Elsie tried to roll away from him, but he held her fast. Giving her hair a vicious twist, he lowered his voice to a growl.
“Where the fuck is she?”
His face bent close to hers. She could smell his breath, such a vile odor of stale booze that she tried in vain to turn her head.
When she didn’t answer, he released her, flinging her head back onto the mattress. He turned to the empty bed, throwing the bedspread to the floor, as if Desiree might be found beneath it.
The adjoining door opened. A man dressed in camouflage with a cap over his graying hair stood inside the doorway and stared at Tony. He spoke in an impatient voice.
“Where’s the little girl you promised me? The new one?”
Tony ran to the bathroom door and peered inside. The camouflaged man strode into the room behind him, saying, “Goddamn it, you’re not going to screw me over a second time. You’ve lost a paying customer, man.”
And Elsie’s brain fired at the familiar face.
She jerked her arm, screaming. “Help me! I’m a prisoner!”
The camouflaged man turned to face Elsie, taking a step back. When their eyes met, confusion clouded his face. Tony returned to her bedside and slapped her so hard that her head snapped to the side.
The blow made her see stars. She opened her mouth and screamed.
As her vision cleared, she saw the face beneath the bill of the camouflaged customer’s cap again, and knew that she was not mistaken. It was someone she knew.
He bolted from the door, back into the other room. She heard another man’s voice; he said, “What’s going on here, Denny? We didn’t pay for this kind of shit.”
Tony turned and tore back into Room 217. “I can straighten this all out, make this right. I got another girl, a young one. I’ll call her right now.”
Elsie shrieked again, her voice cracking from the strain. “Help me. Call the police. Help me.”
A low voice sounded through the open doorway. “I’m out of here, boys.”
It was a voice she’d heard before.
She raised up on her elbow again, struggling to see through the doorway. The man in camouflage crossed in front of the opening; she caught a final glimpse of him. Her breath hitched in her chest.
The man looked like Dennis Thompson.
And he sounded like Dennis Thompson.
Madeleine’s husband, Dennis Thompson.
Her head reeled as she heard a door slam, booted feet echoing as he departed. Why didn’t he come to her aid? She recognized him; surely, he knew her by sight. In frustration, she howled aloud, her voice drowning out the voices in the next room.
The door opened and shut again; she heard more footfalls running away. In a final effort, she screamed: “911! I’m Elsie Arnold!”
When she paused to gasp for breath, there was no sound of rescue. She was alone, trapped in the bed by the handcuffs. Tony advanced on her with blood in his eye. As he pushed his shirt sleeve to his elbow, he doubled his right fist. “Girl, I’m gonna wear you out.”
Dede followed behind, with a haunted look. “Tony. We got to get out of here.”
He ignored her. Grasping Elsie’s neck with his left hand, he raised his right fist, pausing to smile at her.
She winced as she waited for the blow to fall; but Dede clutched his shoulder, saying, “Tony, we don’t have time for this.”
He released Elsie, wheeling around and punching Dede in the stomach. She made a guttural sound as she stumbled backward, doubling over.
Elsie scrambled under the sheet, moving as far from Tony as the handcuffs permitted; and something scratched her bare leg. She felt for the offending object with her hand, and found the plastic shard, the remains of Desiree’s headband. The lucky headband.
She gave it a glance. The broken edge was sharp. Could it hurt him? Deter him? She’d once fended off an attack with a sharpened pencil.
But she hadn’t been handcuffed to a bed on that occasion.
While Dede leaned against the plywood dresser for support, gasping for breath, Tony knelt and picked up a silver item from the floor: Desiree’s discarded duct tape.
He slapped it over Elsie’s mouth, bearing down so hard with the heel of his hand that her teeth cut into flesh behind her lips. Despite the pain, she prayed he’d forget the fact that her right hand was still free.
She kept the free hand hidden under the sheet, her fingers clasped around the pink plastic shard.
Tony stared down at her, opening his mouth to speak; but a pounding noise sounded from the other side of the wall, behind Elsie’s head.
Tony’s chin jerked up, his eyes flashing. “What?”
A voice shouted through the sheetrock: “Keep it down. We can’t sleep.”
Tony darted to the wall, and began pounding on the sheetrock over Elsie’s head. “Fuck you,” he said, battering the wall until his fist made a gaping hole.
“That’s it,” Dede said, pushing away from the dresser. She coughed, gesturing at Tony to stop. “We gotta go now.”
The voice from the next room shouted in protest; and Tony raised his voice to a shout.
“Motherfucker. You want me to come over there?”
At the muffled response, he shouted again. “I’ll kick in the door and beat your ass.”
Dede groaned. “Please, Tony.”
He turned away from the battered wall and stared down at Elsie. “What about her?”
“Let’s just go.”
He bent over the bed, ripping off the sheet with a sudden movement, and revealing the pointed pink shard gripped in her free hand. Laughing, he jerked it from her grip and held it up, saying, “Look there, Dede. Bitch was going to shank me with a little piece of plastic.”
Then his hand whipped down and raked it across Elsie’s face.
Crying out behind her taped mouth, she reared back, bending both legs at the knee; then kicked out, connecting with his chest and knocking him to the floor.
He recovered swiftly, jumping atop her and sinking his teeth into her shoulder. She tore at his hair with her free hand, but he hung on.
Dede came up behind him. She grabbed his arm, pleading. “We got to go; we’ll leave her here, she don’t matter. You get the money, I’ll get the drugs and computer and let’s go.”
He released Elsie’s shoulder. Her eyes widened with shock when she saw his teeth stained with her blood. As he rolled off her, he said to Dede, “But what about the fat bitch?”
“Leave her.”
“She’ll talk.”
“Tony, what are you always telling me? It don’t matter if she talks. Nobody listens to a whore.”
Over the sounds they made in the next room, of drawers opening and slamming shut; whispered curses and orders; the door closing behind them as their footfalls descended down the concrete steps; Elsie could hear the conversation she’d had with the public defender in the coffee shop: no one listens to a prostitute. She ripped the duct tape from her mouth, wincing.
When silence fell, she didn’t recognize it. Her ears buzzed like a beehive; and her heart still pounded so violently that she could feel every beat of her pulse. Once she decided that they were truly gone and unlikely to return, she tried to gauge the time. How long had it been since Desiree departed?
She scooted backward and kicked the wall, shouting for help from the occupants on the other side of the battered sheetrock, but got no response. Why hadn’t the police arrived? Was she going to have to rely on the hotel maid for her salvation?
The bite on her shoulder burned, and the cut on her face smarted. She wiped the blood on her face away with her free hand then used the dirty sheet to staunch the flow.
It seemed like a long vigil as she watched the glow of the lights under the curtain and listened to the sounds of the nearby highway; but the sun had not yet risen when a siren blared in the distance.
She shut her eyes, mouthing a prayer. The siren came closer, and did not pass her by. The red lights flashed against the crooked curtain at the window.
She screamed again, keeping up the wail until her throat spasmed in protest. Again, feet ran up the stairs. An argument sounded outside the door; but she didn’t hear the details over the sound of her own shrieking.
A kick made the door to her room shake. It took three tries to break the lock. Then they all burst inside: two men and one woman, wearing Missouri State Highway Patrol uniforms. She had always admired those uniforms.
And in jeans and a rumpled flannel shirt, she beheld a welcome sight: Ashlock.
“Ash,” she croaked, trying to smile.
But he didn’t speak. He stared at her as if he didn’t know her, his face stony with shock.