The Hard Bounce - страница 69
As was my shoulder from colliding with the door at The Cellar.
And my jaw from where Sid popped me.
And my hand where Cassandra bit me.
Waitaminnit.
No Cassandra.
I jumped off the couch. “Junior!” I yelled.
“Whazza? Wha?” Junior leapt to his feet, fists cocked to ward off potential attackers. “Aaghhh! Mothercharleyfuckerhorse!” he screamed and dropped back onto the floor, clutching his calf.
I ran to the bathroom.
No Cassandra.
The bedroom.
No Cassandra.
“Shitfuckgoddamnsonofabitch,” I ranted as I tore through my apartment. How could I have been so goddamn stupid? I burst through the kitchen door hard enough to make Cassie jump even with her headphones on. She was rooting inside my fridge and munching on a piece of individually wrapped cheese product she’d found.
Cassie yipped in surprise. “Jeez, Boo. Try some decaf.”
I leaned on the stove, gasping and willing my pulse to slow down to “rumba.”
Cassie popped another piece of yellow food product into her mouth. “What do you guys have to eat around here?”
“For starters, not the cheese,” I said. After all we’d been through, I hoped a piece of ancient cheese product wasn’t going to drop Cassie into toxic shock in my kitchen. “How’s about we order a pizza or something?”
Junior came hopping into the kitchen. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Junior passed on dinner, opting instead to head back to his place to shower and change into clothes a little more dignified. He complained that my shirt was cutting off circulation. Since Cassandra was a vegetarian, we ordered half-pepperoni, half-plain. The pizza arrived and we sat down at my kitchen table and ate in a strange and heavy silence. Cassandra didn’t look at me, just stared at a space hovering in the air over the pizza. After half a slice, her eyes started to fill with tears.
“I was so scared,” she said.
“Hmmm?” I mumbled, mouth full of hot mozzarella.
“On the video. Derek rigged the knife with a blood pack. He squeezed it, and the blood squirted out.” Drops fell from her eyes onto my lucky plate. “Some got into my mouth when I screamed. It tasted like blood. I thought it was my blood.”
“It sure as shit looked real.”
“I was so scared. I didn’t know. I thought it was real.”
“We did, too. That’s why we freaked out and went to town on Derek.” I filled my mouth with pizza so I wouldn’t have to talk anymore.
“He lied to me, didn’t he?” She was speaking through sniffles. “He didn’t… he couldn’t have loved me.”
Jesus. I opened my full mouth but said nothing. I didn’t know what I could say.
“Did my dad see the… did he?” She didn’t have to finish.
“No.”
She nodded and stared back into the empty place.
I pulled a piece of pepperoni from my slice and chewed. “Far as I’m concerned, he’s never going to.”
Her lower lip trembled and tears dropped onto her plate. “What if…”
“What if what?”
“What if he finds out?”
“Well, now that me and Junior are done with the job of finding you, we’re available for any new gig that might come up.”
Her face scrunched up. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“You could hire us to get back any DVDs that Derek might have already sold.”
“But… I don’t…”
“How much money you got?”
Cassie opened her little purse and pulled out one crumpled ten, three fives, and more crumpled singles. I grabbed the singles and stuffed them in my pocket.
“Done and done,” I said and tore off a piece of crust. “You need a receipt for your taxes?”
She sniffled and shook her head. She was smiling, but it looked like she might bawl. She looked up at me with the same eyes that had troubled me a little more than a week ago. There was so much hurt still there. That unsettling maturity remained, but I could see a spark of the kid had survived.
I smiled at her. “Theater camp is your own goddamn problem, though.”
Cassie laughed through a mouthful of pizza, almost spitting it onto the table. “God, I hated that crap.”
“No shit. Eat your pizza.”
It would be over for the kid soon enough. It wasn’t over for me and Derek yet. Not by a long shot. He needed to hurt some more. I needed to hurt him some more. I swore to myself, when all was said and done with Cassie, he and I were gonna dance one more time. And I was being paid four dollars for the privilege.