him," the cabby said. "It's your duty to turn me in." I turned and he had the gun offered out to me butt first. He nodded at it. "This is useless to me now. Go on, take it."

I came away from the window, snatched away the weapon, and aimed at his forehead.

"Just stay right there. The cops will want a big story out of you."

He laughed. He stood. He bolted for the door.

"Hold it!" I shouted. I aimed at the ceiling and pulled the trigger to fire up a warning. I got nothing but an empty click. His voice was a teasing, receding call from the stairway.

"You think I'd hand you a gun with bullets left in it? Boy, are you stupid."

I looked at the gun in my hand and realized how badly I'd just been screwed. He had been wearing gloves. Now my blood and prints were on the weapon. I even had motive.

His last words were muffled, but I heard them from the basement.

"Better get a new lock system, kid. This deadbolt was a piece of cake."

There was the faint slam of a door and then other slams of car doors out front. I looked through the window and gasped.

There was an army of cops outside in the street, cruisers crisscrossed on the pavement and angled up both sidewalks. Orders were being shouted and the troopers were falling into patterns, real cowboy shit, long-barreled guns two-fisted across roofs and hoods. I blinked. Members of a S.W.A.T. team dressed in military black were assuming positions on rooftops parallel to my small fortress which was now considered hostile. They had big rifles with scopes and a couple of men were positioning cannon things that looked like small missile launchers.

I backed away from the windows and ran downstairs for the door, to throw it open, to run out and blare the truth to them all, to go down in a blaze of glory.

Tina's clipped and amplified voice stopped me. They had given her a megaphone.

"Joe? Joe, please come out slowly with your hands held high. I love you so much."

I fell to my knees and wept into my palms.

The mask came back. It forced its way into my brain with such force it was almost physical. Relief swept through me and already I was beginning to sort the mess and fabricate stories. I got to my feet and looked at my watch. 10:01. I sighed and looked around for something white to wave.

There would be an investigation and I would have a lawyer, maybe a team, good, strong masks all around, thank God.

In the kitchen, I grabbed a handful of white paper towels. Peace. Truce. At last. Still, on the short trip back through the living room I was not mentally focused on my lawyers, my newest excuses, or the pain in my left hand. I was not thinking of the impending trial or how much bail or whether it would hurt when they threw me face down in the dirt to cuff me.

I thought of none of these things, for my mind was on Tina. Sweet Tina and whether I would ever again feel the taste of her rosebud lips through the thick skin of both our clever masks.