Leather Maiden

40

I cut the electrical cords off some lamps and we used those to bind Glug’s arms behind his back. We tied his legs together too, leaving enough room so he could move at a kind of shuffle. I put a pair of my dirty underwear in his mouth, something with some slick stains on it, and tied it in good with a rag I tore off an old sheet. Then we got a phone book that Booger wanted, and he got his duffel bag, and I got a lawn chair, and we put all of it, including Glug, in my car.

We did it quickly and carefully. I was pretty sure no one saw us.

Booger sat in the back with Glug. Booger had Mr. Lucky pointing toward Glug’s lap, the barrel of the shooter against Glug’s balls. Glug didn’t struggle at all.

I drove us to the place where Ronnie’s landlord had stored her goods, and I rolled down the window and touched the code, and it was still the same. The gate unlocked itself and folded in. I drove us past the gate and over to the storage shed where Ronnie’s stuff had been.

Booger got out and went at the lock and opened it quick. I drove the car inside and Booger closed the doors. I cut the engine and left the headlights on, pulled the gagged and bound Glug out of the car. Booger sat the lawn chair in front of the car, center of the headlights. He grabbed Glug and pulled him over to the chair and pushed him into it. He said, “You sit there, and be pretty.”

He went back to the car and got the phone book. I grabbed his wrist, said, “I don’t know, Booger. Maybe we ought not.”

“Depends on if you want that girl of yours skinned or not.”

“How do we know if he’s telling the truth?”

“Torture works, in spite of what people tell you. But the only way it works is the guy’s got to know we don’t care if he dies, and you know me, I don’t care. He’ll tell me the goddamn truth, you can count on that. But whatever you want, buddy. Have it your way.”

I let go of his wrist.

Booger walked over to where Glug sat and hit him hard in the side of the head with the flat of the phone book, hit him so hard he fell out of the chair and sprawled out on the ground. He was trying to yell, but that underwear gag was holding.

Booger sat him up in the chair, gave him a pat on the head, then hauled off with the book and hit him again over the same ear, not quite knocking him out of the chair this time.

“I just want you to know,” Booger said, “that I can do this all night, but you can’t. I’m going to take out that gag, and when I do, you yell, it’ll be all over for you except for us throwing your dead ass out somewhere beside the road. Got me?”

Glug nodded.

Booger punched straight down and hit Glug in the balls. Glug bent over, almost fell out of the chair, but Booger helped him up by kneeing him hard in the face. When he sat Glug back up in the chair, Glug was bleeding from his nose and it had taken on a new shape. His lips didn’t look so good either. Blood had colored the underwear in his mouth.

I went around and stood behind the car and looked at the closed doorway of the building and tried to pretend I wasn’t part of this. I heard Booger hit him a couple more times with either the phone book or his fists, and I got myself together and walked around front, and found a position between the headlights.

Booger untied the rag that held the gag, said, “How’s the teeth?”

Glug nodded.

“Good,” Booger said. “Can you talk?”

“Yeah,” Glug said. His voice was small and seemed to be climbing up from his throat on broken legs.

“That’s good, you can talk. You couldn’t, wouldn’t be any good to me or my man here. What we want is some information. In case your man Stitch calls. We want to be ready to do whatever we need to do. You’re kind of like our little inside mole.”

“He won’t call,” Glug said.

“No?” said Booger.

“No.”

“And why is that?” Booger said. “That don’t seem like good manners, saying you’re gonna call, then not calling.”

“Because he’s playing his games.”

“You’re playing games too,” Booger said. “And I got to tell you, me and Cason here, we ain’t good sports. We don’t play to lose, and we sure don’t like to play when we don’t know we’re playing. But if we’re in, hey, we’re playing for keeps. Know what I’m saying?”

“They’re nuts. I play for the money. But they’re nuts.”

“Tell us about the money,” I said. “And tell us about who they are.”

“You don’t understand. It’s the money to me, and they like money fine, but they like this game they play. I’m just a man for hire. For them, it’s a whole different thing.”

“Them being Stitch and the supposedly dead whore Caroline?” Booger said.

“Yeah,” Glug said.

Booger looked at me. “Told you she was alive, bro. I am one smart motherfucker, give me that.”

“I give you that.”

“You didn’t know that, did you, bro, that I’m a smart motherfucker?”

I told him the truth. “No. I knew you were smart, but not like this. I didn’t know that.”

“You’re finding out all kinds of things about me, aren’t you, Cason?”

“I am,” I said.

Booger walked around behind Glug and touched his head a couple of times with the phone book, made Glug jump a little. “I’m thinking, without even asking a question, I might just swat you for the fun of it, pilgrim.”

“I’ll answer,” Glug said. “You ask, and I’ll answer.”

Booger clapped his hand on Glug’s shoulder, and Glug startled like a rabbit. “Oh, hell, I know that. I’m just talking about what I might do because I want to do it. There ain’t no other reason behind it than an urge. You ever get an urge, my man?”

Glug didn’t know how to answer that question, so he gave a statement. “Whatever you want, man. Whatever you want.”

Booger looked at me. “He wants what I want, bro. Ain’t he agreeable?”

“He is,” I said.

“What we want,” Booger said, “and I believe I can speak for my bro here, is some no-bullshit answers. No cleverness. No hesitation. You hesitate, and you meditate horizontally. So, what we want is to know where…” Booger turned to me. “What’s her name again?”

“Belinda,” I said.

“He wants to know where Belinda is. And if he wants to know, so do I. What me and him got going here is what they call one of them hive minds. He thinks it, I think it. That’s how we’re playing this. You understand?”

Glug nodded.

Booger turned to me, said, “Ask your question, bro.”

“I want to know where she is,” I said, “and I want to know what this is all about. I want to know everything, and I want it in a nutshell, and pretty damn quick. But mostly, I want to know where Belinda is.”

“She’s all right until the morning, ten a.m.,” Glug said.

“What happens then?” I said.

“Stitch pops the nigger.”

I thought about that a minute. “Judence?”

“That’s him,” Glug said.

“Why?” I said.

“He likes games, and there’s the money he’s getting.”

“And what do you get?”

“Money, sometimes a little poontang, depending on how Caroline is feeling. Mostly she’s just banging Stitch, but sometimes, she’ll do me a favor. She can make you crazy, way she acts.”

“Who’s giving Stitch this money that you get a piece of?”

“That white preacher,” Glug said. “The one on TV.”

“Reverend Dinkins?” I said.

“Yeah, him.”

“You got a real name other than Glug?” I asked.

“Gregore,” he said.

“What kind of fucking name is that?” Booger said. “Don’t hunchback assistants have that name?”

“That’s my name.”

“Well, it sucks,” Booger said.

Coming from a man who preferred to be called Booger, I wasn’t sure exactly how to take that.

Booger hauled off and hit Glug with the phone book in the back of the head, knocking him out of the chair, hitting him so hard he went smooth out.

“Goddamnit, Booger, what was that about?”

“Sorry,” Booger said, “I just got bored.”