Cora
After five or so minutes, Moretti and ten men come stomping down the stairs, all of them with their own bottle of whisky, all of them swaying a little as they walk, all, that is, except for Moretti, who is stone-sober and stone-cold. Moretti retreats to the back of the room, hiding in the shadows, watching with his mean, squinted eyes. A man with a bulging belly and a comb-over approaches me. The other men give him a wide berth and I guess he’s high up in the mafia. A comb sticks out of his suit pocket, and there’s a yellow stain on his collar. He smiles down at me.
“So the boss has told us what you said about not having the cash, and that seems quite funny to me, little lady. Really damn funny, in fact, since we happen to know who you are. Do we look stupid to you? Is that it? Well? Answer me! Do we?”
“No,” I mutter, leaning back as far as I can in the bindings. “None of you look stupid.”
Energy teems between these men, the type of energy I imagine teems between men before they unleash their primal side on a woman. Take the right combination of alcohol, peer pressure, one-upmanship and lust and it doesn’t take much to knock men over the edge. Comb-Over smiles at his friends and then smiles back at me.
“Aren’t you supposed to be this tough punk woman? That’s what your sort are called, aren’t you? Punks. I think that’s what my grandkid calls them. Or is it emo?”
“I think it’s emo,” a man from behind puts in.
“Maybe it’s emo, then.” Comb-Over shrugs. “But look at you. Shivering and scared. A real coward.” He kneels down, which takes about thirty seconds because he has to contend with his gut, and then places his hand on my knees, looking up at me. His lips and his eyes are moist, both as moist as each other, and his nostrils flare like a bull’s do before it charges. The men mutter amongst themselves, getting keyed up, getting ready. “I used to know a girl like you, back in high school. She had dyed hair and all that shit and everyone thought she was a freak, which she was. But I’ve always been a nice man. I showed her some attention.” All the men snigger. Several of them take drinks from their bottles. From the back of the room, Moretti smiles. “She was so grateful. She opened for me like a flower. That’s how you know it’s all just an act, because once you get punks—emos—whatever, once you get them home, they’re all the same.”
He slides his hand an inch up my leg. “I wonder what you feel like.” His tone creeps me out as much as his actions. It’s musing, as though he’d cause irreparable damage to me just for the sake of it. His meaty sausage fingers stick to my pants. I feel the moisture on my skin, seeping through.
“Wait,” I say. I need to show them that I’m tough. I need to show them that I won’t take this shit. Most of all I need to stop his hand from sliding up my leg before it’s too late. When the first domino falls, the rest will soon follow. It will be fair game then. The savor of anticipation will be spent and the men will no longer see any point in fighting their desires. They will fall on me like beasts. “Wait,” I repeat, voice firm.
Comb-Over pauses. “We’re waiting.”
“You want money? I’ve got money.”
“Where?” he asks.
“In my pocket. I’ve got a check in my pocket.”
“What good will a check do us, darling? This ain’t the Bank of America.”
“Get the check,” Moretti says.
“Fine.”
Comb-Over reaches into my pocket, taking his sweet time about it. Each movement makes me want to throw up. I feel the morning sickness rising again. With an effort I beat it back, but my cheeks feel too warm and there’s too much saliva in my mouth. I swallow repeatedly but my mouth just fills up again. He rubs his sausage fingers against my leg through my pocket, and then takes out the paycheck.
“How much?” Moretti asks in his ice-cold voice.
“Let me see.” Comb-Over squints at the check. He laughs. It starts quiet and then gets louder and louder and louder until it fills the room like the booming of a broken speaker system, hacking and coughing as well as laughing. “Eighty-nine dollars!”
The men break out in laughter, throwing their heads back and gripping their sides. One man drops his whisky bottle on the floor and doesn’t try to pick it up, just leaves it there as the rust-colored liquid spills onto the floor. I let them laugh, making no move to stop them. I’m too busy trying to fight back the sickness which continually creeps up my throat. I keep thinking about the poor baby inside of me, hiding in my belly, oblivious that his or her mother is going through this right now. Surely this could do some damage to it. Surely this is not healthy. Surely this is not something a baby should be subjected to. I can’t be sick; that’s the thing. If I’m sick, they win. If I’m sick, they’ve taken away all my strength, all my hard-won self-reliance. I’m supposed to be a shield-maiden, a warrior, a fighter, a Viking.
“Quiet.” Moretti doesn’t raise his voice, but his men fall silent at once. It’s a startling effect, all these chunky scary men going silent like they’re kids and Moretti is the teacher. “Do you think that’s funny, whore? Do you think we’re here for eighty-nine dollars? Do you think this is some kind of game? Do you think this is some kind of joke? Do you think we’re here for—” He stops, cutting off his speech as anger enters his voice. “Rough her up a little, gentlemen. Show her what we think of her pathetic joke.”
They don’t hesitate. The next two minutes are probably the worst of my life. Comb-Over leaps on me, grabbing me by the shoulders and tipping the chair onto its side. I land with a thump, the force rattling through my body, causing my teeth to chatter. Then their hands are all over me, thumping me in the chest and the legs and the belly. The belly is the worst of all, but there is nothing I can do but take it. Tears sting my eyes, tears unlike any I have ever wept. They are acid, eating away at my face. I will my body to protect the little baby, praying to any god who’ll listen that he or she’ll be safe, that he or she can withstand this punishment. I fight the sickness for a while, but then the punishment is too much. I vomit all over myself, down my chin, onto the floor and onto my shirt, coughing and retching and then dry-heaving when there’s nothing more to choke up. Blood drips down my forehead from where one of their rings cuts me. I feel my eye already starting to swell.
Finally, Moretti claps his hands, and they haul me back up.
For a long time—at least it feels like that to me—I just sit there, assessing my injuries. My belly feels tight, but not fatal, not like there’s a life dying in there. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking … The worst of it is my throat, which burns like molten lava, and my forehead, which pulses as blood drips into my eyebrows.
“Was that really necessary?” Moretti asks. “Was your little joke worth that? And this is only the beginning. So I will ask you again. Where is your money, Melissa Collins?”
“I’ve told you,” I whisper. “I don’t have it.”
“You’re going to force me to set my men on you again,” he says. “Do you understand that? Is that money really worth your life?”
“No,” I answer. “It isn’t. And if I had it, I would give it to you. But I don’t. I wish I did. Really, I do.”
Moretti sighs. “Someone clean her up. I don’t want her reeking of vomit for the next bit.”
Comb-Over dabs at my face with a dirty rag. The next bit. I shiver, terror coursing its way through me. I don’t feel like a shield-maiden anymore.
I clench my jaw as this reassessment of my self-image occurs. Our self-images are so vital, I reflect, so important to making sure that we can function as people. I’ve seen myself as strong for so long that to be confronted by the idea that I’m weak, so weak that anything can be done to me without consequence, is unacceptable. And it’s even worse because it’s not just me. It’s my baby, too.
Then I hear it, above the sound of the drilling. Something crashes through an upstairs window. Moretti hears it, too. He waves at the basement stairs. “Everyone up, now. Tool up. Be sharp. Do whatever it takes. Right fucking now!”
The men file up the stairs with their weapons trained in front of them. All of them drop their whisky bottles, a few of them smashing on the floor, glass and whisky glittering in the naked bulb light. Moretti walks over to me, hands clawing toward my neck. “If anything happens to my men …”
I won’t be a perpetual victim. I can’t be. When his hands are almost on me, I lunge forward, bringing the chair with me as I clamp my teeth down on his hand, biting so hard I taste blood in my mouth. I tear my teeth away, tearing a chunk of skin with me, grazing it off the bone like KFC. Moretti snarls and backhands me across the jaw. The chair smashes into the floor again, my head cracking, a thrum working its way through my body. My vision becomes foggy and I can barely think, but I don’t feel weak anymore. The blood in my mouth is testament to that. I acted. I did something. I can still see myself as the same woman who kneed Charles the manager in the nuts all those weeks ago.
Moretti kneels down next to me and brings a butterfly knife to my throat. “That was a very stupid thing to do,” he says, pressing the blade against my skin. “A very, very stupid thing to do, Melissa.”
“Maybe,” I agree, hardly aware of what I’m saying. Everything sways. “But at least now you know I’ve got teeth.”