Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [58]
“You must be somebody special,” Malcolm said, eyes glaring down at the unformed breasts, “cops be chasin’ me way they did.”
Jennifer looked at the man she once believed would help her find her brother and tried to form the words to beg for her release. She forced her eyes to wipe away the blurry images and bring Malcolm Juniper into a clear focus. Her throat burned and her damaged body ached and she wanted more than anything to be back in the safe womb of the New Jersey home she so often used to think of as a dull prison.
It seemed like months since he had driven her around the Port Authority area for the better part of an hour, a concerned look etched across his brow, playing the role of Good Samaritan. He parked and ran out to buy her a Pepsi and a hot dog from an all-night stand, returning with the food, a smile, and a sincere reassurance that her brother would be found.
Jennifer grew tired, eyelids itching and burning from lack of sleep. Long bus rides tended to make her groggy, and that, coupled with the anxiety over losing Anthony, made it all the easier for her to ease into the backseat of the car, as Malcolm suggested, and curl up to nap while he continued his search, looking for a boy he had no intention of finding.
She woke up with his mouth over her lips, his hands sliding up and down her body, both their pants down around the ankles, a sharp burning pain between her legs. Her eyes bubbled over with fear; his were lit by contempt.
He forced himself on her for the better part of three hours, slapping her face and arms, running lit matches down the sides of her thighs and across her breasts during his restful moments. He poured cheap whiskey down her throat, laughing with glee when she coughed up the foul taste. He lit a crack pipe and forced the smoke of the cooked cocaine into her lungs, holding her head back, pushing her down deep into the rear cushion of the car.
They were parked in an abandoned lot near the Fourteenth Street meat market, the windows rolled up and steamed with breath and smoke, an overhead streetlight casting the car in its cloudy glow. He cuffed her hand to one door handle and her foot to another and forced a handkerchief into her mouth while he went out for cigarettes. He came back a short time later with another man, stoop-shouldered, haggard, and crazed, and let him have at her for the price of a Big Mac and a large Coke.
She blacked out during the final rape, letting the pain, the drugs, and the drink whisk her away on a blanket of dreams.
When she woke, she was handcuffed to a radiator, head pounding, dried blood and semen caked to her body. She opened her eyes slowly, the room revealing itself in an array of shadows as streams of light flashed in from the streets outside. Her legs felt weighed down and her arms were cold and numb, dangling from the pipe above her head. She had trouble breathing, the insides of her lungs and nostrils scorched from their cocaine and whiskey diet.
Malcolm Juniper stood above her, wearing only a pair of brown socks, a crazed smile on his face, crack pipe in his right hand, kitchen knife dangling from his left.
“We’re low,” Malcolm said, running the crack pipe past her eyes. “More’s on the way. Junior’s gettin’ over a fresh load that’ll turn your eyes. Won’t be long.”
Jennifer stared up at him, biting down on her lower lip, her teeth breaking through the cracked and sore exterior, droplets of blood forming on the edges.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.
The words pressed themselves out slowly, each one enclosed in layers of pain and embarrassment. She wanted so much to cry, to shout out for help, but couldn’t muster the strength required. Instead, she took in another long, painful breath and asked him again, “Are you going to kill me?”
Malcolm Juniper crouched down and rested the crack pipe on the floor between them. He brought the sharp end of the knife up across the side of Jennifer’s neck and pressed it tight against her skin. He reached up and rubbed her arms with his free hand.
“Killin