Jon Reskind - Sir Launcelot volume 1

"Sick. I must… must've fainted…"

"You did," said Max. Then, to Silk: "Hurry with that brandy."

Slowly, Susan raised up and swung her feet to the floor, her head whirling like a pool of water being sucked down a drain, her stomach a nauseous void of knotted emptiness. For a moment, she feared that she would retch, then Silk brought the brandy and she sipped at it, the amberish liquid burning her mouth and throat as she swallowed… bracing her almost immediately as its warmth spread through her belly, reviving her strength. Her mind raced desperately as she continued to feign weakness.

Dear God in heaven! What kind of a nightmare is this? It can't be happening… it just can't! Nothing makes sense… They're mad… sex perverts… that's it! I've got to get out of here… some way… somehow… get to the police… If only the other man weren't here… I might have a chance with Max Bovino's blindness.

It was probably a useless tactic, Susan thought, looking up at the blind ex-Mafioso, but she'd begun to cling at straws. She said: "Must he stay here? My God, his eyes are like wet eels crawling over me… Please… make him leave."

Max Bovino grinned as he stood very erect, looking off at nothing. "You heard her, Silk, get out."

"But, Boss…?" the pitted-faced one protested, his vicious eyes narrowing savagely and spitting their venomous rage at Susan.

"I said scram! Beat it! Split, damnit!" Max growled. "The doll and I want a little privacy, understand?"

He obeyed, but not before he'd bestowed one last hate-filled grimace in her direction. Then, when they were alone, Max moved forward with Lonny's precise assistance, and seated himself on the davenport beside her, some two-feet separating them.

"I know you heard just about everything we had to say, baby," Max said, matter-of-factly. "The average fainting spell lasts a minute, maybe two, and sometimes three… you laid here for damn near ten. My instincts are wild, doll." He grinned, not unhandsomely. "You listened… and I wanted you to… now, you're going crazy inside, eh? You even figured if I sent Silk away that you might be able to make a break for it. Right?" He chuckled. "Well now… hear me good, Susie-girl… I say one word to Sir Launcelot, here, and he'd be right at your throat. You couldn't get across the room. On the other hand, should you decide to belt me with something, or try any other little trick, I wouldn't have to say that word… he'd tear you apart. Is that all nice and clear?"

Susan shuddered and looked down at the massive animal lying obediently at it's master's feet, while Max's deep, menacing voice quickly shattered her crude plan. Subconsciously, she raised the remainder of the brandy to her lips and drained it, once more, welcoming its reviving warmth in her trembling belly. Dear God… what now?

"Why… why are you doing this to me?" she heard her voice question. "I-I've never hurt you, Mr. Bovino."

"No…" he interrupted. "No, you haven't but your husband's brother did! Luke Sheldon… he took a contract from a man named Gruen Fintzerwold for $5000… not to kill me… that wouldn't been too merciful… but to blind me with a vial of acid, which he did. And that night, sweetheart, your husband, Cal Sheldon, drove the car for him…"

"No! No, you're insane! Cal? My God, he could never do such a thing!" Susan gasped at him and his unbelievable accusations. "He had his faults, but… but, dear God, he'd never take part in such a horrible thing…"

"Shut up and listen!" he barked savagely at her. "You think I'm a fool? Oh no, baby. I know what I'm talking about. There were witnesses-guests in my home who saw and described the attacker as Luke Sheldon, a small time hood; then, there was a little squealer in the Fintzerwold mob whose tongue babbled more and more everytime we broke a finger or toe, then hacked it off with a meat-cleaver. There's something about that particular treatment, doll, that makes a man tell things he never realized he remembered."

"Oh, my… my God!" Susan exclaimed, her stomach revulsing at the mere thought of such horror. "Y-You're a mad man…!"

"And worse!" he added, cutting short her words. "But with damn good reason, baby… the very best in the world…" He raised both hands and pointed toward his eyes, his mouth twisted cruelly. "These!"

Susan stared at him; he hadn't removed his glasses and she hoped he wouldn't. She could only imagine the hideous sight they concealed.

"Now," he went on, "I want you to remember a winter's night in 1954… Boston… you lay in a hospital bed. Think. January 6th… think, baby, think!"

She didn't have to think. The date struck an immediate chord… it was Nadine's birthday! She had lain alone in her pain… Cal had gone somewhere; she, the nurses… no one knew where… then, she had delivered… Twenty-four hours later, he'd dragged her from her bed, his face pale and twisted in a panic that had never seemed to leave him again, and they'd raced through the night while she had held their infant girl tight to her breast… Oh… oh God, no, no, no!

"My instinct tells me that you're convinced at last," said Max in a low, guttural voice. "But now, you're beginning to wonder why you should have to pay for what that lousy bastard you were married to, did. Right?"

"Y-You must believe me, I had no idea," Susan said, her voice hardly audible in her shock. "I-I swear it…"

"Maybe," said Max, unmoved. "I wouldn't know about that… nor do I give a damn. But I've already made one mistake, and I don't intend to make another. When I found Cal Sheldon, I should've taken care of him right then, instead of just sitting here dreaming about all the satisfaction I was going to get out of watching him suffer, once I decided the most painful way to kill him… Now, the bastard's dead… killed himself… cheated me… Maybe, he was even wise to my being after him… I don't know that for sure, either… but I do know this much, baby, you're not going to get away from me… not unless you want your luscious little girl to wind up on the end of Silk Weaver's ugly prick, or your lover-boy, Halo's, balls served up to you on a platter."

Susan stiffened as if she had been submerged in ice-water. Her mouth fell loosely open and her eyes widened in horrified disbelief, his casual use of the foul words and abominable threats knifing through her as she began to realize his appalling, vindictive sincerity and her own helplessness against him. Dear God, she would willingly give her life to protect her baby, and… and yes, even to save Jamey… but…

"Wh-What has Jamey Halo done to you?" she questioned, unsteadily.

"He owes me," Max replied. "Eighty-five grand he lost on my tables and now he's welshing. I always collect what's coming to me, doll… one way or another. Somebody's got to pay. It's the way I was brought up."

"Jamey Halo is just a boy. He's only nineteen, not even legally of age," Susan tried. "You can't hold him to…"

"That's why I'm holding you instead, sweetheart," Max snapped, cutting her short. "Not that I give a damn how old he is; he'll pay, or else… But you see, I know how it is between you and him." He broke into a slow, lewd grin. "Looks like you were educating that cock of his behind your husband's back all the time you were living on his estate."

Susan felt her face flushing in confused, frightened anger. "That's a lie!" she spat. "There's never been anything like that between Jamey and me."

Max Bovino shrugged, still grinning. "Good," he said. "I don't like other men fucking my women anyway."

He went on spewing his foul language, the very sound of the vile words she had hardly, if ever, heard uttered before, sending waves of shocked repulsion racing through her brain; but mostly, was she cringing from his flagrant claim upon her… his woman! Dear God…