Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [125]
"I've got my own handcuffs. I can twist right out of them if I have to. Can I loop them around the back of this chair?"
"Sure, honey. Go ahead. Bend forward. More. Give your butt a little shake. Beautiful."
Sound of handcuffs clicking. "You don't put me down for it?"
"Why should I?"
"Some of the other girls…"
"You got a pimp?"
"No."
"So who's the masochist?"
Bambi laughed.
162
THE GIRLS were gone by one in the morning. "You're next," she told Belle.
I snapped the lead on Pansy, taking her to the basement. The Mole followed me down, shining his flash. "All fixed," he said.
"Okay, Mole. We roll tomorrow for real. Any way I can get Pansy down here without going past the other rooms?"
"Only to the basement, not outside."
"We'll do it that way. Over in that corner," I said, pointing. "Watch where you step from now on."
We went back upstairs. "Try the buzzer," I told him. He hit the switch. I counted in my head. Thirty–five seconds, Morales burst through the door, gun in his hand. "Which way?" he snapped.
"Just testing it," I said.
"Next time make it real. I'm looking forward to it."
163
IN THE back room. Michelle was working on Belle's face. Cat's–eye makeup, pancaked cheeks, slash of red across her mouth. It didn't look like her. "This is mousse—it'll wash right out," said Michelle, spraying it over Belle's hair, working it through with her fingers. "Let's see…You'll turn over your right shoulder"—pancaking that side of her face. "Try it."
Belle peeked over her right shoulder. Her hair was dark, face a stranger's mask.
"Okay, let's do it."
Belle unhooked her bra, knelt before the chair, hands on either side. Michelle wrapped a black scarf around each hand. "Slide further back to me," she said. "Let them swing free. Turn your head….Not so much."
She went over to Belle, pulling the big girl's panties over her rump. Belle lifted a leg to help her get them off.
"Leave them that way—like they've just been pulled down—it'll work better."
Michelle went back to the camera. "Okay, turn your head again. Just a little bit. Can you look a little scared? Oh, forget it—I'll open the lens, blur your face. Nobody'd look past that ass anyway."
Belle giggled. Twin dimples at the top of her butt, strip of black cloth around her thighs. The shutter clicked. Again. She shook her butt at the camera.
"Got it," Michelle said, then snapped off the lights, carried the camera out to the front.
The cigarette burned my mouth. I ground the tip out in the ashtray. Belle was still on her knees, watching me.
"Make you think of something good?" she asked, wiggling again. Then she saw my face. "What's wrong, honey?"
I walked over to her, took the loops off her hands. She put her arms around my neck. I stood up, hauling her to her feet. Reached behind me, pulled the panties back into place.
"Go wash that crap off your face."
"You're mad at me?"
I held her against me. "I'm not mad at you."
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. Truly sorry. I thought it would be a turn–on for you."
"It made me sick to look at it."
Her tears against my face. "I'm sorry….I'm sorry…."
I squeezed her rear with both hands. "Shut up," I said, quietly.
164
THE JOINT was open and rolling the next afternoon. Michelle was there by eleven in the morning, her arms full of bags. She and Belle worked like maniacs cleaning. The dump even smelled clean when they were done.
I stayed in the back room. The Mole would buzz me if any Hispanic male came in, anyone that could come within a half–mile of Ramón. I checked the periscope a few times on the little TV screen the Mole put on the desk. It worked perfectly.
I spent my time checking my tools. Supermarket shopping cart full of empty plastic one–liter bottles. The kind street bums collect from garbage cans—turn them in for a nickel apiece. I ran a few copies of the Daily News through a paper shredder. Packed a half–dozen of the bottles with the paper. I filed the front sight off the long–barreled .38. A couple of tiny slits with a razor blade and the barrel