Fitzroy pulls himself out of the flesh pile and stands up, his pants bunched at his ankles, his black boxers propped up by his boner. He looks at me, then at Krista.
“Camera?”
Krista darts toward the girls, yanks a vase off the end table, and heaves it at me. I duck, and it bounces off the bathroom doorframe.
I hunch down, ready for attack, one eye on the door.
Fitzroy stands there. “Camera?”
“Stephen,” I hobble toward the door. “It’s . . .”
“Danny, what are you doing? A camera?”
Krista heaves a huge picture book at me—pages fluttering—and misses badly.
“Danny, what is this?”
The girls are way ahead of him. They start to shriek and scatter. A can of Coke sails wide right, but a glass coaster nails me in the gut, brings me to my knees.
“Stephen.” I get back to my feet. “It’s just . . .”
Fitzroy sees the shame on my face, realizes something is really wrong, and takes a step, only to trip on the wad of gabardine around his ankles. He crashes to the ground and struggles to look up at me. “What the hell is she talking about, Danny?”
“The camera.” Krista nearly growls. “Get it.”
Burly Buns booms, “Perv.”
Another one yells, “Stop the perv.”
But they all back up.
Fitzroy sits up, kicks his slacks off, and gets right-sided. He gazes at the contraption in my hand, mumbles wide-eyed, as if in a daze, “Camera?”
“Stephen.” I stick the tape box in my back pocket, bunch my shoulders. “It’s a long story. Little Red and High Rider.”
“What?”
“They made me do it.”
Now it’s really sinking in. His face reddens. “You’ve been taping me?” He steps forward, realizes my size advantage, and halts.
“I’m sorry, Stephen. . . . This thing . . . I mean.”
Fitzroy glares at me, then springs into action, shouting: “Four thousand dollars to the girl who brings me that tape.” He points to Burly Buns. “Lock that door.”
At which point, more than a dozen half-naked college girls spread out.
Encircling. Closing in. Their lips curled back, their shoulders in.
Projectiles loaded and ready for launch.
Within seconds I am swarmed and brought down. Hammer fists rain down on my face. Hard kicks and, worse, stomps to my chest. Legs and arms and breasts and even asses press against my face, my throat, my stomach, my arms and legs—all of it fused into a hot, sticky mass of aggression.
I twist and roll, in mad, searing pain, clenching my back pocket in a final, desperate attempt to keep the tape.
Get up, Danny. Get up now.
“Sit on him.”
“No, roll him over.”
From the couch, Fitzroy sounds so casual. “Okay, five thousand.”
The frenzy intensifies. They roll me over. Someone pulls my fingers in opposite directions. I pull back and cry for mercy. My fingers pop, and pain explodes up my arm. I pull myself loose. But finally, of course, a small hand digs into my back pocket and snatches out the tape box.
A petite blonde thrusts the box above her head. “I got it!”
“Bring it here, baby, and claim your reward.”
Burly Buns roars, “No, I had it.”
Another girl says, “I’m the one who got him to let go.”
The mob shifts off me as they follow the blonde. I sit up and cradle my hand as Burly Buns, Krista, and four others tackle the blonde.
“That was mine.”
“Get off.”
“We should split it.”
“I said, get off me, you moose.”
“Hey . . . ow!”
“Stop!”
“You stop!”
“Hold her down.”
“Bitch.”
The hotel room is starting to resemble a rugby scrum: bodies pressing, teeth gritting, people moaning. The blonde is in the middle, and Burly Buns and another girl have her arm. The tape box goes flying, and the girls scream. Soon it’s being kicked and swatted all around the room, as each of them struggles to gain possession.
“Bring it here,” Fitzroy drawls, “and get your five thousand.”
Krista picks it up and darts to him, only to get gang-tackled by the mob.
Then . . . a heavy pounding on the door.
Silence.
More pounding. “Open up!”
I recognize that voice immediately. What the hell is he doing here?
The girls freeze, looking at each other, wondering what to do. Fitzroy gets up and reaches for his slacks.
“Hotel security. Open up now.”
The girls scramble, some darting to the bathroom, others grabbing their clothes.
Fitzroy steps into his slacks. “Coming,” he chimes sweetly. “Just a sec.”
And I notice the tape box under an ottoman.
Fitzroy opens the door and looks down.
It’s High Rider, in a powder-blue collar shirt, orange Bermudas, and yellow flip-flops. He’s talking into a bullhorn, through gritted teeth.
I can’t believe he’s here.
Fitzroy squints down at him. “You’re not hotel security.”
I crawl to the ottoman, shove the tape box down my front pocket, and stand up.
Fitzroy turns to me. “Is this guy your partner? He’s the brains and you’re the muscle?”
High Rider steps forward and barks into the bullhorn. “Back up, Fitzy.”
Fitzroy stumbles backward, and High Rider clicks the door shut.
“What are you doing here?”
Through the bullhorn: “Collecting what is mine.”
“But you wanted me to—”
“Follow the plan,” he snaps. “Which you obviously couldn’t accomplish.”
Krista steps forward, tries to pull up her jeans, and huffs, “Who’s got the tape?”
High Rider yells into the bullhorn, his tiny voice gravelly. “Back up, hussies.”
No one does.
High Rider bluffs a charge, and they back up a little.
Fitzroy has his cell to his ear. “Five thousand dollars, ladies.”
High Rider points at him. “Put that down.”
“Someone secure the door,” Fitzroy says. “In fact, three thousand dollars to the girls who can control and detain our little friend here.”
I get ready to bolt.
Krista is scanning the floor. “Where’s the tape?”
Fitzroy keeps the cell to his cheek and turns away from us. “Hey, Ed. It’s me. Listen, I have a problem here.”
“PUT THAT PHONE DOWN.”
Some of the girls are creeping up on High Rider, others are searching the room.
Fitzroy glances at us. “Yeah, the InterContinental. . . . No, they’re here.”
Burly Buns hollers, “Now!”
Mayhem.
High Rider screams into the bullhorn, which is quickly yanked away and heaved against the wall. Within a flash he’s pulled down, swallowed up by the pack.
I backpedal to the door.
Krista frowns at my front pocket and points. “He’s got it.”
Lamps and wine bottles are suddenly inbound, end over end.
I duck, turn, and bolt for the door.
“STOP THE PERV!”
Scrambling down the hotel stairway, grimacing, I can hear them close behind.
Get off on a random floor, Dan.
Footsteps getting closer.
The others will be waiting for me in the lobby.
Someone in heels, closing in.
Get off on a random floor, find a service closet.
Suddenly, the heel clicking ceases and I’m slammed from behind. Someone clamps on to my back and sends me stumbling forward, seconds from crashing into the stairs. Krista’s red hair slides over my eyes. “Perv,” she grunts, and sinks her nails into my forehead and brows. “Fucking greedy little perv.”
I stop on the landing for the third floor and twirl, trying to shake her. Nothing doing. She slides a forearm under my chin.
“I got him,” she yells into the air. “I got him.”
She bites into my ear and growls, the hot vibration sending shivers down my body.
More footsteps in the stairway.
Oh God.
I bite into her forearm and shake violently. Krista screams and releases me, tumbles to the floor. “ASSHOLE,” she yells, tugging her bikini top back into place. “You fucking ASSHOLE.”
I dash down the stairway, faster than I would have thought possible, the clamor of this cadre of motivated women in lingerie and two-pieces intensifying behind me, their cash lust and vengeance churning to a froth.
The stairway exit dumps me into a side alley, where I find three more bikinied women. One of them yells into her cell phone, “He’s here. Down in the south alley.”
Another one says to the others, “We split it. We get the tape here, split the money three ways.”
I square myself.
They charge.
I feel my lip curl back.