Wilderness

"Untie me you bastard bitch fucking bastard untie me."

She kicked her bound feet up and down, banging her helpless heels on the bed in a frenzy of frustration.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, hold still." He slid the bolt on the bedroom door. They'd put it there so the kids wouldn't come in and catch them making love. Now the kids were gone and they usually didn't need it.

"Will you untie me you bitch master."

He took a jackknife from his pocket and sawed through the ropes that held her. Cutting always with the blade edge away from her. He did it all with his left hand. In his right he still held the shotgun.

She sat up on the bed, her knees drawn up, her hands crossed across her breasts, her shoulders bent forward, her head almost touching her knees. She inhaled. Her breath went in long trembling gasps. He shifted the shotgun to his left hand and put his arm around her. She pulled away, then scrambled off the bed and went to the closet. She took out an ankle-length green robe and put it on and zipped it up.

Standing at the foot of the bed she looked at him as he sat with the shotgun held up, barrel toward the ceiling, both barrels cocked.

"They were here when I came home," she said. "I came home from my class and came in the kitchen door and put my briefcase on the table and there they were. Two of them. They had guns and one of them had clothesline coiled up, with the paper label still around it, right like it comes from the store. And I said "What the hell are you doing here," and they took hold of me and pushed me down on the floor and one of them tied my hands behind me and the other one undressed me. I tried to scream but the first one put his hand over my mouth, and then they gagged me and made me walk upstairs with no clothes on and they put me on the bed and tied me up the rest of the way, and then the one who had the rope took his jackknife and scratched my stomach with it and they left."

"Did they say anything?"

She shivered. Her arms were folded tight across her chest and her shoulders hunched. He wanted to put his arms around her and have her bury her face in his shoulder and cry, and he wanted to say There there it's all right. I'm here. Go ahead and cry it out. But he knew if he reached for her she'd shrink away.

"No. It was awful. Neither one ever said a word. Not to me. Not to each other."

"I'm sorry I wasn't here."

She shrugged. "They had guns. You'd have ended up beside me."

"Maybe," he said. "The sons of bitches. I'll kill them if lean." She smiled very faintly.

The phone rang. They both looked automatically at the clock. Four fifteen. It rang again. With the shotgun pointing toward the floor, the hammers still cocked, he stepped to the bedside table on her side where the phone sat. He picked it up with his left hand.

"Hello?"

"You find her yet?" The voice was uneducated, flattened by a Boston accent.

"Find who?"

"Your old lady. The bimbo we left done up like a wet wash in the bedroom."

The fear wasn't a sudden stab anymore. It was a steady hurt that waxed and waned but never vanished. Now it was powerful and he felt weak from it.

"Yeah, I found her," he said.

"See the initials above her snatch?"

Newman nodded.

"Did you?" The voice was harsher.

"Yes. I saw them." He squeezed his hand around the smooth stock of the shotgun where it narrowed at the breech. What if they came and it wouldn't fire. Or there were three of them and they came from different directions. It was hard to swallow.

"You know whose initials they are?"

"AK?"

"Yeah, douche bag, AK. You was talking about him to some people just a couple hours ago."

"Yes." His throat seemed closed. It was hard to squeeze the words out. "Yes, I know whose initials they are."

"Good. Tomorrow you go in and tell those people you were mistaken, douche bag, and that you never seen AK do anything. Right?"

"If I do that you won't bother us?"

"Smart. Smart, douche bag. If you do that you won't never see us again. If you don't we'll come back and kill you both. You see how easy we done up your old lady. We can do you both just as easy. You believe that?"

"Yes."

"Good. And don't think we won't know. You see how fast we knew what was happening? You see how fast we got there. You believe we can find out whatever you do?"

"Yes."

"You go

"Yes."

"Good. Your old lady's got a nice-looking pussy. Be a shame to feed it to the worms."

"I…" There was a click. The flat voice was gone. Newman put the receiver down very carefully.

Janet said, "Was it them?"

Newman nodded.

Janet said, "Call the cops."

Newman shook his head.

"No?" Janet said. "Why the hell not? If you won't, I will."

He shook his head again. "We can't," he said. "Listen." Then he told her about the man with the slicked-back hair and the black woman and Corporal Croft and Lieutenant Vincent. He told her about the picture of Adolph Karl in the book and about seeing Adolph Karl in the lineup. He told her about Croft's warning and promise of protection.

"But they knew so fast. They must have a cop on the payroll," Newman said.

She nodded. "What a fucking mess," she said.

"What could I do. I couldn't just keep jogging when the guy shot the girl."

"I know," she said. "I know."

"I mean, I had to do what I thought was right."

"Yes, always. Sometimes, Aaron, I think you read your own books too much." She shook her head angrily. "Never mind. We can't have a damned argument. We have to think what to do."

"We know what to do. I go in tomorrow and tell the cops that I was wrong. And no matter what they say I stick to it and we keep our mouths shut and lie low. Maybe we should go away." "I can't go away," she said. "I have to work. I have a graduate seminar. I'm up for associate this year. I can't just up and leave, for cris sake "What's more important," he said, "your life or your fucking job?"

"I can't leave my job," she said. "You go and tell the police you were wrong. And that will be the end of it."

"And it won't bother you to think about it?" he said. "You won't feel like they've demeaned us?" He was sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. He looked at the floor.

She snapped her head around at him. "Demeaned? Who demeaned you? Were you stripped naked and gagged with your own underwear? And tied up so tight you couldn't wiggle your toes? You know anything about that?"

"Did they…?"

"Did they fuck me? Did they feel me up? Isn't that a swell question.

No. They just stared at me and didn't say anything and I was lying there on my back with all that rope around me stark naked and they stared at me. You like the scene?" "Shut up," he said.

"And one of them takes out his knife and puts it down there and I thought he was going to cut me wide open and he cut me on the belly.

And I couldn't do a damn thing or even scream. Feel demeaned?" "Shut up," he said. The trapezius muscles on each side of his neck were bunched and his hands were clenched and clamped between his thighs and the muscles in his forearms bulged.

"And then they left," she said. She was breathing a little hard. Her face was flushed. "And I lay there in the dark all tied up with my underwear stuffed in my mouth and didn't know what to do and couldn't do anything anyway and didn't know if you'd be home or not and couldn't get loose. And you're talking demeaned to me? Who the fuck demeaned you?" "Shut up," he said. His voice rose and his shoulders shook. "You're demeaned I'm demeaned. You think it's better to sit here and listen to you talk about how some goddamned hoodlums mistreated you and me not around?"

(c) "It's a lot easier than to have it happen to you, buster."

He stood. His back was to her. He looked out the window at the darkened lawn.