Chapter 13
Rita Danilov knew J.B. had failed her. Fontaine would never come. Shivering inside the open-ended packing case, watching the lonely yellow lights in the apartments across the river, the girl began to cry again quietly.
What a fool she'd been to think she mattered to Fontaine. The big guy had only taken her because she'd forced him. Practically raped him. What a laugh! What a stupid, dirty, joke, this deluding herself into believing Fontaine's tenderness had been anything more than his normal way of having a woman.
Rita had blown it up into some grand passion, some big affair. She was a wretched little fool. Wasn't j.B.'s prolonged absence proof? She could lie here all night thinking sweet pretty dreams about big Fontaine and he'd never come to find help for her.
Hell, that was a disgusting joke too. No doctor could help her, except perhaps as the school doctor had helped her, by flinging her on her back and letting her have it.
Disillusioned, mind filled with half-formed thoughts she didn't quite understand, Rita faced up to reality: the reality that Fontaine didn't give a damn whether she lived or died.
Right this minute he was probably laughing himself sick over J.B.'s pitiful appeal. What? he'd say. Go with you to the dump to help that little nympho? That dumb broad who never even finished high school? She's sick in the head, don't you know that? Nobody can help her, nobody except a sex maniac maybe, a guy ready to go every minute-
Like a cruel, serrated knife disemboweling her, Rita felt the love-urge in her loins.
She attempted to fight it:
My God not again! Don't let it start when Fontaine won't come, when there's no one to have me-
She lay in the corner of the wooden case, fingers beginning to tremble uncontrollably. Without volition she found her hands stealing to her sweater. Suddenly she was gnashing her teeth and moaning, rolling her buttocks over the floor of the case.
Distantly, voices called and clamored. She paid scant attention, thinking them illusions, creatures of her heated mind.
In the smoke-blowing dark her face was pale, tortured, unholy, her lipstick framing a mechanical smile as she caressed her rounded thighs. The night had turned chilly, but Rita couldn't tell it. She was sweating, sweating with the need for fulfillment.
Stop! Rita screamed at herself in a frightful moment of sanity. Stop before something unspeakable happens-."
It was already too late.
It had been too late long before she took her first boy on Hamilton Street. It had been too late long before the school doctor had her or Fontaine had her or any of the rest. Why not surrender to debasement? Why not meet the devil face to face? No hell was too low, no act too degraded once she gave herself completely to the mania she'd foolishly tried to fight so long.
Useless to fight it now. The burning in her calves, the beating in her hips-the hot jets of desire wrenching her pelvis side to side transformed her to a mindless thing.
The voices, louder, had a false, unnatural ring. Like voices of nightmare goblins chittering in an evil .dream.
This was no dream. This was reality. The inflamed reality of her most personal being that find relief-any way.
Over here, Whitey! Over this way."
"Over here, Whitey! Over this way."
"What is it, Viper?"
Rita ought to recognize the voices. She couldn't quite.
"What is it, man, you hear something?"
"Somebody's moanin', Whitey. Hurry up. Sounds like they're hurt-? Whitey?
Wasn't that a name Rita knew? Who was Whitey?
Where had she known Whitey before?
Impossible to think. Impossible to make the slightest sense when all that mattered was tearing away her panties, bringing her body into the air for blessed relief-
"Comin' from inside that big case. Wait a sec, I'll look and-holy God!"
Rita's eyes opened slightly. They were so misted with passion that the spindly silhouette standing out against the lights of the interstate bridge had fuzzy edges, no clarity. It hung in front of her like an ebony scarecrow, looking down in amazement.
Other figures bulked behind it suddenly, jostling for a peek. Finally a shape taller than all of them shouldered the black forms out of the way and crouched near her as she rolled and bit her lips and rubbed her palms wildly this way and that over the surging, heaving softness of her belly.
"Hey, pussycat, you hear me?"
"Jeezamighty, Viper, looka that!" another boy gasped. "Ain't that something?"
"She's nuts," replied a voice that must have belonged to Viper, whoever he was. "I always said the little twist was nuts and now she's nipped all the way."
"Pretty worked up, aren't you, Rita?" came the harsh tones of the crouching boy, the one whose male reek Rita scented through quivering nostrils. A soft thud. The kid dropped to his knees, rested his hand on her naked stomach.
He slid his fingers up to the pulsing fabric of her brassiere.
"Yeah, you're really goin' to town. Well, you better stop. Whitey's got a score to settle."
Rita's voice was a mad buzz in her own ears: "Whoever you are-listen-take off your clothes-"
"Whoever I am, huh?"
The kneeling kid rose up, shuddering-angry. "I'm Whitey, pussycat, Whitey Noonan. The guy you cheated on by flopping for that jerk Fontaine. Damn it, say something! Don't just lie there squealing-"
The last word came out a guttural bark, timed to the crash of his heavy shoe against her left breast.
As if a veil had been torn aside by the pain, Rita recognized him. Temporarily the madness of her body simmered lower. She lay on her elbows, gulping and gasping for breath. Whitey stood above her, fists balled. His name, his identity registered.
"Long time finding you, pussycat," Whitey said. "The dump's a hell of a big place. The longer I looked, the madder I got. Because Whitey Noonan's girls don't cheat on him."
He emphasized his words with another kick that tore her vitals with agony.
Curiously, Rita's mind seemed to function on two levels. On one level, the lowest and weakest, there was total horror as she told herself that the end had come. If she wasn't to be killed, she would became the victim of that fever-heat still lashing her on the second, more powerful level of her thinking.
Whitey's hand dove into the pocket of his Cobra jacket. From that hand sprang gleaming steel.
"I'm gonna cut you to tatters, pussycat. I'm gonna peel the skin right off you. Starting here."
His hands probbed her thighs.
Rita grappled for his neck:
"Whitey-Whitey-I don't care-I don't give a damn what you do-only take me! Come on and take me."
Astounded, Whitey stayed the knife-point a fraction of an inch above her belly.
"What?"
"Look at her!" That was Viper, whispering. "God, Whitey-"
Whitey whistled in wonder:
"Man, I never knew I had such a nut on my hands."
"Please, Whitey," Rita sobbed. "Please!" Viper slid forward, tapped Whitey's shoulder. "Why not, huh Whitey?"
"What do you mean why not? I came here to fix her, man."
"Ain't there other ways to fix her?" Viper's hands fluttered pale in the dark, in lewd explanation. Whitey gave a flat chuckle.
"Yeah, Yeah, man! You're a thinker. A real thinker."
The jingle of Whitey's belt buckle told her that everything would be all right now. A dazed smile twitched the corners of her smeared mouth as she kicked her right leg free of her panties, lifting her hips slightly in invitation, her arms thrown wide to welcome him.
A rustle of clothing as Whitey prepared. Then his hands, big and brutal on her flanks and buttocks.
Laughter rocked the walls of the packing case, laughter from the Cobras who crowded in, a tight circle of hot-eyed watchers. The touch of Whitey's hands aroused Rita even further, made her belly boil with the urge for satiation.
"Easy, lover!" she panted, reaching for him with convulsing fingers. "Easy a minute-Whitey?"
An outraged scream, echoed by laughter from the boys.
"Whitey?"
Her hands groped for empty darkness as she howled in pain:
"What are you doing? No, Whitey-no!" In the name of God, don't"
The torment was unendurable, hideous. Her whole body was livid with pain as he worked his cruel will on her. Rita tried to claw away from him, drag herself across the floor of the packing case. She couldn't.
She felt his filthy body violate hers, ripping her to pieces. Then, as the final torment, the capping touch to the monstrous evil engulfing her-she was liking it.
One of the boys called far off:
"Whitey, look at her grin!"
"Grinning, is she? I'll make her scream!"
Lost, lost! Rita thought, drumming her fists on the floor of the packing case in rhythm with Whitey's vicious assaults. Lost, better dead. Bring the dark. Bring death to cover me and wipe out this horror!
"She likes it! Oh my God she likes it, she likes it!" chanted a distant voice.
"Kill her, that's what I'll do, kill her!" Whitey groaned.
All sense and sanity left Rita then, every last trace of human thought, and she offered her body completely to the evil that was coursing through her like a poison. On a last depraved peak of ecstasy she bit her hand all the way to the bone.
Blood tasted warm, faintly salty on her lips. Rita welcomed the relief of sudden blackness creeping across her dead end brain.
"You're next," said Whitey.
Viper started on her. There was no relief after all.
From four blocks away Brick Fontaine saw the hellish glare against the sky.
He heard the wail of the fire sirens, and began to run. Without being certain of how he knew, he was sure the beacon of light over Hamilton Street was Peabody House aflame.
Elaine Olsen's betrayal-the cruel assault upon her--the crumbling of his hopes and plans for redeeming himself for having let Chip die while he pursued his own life-all these slipped away from Brick as his shoes slapped concrete. He ran as he'd never run before, more purposefully than he'd ever run while driving for the goal posts on Sunday afternoons all but forgotten now.
His lungs began to ache with exertion. Sobs of anger tore from his mouth as he rounded a corner, stumbled against a building.
Peabody House was in flames.
Coming from the motor lodge, he'd approached the settlement from the playground side. At first all he was only conscious of the fire, the wall of light reaching to the sky, a sheet of yellow-scarlet whose incredible heat scorched his cheeks even at this distance. Gradually more pieces of the kaleidoscope dropped into place:
The burnished red enamel sides of the fire trucks.
The water-slicked black rubber of the firemen's coats.
The twisted coils of hose.
The jets of foaming spray arching in to the flames. Fruitlessly Peabody House was already consumed, had already vanished in the holocaust.
Dazed, Brick stumbled across the street toward the gate in the steel-mesh fence.
Abruptly he recognized a black figure hanging goblin-like from the fence. Firelight played on red curls. The girl was watching the destruction with depraved glee.
Brick had no time for Mae Lazar. He had to reach the scene of the fire. But as he was slipping through the gate and starting his run across the asphalt playground, her piercing voice struck him:
"Yah, big man! How do you like the bonfire?"
The taunt spun Brick around, sent him racing for the steel fence, His reason was gone. His only desire was the desire to strike back.
At the last instant he slowed his run, struck the fence, realizing as the steel mesh cracked him in the face that he was beside himself. There was an inflexible wall between Brick and the grinning redhead.
Brick clutched the links as she backed off, hissing:
"Pretty nice, huh, Christer?" Her cheeks were sweaty, her hair disarrayed. She was the very picture of sadistic glee. "Teach you to mess around on Hamilton Street!"
"Who did it?" Brick's voice was a death-whisper. "Who started it?"
"Cobras!" the girl screeched. "The Cobras, Christer! To teach you a lesson. You messed around with Whitey Noonan's girl Rita. Imagine that, a big noble Christer touching a little twist off the streets. Well, that fire isn't even half your trouble, Christer. Right now the Cobras are taking care of your girl!"
Brick's face darkened.
"Taking care-?"
Mae screamed as Brick leaped, caught the upper edge of the fence, kicked a leg over and dropped to the pavement on the other side.
Running backwards, Mae stumbled in the gutter. Brick dropped on her, left knee grinding into her belly. Mae's triumph was gone, turned to naked fright.
Brick's hands were strong on her grimy throat.
"Are you talking about the Danilov girl?" he panted.
He lifted her head, smacked it on the pavement.
"Talk, you lousy little bitch. Tell me or I'll kill you!"
"Rita, yeah, yeah, Rita. Let go-!"
Mae choked for breath, cheeks purpling.
Brick had lost control was driven by wildness:
"Where is she? What happened to her?"
"The river dump," Mae bleated. "Down there someplace-Whitey went after her-"
Brick released her and stood up, drawing huge hurting draughts of air into his lungs. In another moment he would have strangled her without remorse. Now the hysterical urge to strike back drained away, replaced by cold fear.
He left Mae massaging her throat and whimpering in the gutter. He walked toward the river, pushing the already destroyed settlement house from his thoughts, pushing out everything save the single fact that a girl who had appealed to him for help was down there in that fetid wasteland, perhaps dying this very instant, because of him.
Brick broke into a run.
The blocks reeled by. Suddenly he jerked up short, dove into the concealing shadows of an alley.
A band of men moved along a cross-street, etched briefly in the circle of radiance cast on the littered pavement. Disbelieving, Brick saw the burly figure of Detective Kreeg at their head. He recognized several of the men as shop owners along Hell's Half Mile. In their hands-good God! Meat cleavers and tire irons.
Kreeg carried a gun that shone blue-hard in the light.
Then the mob passed, slipped out of sight with stealthy silence.
Brick bolted for the cross-street, searched the dark. The mob had vanished. Heading for the north end of the, dump, he figured. And out to kill.
The dump ran for a considerable stretch along the river. The citizen's vigilance committee-Brick had no doubt now about the composition of Kreeg's force-would have to search from north to south.
What if Rita and the gang were somewhere at the north end?
Which way should he go?
Should he rush back to the precinct, try to find Captain Wadsewski, tell him what his underling was doing in his frantic desire to stamp out the pestilence of Hamilton Street for good and all?
Brick thought of Rita, of her sick, imploring face the night she'd begged him for satisfaction in the settlement office. For a moment he was a man torn apart with uncertainty. Then he realized he had no time to seek the help of the police. If Rita had run to the river, it was because of him. It was his responsibility to save her if he could.
He'd gamble, start his own search from the south end near the interstate bridge.
Clambering across the big rocks which separated Hamilton's dead end from the dumps, Brick paused a moment to snatch up a sharp boulder to use as a weapon. He stood atop the rocks, peering into the smoky waste. The reeking clouds from the smoldering-orange refuse piles obscured details.
Blind panic engulfed him. Without thinking, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called softly:
Rita? Rita?"
Rita, Rita, Rita. The echo bounced off the concrete piers of the bridge.
Listening, Brick detected no clamor from the north end of the dump. He leaped down from the rocks into a soggy pile of garbage, called again:
"Rita? Rita Danilov?"
The shouting was a mistake. It brought figures out of the dark.
They fell upon him with fists and stones. Brick fought, wildly, but there were too many.
A crack on the skull with a shard of concrete and he went down.
The Cobras had him.