MARTA STANDS IN the basement, trembling with fear.
The room is spacious, but holds almost nothing. There is a king-sized bed covered in black rubbery-looking sheets, a door to a small bathroom, and another door to a closet full of lingerie: brightly colored corsets, lace bustiers, see-through body stockings, crotchless teddies.
A big man in a black shirt with a gun escorted her here and told her to wait for Mr. Z.
Her legs feel weak. She wants to sit on the bed, but she feels like that would be giving up—a gesture of supplication she’s not ready to concede to.
The door to the outside opens and an overly tanned white man walks in wearing a robe. Marta takes a step back. The man approaches, grinning at her like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.
Marta recognizes him. She’s seen him on TV—Garrison Zebo, the blowhard car lot owner always boasting about surpluses of inventory and how everything must go. She almost opens her mouth to tell him she recognizes him, but she bites back the words. If he knows she can identify him, that means he’ll never let her leave.
Then it hits her—he is never going to let her leave.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, pointing to the closet. “There are so many choices, it’s hard to pick.”
She starts to sob, and she’s afraid her legs are going to collapse beneath her.
“Don’t cry,” he says, his tone darkening. “If you’re going to cry, then Uncle Z will give you something to cry about. Keep it together, and this will be more pleasant for both of us.”
Marta bites her lip and fights back tears.
“That’s better,” he says, then he looks her up and down like he’s appraising a car’s value. “You look fine. Why don’t you go ahead and sit on the bed?”
Her legs feel numb beneath her as she approaches the bed and sits down.
Is this really happening?
“You look tense,” Zebo says. “How about I give you something to loosen you up?”
He withdraws a small key from his robe and inserts it into the drawer of the nightstand. He reaches inside and pulls out a syringe, then a small baggie of brown powder, roughly the size of a strawberry.
“This is what you want, isn’t it?” Mr. Z says to her, raising a knowing eyebrow.
She’s never wanted something so badly. Not just for the high and the release from the sickness she’s been feeling, but also because she knows the high will anesthetize her from what is about to happen. If she’s flying through the clouds, she won’t be bothered by what is happening to her body back on earth.
Mr. Z prepares the injection. He pours the powder into the spoon and holds the lighter to its underside. The heroin bubbles as it melts, the air filling with an acidic vinegary smell.
From outside, they hear the sound of a gunshot.
The noise is muffled down here, underground, but it’s still noticeable. Mr. Z stops what he’s doing, setting the spoon and lighter down, and grabs a cell phone from his pocket.
“What the hell was that?” he barks into the phone.
Marta stares at the heroin. It’s almost ready. She can’t wait. She moves toward the nightstand and picks up the spoon and lighter. With shaky hands, she holds the flame underneath the metal and watches the powder liquefy. Mr. Z eyes her but doesn’t do anything about it. He seems amused that she’s preparing her own injection. He turns away from her, paying attention only to the conversation.
With shaking hands, she slurps up the brown liquid into the needle.
“Don’t bother me if it turns out to be nothing,” he says into the phone, then he pockets it into his robe.
As he turns around, Marta lunges at him and jams the needle into his shoulder. He winces in pain, but before he can pull away, Marta squeezes the plunger and releases the heroin into him.
He whirls around and belts her across the face.
Marta collapses, and he looms over her, smirking as he looks back and forth between her and the syringe protruding from his arm.
“You know,” he says, “when you inject heroin into a vein, it takes effect in seconds. But when you put it into muscle,” he adds, tugging the syringe out of his shoulder with a wince, “it takes a good five or ten minutes to kick in.”
He pulls out his phone while Marta stares at him from the floor, her whole body trembling.
“Come get me in five minutes,” he says into the phone. “This bitch just shot me up with her heroin.” There’s a pause and he adds, “Just the muscle. I’ll be high as a damn kite, but not for a while. Five minutes will give me enough time.”
He pockets the phone and holds the syringe like a knife, glowering at her like a panther ready to pounce.
“Plenty of time for me to kill you.”