Killing Castro - Lawrence Block [33]
“It’s about time,” he said. And he stepped toward her.
She understood the meaning if not the words. She had been scrubbing a cast iron skillet, and as he moved at her she threw the skillet at him, aiming for his face. He brushed it aside with one hand, then moved to kick aside the Sten gun she was reaching for. She started to scramble to her feet but he slapped her hard on the side of her face and she fell down again.
“Now,” he said.
He fell on her, roughly, savage and blind with his hunger. She fought him, her nails driving for his face, for his eyes, but he pinned her hands behind her back and tore the field jacket open. Beneath it she wore only a white T-shirt, no brassiere. He ripped the T-shirt from her body. Her breasts were enticing mounds of golden flesh, the tips dark and taut, and he filled his hands with them, squeezing her, hurting her.
There was terror in her eyes now, terror mingling with fear, hatred, loathing and anger. He ignored all this. He was impatient, a stallion aching to mount a mare. He tore at her pants, at the damned khaki pants she always wore. He got them down over her hips, over her thighs, down to her knees. Her underpants were wispy white nylon and he shredded them.
“Don’t fight,” he said, not caring that she could not understand him. “Don’t fight, don’t give me a hard time. Just relax and enjoy it. It won’t be so bad, you little bitch. Just relax. You might like it.”
But she fought. One knee tried for his groin but he swerved his body and blocked the blow with his hips. One hand got loose, went for his throat, but he caught the hand and bent it back against her wrist until she moaned with pain. The knee tried again, and this time he lost patience, burying a hamlike fist in the softness of her flat stomach so that she doubled up in agony and made a sound like a man when you shot him in the guts with a small-caliber pistol.
He hit her again, in the same spot, and the fight sagged out of her like air from a punctured tire. He struggled with his own clothing now, opened his pants, readied himself.
There was a gunshot. A bullet passed far over Garth’s head. Garth froze, waiting.
Then a voice. Fenton’s. Harsh, cold, crisp, unafraid.
“Get up, Garth. Get up, you pig, or I’ll shoot you where you are. I’ll kill you, Garth.”
There was no room for doubt in the tone of the little man’s voice. It was not easy for Garth to get up. He was primed, ready, and it was not at all easy to give up now when the prize was there on the ground ready to be taken.
He got up.
“Button your pants. Then get the hell away from her, Garth, and stay away from her. Because if you go near her again I’ll kill you. You’re an animal, Garth. Get away from her and leave her alone.”
Garth walked away, ashamed and bitter. He hated Fenton and he hated the girl and he loathed himself with a flat, dull loathing. He had had her there and he had not taken her. That rat Fenton had fouled things up, that rat bastard.
He went back to his blanket and found his cigarettes.
The café was on Calle de las Mujeres Bonitas, the street of the pretty women. There were no pretty women around, none that Turner could see. But he was not anxious to meet any, not just now. Now all he wanted to do was sit where he was sitting, sip the glass of good red wine he had at hand, and talk with Ernesto.
Ernesto was a thick-set Cuban with a walrus mustache and sleepy eyes, a man’s man who talked easily, swore freely, drank heavily and, if he was to be believed, fornicated incessantly. Turner had met him there, at the café, two days ago. Turner had bought him a glass of wine. Then Ernesto had returned the favor. They took a table together and talked.
They were talking now.
“It seems to me that you have no problem,” Ernesto was saying in Spanish. “You have killed a whore and her lover, true? And so the North American police would hang you.”