Part 30 (2/2)
”Tell me about it. Anyway, these guys were kinks, and they started beating up on the two Creeker girls. Cody doesn't mind so long as they don't bust them up too bad. Lotta guys pay extra to rough them up. But these guys-s.h.i.+t. They got to beating up on the two Creekers like really hard. So I started to pitch a fit, and when they wouldn't stop, I tried to leave.”
”So it was the three bikers who beat you up.”
”No,” she said. ”It was Druck. He slapped me around and threw me right back in the room. Told me I shouldn't embarra.s.s Cody in front of his friends.”
”Jesus,” Phil commented. Then he took the mark. ”So how is it that Cody's friends with out-of-town dust dealers?”
She shrugged. ”They spend a lot of money in the club.”
”That the only reason?”
”Yeah. Why?”
Was she lying? Was she hiding something? Phil couldn't tell. Maybe she doesn't even know that Natter's the main dust supplier in the area. ”I don't know,” he eventually said. ”It just seems strange.”
Vicki let out a quick, cynical laugh. ”The whole thing's strange, Phil. Christ... I could tell you things you wouldn't believe.”
”Try me.”
”Just forget it, okay? I don't feel like talking about it right now.”
Phil looked at her. So maybe that means she'll feel like talking about it later, he considered.
”You know something, Vicki? You're flus.h.i.+ng your whole life down the toilet with people like that. Being married to Natter, working in his club. You're just a curio to him, you know. You're just status.”
”I know.” She laughed humorlessly again. ”The top-drawer wh.o.r.e. The White Trash Queen of the Creekers.”
”So why don't you do something about it? That whole Creeker scene is crazy. Why don't you leave Natter? Go somewhere else, start over and try to get your s.h.i.+t together?”
”Phil, you don't even know what you're saying. If I did that...”
”What? He'd send people after you? He'd kill you if you left him?”
She made no reply.
”Well, let me tell you something, he's killing you right now, and you don't even realize it. The only way you're ever going to make your life better is to get away from him.”
”I don't need a lecture, Phil,” she said wearily.
”You need something,” he pressed. ”As long as you're running with Natter and his crowd, you aren't going anywhere but down.”
”Don't you think I know that!” she almost yelled. ”Don't you think I know what's happened to me! My whole life has been s.h.i.+t since the day you left town ten years ago!”
”Calm down,” he said. ”I just want you to start thinking about things a little more, about what you're going to do with your life. And you can't blame me for your problems. Yeah, I left town, that's true, but I'm not the one who puts c.o.ke up your nose and makes you turn tricks at a strip joint.”
”I know,” she said much more quietly.
Phil got off her case and let her collect herself. Then he asked, ”So where was Natter last night when all this s.h.i.+t was happening with the three bikers?”
”He was out. Somewhere-don't know.”
Yeah, well I think I do, Phil felt sure. I think maybe your darling hubby was sending his Creeker boys out for a little party in the woods. Killing Eagle. Trying to kill me. But, of course, he couldn't tell her anything about that...
He let more silence pa.s.s, looking at her. He felt helpless. She wasn't part of his life anymore; nevertheless he hated to see her like this. He hated what Natter was doing to her. But what could he do to help her?
Nothing, he concluded. The only person who could help her was herself ”Look, I'm really sorry about dumping myself here,” she said. ”I didn't know where else to go. I better leave now.”
”Stay here,” he said. ”Sleep on the couch. Get some rest for now. You can figure out what you're going to do later.”
”Thank you,” she whispered. Her voice was trailing away. ”Thank you...”
Then she was asleep.
Phil turned off the light, drew the shades, then quietly undressed and got into his bed. In minutes, he too was fast asleep.
And dreaming.
Twenty-Five.
”Look-it, look-it,” Dawnie urged, hunched behind him and pus.h.i.+ng at his shoulders.
Phil's ten-year-old eye opened wide over the first keyhole. What he saw at first was just a stark, white glare; his eye, going from the hot dark of the third-floor hall to such glaring whiteness, needed time to adjust. But eventually his vision focused, and he could see.
He could see what was inside the room...
It was like a hole in the wall to h.e.l.l.
In the room lay a sunlit bed. It was big and white. And on the bed lay some weird kind of motion Phil couldn't figure out at first.
Shapes.
Shapes the color of skin.
One shape was a bearded man with a big hairy belly. He had long hair and was buck-naked.
”Suzie, Suzie,” he was saying.
Then Phil noticed the other shape on the bed. A woman- ”Suzie, Suzie...”
She had hair on her head that was blacker than Phil's aunt's fire hearth. Her skin was whiter than their front yard the time last winter when it snowed.
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