After Midnight

  “Really?” She set a couple of beer bottles on the counter, then reached up and opened a cupboard. “I ate there with him once. I’m surprised he went back. He thought they had lousy margaritas.”

  “He sure put down a lot of them the night we met.”

  “No kidding.” Shaking her head, she filled a pair of glass mugs with beer. Then she turned around and handed one to me.

  “All he could talk about was you,” I said. “And how much he loves you.”

  “Really?” Her smile seemed a little sad.

  “Yeah. He’s miserable.”

  We went into the living room. Judy sat in the armchair, and I took the sofa.

  I still had no idea what I was doing.

  That’s not quite true.

  I was stalling.

  Playing things by ear.

  Because I had no idea what to do.

  Shoot her?

  I was sitting on Tony’s pistol. It made my butt hurt on the right side, and I would’ve been glad to take it out of my pocket.

  But shoot her?

  Gunshots in a place like this, at an hour like this, would probably wake up half the people in the building.

  I’d be shafted.

  “So you don’t think you’ll get back together with Tony?” I asked, then tried the beer. It was very cold and bitter and I liked it a lot.

  “Not a chance,” Judy said. “Did he tell you why we broke up?”

  For a while, I couldn’t answer because I was busy swallowing that wonderful beer. Then I said, “I think it was too painful for him to talk about.”

  “He was probably too embarrassed.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s not the sort of thing you want to tell people about. Especially not a woman.”

  “Oh, well, you don’t have to…”

  “I’ll tell you. Hey, I’ve got to tell you, if you’re going with him now. He beat me up.”

  “He beat you up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My God! Why’d he do that?”

  Judy’s face suddenly changed from nicely tanned to bright red. “Well, he was drunk. It was a sex thing. He wanted to do something, and I wouldn’t let him.”

  “So he pounded you?”

  She nodded. Her face was scarlet.

  “What did he want to do?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  An idea struck me. Frowning, I leaned forward and said, “Do you want to know why I’m really wearing Tony’s shirt? Because he ripped mine off me. Tore it right off.”

  She looked shocked. “Tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jeez. Was he drunk?”

  “As a skunk,” I said.

  “’Cause, I mean, he’s not usually like that. How long have you known him?”

  “Just a few days.”

  “He must be in really bad shape. I mean, we went together for months, and he never pulled anything like that. He drank too much a few times, but he never attacked me. He was always so sweet. You wouldn’t have thought he had a mean bone in his body. Till that night he went berserk on me.”

  I nodded eagerly.

  We’ve both been there, girl!

  “Tonight,” I said, “was the first time he ever got ugly with me. I couldn’t believe it. He’d seemed so gentle, before. Like a really sensitive, sincere guy.”

  “Exactly,” Judy said.

  “But, boy…” I shook my head. “Not tonight. He scared me half to death.”

  “What did he do?”

  I drank some more beer, sighed, then set the mug down on the table in front of the sofa and said, “Well, he came over to my place for dinner. After that we went and saw Independence Day. Everything was fine till after the movie. We went back to my place and had a few drinks. We were planning to fool around, but my roommate came home. She always shows up at exactly the worst possible time.”

  Judy smiled slightly. “That’s what roommates are for.”

  “Do you have one?” I asked, suddenly worried.

  “Not since college.”

  “They can be a real pain in the butt,” I said.

  “No kidding.”

  “Anyway, the three of us sat around and had a few drinks. And I could tell that Tony was starting to lose his patience. He wanted to…you know, mess around. But we couldn’t do it in front of Jane. Finally, he said it was time for him to go home. And he asked me if I wanted to come with him. So I said, ‘Sure,’ and we left.”

  “Was he okay to drive?” Judy asked.

  “No. Hardly. But neither was I. I mean, we were both pretty looped. We shouldn’t have driven at all. But I wanted to get out of there, too, before something happened between him and Jane. She was starting to look at him a certain way, you know? Besides, I was interested in seeing where he lived. He’d been kind of funny about the place, like he didn’t want me there for some reason.”

  “Strange. He had me there all the time.”

  “Well…” I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe that had something to do with it. You know? The way he feels about you, maybe he thought I might—taint the place, or something.”

  “That’d be really strange.”

  “Anyway, he didn’t take me there, after all. He drove us into the woods, instead.”

  12

  TONY TALES

  “Drove into what woods?” Judy asked.

  “Miller’s Woods.”

  “You’re kidding. At night?”

  “Yeah. Tonight.”

  “You let him?”

  “Like I said, we were both a little smashed.”

  “My God.”

  “We went to that picnic area. With the fireplaces and tables?”

  Judy nodded. “I’ve been there a few times. Never at night, though.”

  “Well, that’s where we went.”

  “Was anybody around?”

  “Just me and Tony. Which is what he wanted, I guess…to have me out there alone. Anyway, we went over and sat on one of those tables.”

  “You got out of the car? Weren’t you frightened?”

  “Yeah, sort of. As a matter of fact, that was the whole problem. It was so dark and spooky. I had this awful feeling like we were being watched. I wanted to get the hell out of there. But Tony kept saying there was nothing to worry about. And he laughed at me for being scared.”

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Judy said.

  “I didn’t think so, either. I thought it was rotten. So I really wasn’t in any mood to fool around with him. Anyway, we were sitting on top of a picnic table with our feet on the bench. Tony had a bottle of tequila. He drank from it with one hand and rubbed my back with the other. Before you know it, he snuck that hand under my blouse. Then he started trying to unhook the back of my bra, so I told him to stop it.”

  “Naturally, he didn’t.”

  “Of course not. He went ahead and unhooked my bra, so I stood up on the bench and said, ‘I mean it, Tony. Not here. This place gives me the creeps.’

  “He said that’s what he likes about it. So I said, ‘Let’s just go over to your apartment, okay?’ Then I jumped off the bench and started walking away, but he suddenly leaps up and grabs me by the collar and jerks me off my feet. But he catches me, you know? So then I’m leaning against him and he reaches around in front and rips my blouse open. I mean, he was just vicious about it. It was a pullover, and he tore it apart right down the front and ruined it. Which is the real reason I’m wearing his shirt right now.”

  Judy nodded, a solemn look on her face. “Not because yours got spilled on.”

  “That was a little fib. I’m sorry. I never thought I’d end up telling you this stuff.” I tried to smile, making it look like a strain. “You’re really a good listener, Judy.”

  “Thanks. I’ve been through a few of these things, myself.”

  “Guys are such awful pigs.”

  “They can be.”

  “He completely ruined my blouse.”

  “He’s ruined a couple of mi
ne, too,” Judy said. “And a good dress.”

  “Tore them?”

  “Different things.”

  I could tell she didn’t want to go into details, so I went on with my story. “The whole thing just scared the hell out of me,” I said. “Him flipping out like that. And also, you know, being in those woods. I really panicked. I just wanted to get away. But he wouldn’t let me. He jerked my shorts down and threw me onto the picnic table. I tried to get up, but he slugged me in the stomach.”

  Judy winced as if she could feel the blow, herself.

  “That knocked my wind out. All I could do was squirm on the table. It felt like I was drowning. Then the next thing I know, he’s on top of me. We’re both naked and he’s…” I made a face. “You know.”

  “Screwing you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her face suddenly went crimson again, and she said, “In the right place?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” She was really flustered. “It’s none of my business. Forget I asked, okay?”

  “You mean, did he do it to me in the vagina?”

  “Well. Yeah.”

  “Yeah, that’s where.”

  Grimacing, she said, “And not with anything funny?”

  “What do you mean, funny?”

  “He obviously didn’t, or you wouldn’t have to ask.”

  “What’d he do to you?”

  “Nothing. I wouldn’t let him. That’s why he beat me up.” She smiled a little sadly. “You should’ve seen me afterward. I was a wreck. You look like you lucked out.”

  “This was my lucky night, okay.”

  “You got off without too much damage. That’s all I meant.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “How did it turn out?” she asked.

  “Where were we?”

  “On the picnic table.”

  “Oh, that’s right. He was screwing me. In the vagina. With his penis. Without a condom.”

  “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about AIDS or anything. I happen to know that he’s perfectly healthy.”

  I laughed.

  Couldn’t help it.

  Luckily, I didn’t have a mouthful of beer. It would’ve spewed.

  Judy raised her eyebrows as if she hoped I might let her in on the joke.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “he isn’t.”

  “Isn’t?”

  “Perfectly healthy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He probably has a major headache, right now. If he’s awake yet.”

  “Awake?”

  “I knocked him out cold with his tequila bottle. He’d left it on the table where I could reach it. So while he was busy humping me, I grabbed it and gave him a good one. Busted it against his head.”

  Judy’s mouth dropped open. She gaped at me, an odd look in her eyes as if she might be tempted to laugh, herself.

  “Knocked him out cold,” I said. “But he was still on top of me, so I rolled over. He fell off me and the table, and whacked the bench, then rolled off it and landed on the ground. Took a pretty good fall.”

  “Was he all right?”

  “Not really. He was out like a light and his head was bleeding. He wasn’t dead, though.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t care. He’s probably on a back road, somewhere, walking home. But he won’t have an easy time of it. I was still really angry at him, you know? A bit more than angry. I was furious. I mean, he’d raped me. Wouldn’t you call that a rape?”

  “I’d call it a rape,” Judy said.

  “So would I.”

  “Are you going to press charges against him?”

  “I don’t think so. I think I’ve punished him pretty good without the cops. You know what I did? I left him there in the woods completely naked. Out cold, and naked as the day he was born. I kept his shirt, since he’d wrecked mine. All the rest of his clothes, I burned in one of the fireplaces. His underwear and everything. Except his shoes. I threw those into the woods. He’ll never find them. Then I hopped into his car and drove off.”

  “You really left him there?”

  I grinned. “Seemed like a good idea. Part of my revenge. But it didn’t seem like enough revenge. So I thought I’d drive over to his apartment and trash the place. Just to teach him a lesson, you know? Teach him that he can’t do that sort of thing to a girl.”

  “So why did you come here?”

  “I thought this was his place. I’ll show you.” I drank the last of the beer, set the mug on the table again, then pulled Tony’s wallet out of my rear pocket. Taking out the slip of paper, I walked over to Judy’s chair. “See this?” I handed it to her.

  She scowled at it. “That’s my address. It’s also my handwriting. I gave this to Tony…months ago. When we first met.”

  I sighed and shook my head.

  She held the paper toward me.

  “You might as well keep it,” I told her. On my way back to the sofa, I stuffed Tony’s wallet into my pocket.

  “What made you think this was his address?”

  “I found it in his wallet. I just assumed it was where he lived. Pretty stupid, huh?”

  From the look in Judy’s eyes, she seemed to agree. But she didn’t make any sort of crack about it. All she said was, “You should’ve checked his driver’s license.”

  “He didn’t have it with him.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “He’d gotten it revoked.”

  She gasped. “You’re kidding!”

  “No. They took it away from him about a week ago. For drunk driving and leaving the scene of an accident.”

  “My God! An accident?”

  “It wasn’t anything serious. Nobody got hurt. But Tony sped off, afterward. He got caught about a mile away. He was lucky he didn’t end up in jail.”

  “Poor Tony,” Judy said.

  “Yeah. He’s been having a hard time of it, lately. He just can’t get over losing you.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Anyway, that’s why he didn’t have a license. When I found the address in his wallet, I just automatically figured it must be where he lived. So here I am. Guess I would’ve figured out something was wrong when none of his keys fit the door.”

  “I heard you trying them,” Judy explained.

  Trying to look embarrassed, I asked, “Did I wake you up?”

  “No. I wasn’t asleep. I’d been asleep, but then I had this horrible nightmare that woke me up. Really freaked me out.”

  “I hate nightmares.”

  “Me, too. I think they’re scarier than real life.”

  “Think so?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Nightmares just give you raw fear. If the same stuff happened in real life, you’d still be scared, but you’d also be thinking rationally and trying to figure things out. How to get away, that sort of stuff. In nightmares, all you have is the fear. Just fear, and nothing else. That’s what makes them so terrible.”

  “But you wake up from nightmares,” I pointed out.

  “I sure woke up from this one tonight. And then I wasn’t very eager to fall asleep again. If you go back to sleep too soon, you know, you can wind up back inside the same nightmare. So I got up and went to the bathroom.”

  “That gives me the creeps,” I told her. “Going to the john in the middle of the night. I always think I hear things.”

  “I heard you trying to unlock the door.”

  “Oh, wow. That must’ve freaked you out.”

  “I didn’t think it was my door. I thought it might be the one across the hall. But the sounds went on a lot longer than they should’ve, so I looked out the peephole.”

  “And there I was.”

  “There you were.”

  “You sure scared the hell out of me, opening the door like that.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Judy said. “I just thought you looked like you needed help.”

  “You were ri
ght about that.”

  She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, just looked at me like maybe she was worried about hurting my feelings or making me mad. Then she said, “Now it’s Tony who needs the help.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t blame you for what you did to him,” she said. “I’m sure he deserved it. Maybe even worse. But…I owe him. If I hadn’t dumped him, none of this bad stuff would’ve happened tonight.”

  Funny, but she was absolutely right about that.

  Then she said, “It sounds as if he’s…come apart at the seams.”

  “He really has,” I said.

  13

  RINGING UP THE DEAD GUY

  “I just can’t leave him out there,” Judy told me.

  “He’s probably on his way home, by now.”

  “But he was still unconscious when you drove off and left him, wasn’t he?”

  “Dead to the world.”

  “So for all we know, he might still be out cold.”

  “I guess it’s possible,” I admitted. “Look, I have an idea. Why don’t you give him a call?”

  It seemed like a fine idea. Judy didn’t know that he’d moved to a new apartment. She would obviously dial his old number and get a recorded message explaining that Tony’s phone was out of service.

  “Maybe he’s already home by now,” I added.

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Judy leaned forward in the big, old chair and stood up. Her phone was on the lamp table near the end of the sofa. As she walked over and picked it up, she said, “I can’t imagine he’s home, though. Not if he had to walk.” She picked up the handset and started to tap in a number. “It’s an awfully long way from Miller’s Woods to his place.”

  “Especially if you’re bare-ass naked,” I said.

  Which made her laugh. “You’re terrible,” she said.

  “Yep.”

  Listening at the earpiece, she suddenly frowned. “His number’s been changed,” she muttered. “They’re going to…” She stopped to listen.

  They’re giving her the new number! I couldn’t even begin to figure out the ramifications of that.

  While I sat there, stunned, she tapped in a series of numbers.

  A moment later, she met my eyes and said, “It’s his machine.”

  “Maybe you’d better hang up.”

  “He might be monitoring.”