Jonathan Nasaw - When She Was Bad

Mama Rose, upon seeing him pick up the knife, shut her eyes. Her body tensed, waiting for the first blow to fall. And waiting. And waiting.

“No!” Lyssy’s shout broke the silence, broke the spell. He flung the knife away. You can go to hell, he told them-Kinch, Max, whoever was listening. You can all go straight to hell.

“The attic,” said Mama Rose weakly, without opening her eyes.

Lyssy slumped back in his chair. “What?”

“The money-it’s in the air conditioner in the attic.”

“Oh.” Lyssy was so drained, it took a few seconds for the victory to soak in.

Who’s nothing now, Mister Max? he thought, popping the gag back into Mama Rose’s mouth before leaving the bedroom; seconds later he was back, removing it again. “The lock on the trapdoor-what’s the combination?”

She told him; back went the gag. It took Lyssy several tries-he’d never used a padlock of any sort-but eventually it popped open. He pushed the trapdoor up and over, boosted himself up into the attic. A cool night breeze wafted through the now-empty dormer window. Lyssy’s flashlight beam illuminated the dark hulk of the air conditioner on the floor.

The fall had cracked the case and sprung the frame. Lyssy’s fingers pried loose the plastic panel in the back, which was held in place by four recessed screws. One last yank snapped off the corner of the panel, and a quick inspection with the flashlight ended the search: the air conditioner was indeed hollow, and stuffed with rubber-band-bound stacks of currency, as well as a hand-cranked clear plastic coin sorter and a sack of loose change.

Half an hour later, with the cash in the trunk of the Cadillac at the bottom of the driveway (the keys had been in the ignition), Lyssy returned to the patio, where Lilith was still happily engrossed with her scale and weights, and lured her down to the car and into the backseat with the even more fascinating coin sorter.

So far, so good, he thought as he fastened Lilith’s seat belt for her, slammed the back door, and limped around to the driver’s side of the car. But there was something nagging at the back of his mind-something undone or forgotten, some vague, inchoate misgiving. He tried to focus, tried to close his mind around it as he slid behind the wheel and turned the key, but nothing came to him.

The engine roared to life. Lyssy experimented for a few seconds and discovered that he could work the accelerator by planting the heel of his prosthetic right foot on the textured rubber floor mat and the toe on the gas pedal, then pushing down with his thigh to rock the foot forward, using the ankle spring as a fulcrum. He turned on the headlights, planted his left foot on the brake pedal, and shifted the Cadillac into gear.

Lurch, screech, lurch, screech -it took a few minutes of trial and error, but eventually he got the hang of driving two-footed, and from then on, it was smooth sailing. And not only that, but by the time he figured out what had been nagging at him subconsciously-a minor detail: he’d never driven an automobile before-the point was utterly moot.

I guess it just proves that whatever happens, I can handle it, Lyssy told himself. I can handle whatever happens.

After struggling against his bonds for hours, the only tangible progress Pender had made was in loosening his gag in order to breathe around it. But that was a not-unimportant achievement: it meant he could allow himself to fall asleep without having to worry about suffocating.

Or not so much fall asleep as doze off for a few minutes before being jolted awake by the apnea that had prevented him from sleeping on his back for the last five years or so. It was an uncomfortable, even frightening feeling, awakening with the sound of your own snort still echoing in your ears, and realizing that the back of your throat had swollen shut, blocking both airways-but then, being awake was no goddamn picnic either.

When he wasn’t thinking about the possibility of never being rescued, of dying here either of thirst or suffocation-which was not all that likely when you considered the situation rationally, he had to keep reminding himself-Pender had time to wrestle with his own shame and grief. He’d come to like Mick MacAlister in those last few hours-his mind-projector kept screening the clip of the two of them sitting on that old automobile seat on the hill behind the barn, harmonizing on a medley of pot songs-“One Toke Over the Line,” “The Joker,” and of course “Puff the Magic Dragon”-before the gnats and mosquitos chased them back inside the car.

But oh what a fiasco (Fucked In All Seven Common Orifices, as the folk etymology had it) the two of them had perpetrated. They couldn’t have blown it any worse if they’d been on Maxwell’s payroll-and Pender didn’t even have the excuse of being stoned. Yes, it had been Mick who’d put the gun down so he could free Mama Rose, but surely Pender should have been watching for Maxwell instead of hurrying to Lily’s side.

Then when the firing began, Pender remembered with deep shame, his response had been to hit the floor. If only he’d done something, anything: charged Maxwell, thrown the flashlight at him, run for the door, dived for the bedroom window. Mick might still be dead, but Pender wouldn’t be tied up here like a Christmas goose-and Maxwell wouldn’t have a six-hour lead. Or twelve, or twenty-four, or however long it took before somebody dropped by the pink ranch house.

Lying next to Pender with eighteen inches or so of space between them, Mama Rose lost the battle with her bladder in the first few hours, which meant that in addition to the dire thirst, the muscle cramps, the headache from rebreathing stale air, and a rapidly worsening case of claustrophobia-a disorder that had never troubled her before-she now had a new problem to worry about. Diaper rash, she told herself, with a harsh mental laugh. Okay, Rosie, what’s next?

But although she had, like Pender, managed to loosen her gag far enough to be able to breathe through her mouth, unlike Pender Mama Rose never stopped struggling with it, worrying at the fabric, until eventually-around two or three in the morning, at a guess-the linen strips had gone damp and slack enough to enable her to shove the gag out of her mouth with her tongue.

“Hey,” she said.

“Mmmf,” replied Pender.

“I got an idea.”

“Mmmf?”

“Can you get any closer?”

Wriggling, writhing, he humped sideways as far as the cuffs securing his hands to the headboard would permit. Mama Rose did the same; they met in the middle of the bed. “Try to turn onto your side,” she told him.

He couldn’t, not without dislocating his shoulders. “Okay, just your head, turn your head toward me.”

He did, and discovered that she had succeeded where he’d failed, and was lying on her side. They looked into each other’s eyes for a few seconds-her eyes were a darker blue than his, puffy and red-rimmed from crying for Carson; she had a tiny white scar on the bridge of her nose. She strained toward him. Her face came closer, closer, her mouth open, her teeth bared, her breath foul. For a few seconds he thought she’d gone bonkers and was going to start kissing or biting him; he flinched away.

“Hold still,” she told him, then seized his gag in her teeth and started chewing.

Irene Cogan rarely dreamed about her late husband. When Frank did make an appearance, it was as a nebulous figure on a busy sidewalk, or across the room at a crowded party, his face in deep shadow. Sometimes she’d realize he was there and try to fight her way across the room, or catch up with him as the current of the crowd swept him along, but always in vain.