“Your boss, Charlie, he likes girls, don’t he?” he stammered.
The man laughed. “Yeah, so?”
“So I got girls for him! Nice girls, beautiful girls!”
“You mean her?” the man asked, gesturing with the gun at Tina. “She don’t look like much to me.”
Tina was horrified. “Johnboy, how could you?” she pleaded.
Nola saw a tear run down her face for the first time. It was quickly wiped away and her stricken face was replaced by one of terrible anger, bordering on madness. Nola could see Tina as she fought herself to keep from doing something foolish. She wanted to give Johnboy the beating of his life, because it seemed that the man had sold them out to the trolls of Earth. Maybe even the Fren of Earth.
It was odd how Tina had deceived herself about what her pimp would do when hard pressed. It had been clear to Nola in an instant that this was what it was all about. But probably her friend, Lori, could say the same about Nola’s own relationship with John. It was hard to see clearly when encumbered by one’s own emotions.
“You know, this one here ain’t such a bad deal,” the man said, looking Nola up and down. “Maybe he’d take her as payment.” He paused and seemed thoughtful for a second. “But there’s no ac-countin’ for taste. We’ll take both of them.”
“Johnboy!” Tina screamed again.
In that instant, while the man was distracted by Tina’s scream, Johnboy knocked the gun from the man’s hand and lunged for him.
Mich saw his chance. He made a mad dash for the door. He whizzed right by the startled men and down the stairwell. Nola screamed after him and tried to follow but one of the men caught her and held her fast. She could do nothing but submit to the brute. The other man went after Mich.
Meanwhile, Johnboy had scored on the gunman’s stomach with his head. He lifted his head and drew back his fist. The gunman recovered at the last moment and stuck out his free hand. The hand grasped Johnboy’s throat like an iron vise and it held him fast. Johnboy struggled and grappled with the hand; he couldn’t breathe.
“Let’s tie up the bitches,” the man said to his friend while smirking at Johnboy. He let Johnboy go. Johnboy collapsed to the floor, coughing and sputtering, grasping his neck.
Tina tried to run, but did not get one step. The man who held Nola pointed a gun at her. The other man retrieved a telephone and removed the cords. He wrapped the cords around Tina’s wrists so tightly that her hands turned purple.
“Owww, you bastard!” she said and spit at him.
He grabbed the hair on the back of her head and pulled it back. When her mouth opened to yell, he stuffed in a handkerchief.
He turned to Nola and bound her as well. “Maybe we should give this one a strip search!” he said, smiling.
He put his hand on her neck and ran it down to her blouse. Nola would rather have been fondled by a worm’s tongue, slime and all. But that wasn’t an option. She brought up her knee, but, sadly, not fast enough. He caught it, and fondled her thigh.
“Oooh, she’s a dangerous one, fellas! Look out for her!” he said mockingly and jerked her roughly out the door. The other man bound Johnboy as well and dragged him at gunpoint through the door while pushing Tina.
A station wagon waited on the street outside. Nola was still kicking and trying to slow the man down. She didn’t like the way he was holding her. It was as if he had her in a love embrace. He held her much too close to his own body, still trying to sneak in some good feels. She braced her feet against the car door. That caused him to release his hug so that he could deal with her feet. She knew why he didn’t simply club her halfway senseless, so she couldn’t resist: bruised goods didn’t make a good impression on the boss. She tried to push against him and make him lose his balance, but he was too strong and he shoved her into the backseat.
Tina put up a fight as well. Her feet were flailing and kicking at the car and at the man who held her. But his friend aided him, and soon both women were in the car, sitting close to each other for what comfort they could get. Johnboy was shoved in behind Tina and the door was slammed shut.
The two men sat in the front and waited. Soon, the big one became impatient and honked the horn. The third man appeared. His clothes were torn and he suffered a busted lip and swollen cheek. He walked to the car and got in.
“Well, where is he?” asked the driver, irritated.
“I’m sorry, boss, but he got away from me. He got my gun too.”
Nola could hear the driver sigh deeply. He reached over and struck the man several times with a rolled-up magazine. “You stupid jerk!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” the man yelled. “I shot him in the gut. He was bleedin’ pretty bad; he won’t live too long.”
Tina’s gaze locked on Nola’s and showed genuine concern. Nola’s own eyes clouded over and filled with brine. She felt a stab in her chest, and she cried.
The car moved off down the street, away from town.
Johnboy reached up with his teeth and removed the handkerchief from Tina’s mouth. He looked at her apologetically. There was hate in her soft brown eyes. He knew to speak an apology to her would only make her angrier, but he wished he hadn’t done what he had. He wished he knew something to say that would make it all right, but he knew there was not. Tina looked as if she wanted to kill him. How could he apologize for what he had done to her and her friend? Now his life was being destroyed; he had lost his only friend. He felt the tears coming and had to turn away.
Nola, Tina and Johnboy sat silently as the car sped down the street. It bore them on through the city. An hour later they were in the suburbs and, an hour after that, in the country.
Nola could think only of Mich. She hoped that he would be okay. She was just getting to know him. She was even beginning to feel that this was not a dream. Maybe it was all real and she just couldn’t see it. If that was the case, then she must be torturing him by withholding her love. But as long as one tiny doubt remained, she would not commit her heart to him and his world. She wouldn’t walk into the same trap twice. If she did, she would die. With such thoughts of Mich in her mind, she fell asleep and dreamed.
She dreamed of Kafka. The land was black and charred. It was being overrun by the Fren. They were killing people and burning the land, laughing all the while. They taunted and teased her for not knowing the secret to destroy them.
The survivors of the raids yelled at her and shook their angry fists and screamed, “Why are you letting this happen to us? Why are you just standing there, letting them destroy our land? It’s all your fault!”
Nola ran away. She ran past the villagers, past the stench of death to the river. The river’s splendid colors were gone, replaced by a murky black water that smelled of rotting sulfur. She ran on until she found a patch of green grass on a hilltop, far away from the commotion. The last small piece of life left in the ruined land.
In a moment, she saw Spirit emerge from the thick, dark smoke that was the sky, winging his way down to her hilltop. He landed beside her and looked down disapprovingly.
Why do you sit here, when you are needed down there? he asked.
Nola burst into tears. “I can’t do anything about it!” she sobbed. “I don’t know the secret!”
Do you realize that if you do not learn the secret, Earth will die too? The secret lies within you.
“Earth too?” she asked, appalled.
Earth without dreams.
Now she understood, in the intuitive way of dreams. “Yes! I know. All human life on Earth will be managed by people with no dreams. We will lose hope and love and we will kill each other and ourselves—become extinct.”
Nola stood up and hugged Spirit’s muscular neck. His hide smelled like smoke. She suddenly felt so ashamed that she wished she were dead. She cried and Spirit’s neck became moist and salty.
I feel your sorrow. It is painful, he said, blinking tears from his green eyes.
Nola realized it was true. They shared their souls and share
d their emotions as well. He felt her pain, and she could feel his stubbornness. She released him and composed herself.
You know the secret, you need only apply it. Look, he said, gesturing with a toss of his head.
She looked down and out onto the blackened field below the hill. The Fren had surrounded a group of fairies. Nola winced, as she expected them to be killed, but the Fren just stood there. The fairies collapsed into a heap.
Nola tried to turn away, but she felt Spirit’s mind watching intently. She was compelled to watch also.
Slowly, she saw the fairies change color, turning light brown, then dark brown, then black. Their bodies changed also. In a matter of moments, they were completely different creatures. The fairies got up and joined the Fren, for that was what they had become.
Nola looked up at Spirit with sudden realization.
“The Fren, they didn’t kill them. They didn’t even touch them! The good dreams, they became bad, became Fren. The Creators of fairies, their dreams were crushed. Esprit, people like me are destroying Kafka by giving up hope!”
Suddenly, the whole hilltop was lifted and tilted, causing Nola to be thrown to the side. She woke.
The car had just pulled sharply into a driveway. Beside her, Tina and Johnboy also woke. The car stopped and the three of them were dragged up the steps of an enormous farmhouse. Once inside, they were released. Two men shut and blocked the door.
The interior of the house was extravagant, to say the least. Everything looked expensive. There were wool rugs covering the floors. To the side was a living room filled with expensive toys, such as a sunken bar, a huge stereo system and some kind of TV whose images were projected onto the wall, but with no projector in sight.
“Come upstairs, Johnboy,” a man’s voice said.
They followed the voice up a winding staircase, down a hall and into a den. Once inside, a huge man sat them in chairs in front of a desk. Behind the desk was a grotesque figure of a middle-aged man. His black hair was streaked with gray and he held a tiny pipe between his teeth that looked as if it was made of ivory. Kneeling on the floor beside him was a beautiful, frail woman wearing nothing but her own hair and a G-string. She was stroking his leg.
The man puffed his pipe and leaned forward. “So, Johnboy, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
The muscular bodyguard spoke up. “He don’t have the money, Charlie.”
“Doesn’t have, you idiot!”
“Sorry. He doesn’t have the money, boss.”
Charlie sent two rings of gray smoke through the bowl of his pipe. “Can’t pay, eh?”
He stood up and walked over to Johnboy, who was being held down in a chair. The woman crawled behind him, her full breasts dangling. It was obvious that this man was rich in both money and power, and poor in human decency.
He put his hand on Johnboy’s shoulder. “You know, John, we’ve been working together for a long time. I trusted you so much that I gave you one of my best jobs, a home and a new car. We were friends, you and I, and we had some good times. You remember that time when you got arrested on a robbery charge and I helped you out? Remember? They were going to kill you in that place. But I looked out for you and you were free. Then we picked up those hookers and got drunk, you remember, right?” He laughed gruffly. “We had a good time, didn’t we? You remember?”
Johnboy was so nervous that he was ready to wet his pants, but he managed to squeeze out a fake laugh, then added, “Yeah, I remember. You—you really helped me out, Charlie.”
Suddenly, Charlie grabbed both his shoulders and wrenched the fat Johnboy from his chair. “And this is how you thank me?” he yelled.
Johnboy just hung there, not responding. This wasn’t defiance, but inability. The question was rhetorical, anyway.
Charlie seemed to rein in his temper and went back behind the desk, with the woman still clinging to his legs, her hair shifting now and then to expose her buxom flesh. Nola could hardly imagine a more pathetic creature—unless it was herself. He made a quick gesture and three men came forward, releasing them from their bonds.
Charlie’s face was red and he was trying not to snarl, but he didn’t do a good job. “I treated you like my son and you took my drugs, smoked them up yourself instead of selling them like a good boy. You promised to pay me, and now, now you come to me telling me you can’t. Now I have to punish my son.”
“B-but Charlie, I b-brought you these girls!” Johnboy stammered.
Tina burst into tears beside him. “Johnboy, how could you? I hate you!”
Charlie walked out from behind the desk again. He looked down at the lovely woman who was clinging to his leg, massaging his inner thigh. She looked up at him and smiled sweetly.
“It seems to me you’ve overlooked the fact that I have girls. What would I want with a couple of your sluts?”
Again, Johnboy couldn’t answer. It was obvious that Charlie was playing cat and mouse with him, and would do whatever he chose to do the moment he got tired of posturing.
Charlie looked at the woman and stroked her hair. “I’m tired of you now. Wait in your room.”
“But, Charlie, I want to serve you, you are so distressed, let me help . . .” she pleaded.
“I said get out of here, bitch!” he said, kicking her cruelly. But the woman knew better than to cry. She absorbed the blow and left, wrapping her hair tightly around her. If she had any sense of pride, it had obviously been beaten out of her long since. And this, Nola knew, was what she herself would become if she didn’t find a way to escape.
Charlie motioned to his bodyguard, who pointed a revolver at Johnboy’s temple. Tina sat on the opposite side of him, with Nola next to her. Both girls were too frightened to say a word.
Nola was afraid that if she pleaded in Johnboy’s favor that it just might get him shot sooner and herself as well. But Tina, despite what he had done to her, still cared for him. “Leave him alone! I’ll get you the money!”
“Shut up, you walking social disease! This is between me and my son.”
Charlie stepped forward and leaned close to Johnboy. “As my daddy always said to me, ‘This’ll hurt me more than it’ll hurt you.’ “ Charlie leaned closer and kissed him on his forehead.
“No!” Tina cried.
Nola had a really ugly feeling about this. “Tina, I think we’d better keep quiet,” she said urgently.
“No!” Tina repeated, staring at her wild-eyed. “He’s going to—”
Nola rose and turned away, trying to draw Tina along with her. Tina hung back.
The gun sounded, deafeningly loud. Nola whirled, shocked.
Johnboy’s head had been pushed to the side as the bullet ripped through his skull. Blood and small pieces of flesh and hair spattered Tina’s face and blouse. Johnboy’s tear-streaked face was twisted into a look of horror, going slack as his head dropped down.
Tina’s scream echoed forever in Nola’s mind as everything slowed down. Both girls were in a state of shock and terror. They were easily led downstairs. Though she was numb, Nola’s mind still functioned, and she knew Charlie had done the murder in their presence for a reason: to impress upon them the likely penalty for defiance. So that they could be more expeditiously reduced to the nude girl’s state, without bruises.
Nola’s eyesight was double as she tried to fight off her heart palpitations. She was in what seemed to be the basement of the farmhouse. It was dark and musty, except for moonlight streaming in from a small window high on the brick wall. She held on to Tina’s hand after the men left, locking the door behind them. They both sat in silence for a long moment.
“Are you okay?” Nola asked, still staring into space.
“Where are we?” Tina asked as the shock wore off.
“I—I think we’re in the basement or something,” she replied, looking around.
Then Tina’s awareness rushed back in with a vengeance. “John-boy!” she cried, putting her face in her hands.
Then she looked up and see
med to stare at a vision of him in her mind. “All the better for ya, you dumb bastard! How could you? How could ya do this to me?” It was much the same reaction she had had when leaving Kras the worm king.
Nola wasn’t sure what to do. Should she console Tina or should she shake a fist and curse as Tina had? She decided that neither would help. She had to try to keep her friend’s mind occupied. It was obvious that Tina was teetering dangerously back and forth between grief and rage. Neither emotion was likely to be much help right now.
“We have to find a way out of here,” Nola said calmly. She looked around. There was the door, but when she tried it, of course it was locked. The floor was concrete and the room was empty, except the window.
“There ain’t no way outta here,” Tina sobbed bitterly. “I been here before and believe me, there ain’t no way.”
Nola got an idea. “Were you alone when you were here?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Well, I think we might be able to reach that window up there,” she said, pointing.
“You know, I think it’s wortha shot.” She looked at Nola, then back at the window. “But how we gonna do it? I ain’t that strong, ya know.”
“I think I can boost you up. Here, stand on my hands.”
Nola locked her fingers together. Tina stepped onto them and Nola lifted her up. She was somewhat shorter than Nola herself, and therefore lighter despite her fuller figure.
“The window is barred on the outside, but the inside is unlocked,” Tina said as she opened it.
At that moment the door was opened and a man came in with a shoe box. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “I see the boss was right. He thought you might try that.”
Nola sighed. She let Tina down.
“What’s he gonna do with us?” Tina demanded.
“He don’t want you two to die yet. He’s got some internationals coming in and he needs you two to do a job,” he said with a wry smile. “He told me to show you this.”