The Dark End of the Street: New Stories of Sex and Crime by Today's Top Authors (9 page)

“Master,” Grace said, “maybe we can unlock the dogs now.”

And so the dogs were led one by one to the cage, ears back, straining at the leash. When the girl heard them coming, she ran wildly for the far corner of the cage, upsetting the bowl, climbing the bars and hanging there, screeching with all her teeth. The dog itself would jump up, wagging, barking wildly, only to be scolded, corrected, made to sit and stay.

Day after day the ritual was repeated until dog and girl could stare at each other without fright. After a while, de Jong could trust the dogs to approach the cage unleashed. And then, at last, when the girl was ready to be taken out, the dogs ran beside her without incident.

“Master,” Grace said, “I can't make her stand straight like you said. She still wants to bend over like a baboon. I think she was living with the baboons over there. I think she can still be like them.”

De Jong smiled down at the girl. Thick black curls were beginning to cover her head. And her face was beginning to reveal itself, the nose long and straight, a high forehead, small ears, olive skin, and the wide black eyes of a gypsy. Considering only the head, she could be any child, any dark, silent girl, no breasts yet, no body hair either. If she still stooped, what difference would it make? She was ready, baboons or no baboons, he could see it in the way she looked at him. It was Grace who was trying to hold her back for some reason.

“You'll bring her to me tomorrow evening,” he said. “The usual hour.”

Grace bowed her head. Usually, she was only too glad to hand a girl over because then she'd have her two weeks off. When she did return, as often as not the girl would be over the first fright of it. So what had come over her this time? “Maybe a few more days?” she said.

He smiled at Grace. It was almost as if she'd known from the start how it would be with this girl. And now that he was taking pride—well, not so much pride in the girl herself as in the things she could do, the way he could make her obey him—now that he was waking each morning to the thought of what he might make the girl do for him next, now came Grace with her suggestions.

“She does not even have a name yet,” Grace said.

They were walking down to the river, which the girl always liked to do. Once he'd thought he heard her laugh—laugh or bark, it was hard to tell which. The sun was shining brilliantly on the muddy water, and she'd looked up into his face, her mouth and eyes wide. And then, freeing her hand from his, she'd bounded down the hill with the dogs, down to the water's edge.

“Tomorrow evening. In the atrium. The usual time.”

Grace had dressed the girl in a simple silk shift. There was a pool in the middle of the atrium, with a fountain at its center. Most of the girls couldn't swim, but the pool was shallow, and he'd be sitting in it, naked, waiting for them with his glass of whiskey. The girls themselves always stopped at the sight of him there, the pink shoulders and small gray eyes. And then he'd rise out of the water like a sea monster and they'd make a run for it, every one of them, never mind how much Grace had told them there was no way out.

Men in the village liked to say they'd come to the house one night and cut off his manhood like a pawpaw. But Grace knew it was all talk. Without his money, where would they all be? Where would she be herself? The Master himself knew that, standing there, shameless, before her. But when he had finished with this one, where would she go? Usually, they'd run home with the money, and then, sooner or later, they'd be back at the kitchen door, wanting work. But what about this one? Where
could
she go except back to the baboons?

Quickly, Grace turned and walked out of the atrium.

He held his hand out to the girl, but she didn't take it. She was leaning over the low wall, splashing one hand into the water. He caught it in his own then, and took her under the arms and lifted her in. She didn't struggle, she was used to his lifting her here or there. But this time he was lifting her dress off her, too, throwing it aside. She wasn't wearing any panties, he never wanted them wearing panties when they came to him. So now there was nothing but her smooth, olive skin. He ran his hands down her sides and cupped one around each buttock—small and round and girlish, the rest of the body muscled like a boy's.

She let him coax her down into the water, lapping at it happily. And when he moved one hand between her legs, she just glanced down there through the water with the frown she always wore when Grace tried to show her how to wipe herself after she'd used the toilet. But he was stroking her, prodding into her with a finger so that she jumped away and stared hard at him. And still he came after her, taking her by the arms before she could scramble up onto the fountain. He was pushing her backwards to the side of the pool and his smile was gone, he was holding her arms wide so that he could force his knee between her legs.

Caught like that, she slammed her head wildly then from side to side against the edge of the tiles, shrieking piteously. A trickle of blood ran down her neck, and when at last he had her legs apart and was thrusting himself into her, she was bleeding there, too. He knew from her narrowness that she'd be bleeding properly when he'd finished with her, that her blood would cloud out beautifully into the pool, turning from red to pink. It was the moment he longed for with every new offering, first the front, then the back, and always the mouths open in astonishment like this, the eyes wild and pleading, and for what? For more? More?

By the time he was finished with her and resting his head against the side of the pool, she was moaning. They all moaned like this, and what did they expect? What did this one expect after all these months she'd kept him waiting with her grunts and squawks? He stretched out an arm to grab her neck. Usually that's all it took to shut them up. If it didn't, he'd duck them under the water until they were ready to listen. “Quiet,” he'd croon in his deep, soft voice. And if that didn't work, he did it again, and for longer. “Do you hear me now?” he'd whisper. “I said quiet!”

But with this one words were useless. And, just as he was about to push her under, she slipped free, twirling herself into the air, twisting, leaping, springing out of reach until, at last, he had caught her by an arm. But then she only doubled back, sinking her teeth into his wrist, and, when he'd let her go, into an ear, and, at last, as his hands flew to his head, she took his throat between her jaws. And there she hung on like a wild dog, only tightening her bite as he bucked and flailed for air. But the more he struggled the deeper she bit, never loosening her jaws until he was past the pain, past the panic. Only then, only after the last damp gurgling of breath had left him limp, did she rip away the flesh and gristle she'd got hold of, and, gulping it down as she ran, leap out through an open window.

When they came in with the tea things, the whole pool was pink, pinker than they'd ever seen it, even the fountain. At first they'd just stood there, staring at what was left of his throat. But then they remembered the girl, and they ran, one for a kitchen knife, another to lock the doors and windows of the house.

But she never returned. And the generations that followed were inclined to laugh at the whole idea of a baboon girl—of
any
girl killing that demon like a leopard or a lion. They were inclined to doubt the demon himself as well. Surely someone would have reported him to the authorities, they said? Surely one of his girls would have told her story to the papers?

Midnight Stalkings

JAMES GRADY

E
RIN WORE A
stolen maid's uniform as she walked up the grand staircase from the Manhattan mansion's first-floor party preparations. She carried a stack of white towels as if they hid nothing. Kept her thighs from brushing together and breaking the glass tubes of acid tucked into her garter-belted midnight stockings.

Forget acid: She worried someone might discover she wore no panties.

Not my style
, but when she'd stood in her one-room Brooklyn walk-up and used her lone window to the night as a mirror, that dark glass reflection of her social worker's white underpants over the black garter belt and stockings made her look like a joke. She refused any such role.

Better to be bold than a buffoon
.

Her borrowed black high heel climbed another step in the mansion.

Just this once and I'm free
. Erin reached the third-floor landing where firelight flickered beyond the study's open sliding doors.

He deserves it
. Cowgirl hips swayed her maid's skirt. Floating up from downstairs came a radio voice turned on by the caterer to track time:

“—as this is
the
most exciting cultural moment of 1939, we shall now broadcast
live
our opera selections timed to end
precisely
at midnight.”

A closed downstairs door muffled the radio.

A clock went
GONG
! eleven times as she entered the study. A flat oak desk ruled that room. Wall sconces and the fireplace blazing behind the desk created undulating waves of golden light and warm shadows. A crystal vase held blossoming red roses.

Above the mantel hung a painting of dogs playing poker.

Erin stacked the white towels on the otherwise bare desk.

Rolled the double doors shut.

Leaned her back against them with wrists crossed behind her as if they were handcuffed.
You can still change your mind. Run.

But she moved between the tycoon's leather chair and the fireplace.

A wall's huge mirror caught her removing the white cap of a maid.

Ordinary earth-dark hair tumbled to cup her pale face like twin half moons.
Of course
she knew her jaw was too long, her mouth too big, and she had freak-show indigo eyes.

The mirror reflected her unbuttoning the maid's blouse. Underneath she wore a silver-sequined knee-length black gown lent to her—
“Just for tonight, Cinderella!”
—by the Broadway seamstress who lived in her building. Erin pulled off the maid's skirt. The bunched-up gown fell from her waist like the curtain at the end of Act One.

Erin gave herself a shake to become who the mirror said she might be. The black gown swooped low in the front, bared her back. Her breasts swayed free inside the night fabric of twinkling stars.

Nobody knows about the panties
.

The maid's uniform got tossed into the crackling fire and buried under the weight of a thick log the flames licked.

She took the top white towel off its stack and set it alone by the side edge of the desk. A purse waited atop the remaining stacked towels.

Erin lifted her gown and
oh so slowly
plucked the two tubes of acid from her stockings. Laid the acid tubes beside each other on the lone white towel like a terrified first-night honeymoon couple.

From the purse came a silver tube of lipstick. She twisted the tube and stroked her lips with the round tip of a color called ruby.

Not my sensible shade
.

She put the lipstick in the purse, sprayed perfume on her wrists, her neck, cool puffs into her bare underarms to mask any odor of secret work.

Or fear.

I can do this. By myself! No one will see me. I'll get away clean.

She looked at the image caught by the room's mirror.

Is this how I'll remember tonight?

Bloodred lips. Roses. Musk perfume. Burning logs. No panties.

A glance showed the study doors still closed to the outside world.

Erin faced the fire. Spread her arms high and wide as if she were nailed to some invisible cosmic cross.

Lifted the painting of the dogs playing poker off the wall. Put it on the leather tycoon chair she shoved across the room.

The dial on a now-revealed wall safe stared at her like a Cyclops.

Her dad's Colt .45 revolver hid in the towel stack on the desk.

Won't need it.

She inhaled deep into her belly. Reached toward the wall safe—

“WHOA!”

Behind me!

Erin whirled—

Saw him standing there. The hulk of a man. Backlit in the
so silently slid-open
double doors. Wearing a black tuxedo jacket, open white shirt. The fireplace beyond her flickered in his ice-blue eyes.

“
Whoa
,” he said again. Only softer. A stunned whisper.

He glided into the room like a boxer.

Said: “I didn't know anybody was in here.”

Saw her all alone. Asked: “Would you help me?”

More like a farm boy than a scion of Park Avenue, he smiled and raised his hand that held an ebony ribbon. “I've never been good with ties.”

“
Mr. Daniels!
I thought you were at the opera with your guests!”

“Guess I'm running late.” Standing near the open doors, servants just a shout away, he frowned: “How about you?”

“Me?”
Don't stammer!
“I guess I'm early, I'm always early.”

“That's a refreshing quality of leadership for a woman—”

Sexist pig!

“—that doesn't get its just due. Good for you.”

He moved deeper into the room's flickering light.

The press called him handsome, and he
might
have been—though he looked rough. Short hair. Lines along his mouth: Call them … not dimples …

Heart scars
leapt into Erin's mind: lines of laughter, lines of sorrow.

None of the newspaper articles mentioned those.

Keep him looking at you! Focus him on you! Trick him!

Erin's lying smile surprised her with its honest, self-conscious curl.

“Better go,” she said. “You don't want to miss your opera.”

“Well,” he said, taking a step closer, “
Tosca
is impressive—”

Pretentious snob!

“—but I'd rather go see Billie Holiday.”

“In the Village!” blurted Erin.
Don't let his focus drift! He'll notice!
“Have you heard her ‘Strange Fruit'? Can you believe—”

“—that people think she's singing about swings on trees or … ”

“Or sex.”

“But it's not, is it,” he said. “That song. About sex.”

“No,” she said. “It's not.”

His eyes narrowed: “I've never seen you down there.”

A quick lunge would let her grab the revolver from between the white towels stacked on the desk, but he'd shout and those doors were still open.

“I've never seen you anywhere,” said this man she officially loathed.

“Maybe you just weren't looking. I'm easy to not notice.”

“No,” he said. “And no.”

She stood between the desk and the crackling fire. Her legs felt like rubber. She wobbled on those borrowed high heels.
This isn't me
.

He turned and rolled shut the doors but before she thought to grab the gun, he'd turned back, taken one
, two
steps toward her. Stopped.

“You don't know me,” he said. “I don't know you. Yet here we are.”

“For your party. After the opera. I'm early. Came to meet someone.”

“Found me.” He grinned. “Isn't luck the damnedest thing?”

Then he looked past her to the wall with its exposed safe.

She saw him spot the poker-dogs painting in the shoved-away chair.

Maybe I can talk my way out of this! Maybe I won't need the Colt!

“You're … a thief!” He scowled. “Are you working for Nick?”

Huh?

He stepped closer to the desk. “No, Nick's a loner.”

Keep him talking!
Erin stepped from behind the desk but stayed by it. Closer to him. To the stacked towels. To the gun. “Who's Nick?”

This man who was about her age shrank with his answer.

“Nick Cole and I … Mr. Blue Blood and Mr. Blue Sky. The only person I let call me Bernie instead of Bernard. Bernard Daniels the
third
. He said he didn't like me being trapped by all that weight.”

Keep him distracted!
“So why does he want to rob you?”

“He thinks he's owed. Or he wants to knock me down. Or both.”

“Because … ”

“Nick and Bernie go to Vera Cruz. Black-hair-to-her-waist Carmelita. May the best man win. We blunder into somebody else's cantina brawl. Knives. Blood. Blame the gringos. Bought my way out of jail. Nick doesn't have my bucks. I closed the deal with Carmelita.”

“You left him in jail?”

“Well … technically,
yeah
, but he was in the fight, too. He just couldn't pay the tab. Not my fault.”

“Besides, there was Carmelita. She should have made you help him.”

“Every transaction has its goals. She got her ticket to Hollywood. Before I got around to more bribes, Nick lock-picked his way out.
Poof!
”

“Would he have left a friend behind?”

“He's not the good man he wants to be.” A long strong finger aimed straight at her heart. “And you're more than a thief.”

“I'm not a—”

“Too late,” he said. “You took the dogs off the wall. That's enough for the law, even if it were honest. Robbery like this is a low blow.”

And she heard her father after the banks had taken the ranch telling his motherless little girl:
“Just once I wish one of them sons a bitches would get what's coming to 'em.”

“You deserve it,” she said.

“What did I ever do to you?”

“Personally, nothing.”

“But for you, this is more than business.”

She stood as tall as she could beside the desk.

Said: “Is business what you do with the refugees on the Lower East Side? You hunt them down. Give them a dime on the dollar for what they managed to save from the goose-steppers.”

“Diamonds,” he said.

“In a lockbox,” she told him. “In that safe.”

“Guess too many people heard those stories.” He shook his head. “So you're going to steal diamonds I bought fair and square and give them back to the people who were grateful my deal let them eat?”

“There are charities I know.”
That's true
.

“I hope you were planning to keep some for yourself.”

She didn't answer.

Said: “Why do you do it? You don't need the money.”

“Life is action. Money is just one currency. And when a dime is still big-time, when it's personal: That's the sweetest.”

Think! I've got to think! What—

“How were you going to do it?” He eased closer. “I don't see you sneaking across rooftops, then burgling a window. I figure you tricked your way in here. Dressed like that, once the party started, you could escape. In and out is easy, but there's a safe with a combination.”

“You love your birthday. It's your limo license plate: 02-21-06.”

“Smart
and
brave.” He stalked toward her.

The gun, the heavy gun hid in the stack of white towels that along with her purse and the honeymoon bed for acid tubes was all that waited on the slab of a desk. The gun, a Colt Peacemaker, was her only inheritance from a father who'd died whispering: “
Somebody should get shot.
”

In that study, Erin knew:
I can grab the gun and …
And.

“But then what?” said the man she came to rob. “The diamonds in the safe are in a lockbox.”

Her eyes flicked to the two glass tubes on the white towel.

“What's that?”