The man edging into middle age was Barry Smith. Although one hundred percent Caucasian, he was known in this same family as Barry the Chink, because of his slightly upturned eyes.
“Now watch this,” he said. “It’s interesting.”
“The movie’s interesting,” the old man—Grampa Flick—grunted. But that was just his usual contrariness. He was also watching the couple two rows down.
“It better be interesting,” Rose said, “because the woman’s not all that steamy. A little, but—”
“There she goes, there she goes,” Barry said as Andi leaned over and put her lips to her date’s ear. Barry was grinning, the box of gummy bears in his hand forgotten. “I’ve watched her do it three times and I still get a kick out of it.”
3
Mr. Businessman’s ear was filled with a thatch of wiry white hairs and clotted with wax the color of shit, but Andi didn’t let that stop her; she wanted to blow this town and her finances were at a dangerously low ebb. “Aren’t you tired?” she whispered in the disgusting ear. “Don’t you want to go to sleep?”
The man’s head immediately dropped onto his chest and he began to snore. Andi reached under her skirt, plucked up the relaxing hand, and placed it on the armrest. Then she reached into Mr. Businessman’s expensive-looking suitcoat and began to rummage. His wallet was in the inside left pocket. That was good. She wouldn’t have to make him get up off his fat ass. Once they were asleep, moving them could be tricky.
She opened the wallet, tossed the credit cards on the floor, and looked for a few moments at the pictures—Mr. Businessman with a bunch of other overweight Mr. Businessmen on the golf course; Mr. Businessman with his wife; a much younger Mr. Businessman standing in front of a Christmas tree with his son and two daughters. The daughters were wearing Santa hats and matching dresses. He probably hadn’t been raping them, but it was not out of the question. Men would rape when they could get away with it, this she had learned. At her father’s knee, so to speak.
There was over two hundred dollars in the bill compartment. She had been hoping for even more—the bar where she had met him catered to a better class of whore than those out by the airport—but it wasn’t bad for a Thursday matinee, and there were always men who wanted to take a good-looking girl to the movies, where a little heavy petting would only be the appetizer. Or so they hoped.
4
“Okay,” Rose murmured, and started to get up. “I’m convinced. Let’s give it a shot.”
But Barry put a hand on her arm, restraining her. “No, wait. Watch. This is the best part.”
5
Andi leaned close to the disgusting ear again and whispered, “Sleep deeper. As deep as you can. The pain you feel will only be a dream.” She opened her purse and took out a pearl-handled knife. It was small, but the blade was razor-sharp. “What will the pain be?”
“Only a dream,” Mr. Businessman muttered into the knot of his tie.
“That’s right, sweetie.” She put an arm around him and quickly slashed double Vs into his right cheek—a cheek so fat it would soon be a jowl. She took a moment to admire her work in the chancy light of the projector’s colored dream-beam. Then the blood sheeted down. He would wake up with his face on fire, the right arm of his expensive suitcoat drenched, and in need of an emergency room.
And how will you explain it to your wife? You’ll think of something, I’m sure. But unless you have plastic surgery, you’ll see my marks every time you look in the mirror. And every time you go looking for a little strange in one of the bars, you’ll remember how you got bitten by a rattlesnake. One in a blue skirt and a white sleeveless blouse.
She tucked the two fifties and five twenties into her purse, clicked it shut, and was about to get up when a hand fell on her shoulder and a woman murmured in her ear. “Hello, dear. You can see the rest of the movie another time. Right now you’re coming with us.”
Andi tried to turn, but hands seized her head. The terrible thing about them was that they were inside.
After that—until she found herself in Rose’s EarthCruiser in a going-to-seed campground on the outskirts of this Midwestern city—all was darkness.
6
When she woke up, Rose gave her a cup of tea and talked to her for a long time. Andi heard everything, but most of her attention was taken up by the woman who had abducted her. She was a presence, and that was putting it mildly. Rose the Hat was six feet tall, with long legs in tapered white slacks and high br**sts inside a t-shirt branded with the UNICEF logo and motto: Whatever It Takes To Save a Child. Her face was that of a calm queen, serene and untroubled. Her hair, now unbound, tumbled halfway down her back. The scuffed tophat cocked on her head was jarring, but otherwise she was the most beautiful woman Andi Steiner had ever seen.