After Midnight

24
FRIENDLY PERSUASION

“Like what?” Judy asked. “What’s wrong with my plan? Tell me. Maybe we can work it out.”
“I’m running out of time, here.”
“Alice, look. I’m giving you a chance to walk away from everything. If we can work this out, the cops will think nobody was involved but me, Tony and Milo.”
“Here’s one little problem,” I told her. “Tony’s body is in the trunk of his car. Which is parked in the garage of your apartment building.”
She gaped at me. For a few seconds, she looked stunned and lost. But she recovered fast. “Easy,” she said. “Take my car. Drive to my place, put my car back where we got it, and come back here in Tony’s car. Park it where mine is, now. Then just leave his body in the trunk and be on your way. I’ll say Milo put him in the trunk. Hey, that’ll be perfect! He knocked me out and left me on the picnic table. That way, I’m out cold while he hauls Tony’s body over to the car. But before he can make it back, I come to and run into the woods. Then he hunts me down and, you know…the rest.”
“That sounds okay. But where are you while I’m driving the cars back and forth?”
“I’ll stay right here in camp.”
“Like a good little girl,” I muttered.
“Okay. Well, leave me tied up. But if you do, you’ll have to come back and cut me loose after you’ve dropped off Tony’s car. I mean, I can’t exactly be found like this or it’ll blow the whole story.”
“It’ll blow the story if I help you. They’ll wanta know who cut the rope.”
“Then just untie the knot.”
I shook my head.
She stared into my eyes and said nothing for a few moments. Then, in a softer voice, she said, “You don’t have to do it now. It can wait till you come back.”
“When I come back?”
“From switching the cars.”
“Oh. Right.” I pulled one of the bandanas out of my pocket, wiped the knife clean, and tossed the knife to the ground. Then I stepped behind Judy.
“What’re you doing?” she asked.
“I don’t want you yelling for help.”
“I won’t. I promise. Don’t put that on me. Please.”
“There are other ways to shut you up,” I said.
She didn’t argue after that, but just stood motionless while I put the gag into her mouth and tied it behind her neck.
Then I stepped around to the front.
She stared into my eyes. She was breathing hard again, air hissing through her nostrils.
“I’m not switching the cars,” I explained. “It’s a stupid idea. Somebody’d probably see me. Anyway, I’m too tired to play any more games. What I’m going to do, Judy, is leave you here just as you are.”
She nodded slightly.
“I’m not going to kill you. Okay?”
Her nod grew a little more enthusiastic.
“I mean, you helped me out with Fatso. If you hadn’t kicked him in the head…I don’t know, maybe he would’ve gotten me. So I owe you for that. Besides, none of this is your fault. I just bumped into you by mistake. Wrong address. I was afraid Tony might have a redial button…Whoa!”
Judy’s eyebrows lifted.
We needed to talk.
Instead of bothering to untie the gag, I hooked a forefinger underneath it at each corner of her mouth, pulled roughly, and dragged it down over her chin. The bandana hung around her neck like a dog scarf.
And like a dog, she panted for air.
“What about redial?” I asked. “Did Tony have it?”
“Just…wait.”
“Come on. Did he? I know he moved to a new apartment and you’ve never been there, but what sort of phone did he have at his old place? He might’ve taken it with him. Did it have redial?”
“If I tell…”
“You’d better tell, unless you wanta die right now!”
“No gag, okay? Please?”
I punched her in the belly. A good hard one. Her breath gushed against my face. She couldn’t fold over because of the way she was hanging; instead, the blow made her knees jump up and sent her swinging backward.
When she swung forward, I caught her by the sides. I stopped her, held her steady for a moment, then took a couple of steps backward so I could see her better.
Mouth agape, she wheezed for breath. Her eyes were shut tightly. She kept her knees high, so all that held her up was the rope around her wrists.
She really looked as if she were being stretched. Her arms and torso actually seemed longer and skinnier than before. Her belly was sunken in. Her ribcage was high and bulging. Her breasts were pulled almost flat against her chest.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Put your feet down.”
She just kept hanging there, gasping.
“Put them down and stand up.”
She didn’t.
Instead, she blurted, “I just…I just…You didn’t have to…”
“Shut up and tell me about his redial!”
“Okay. Okay.”
“Stand up!”
She lowered her legs until her feet met the ground. Though she still had to stand tall, she no longer looked as if she were being pulled apart on the rack.
“Now,” I said, “what about it?”
“He doesn’t. Have it.”
“Have you been to his new place?
She shook her head.
“Then how do you know what kind of phone he has?”
“I…gave it to him.”
“What?”
“His phone. I gave it to him. When we were…going together. He…I don’t think he’d…get rid of it.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” I said. “Not if it came from you. And it didn’t have redial?”
“No. Huh-uh.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“You’ve told me a lot of lies tonight,” I pointed out. “How do I know this isn’t another one?”
“I swear. Honest to God.”
“Why’d you buy him a phone that didn’t have redial?”
Her face contorted with confusion or pain or disgust—hard to tell which, since it was sort of battered. She said, “Huh?”
“If you’re buying your boyfriend a new telephone, why do you get him one that doesn’t have a redial button?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t…I didn’t buy it for him. It was my old phone. I got a new one…I was going to throw it away, but…he asked me for it. So I gave it to him.”
“Why do you want to lie about a thing like this?” I asked her.
“I’m not lying.”
“Did you forget about Tony’s answering machine?”
“No. That’s what it was…an answering machine. The one I gave him.”
“I don’t think so. Tony told me that you never had an answering machine.”
“But…That’s not so.”
“Oh, yes it is. Why did you lie about it?”
“I didn’t. Honest.”
“You lie like a rug, Judy.”
“So do you.”
“But I’m running this show,” I said, and started to unbuckle my belt.
“What’re you doing?”
I pulled the belt out of its loops, and my cut-offs fell down. I stepped out of them.
“Hey,” Judy said. She sounded like a kid again. “Come on, Alice. Don’t.”
“Admit you lied.”
“Haven’t you hurt me enough?”
“I saved your life. Remember? You said I can do anything I want.”
“Why do you want to hurt me?”
“Because you lied. Admit you lied.”
“Okay. I lied. Okay?”
“You didn’t give him his phone?”
“No.”
“You wanted me to leave here thinking he didn’t have redial. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I swung the belt. My sidestroke, at a slightly downward angle, caught her just above the hip then curled around and lashed her across the buttocks. She jerked and gasped.
“Why?” I asked again.
“I don’t know what he’s got!” she blurted.
“Then why did you lie?”
“You won’t…”
“Won’t what?”
“Believe me.”
“Try me.”
“It was just…just because…I didn’t want you to worry.”
“What?”
“Your…You must figure…redial’s got your number. If he has it. You’re scared.”
“Does he have it? Do you know?”
“He’s got it.”
“Shit!”
“It’s…I know his answering machine. It’s got…everything.”
“F*ck!”
So then I sort of lost it.
I whipped the hell out of her with Tony’s belt, lashing her with all my strength, circling her as I swung.
Finally, my arm fell to my side, spent. The belt swaying by my leg, I stumbled around to Judy’s front.
She was limp, her feet on the ground but her knees bent, all her weight on the rope again.
The fire had burnt down low, so I couldn’t see her very well.
I staggered over to it, squatted, and added some twigs and branches. I could hardly catch my breath. Sweat poured off me. The shirt was clinging to my back and my loafers felt slimy inside. I didn’t like being this close to the fire. It was too damn hot. But I wanted the fire bright, so I kept adding fuel for a while.
Finally, the light reached Judy and turned her to polished gold. Along with her other injuries, she now had stripes. In some places, the stripes bled. All down her body, her skin was shiny with blood and sweat.
I rose from my squat and hobbled over to her.
She was panting for breath and crying. It made her shake a lot.
I picked up my cut-offs, then stood to the side and watched her.
She was really shaking. It made me wonder if she had a fever.
“Sorry you made me do that to you,” I said.
She raised her head and looked at me.
“Now, I suppose you’ll tell on me.”
Her head moved slowly from side to side.
“No?” I asked.
When she spoke, her lips made some small bubbles. Red bubbles of spit and blood.
She said, “You…saved…me.”
“You’re not gonna tell?”
“Milo…did…it.”
As I worked Tony’s belt into the loops of my cut-offs, I said to Judy, “How do I know you’re not lying again?”
She didn’t answer.
I fastened the belt, then looked down at the knife on the ground.
I knew that I ought to finish her off.
I’d told her that I wouldn’t, though. And besides, you should’ve seen her. She looked so vulnerable and hurt, hanging there in the firelight. And so beautiful. And she had that bandana hanging around her neck.
I bet you couldn’t have killed her, either.
“You’d better not tell on me,” I said to her. “If the cops ever come looking for me, I’ll hunt you down. And what I’ll do to you…you’ll wish I’d left you for Milo.”
She moved her head slowly up and down.
“Hang in there, honey,” I said. And then I left.