Live Girls (10 page)

Roger smiled with strangely dark lips. His hand was still held out before him, waiting for her to take it.

“Well,” Sondra said, looking around, “I gotta friend, too, see. She'll be back pretty quick and she's gonna wonder where I am."

Roger lowered his hand and slipped it into a pocket. “I can pay very well.” He held up a handful of bills.

“Well,
Christ
, buddy, why don't you just throw the money up in the air and see how much attention we can attract?"

He put the money back in his pocket. “Sorry,” he said quietly.

Sondra put a hand on her hip, brushed her hair back with the other, and said, “You sure this ain't for you? You're, um...” She smiled. “You're pretty interesting, you know? I like you."

He shook his head slightly. “For my friend."

She sighed and looked around for Hildy again. “Well, shit.” She narrowed her eyes. “Okay, money in advance, right?"

“Of course.” He reached over and pressed some money into her hand. “Two hundred dollars?"

She blinked. “Jesus, you gotta horny friend.” She stuffed the money in her purse at her side. “Okay, where to?"

“This way."

She walked with him across the street, along the sidewalk, their feet splatting softly against the wet cement.

“So what's your friend into?” she asked. “I don't do just anything, you know."

“Sucking."

“Into sucking, huh? Two hundred bucks just for me to come suck her?"

He turned his head to her only slightly, one cheek raising with a gentle smile. “No.
She
does it."

After a few blocks of silent walking, Roger slowed in front of a small black storefront with a flashing sign that read LIVE GIRLS.

“Hey, hey, wait a sec,” Sondra snapped. “This is a peep joint."

“This is where my friend is,” he replied, leading her to the curtained doorway.

“Nope.” She stopped. “Uh-uh. I'll have a world of shit, I go into a place like that to turn a trick. What, she wants me to go into one of them dirty little booths with her, or somethin'? The management'll shit a brick sideways, I go in there."

He smiled again. “She
is
the management."

Sondra stood outside the black building and thought of the two hundred dollars in her purse. “First sign of trouble,” she said, “I'm haulin’ my ass outta there."

“Fair enough,” Roger said. He took her arm and led her through the curtain.

“Jesus,” Sondra breathed, “it's pitch black in here."

“Just come with me."

She reached out a hand and felt cold, rusty bars, then a wall. Just beyond that, Roger opened a door and led her through. She heard it close, then heard a lock click. Sondra detected the presence of a third person in the dark with them. She sniffed; something smelled sweet. She heard Roger speak to someone in a whisper, but she could not understand what he said. There was an unintelligible reply. Sondra closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. The darkness was thinning slowly. She looked through the barred window at the curtained doorway through which she had come; light from outside shone through the narrow part in the curtains.

“Come this way,” Roger said, never letting go of her arm. He led her through another door; its hinges sounded like the laugh of an old woman. It shut behind them. There was definitely someone with them now, someone standing just behind Sondra to her right.

Roger let go of her arm and stepped away from her. With a click, soft light came from a small lamp on an end table against the wall, landing in a round pool on the dirty floor. Sondra looked around the tiny room; Roger stood by the lamp looking at someone over her shoulder. She turned and could see a figure in the dark. No face. A shadow cast by nothing. Roger smiled at her, then spoke to the figure behind Sondra.

“Shall I go?"

“Yes,” a voice said from the darkness at Sondra's back. “I'll let them up when I'm finished.” It was a woman's voice, deep and touched, perhaps, by the accent of a language unfamiliar to Sondra.

She heard scratching, like a kitten pawing at a door. At first, she thought it was coming from outside the door behind her. Then she realized it was in the room with them. Not exactly
in
the room, but ... coming from beneath the floor.

With a nod to the shadowy figure, Roger turned and went back out the door, smiling in at Sondra before closing it behind him.

The faint scratching became a heavy scraping against wood.

Sondra turned to the woman hidden in the darkness. For the first time in a long while, Sondra was scared, and when she spoke, her voice trembled. “Look,” she said, “I don't like the feel of this, know what I mean? No offense, or anything, but, tell you what. I'll give you your two hundred dollars back and just take off. How ‘bout it?"

The woman stood there, a part of the darkness around her, motionless and unnervingly silent.

“Okay?” Sondra asked, smiling uncertainly.

The scraping became a thumping.

The woman stepped into the circle of light cast by the lamp and all Sondra could see were her eyes. Deep, red eyes that gripped her and held. For several moments, she saw no other part of the woman's face except those two enormous, embracing
eyes.

“You're very pretty,” the woman said, her voice as quiet as a lustful thought. “Very healthy and
soft
looking. Desirable."

Sondra could not speak. She could not move. She wasn't even sure she was breathing.

“I'm glad Roger found you,” she continued, taking another step forward. Sondra realized the woman was holding open her arms to Sondra. She moved toward the woman, unable to resist. Sondra saw her face as the woman's hands touched her shoulders. She saw the white white flesh, the silver hair framing the long face, narrow, upturned ears, the flat nose, the lips, and when the woman smiled hungrily, Sondra saw her teeth, long and narrow and sharp, dripping with saliva.

The pounding beneath the floor became frantic. Sondra's last thought was a memory of her daughter; her last sensation was the woman's mouth pressing to her throat....

Afterwards, she stood slowly, her mouth dripping. She ran long fingers over her lips, then licked them clean. Reaching out a hand, she flicked off the lamp. She was more comfortable in the darkness. The darkness was cool and soothing.

She leaned against the wall a moment, feeling her strength return, warm behind her eyes, making her feel as if she glowed in the dark room. She felt whole, strong, satisfied.

She bent forward, threw a bolt lock on the floor, then another. She wrapped her fingers around the flat handle and lifted a trapdoor, stepping aside.

They clumsily began to pull themselves up with twisted hands and knobby fingers. Some of them had lost the flesh at the tips of their fingers and bone protruded from the ragged skin.

Others shot up from below, their vein-webbed wings flapping softly as they fluttered near the ceiling, their red eyes gleaming in the blackness.

All of them were disfigured in some way, bent, crippled. They swarmed over the still form on the floor, their teeth and claws tearing the flesh, their lapping tongues filling the room with quiet sounds, wet sounds, as they fed on what remained of the girl's blood.

She passed quietly through the room, through the door, closing it softly behind her. She sat once again in the cage, blending into the darkness behind the bars, sated and waiting.

“
M
Y
G
OD!”
C
ASEY SHRIEKED, ROCKING WITH LAUGHTER.
“I can't believe she actually said that to you! Are you, are you...” She stopped, recovering from her laughter. “Are you sure that's what she had in mind?"

“Sure sounded that way to me,” Davey replied, his voice a little hoarse. He was lying on the sofa in an old gray jogging suit. Casey was sitting Indian-style on the floor turned toward him, a white carton of takeout Chinese food in her lap. The television was on, the volume low. The gray images of
The Black Cat
cast a flickering glow on Casey and Davey in the otherwise dark room. “Now we know the
real
reason Chad got that job."

“Well,” Casey said, a little bitterness in her voice, “I knew it wasn't because he deserved it. I don't think he even knows what he's doing half the time, he's so preoccupied with that damned singles bar he hangs out in every night."

“The Trench?"

“Yeah. Slime. Wonder if Miss Schuman knows that her little pet is going out and getting it on with bouncing bimbos a few times a week. Anyway, Chad is just what Penn is looking for. He wouldn't read more than two pages of a truly good manuscript if you made him. You know, I read the manuscript about the magician and the crippled girl? Good story. You just wait, it'll sell somewhere.” She scooped some noodles into her mouth and chewed, smiling up at Davey. “You made the right move,” she said.

“Yeah,” Davey agreed. “I think I did. I feel good about it. I just don't know what I'm gonna do now."

“Don't worry too much about it."

“Well, now that Beth's gone ... She was helping out with the rent and stuff. Not much, but let's face it; selling tickets at that slimy theater doesn't exactly keep caviar on the crackers, you know? But it was something. I'm gonna have to move fast so I can put some groceries in the fridge. Maybe if I'd done this sooner ... maybe she wouldn't have left."

“Hey, bucko,” she snapped, “don't start that with me. If
that's
why she left, you're better off without her. Of course, I don't give a damn
why
she left, you're better off without her
anyway."
She held up the carton. “Are you sure you don't want any of this? It's good."

Davey looked down at the carton with its mash of noodles and vegetables and sauce and his stomach did a little flip. He hadn't been feeling too well since he'd gotten home; his appetite had been gone since morning and he hadn't eaten all day. The thought of food in his mouth only made him feel worse.

“Positive,” he said. “My stomach's a little upset."

Casey leaned forward and squinted at him. “You do look a little pale. Maybe you should just eat some soup. Get a little food in your stomach."

He shook his head. “No, thanks."

“Get lots of Vitamin C,” she suggested, taking another bite of food.

“Thanks, Mom."

“And don't be a smartass. You've got to stay well if you're going job hunting. Nobody in their right mind'll hire you if you look anemic."

He chuckled, staring at the television. “You know, I'm gonna kind of miss the trash at Penn."

“Gimme a break."

“No, really. Some of that stuff was fun.
Some
of it. I learned a lot of weird stuff from those stories. How to break into very secure buildings, how to defend yourself with a pocket comb. How to blow up cars with Ping-Pong balls and
—
"

“Whoa, wait a minute. Ping-Pong balls?"

“And Drano."

“You're shitting me."

“Uh-uh."

She took another bite, then set the carton aside, leaning toward Davey with interest. “Okay. I'll bite. How do you blow up a car with Ping-Pong balls and Drano?"

“You take a Ping-Pong ball, inject some Drano into it, then drop it into the gas tank of your favorite Godless communist, and ... boom!” He spread his fingers wide.

“C'mon, now. Drano explodes?"

He shrugged and turned on his side toward her. “Some sort of chemical reaction. The gasoline dissolves the Ping-Pong ball after a while
—
that way the good guy has enough time to haul ass
—
then when the Drano and the gas mix, it explodes. Any petroleum distillate is supposed to work. I
”—
he covered his mouth with his palm as he yawned
—“
don't know. I just read it in one of those ‘true’ adventure stories."

“Well, it's certainly good to know if you ever go into the terrorist business."

They both chuckled.

Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi were playing chess for the lives of a young couple who had wandered into Karloff's huge art-deco mansion.

After several moments of silently watching the movie, Casey turned toward Davey and watched him as his eyes grew heavy, as the gray light flickered over his pleasant face. When he finally noticed she was staring, Davey said, “What?"