Tsar (32 page)

W
ith trembling hands, she loosened the terry sash. Then she shrugged out of the robe and let it fall to the floor, puddling around her bare feet. She’d turned the heat off downstairs. It was already freezing in the kitchen. She could feel goose bumps all over. She saw the wooden knife block sitting on the counter. Eight brand-new German knives from Kitchenworks.com. Knife against gun? Paper against scissors, but better than nothing.

“Nice,” he said, staring at the nipples hard against her sheer black nightgown, her breasts like cantaloupes encased in silk. “You know how much I could get for you in Saudi? Dubai? Whoa!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not really a baker, as you may have guessed. I’m an old-fashioned iceman. Professional-grade button man, born and bred on the streets of Brooklyn, New York. But I do a little flesh peddling now, sell women on the side. Damn good business, too, Ukrainian girls, mostly. Beautiful. But not as pretty as you. Some sheik of Araby would pay top dollar for those tits.”

“Look. Whatever you want from me, just do it, okay? Do it. Then leave. I won’t scream. I won’t make a sound.” She was trying to picture getting him preoccupied, then grabbing one of the big butcher knives out of the block.

“I don’t mind a little screaming now and then, tell you the truth, mayor.”

“Mayor? Why’d you call me that?”

“I like to bone up on my targets, you know, do my research. Part of the fun.”

She looked behind her at the swinging door. It had a small porthole window she’d had installed back in the day when they could afford a cook. She knew she’d never get through that door alive.

“Please. Hurry up and get this over with. My husband could come down any second.”

“Come over here, bitch. And lose the nightie, okay?”

“Okay. Okay. You win.”

She walked around the center island, pulling the flimsy nightgown up over her head.
There is only one way out of this nightmare,
her brain was screaming. Give this asshole what he wants, and pray to God she could get hold of that butcher knife on the counter. If that didn’t work, what? Anything to get him away from the house. Far away from her children. Anything. She would do—she dropped the nightgown on the floor—anything, she realized, to save them, save her family.

“There,” she said, positioning herself in front of him, where she could maybe lean forward and grab the knife. “Is this what you wanted? Go ahead. It’s all yours, Happy. Have at it. Then get the hell out of my house.”

He stayed put. He kept the gun on her, then reached out with his free hand and squeezed her left breast, testing it like fruit at the market, gently kneading the flesh but pinching her nipple hard, harder. And still harder, waiting for some reaction in her eyes that she would never, ever give him.

She could feel his hot breath on her, the scent of testosterone suddenly filling a family kitchen so recently smelling of macaroni and cheese. He was hurting her now. She suddenly took his free wrist, guided his hand down between her legs, let his fingers pry apart the soft flesh, while she backed against the counter, put her hands behind her, spread her legs wide. Her right hand was now maybe three feet from salvation.

He looked at her and smiled.

“Looks like I came to the right house.”

“Do it,” she said, calculating how and when she might lunge to grab a weapon. She knew she’d only get one chance. Happy was smiling at her.

“Do what, honey? Ask for it.”

“You want me to suck it? Is that it? Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll do it right goddamn now.”

She reached out, found the zipper under the protruding belly and yanked it down. Hooked her index fingers inside his stretch waistband and pulled his white baker’s pants down to his knees. His penis was standing straight up, just like George’s upstairs. Then she bent her head to him, took him in her mouth, and gave him what he wanted.

Somehow, she’d have to get him when he used both hands to pull his pants up. That would be her only chance, catch him when—

“What the hell?” a new voice somewhere said.

George. He was at the kitchen door. She stood up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her husband was standing there in the doorway in his striped woolen robe, a look of total incomprehension on his face. He looked at his naked wife, then at the fat baker, then back to her.

“Monie? What’s going on?”

“He’s got a gun, George. But it’s okay. He got what he wanted. Now he’s leaving. Go back upstairs. I can handle this.”

“Go back upstairs?” George said.

“The flashlight, George. Check on the X-Men flashlight. Make sure it’s off and nobody can ever get to it. Got that?”

“Check on the X-Men flashlight,” George said robotically.

“You know what, George?” Happy said, moving away from her so he could keep an eye and his gun on both of them. Then he was hitching his trousers up and zipping up his fly. “We’re all going back upstairs. You’re going to show me the safe, and then we’ll take it from there. How’s that sound?”

“You said you’d leave if—”

“Lady, I didn’t say shit. You did all the talking. Remember? It was your idea, not mine. Let’s go. And leave the robe and the nightie there on the floor. We might need them later. George, do me a favor. Bring the cake up, will ya?”

George, carrying the cake, was first up the stairs, then Monie. Then Happy, a step behind her with the gun. She could feel his eyes on her naked bottom all the way to the top.

“Which way’s the master bedroom?” Happy asked.

“Left,” George said, on automatic pilot. He took a left and walked down the hall toward their room.

“Kids are in there?” the baker said, pausing as they passed the pink door of the girls’ room.

“We don’t have any kids,” Monie said, striving mightily to keep her voice even.

“Really? I counted two.”

“Neighbors’ kids. I pick them up at school sometimes,” she said. “Their parents are dead. Not dead. Away.”

“In here?” George asked, reaching their bedroom.

“Right in there, George. You, too, cupcake.”

She hesitated a beat, and he nudged the muzzle of the gun into her right butt cheek.

“You bastard,” she hissed. “I’ve got an entire police force under me that’s going to tear your fat ass to shreds for this. They’ll boil the meat right off your bones.”

“Spunky, huh? We’ll see about that. Okay, George, put the cake on the dresser there near the bed. That’s right. Now, you and little wifey-poo here climb in the bed and pull the covers up. But keep your hands out where I can see them. Got that?”

“In the bed? Together?” George asked.

She looked at her husband’s eyes for the first time. He was in a complete state of shock. No help there.
Thanks, George.
She was waiting for another break. She just needed a distraction. Anything that would let her go for the gun. Or, wait, scissors. She had a pair of crimping shears, big ones, in the top drawer of the dresser, right beneath where George had put the cake box.

“At least let me open my surprise,” she said, moving quickly toward the dresser before he could say anything.

“You want to open it? Why not? Go ahead, it’s for you, after all.”

In the mirror, she saw him watching her move. Enjoying this. Saw George climbing into the four-poster bed, still in his robe. He pulled the covers up and splayed his hands out on top. Then he put his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes.

“George?” she said to his reflection, “You may not have noticed, but we’ve got a shit-for-brains psycho doughboy in our bedroom. He’s going to rape me and kill us all. And you’re in bed with your eyes closed? Jesus, George!”

Her husband of twenty years never even blinked.

And she could see Happy in the mirror, too, his eyes were still all over her. She tried to shield her hand with her body as she pulled open the small sock drawer where she kept the scissors. She reached in, dug through the socks, all the way to the back, her fingers desperately searching but coming up empty. Wait, maybe the other drawer? Where she kept her bundle of old love letters from George? Yeah. The scissors were right on top.

“Whatcha doin’ over there, honeybun?” he said.

She glanced in the mirror. He’d pulled up a chair and was sitting now, watching her, into the live nude show, the gun loose in his right hand.

“Scissors,” she said, holding them up so he could see them. “To cut the ribbon.”

“Oh. Sure, why not?”

But now that she had them, what was she going to do with them? Charge him? She’d be dead before she took three steps. No. She’d open the box, try to palm the scissors somehow, hide them behind her back, wait for her chance. She cut the pink grosgrain ribbon and ripped it away. Then she lifted the top off the box and dropped it to the floor.

“Bring the box over here,” he said, his voice flat and thick with lust now.

“Okay.” She lifted it and turned toward him, the scissors still in her left hand.

“Leave the scissors on the bureau. So you’re not tempted to be a bad girl. You know what happens to bad girls.”

“Sure.”

She carried the box to him, her mind clawing for another weapon, another plan, a little hope here, please. The box was full of red crepe paper and heavier than a box with a cake should be.

“Put it on the floor. By my feet.”

She did it.

“Look inside. Take a peek at what you got.”

She pulled the paper away and felt something metal, smooth, heavy, shaped like a small drum. She lifted it out and stood up with the thing in her hands. Okay. Smash him in the face? Bring it down hard on the hand with the gun? Which? Now! She had to do it now, or—

She heard the click as he cocked the trigger back.

“Silly girl,” he said, the gun pointed at her face. “Put it on the floor, and get into bed with your husband.”

“What is this thing?” she asked, looking at the object in her hands. The silver drum had a small fan built into the lid, beneath a wire mesh. And there was a dial and some buttons.

“I’ll tell you when you’re all tucked in under the covers with Georgie, okay?”

The bad dream wouldn’t end unless she ended it. She looked at him one last time, searching his feral eyes for God knows what, mercy, sanity, and then she slammed the metal drum down on the top of his head as hard as she possibly could.

He screamed in surprised pain and tilted the chair back to get away as she raised the drum again, blood pouring from a deep gash in his forehead. They could both tell the chair was going over backward with his weight, and she dropped the drum and dove for the gun with both hands, trying to wrench it from his fingers as he hit the floor.

“George!” she screamed. “Go get the girls! Get them out of the house! Run! Now!”

Happy was on his back on the floor now, dazed but still functioning. She pounced on him, knees in the middle of his chest. She had one hand around his wrist and the other around the barrel of the pistol. She slammed the hand against the wooden floor, hard, once, twice, trying to shake the gun loose. But the goddamn barrel was so short she couldn’t seem to get good enough leverage to pry it out of his fingers.

“Let go!” he said, his voice surprisingly calm.

“Fuck you!” she screamed. She gave up on the gun and went for his eyes with her fingernails, raking his face with both hands, ten bright red stripes appearing instantly on his face.

“Bitch!” he screamed, and then she was flying backward, slamming into the dresser and collapsing to the floor. She saw George on his feet, coming toward her, no shock in his eyes now, coming to help her.

“George, watch out! He’s still got the—”

“Good-bye, George,” the baker said, and shot her husband in the head, a fine red mist where the top used to be. Her husband staggered and fell, his body sprawled across hers. He was dead. She had to get him off. She had to get to the kids, she had to—

The man who had killed her husband and was now going to kill her was standing above her, the gun pointed at her head. His face was shredded, and the blood was pouring down his white baker’s shirt, splashing onto her. He put the muzzle of the pistol in the middle of her forehead.

She was going to die now without saving her children.

“Good night,” he said. But instead of pulling the trigger, he brought the butt of the gun down hard on the top of her head.

S
OMETIME LATER, SHE
opened her eyes. She was in her bed, her head on a blood-soaked pillow. She tried to move her hands, but they were tied to something. Bedposts. Feet, too. The baker had pulled the chair up next to the bed, facing her. He had the metal drum in his lap. She couldn’t see his face anymore because of the mask. It had two glass eyes and a protruding round mouthpiece that made him look like a giant insect.

“Know what your surprise is?” she heard him say through the mouthpiece, lifting the drum. His voice was distorted, making him sound like a computer recording or something. Her head hurt terribly, and she wanted him to go away. She hurt in another place too, and knew that he’d abused her while she’d been unconcious.