Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [68]
“Why you lookin’ at Malcolm like that?” he asked her. “There something you want to say? Is there, baby?”
Jennifer nodded her head.
“What, baby?” Malcolm said in a voice that for him passed as soft and concerned. “Tell me.”
Jennifer drew up all that was left of her strength, took in one more long breath, and then spoke her very first words since Malcolm had taken her finger.
“Fuck you,” she said.
Malcolm reacted with a rage not even Jennifer could have imagined. He jumped to his feet, dropped the knife to the floor, and began punching her, his two closed fists balled into stone. He forgot all about Junior and cleaning Jennifer up for his approval. His fury was unleashed now, and there was no reeling it back.
His punches landed hard, heavy, and often, smashing bone and breaking skin. Within minutes there wasn’t a part of Jennifer’s body that wasn’t bruised, bleeding, or broken. When he tired of throwing punches and landing kicks, Malcolm grabbed her hair and slammed the front of her head against the base of the cold radiator.
“Talk to me like that?” Malcolm shouted. “After all I done for you. You bitch! You spoiled, rich, fuckin’ bitch! You gonna die here. You gonna die for talkin’ to me like that.”
Malcolm’s words were heard by no one.
Jennifer was long past hearing him, her mind having entered a warm room surrounded by familiar sounds, smells, and features. A room where she would be loved and trusted. A room where no intruder would ever be allowed in to cause her harm.
A room far away, removed from blood, pain, and misery.
A room that would always remain unknown to a crazed man named Malcolm Juniper.
And a room where the shadows of Boomer Frontieri and Dead-Eye Winthrop would soon loom large.
• • •
JUNIOR CAME CRASHING and flailing through the wooden front door, crying out in pain as he landed on his hands and knees, his right hand inches from the handle of Malcolm’s bloody knife. Boomer and Dead-Eye stood in the entry way behind him, arms out straight, guns cocked and drawn, aimed at Malcolm’s head.
“Move away from the girl,” Boomer told Malcolm, looking down at the still body. “I want you with your back to the wall and your hands out flat.”
Malcolm let go of Jennifer’s hair, took two steps back, and pressed his body against the wall. He was breathing through his mouth, his body tense and coated with a foul-smelling sweat.
Boomer stepped over Junior, sliding the gun back into his hip holster as he walked over to his friend’s daughter. He crouched down and held her battered face, wiped away strands of hair and brushed off lines of blood and mucus. He slid his hand down to her neck and felt for a pulse. It was beating at a low rate, just enough to keep her alive.
“She needs a doctor fast.” Boomer cradled Jennifer’s head with both hands. Fighting both the impulse to cry and the desire to kill, he turned to Malcolm. “Where are the keys to the cuffs? And I don’t wanna hear anything more outta you than the fuckin’ answer.”
Malcolm kept his eyes square on the barrel of Dead-Eye’s gun. “Front pocket of my jeans.”
Boomer rested Jennifer’s head against the wall and took four quick steps over to Malcolm’s jeans, which were crumpled in the center of the room. He picked them up and took out a tiny set of silver keys. Along with the keys, Boomer pulled out a business card, black with white lettering. He pocketed the card and walked back to Jennifer. It was then that he noticed the missing finger.
Malcolm ran a dry tongue over an even drier set of lips. Sweat dripped down the small of his back and he couldn’t stop the right side of his face from twitching.
Boomer uncuffed Jennifer, brought her arm down gently to her side. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wrapped it around the top of her hand. As the girl let out a soft whimper of pain, he held Jennifer in his arms and lifted her