Max Collins - Scratch Fever

She shrugged. “It was my brother’s. I wouldn’t sell it.”

“Well, if you ever need a few bucks, these books are worth something. Particularly the Amazing Fantasy .”

“You can have it if you want”

“I can have it?”

“Sure. My brother would want you to.”

“Ron. I might not be alive tomorrow.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Let me go, Ron. You can’t keep me here like this.”

She frowned. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He let it pass. For the moment.

“Listen,” she said. “Before, when we... you know.”

“Yeah?”

“It wasn’t so bad, was it?”

He smiled. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“You mean, you... liked it?”

“I liked it.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“No.”

“You’re not just trying to get on the good side of me?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She sat there and thought about that.

Then she undid his pants again.

She stayed beside him in bed a while, curled up next to him in peasant blouse and panties, till it got dark. This time of year it got dark early, so it was probably only about five or five-thirty. He hadn’t been here a full day yet, and to his knowledge, Julie hadn’t been in contact with his keeper yet, either. As Ron lay sleeping beside him (or pretending to be asleep, he didn’t know), he considered again the possibility of overpowering her. He could slip an arm around her neck, but unless he was prepared to kill her, that wouldn’t do him any good. Not unless the key to the handcuffs was in the pocket of those jeans of hers, tossed over on the dresser. And there was no guarantee he could drag himself, by somehow dragging the bed with him, over there to find out. And the way she was softening to him, maybe keeping up the good behavior was the best way to go. But just how long he could — well, keep it up — he didn’t know.

Pretty soon she rose and stretched and smiled at him, without embarrassment now, and went and put her jeans on, moving with a lack of shame and a confidence that seemed more like the old Ron, but not at all masculine.

At the doorway she stopped and turned and said, “I’m not much at cooking, except breakfast and sandwiches and that. I usually eat my meals in the kitchen at the Paddlewheel. It goes with the job. But I can stick a TV dinner in the microwave for you.”

Somehow it seemed incongruous to him that she would have a microwave.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Anything.”

She was on her way out when he called to her. “Ron?”

“What?”

“I want you to let me go.”

She sighed.

“Things are going to get rougher than you know,” he said. “I wasn’t lying about the bank robbery. I wasn’t lying about Julie trying to kill me that time. And I wasn’t lying about my partner, either.”

“He’s a real bad-ass, this partner of yours?” There was no sarcasm at all in Ron’s voice.

“That’s one of the best descriptions of him I ever heard,” Jon said.

She stood poised in the doorway like something in an arty photo. Then she said, “I’ll think about it,” and was gone.

He grinned at the door, which Ron had halfheartedly pulled shut. Only partially shut: he could hear her footsteps on the stairs very clearly.

He felt good, considering. She was going to let him go, he knew it. He’d won her over. He felt like Burt Reynolds. He’d fucked her over to his side; turned the dyke into a woman. What a man. He sat there, grinning, handcuffed.

A few minutes later, there was a banging sound downstairs: somebody at the front door. Pounding the hell out of it.

He heard the door being opened.

Ron’s voice said, “What is it?”

“Things are falling apart, Ron. I need you. I need your help.”

A woman’s voice.

Jesus fuck. No.

Julie.

“Come in, come in,” Ron said. “Is it raining out?”

The door shut.

“Drizzling,” Julie said. “Cold. Icy. Maybe snow, I don’t know. Listen, that kid.”

“What about him?”

“I’m going to have to go away for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“But I’ll be back. I’ll be back for you, Ron.”

“You will?”

“I’m dumping that asshole Harold, and we’re going to be together, you and I. But first I have to go away for a while.”

“I don’t understand...”

“I’ll have five thousand dollars in cash for you, in just a few minutes. I’m going to the club to get it, before I leave.”

“Five thousand dollars?... For me? Why?”

“It’s time.”

“Time?”

“You said you could make that kid disappear for me, any time I wanted. Well, it’s time. And I want it.”

“What?”

“You to kill him, what do you think?”

“Kill him? I don’t know... I don’t mind sitting on him for you, but...”

“Ron! What’s the matter with you? You said last night you’d as soon cut his throat as look at him! Since when did you care whether some goddamn man lived or died?”

There was silence.

“I want more,” Ron said.

“What?”

“I want more than five thousand. I want ten.”

“Well, Ron... we’ll be together...”

“Maybe we’ll be together and maybe we won’t. I want ten.”

“Okay. You got it.”

“You go get the money. It’ll be done when you get back.”

“No. You do it now, Ron. I want it done now.”

He could hear the shrug in Ron’s voice. “All right.”

He struggled with the cuff his wrist was in, as he heard her footsteps on the stairs, but it didn’t do any good, it didn’t do any goddamn fucking good, and then she was in the doorway, with a .38 in her hand.

She shut the door behind her.

“You bitch,” he said, his free hand a fist.

He didn’t have to swing it: his words struck her like a blow.

“Please, no,” she said. Whispering. Her eyes looked wet.

She set the gun on the nightstand.

She fumbled in her front pocket The jeans she wore were tight; she had trouble finding it but then she brought it out: a small key.

She unlocked the cuff at his wrist.

“We’re only one floor up,” she whispered. “There’s just ground under the window, not cement or anything. Hang out the window and drop.”

“Ron...”

“I’m going to tell her you got away. I came up here and you were gone. I’m going to tell her I had you tied, and you got loose. She doesn’t have to know about the cuffs.”

She was undoing the cuff at his ankle.

He got up; she helped him. He was dizzy. Hard to keep balance. He started unsteadily toward his shoes.

“Never mind that,” she said irritatedly, pushing him toward the window.

He grabbed her by the small of one arm. Looked at her. Touched her face.

“Get out of here,” she said.

She opened the window for him, and he climbed out into the darkness, hanging by the sill, facing toward the house, and the night air felt cold, the drizzle felt good. He dropped.

The ground was hard, and one of his ankles gave, twisted. Fuck! He fell backward but was up in a second, and hobbled across the cold ground, wishing he had his goddamn shoes. This wasn’t as clear a night as last night, but he could still make out the general shape of things. The old two-story farmhouse. The bare yard going back to what was apparently a plowed cornfield. Trees off to the left, which he was heading toward now.

His ankle hurt like hell, but he was so glad to be out of there and maybe, just maybe get out of Julie’s grip, that the pain felt good, as good as the cold, wet air. The pain meant he was alive.

Then he was in the trees, and he could see the road: there were trees on either side of it, so it would be easy enough to head for cover if a car came. And since a car could mean Julie again, he didn’t dare flag one down, so he hobbled in the road, because with his turned ankle it was better than moving through the trees and bushes and high grass. And he heard a noise behind him, back at the farmhouse. Something that could have been a shot.