Shooting Elvis Read online

  “You said she was wet. I was just drying her off.”

  “My brother, he gets the weirdest ideas. Dad always said he was a psychopathic son-of-a-bitch, but I think he’s real creative. One time, there was this guy gave our boss some trouble, tried to run away and hide in Mexico. You know what my brother did?”

  “Sent him back across the border one body part at a time?”

  Frick looked like a comedian just had his punch line shouted out by a heckler.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Heard it around.”

  Frick turned to his brother, said, “Hear that? They’re telling stories about you, you’re famous.” He squatted on his heels, pulled out a handkerchief, wiped the last of the water from my face. He said, “You tell us where the case with the real stuff is, we let you go. It’s that simple.”

  “The police have it.”

  Frick shook his head, said, “I hear broken bones every time you lie.”

  “No lie, the police raided the place I was staying this morning, listen to the news if you don’t believe me.”

  “We know about the raid. We have friends. They tell us things, like what the police find and don’t.”

  Frick stood, walked to the door.

  I said, “You saying the police didn’t find it?”

  “I have to make a phone call. You think real hard about telling me the truth when I come back.”

  When his brother left the room, Frack walked over, shut the door, said, “Fee, fi, fo, fitch, I smell the blood of a lyin’ bitch.” He walked up close, raised his hand. I flinched, expected to get hit, didn’t. He laughed, walked around to the back of the chair. It was worse when I couldn’t see him. I heard a soft rustling, couldn’t quite place what it was. Moment I figured it out, his fingers ripped at my mouth, shoved a gag down my throat. I tried to spit it out, but he tied it in place with a strip of cloth. I screamed. The noise was pitifully small.

  He circled the chair, I was powerless to do anything except watch, take it. His fingers unhooked his belt. He had big hands, soft and pink, not the rough, metal-stained hands of my pop. He jerked the belt through the loops, powerful and triumphant, pulling out the belt like he was drawing a sword. I knew the position of the hands, the belt, it was the perspective caused me to remember, looking level at his waist, same height as a child. Not a rape gesture. Not yet. Just a whipping.

  He folded the belt in half, tip to buckle, snapped the leather across the back of the chair. I wasn’t going to look at him, cry out in pain if I could help it. I was going to stare straight ahead and take it. He teased me with the belt at first, slapped it gently over my shoulders. I was food, my fear fed him. The slaps stopped being so gentle. The snap of leather cut deeper until it wasn’t a sting anymore, but the sharp pain of being hacked to pieces. His breathing was fast and hard as he worked me over. He arched high on his toes before lashing down. His face was blood-red. Sweat flew off him as he struck. I looked up at him just once, recognized nothing human. He was like a hyena going after meat, gorging itself all jaws and frenzy.

  I shrunk myself down as small and hard as I could, let everything go except this one secret place I have to hide. He couldn’t get to me in there. The pain was fierce, but it was happening to somebody else’s body. I knew how to shrink down to a nut-hard core, where the pain couldn’t get to me as much, where I could be strong and hard. My body was just this sack of flesh surrounding me. He could do whatever he wanted to it. Fuck it. Cut it. Kill it. Didn’t matter. He couldn’t get to me through my body. It seemed like I always knew how to hide myself. There was always this last refuge when things got bad.

  Then the hitting stopped. I knew it would. The hitting always stopped, eventually. A hand softly slapped my cheek, untied the strip of cloth, pulled the gag out of my mouth. I heard the creak of a hinge as the door opened, smelled cigarette smoke.

  Frick stepped into the room, asked, “Wait a minute, why you cryin’?”

  “I think I scare her,” Frack answered.

  “Is that it? Does he scare you?”

  Frick’s voice was calm and soothing, like a daddy.

  I couldn’t make my mouth work, was too far inside myself. I stuttered, not getting any words out, just syllables, finally pushed it through clenched teeth that he hit me.

  Frick said, “I told you not to hit her.”

  “Hey, I didn’t hit her that hard, not any harder than when you were here, anyway. She’s just a crybaby.”

  Frick dropped his hand on my shoulder. I flinched. He said I shouldn’t be afraid of him, he didn’t want to hurt me, he was sorry if something bad happened while he was away. His brother was a little crazy, couldn’t always control him. I lied, said I wasn’t afraid, it was just that he put his hand on a sore spot where I’d been whipped. Then he saw the welts on my neck where the belt hit me.

  Frick pulled his brother over, said, “Did you do that?”

  “Maybe,” Frack answered.

  “I told you not to.”

  “I got inspired.”

  Frick knelt in front of me again, tried to look in my eyes, said, “You see what I’m talking about? My brother, he’s a real pain artist. When he gets creative, he has a mind of his own. Long as I stay here, you don’t have to worry.”

  I knew this guy was not my friend any more than Frack was. They were playing a game with me. I couldn’t help believing him. It was so damn seductive, his concern for me after I’d been beaten. Like I expected to get love after pain. They were somehow the same for me. Like there was something that fused the two together so long ago I couldn’t feel one without the other. I let my head rest against his hand.

  Frick stroked my hair, said, “It tears my heart out to leave you alone again, afraid what my brother might do. Can you please just tell me where that case is? Once we find it, why, we can let you go”

  “I got no reason to lie, you guys are crazy killing each other over a stupid toilet, I left it in the studio, it was there yesterday.”

  “That doesn’t do us any good, to hear that.”

  “It’s what happened.”

  “Now I gotta go out looking for it, leave you alone here with my brother. Scares me just thinking about what could happen.”

  I choked up, said, “I got two roommates, maybe one of them took it.”

  “Took it where?”

  I thought about Billy b. It wasn’t him sitting in this chair, getting hit, sure, he betrayed me, deserved what he got. I said, “Try SMART Gallery, in Santa Monica.”

  “You don’t sound very sure.”

  “It’s the only thing I can think happened to it.”

  “This is a problem,” Frick said, his voice heavy and sad. “Because we need to get it back now. You took us someplace, said, here it is, then we could let you go. We don’t have the time to go searching through half the city for a couple of roommates.”

  I knew what the regret in his voice meant, that I was going to get another beating because I hadn’t told him what he wanted to know. He shrugged like he was real sorry about it. His brother leaned against the bureau, stared with cold hunger at an invisible mark six inches above my head. I said I couldn’t help it, I was telling the truth, I even begged him to stay, but all he said was he had to go make another call.

  I knew pain was coming. I expected his brother to use the belt again. I wasn’t going to plead with him any more than I would a beast eating me alive, just pretend I was dead and hope he lost interest. He said he was going to show what happened to bitches that lie, but I didn’t care what he said or did. He had me in his physical power, and there was nothing I could do about it except not let him break me. I told myself I will survive this, and though I would have blasted the asshole to hell in a second if I had the chance, I wasn’t thinking of physical revenge. I was thinking survival will be my revenge. He will not get to me. There are places I can hide where he will never find me.

  Frack pried my mouth open, stuffed the gag down my throat, tied it in place with the strip
of cloth. It was like he was doing it to somebody else. I watched it all from a perch in the corner of the room. If he thought that was me hurting, that was me crying, he was wrong. That wasn’t me. He didn’t have any idea I was watching him from up there, near the ceiling. He thought I was still in my body. He knelt in front of me. A pack of wooden matches came out of his pocket, then a cigarette. The bright ripping sound of sulfur flared out. My eyes tracked the fire as it ignited the tobacco and left the tip. He touched the match to the wisps of hair hanging from my forehead. They went up in flame. I squirmed and bucked. He grabbed my hair to stop me moving, hovered the coal of his cigarette a quarter inch away from the inside of my wrist. The skin smoldered and burned. He stabbed out the coal in my flesh, tossed the butt to the floor. He lit a second cigarette and smoked for a while, watched me, crushed the second cigarette out a little higher up my arm. He smoked half a pack that way.

  I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

  The scars aren’t so bad. It’s not like I’m horribly disfigured or anything. Like most scars, with a little cosmetics, nobody notices. If I wear a long-sleeved shirt with a high collar, nobody even has to know the scars are there. See, nothing wrong with me. Good as new. The scars will shrink and fade, blend with the slow ruin of my skin. Maybe in twenty years or so, the traces will vanish from my flesh, until all that remains is the lingering memory of pain.

  20

  A can pressed cool and moist into the palm of my hand. A voice told me to drink. I drank, couldn’t get more than a couple swallows down. I wanted to believe the pain would not get any worse. Some new horror was not ready to hammer down, scatter my self-resistance like a smashed walnut. The voice talked about something, I couldn’t make sense of what. A hand slapped at mine, moved the can to my lips. I took another swallow, forced it down, saw it was Frick, he was back, he was talking, it was Coke he’d given me. He pronounced his words careful and slow, said he just got back from talking with the boss, personally he thought I was being sincere, but his boss thought I was stalling for time. I must have forgot something. Was there anything else I could add, something he could tell his boss, so they could find the case sooner? That way, we wouldn’t have to worry about his brother anymore. He could let me go.

  I said if he wanted to hear lies, leave me alone with his brother again. I’d make up all kinds of shit. I’d do anything they wanted. Tell the truth. Lie. Anything. Because I just couldn’t take the pain anymore, my period was starting, I felt sick to my stomach, if he had any human feeling he’d let me use the bathroom.

  Frick said, “Fine, you need to use the bathroom, why didn’t you say so in the first place? We’re not criminals here. I don’t like this situation any more than you do. All you have to do is ask.”

  I waited for him to unlock the handcuffs from the chair, but he just looked at me. His brother laughed. They wanted to hear me ask to use the bathroom. He wanted me a little girl, asking permission, wanted me humiliated. Little girls raise their hands, ask to be excused. That was what he wanted, dominance and humiliation. He was saying you can’t do anything without me. I control your body, I control your mind.

  I broke into tears, asked him, “Could I please go to the bathroom?”

  He was sure he had me then.

  “Of course,” he said.

  The right handcuff snapped off, the left stayed on my wrist. Frick helped me onto my feet, guided me out of the bedroom to the bathroom in the hall. He stroked my hair as we walked, said, “There, there, little girl, it’s okay. I’ll take good care of you.”

  “You want to take good care of me, send your brother to the drugstore, okay?”

  I stepped into the bathroom, started to close the door.

  He stopped me, asked, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  I asked him what, confused, because I didn’t know what he was talking about. He reached down to touch my handcuffs. I got it. I was supposed to volunteer to have the cuffs put on again. I extended my hands, said, “I’m sorry, but can I please have my hands in front, so I can, you know, take care of myself better?”

  “I don’t see why not. But you promise to be good now?”

  I promised. He latched the cuffs in front, shut the door behind me. I bolted for the toilet, threw up. I felt a little better after that, but it wasn’t the food in my stomach making me sick. It was the humiliation. I stood at the sink to wash out my mouth. My skin was ghost white.

  I said, “Hey, ho, it’s only rock and roll.”

  Cold water trickled over the burn on my wrist. The sting dulled. I plugged up the sink, filled it with cold water, plunged in my arms. The water covered the burns below my elbows, made the burns above water seem even hotter. Better than nothing, gave me a little quiet time to think.

  I thought about Frick. He wanted to fuck me. Maybe I’d guessed wrong, blood turned him on. He didn’t want it to be rape. He wanted me dependent, wanted me to want it. I told myself no way, never would I want to sleep with him. But I knew I was lying to myself. It was already happening. Abuse and dependency. Can’t have one without the other. I grew up in a situation made me an expert in seeing it happen, only I didn’t always know when it was happening to me. The little lies start first. He really cares or he’s different or he’s the one gonna save me. It’s easy to believe when belief is all you have. No way Frick gave a shit about me. He could fuck me one day, kill me the next, sleep just fine the night after.

  I guess I’m pretty fucked up. It’s strange to think I’m fucked up, because I always wanted to be not just normal, but super normal. The one person didn’t have any problems. The one you could talk to, could always depend on. I think it was because I could hide better that way. If I acted like everything was okay, then it was okay. But now, when I think about it, I guess I am pretty fucked up about things.

  I opened the medicine cabinet and checked under the sink, tried to find some kind of weapon I could use. A bar of soap in the shower, an old toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, a towel hanging from a hook on the door. The bathroom was pretty much stripped. I soaked the towel in cold water, wrung it halfway out, wrapped it around my left arm, the burned one. It was a trick working around the handcuffs. I tied the ends together with my teeth.

  Behind the door, Frick called, “You didn’t fall in, now did you?”

  I jumped hearing his voice, shouted, “I’m fine.”

  “I want you out of there in two minutes, y’got that?”

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying, Yes Daddy.

  The toothbrush looked dirty, the bristles splayed and ratty. I scrubbed the bristles on the bar of soap, brushed my teeth. Five or six mouthfuls of warm water rinsed out the taste of soap. I rapped the toothbrush against the sink to shake it out. The toothbrush was a clear-blue plastic Oral-B. Ridges halfway up the handle, where the thumb goes when somebody holds it. Above the ridges, the handle slanted in to form a long neck, then out again at the head, which held the bristles. I gave the toothbrush a wrench, snapped off the head at the neck. I was trying to get the neck to shatter lengthwise, form a tapered knife edge. No luck. But the edge was jagged enough to do some damage. I slipped the handle between my skin and the towel, dropped the severed bristles into the toilet, flushed, opened the bathroom door.

  Frick was there, waiting.

  I said, “I look like shit, don’t I?”

  I hoped like hell he wouldn’t notice the missing toothbrush, he’d think I wasn’t capable of trying anything, I was just a dumb girl worried how good she looked on her way to the grave.

  He glanced around the bathroom, said, “You look just great.”

  His hands wrapped around the towel at my forearm, squeezed.

  “What’s this?”

  I flinched away, said the burns hurt bad, the cool water in the towel made them feel better.

  He looked at me sharply, thought it through, said, “I had a burn once, hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. The only thing to make it better was cold water and a half-pint of Stolichnaya.”

&nb
sp; “You have any vodka? ’Cause a little sure would taste good right now.”

  He smiled, happy to give a little pleasure after big pain, said, “I don’t see why not, a little vodka can’t hurt. But you have to understand, I can’t let you drink more than a little.”

  “Any chance I can get some fresh clothes, a little makeup so I can look halfway decent?”

  He lit up hearing me say that. I didn’t want to push it. Not then. I could feel him wanting me, that sixth sexual sense I have, knowing what a guy is thinking if he’s thinking about me. He sat me down, cuffed my wrists behind the chair, whispered he’d be back with that vodka in just a minute.

  I listened hard to the sounds in the house, wanted to know for sure his brother was gone. I heard Frick clattering in the kitchen. Nothing else. Not that it meant anything. His brother could still be somewhere inside. It worried me, because I didn’t know what I was doing but I had to do it or die trying. White noise started coming up in my brain. I closed my eyes and breathed, fought the blankness, made an imaginary movie about what I had to do. Imagine it, make it happen.

  Frick stroked the palm of my hand with the key, smirked, unlocked the cuff from the chair, it dangled from my right wrist, left both hands free. I smiled for him. He held a bottle of vodka wasn’t Stolichnaya, some off-brand, a big bottle with a little price. But it was clear and eighty proof and vodka is vodka. He produced two paper cups, handed one to me, said, “You didn’t think I was gonna give you glass, something you could use to hit me with?”

  I shook my head, held out the paper cup. He teased the bottom with a splash, laughed when I shook the cup for more. I tossed it down without a taste, held out the cup for a refill.

  “Like to drink do you?” he said, and gave me another splash. “I think we’re going to get along just fine. I like a girl likes to drink.”

  I sipped the vodka carefully, said, “I like strong men, always have. My pop, he was strong, so I guess I got used to it early.”

  Frick gave me another splash of vodka, enjoyed measuring it out drop by drop, said, “Then it looks like we’re gonna like each other.”