Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [108]
"What name?"
"Mortay," I said. "Mor–tay."
"What that mean?"
"In Spanish, it means 'death.'"
Mama bowed again. "In Chinese, means 'dead man.'"
I bowed back. Goodbye.
130
THE BACK staircase was quiet. I checked the pieces of tape I left behind. Still in place. The trip–wires were still attached in the hall. I let myself in. Pansy was at her post. "Where's Belle?" I asked her. The beast let out a halfhearted snarl. I bent to give her a pat. Her breath smelled like formaldehyde.
Belle was in the next room. On her back on the gym mat I keep there. Nude, covered with a sheen of sweat. "Twenty more," she said, her hands locked behind her head. She was doing killer sit–ups, up fast, down slow. Muscles rippled under the soft skin.
"How many do you do?"
"Two hundred a day, six days a week. The only difference between me and a fat pig is a small waist. I damn near killed myself to get this light, I'm not gonna be backsliding."
I lit a smoke, went back into the office room. Pansy didn't want to go out.
Belle came back inside, toweling herself off. "Pansy was watching me work out for a while—I guess she got bored."
"She heard the door."
"Oh." She slapped the outside of a thigh. "Only way I can get these any smaller is plastic surgery."
"They're perfect just the way they are."
She moved next to me. "I'm glad you said that."
"Because you weren't getting plastic surgery no matter what, right?"
"No, because I would if you wanted."
I gave her a kiss. "Help me off with this," I said, taking the pin from my jacket pocket. Belle slowly peeled back the bandage, working her way to the Velcro tab. "When I pull the tab, you wrap your hand around mine while I slip in the pin; my hand may be cramped."
Her forehead furrowed in concentration—her hands were steady. I popped the tab, squeezing the lever as hard as I could. My hand felt dead. Belle wrapped both of her hands around mine. Her knuckles were white. I slipped in the pin. "Let go," I said.
Her face was sweaty. "I can't."
"Come on, Belle. It's okay. Come on…."
I watched her hands unlock slowly. Suddenly she pulled them away, closing her eyes. I grabbed the grenade in my right hand, slipped it into the desk drawer. My left hand was a claw.
"Go in the bathroom. Get me the little jar of Tiger Balm, okay?"
She opened her eyes. Went off without a word. Came back with the jar of red ointment. "Rub it into my hand. All over, hard as you can."
She worked my hand like she was rubbing oil into leather. I couldn't feel a thing. "Does it burn?" she asked.
"It'll get warm, that's all. Once you're done, I need to wrap it."
I sat on the couch. Belle came back with a towel. Sat down next to me on my left side, squirmed against me so my right arm was around her. She twisted sideways, took my left hand, and put it between her breasts. She pressed them together. "Pull the blanket over me," she said. I did it. In a few minutes, I could feel the heat. I wiggled my fingers, working the cramps out. "That stuff won't burn you," I promised. "Don't care if it does," she said, making sweet little sounds in her throat.
"How many beers did you give Pansy?"
"Just three."
"Damn! That's the most she's ever had. No wonder she looks glazed."
"I wanted her to like me."
"You can't buy stuff like that."
"I wasn't buying it. I just wanted to do something nice for her."
"Okay."
"You sleepy?"
"A little bit."
"Go to sleep, baby," she said.
I closed my eyes, my hand between her breasts, warm.
131
PANSY'S GROWL woke me up, her snout inches from my face. It wasn't an emergency; she just wanted to use her roof.
"All that beer, huh?" I asked her, disentangling myself from Belle.
When I came back inside, Belle was on the couch, the blanket pulled up to her chin.
"Where're we going to sleep?"
"You sleep right there. Go ahead, I got work to do."
"You going out?"
"No. I got to put things together," I said, working my left hand. It was fine. I stacked the news clips in a pile, started to sort through what I had so far. The street maps