The Bell Tolls for No One (23 page)

“Tape the hero's ankles,” he told me.

I bound Maxson's feet and shoved him onto his bed.

“Sit him up,” said Harry. “I want him to watch.”

“Look, Harry,” I said, “let's get out of here. The longer we stay—”

“Shut up!”

Harry dragged the blond back to the bed. She still had on a pair of panties. He ripped them off and threw them at Maxson. The panties fell at his feet. Maxson moaned and began to struggle. I punched him a hard one, deep into the belly.

Harry took off his pants and undershorts.

“Whore,” he said to the blond, “I'm gonna sink this thing deep into you and you're going to feel it and there's nothing you can do. You'll take all of it! And I'm going to cream deep inside of you!”

He had her on her back; she was still struggling. He hit her again, hard. Her head fell back. He spread her legs. He tried to work his cock in. He was having trouble.

“Loosen up, bitch; I know you want it! Lift your legs!”

He hit her hard, twice. The legs rose.

“That's better, whore!”

Harry poked and poked. Finally, he penetrated. He moved it in and out, slowly.

Maxson began moaning and moving again. I sank another one into his belly.

Harry began to get up a rhythm. The blond groaned as if in pain.

“You like it, don't you, whore? It's better turkeyneck than your old man ever gave you, ain't it? Feel it growing?”

I couldn't stand it. I stood up, took out my cock and began masturbating.

Harry was ramming the blond so hard that her head was bouncing. Then he slapped her and pulled out.

“Not yet, whore. I'm taking my time.”

He walked over to where Tom Maxson was sitting.

“Look at the SIZE of that thing! And I'm going to put it back into her now and come right inside her, Tommy boy! You'll never be able to make love to your Nana without thinking of me! Without thinking of this!”

Harry put his cock right into Maxson's face. “And I may have her suck me off after I'm finished!”

Then he turned, went back to the other bed and mounted the blond. He slapped her again and began pumping wildly.

“You cheap, stinking whore, I'm going to come!”

Then: “Oh, shit! OH, MY GOD! Oh, oh, oh!”

He fell down against Nana and lay there. After a moment he pulled out. Then he looked over at me. “Sure you don't want some?”

“No thanks, Harry.”

Harry began to laugh. “Look at you, fool, you've whacked off!” Harry got back into his pants, laughing.

“All right,” he said, “tape up her hands and ankles. We're getting out of here.”

I walked over and taped her up.

“But, Harry, how about the money and jewels?”

“We'll take his wallet. I want to get out of here. I'm nervous.”

“But, Harry, let's take it all.”

“No,” he said, “just the wallet. Check his trousers. Just take the money.”

I found the wallet.

“There's only $83 here, Harry.”

“We'll take it and we leave. I'm nervous. I feel something in the air. We have to go.”

“Shit, Harry, that's no haul. We can really clean them out!”

“I told you: I'm nervous. I feel trouble coming. You can stay. I'm leaving.”

I followed him down the stairway.

“That son of a bitch will think twice before he insults anybody again,” said Harry.

We found the window we had jimmied open and left the same way. We walked through the garden and out the iron gate.

“All right,” said Harry, “ we walk at a casual gait. Light a cigarette. Try to look normal.”

“Why are you so nervous, Harry?”

“Shut up!”

We walked four blocks. The car was still there. Harry took the wheel and we drove off.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The Guild Theatre?”

“What's playing?”

“
Black Silk Stockings
, with Annette Haven.”

The place was down on Lankershim. We parked and got out. Harry bought the tickets. We walked in.

“Popcorn?” I asked Harry.

“No.”

“I want some.”

“Get it.”

Harry waited until I got the popcorn, large. We found some seats near the back. We were in luck. The feature was just beginning.

Flying is the Safest Way to Travel

E
ddie and Vince, they sat in two seats at the back of the airliner. They were in their early forties. They were dressed in cheap suits, no neckties, wash-and-wear shirts, unshined shoes.

“That stewardess, Vince, the short one with the great legs, I'd like to have that one. Just look at her
ass
!”

“Naw,” said Vince, “I like the tall one. I like her nose and her lips, her stringy uncombed hair. She reminds me of a drunken slut who doesn't know where she's at.”

“She doesn't have any breasts, man.”

“I don't care.”

The plane ran through a bank of clouds and they watched the white threads, smoky, rolling around out there. Then they were back in the sunlight.

“Eddie, are we going to do it?”

“Why not?”

Vince finished his drink and sat it on the seat tray in front of him. “It's dumb.”

“All right. Forget it. I'll do it alone.”

“I think it's dumb, Eddie. Let's not do it.”

“Vince, you don't have the guts of a rabbit.” Eddie finished his drink, put the empty container on Vince's seat tray, folded his tray and locked it into the back of the seat in front of him. Then he stood up, stepped into the aisle, pulled at the handle of the overhead compartment and extracted a very fat briefcase. He closed the compartment and sat down again with the briefcase on his lap.

“All right, Vince. You with me or not?”

“Look, Eddie, think it over . . . ”

“You with me or not?”

“All right, all right . . . ”

Eddie reached down by the seat arm, pressed the little button with the design of the stewardess upon it and waited.

“Eddie, don't do it. Let's just order a couple of drinks.”

It took three or four minutes but the stewardess arrived. It was the one with the great legs.

“Yes, sir, did you ring?”

“What's your name, stewardess?”

“Vivian.”

“Vivian, I want you to lean forward because I want to whisper something to you that the other passengers shouldn't hear.”

“Sir, I'm
very
busy . . . ”

“I'd suggest you do as I say. It's very important.”

The stewardess leaned forward.

“Now, Vivian,” Eddie whispered, “this briefcase you see sitting here on my lap has enough TNT in it to blow your goddamned legs off and your goddamned ass off, plus all your other parts . . . ”

The stewardess just stared at Eddie.

“And, there's enough here to blow off all my precious parts and also all the parts of everybody on this plane. You will now escort me and my friend up to your Flight Captain and his co-pilot.”

“Yes, sir,” said the stewardess.

“Come on, buddy,” Eddie said to Vince.

The stewardess walked up the aisle and the men followed her. They walked through first class and then entered the flight compartment. The three of them stood behind the pilots.

“Captain Henderson . . . ” the stewardess began.

“Captain Henderson,” said Eddie, “you will not send out any radio calls nor will you answer any radio calls.”

“Take control, Marty,” Henderson said to the co-pilot.

Then he turned. “Now, what the hell . . . ”

“Well, look at the Captain,” said Eddie. “He's
fat
, isn't he?”

“Sure is,” said Vince.

“Hey, boy,” Eddie spoke to the Captain, “you're a little bit fat, aren't you?”

Captain Henderson didn't answer. He looked at Eddie with the briefcase. Eddie's right hand was under the upper flap.

“Now, Captain, I asked you a
question
!”

“Well, I might be ten or fifteen pounds overweight.”

“Looks more like twenty. Drink a lot of beer?”

“Look, what the hell is this?”

“How much beer do you drink, fat boy?”

“When I'm off duty, five or six bottles.”

“It might be a pleasure to blow some of that lard off of you. Now, you, co-pilot, what's your name?”

“Marty. Marty Parsons.”

“You just keep this thing on course for New York City, you hear me?”

“I hear.”

“Now my friend here, Vince, he doesn't say much. I'm the leader and he's the crazy one. He has the old suicide complex. It runs in the family. Hey, Vince, tell them about your brother.”

“Eddie, these people don't want to hear about that.”

“Go on, tell them. I want them to know how it runs in the family.”

“What is this?” asked Vivian. “Do we have to listen to little stories up here?”

“Shut up, bitch! Now go ahead and tell the story, Eddie.”

“Well, I had this brother. His name was Dan. He wasn't very happy . . . ”

“Look,” asked Captain Henderson, “what do you people want anyhow?”

“We'll get to that soon enough. I want to hear the story. Go ahead, Eddie . . . ”

“Well, my brother wasn't very happy. He decided to kill himself. He jumped out of a second story window. He wanted to land on the sidewalk but he didn't . . . ”

“O.k. Where did he land, Vince?”

“Well, he didn't hit the sidewalk. He landed on an old iron-spiked fence, on his side . . . ”

“Go ahead, Vince . . . ”

“The ambulance crew got there and he was stuck on his side with fourteen iron pickets in his side. So the one attendant said, ‘We have to get him off of there right away.' But the other attendant said, ‘No, that will kill him for sure.' Nobody knew what to do . . . ”

“All right, Vince . . . Then . . . ?”

“Well, there was all this blood coming out. So they just held my brother up to keep the pickets from going in deeper. And they waited for help . . . ”

“We could have dynamited him off . . . So then?”

“My brother was crying and screaming. Finally, a bigshot doctor pulled up and said, ‘What we've got to do is get a welder or somebody to come and cut those spikes off. Then we can take him to a hospital and pull them out one at a time.'”

“Listen,” said Captain Henderson, “I don't understand this whole thing . . . ”

“Go ahead, Vince.”

“So they called in an iron-worker and he cut the spikes from the fence. They took my brother to the hospital and kept him there for the next fourteen months. They would take one spike out, bandage the hole, wait a few weeks before taking out the next one and then they'd pull that one. Finally, after more than a year of yanking the spikes out they put him in this place and held him for therapy . . . ”

“Psychological therapy,” said Eddie. “Then what happened?”

“They let him go. Two weeks later he killed himself with a shotgun.”

There was silence. The plane went on toward New York City.

Then Eddie spoke. “What we are going to do here is to rape ourselves a stewardess a piece. We like your stewardesses.”

“You can't get away with such a thing,” said Captain Henderson.

“Either we do or we all die.”

“Then what? Then what's your plan?”

“We've got a plan. Don't worry about that.”

“Look, you can get laid on the ground, you can get laid anywhere for 50 bucks.”

“We don't want those. We want your girls.”

“You're attempting a dangerously foolish thing.”

“Let us worry about that. By the way, I've got the old suicide complex too. That's why I've teamed up with Vince.”

“Well,” said Vivian, “I'm not cooperating. You can blow us all to hell!”

Eddie handed Vince the briefcase. “Careful . . . Don't drop it! Stick your hand under the flap. Easy. Do you feel the switch, Vince?”

“Yes.”

“Don't press down on that thing unless you feel that we've been crossed . . . ”

“Do I wait until you tell me, Eddie?”

“No, use your judgment.” Eddie turned toward Vivian.

“To hell with you,” she said, “you don't scare me, you goddamned freak!”

Eddie punched her quickly in the belly and as she doubled over he punched her in the face. Vivian fell in the corner of the flight deck behind Captain Henderson's seat. She was gasping and trembling. She began weeping in a hysterical fashion. Eddie rushed to her and pushed his handkerchief into her mouth.

“Either of those guys move a move, Vince, you hit the trigger!”

“O.K., Eddie . . . ”

Eddie bent over Vivian and pulled her skirt up around her waist. She had on pantyhose and tried to turn on her side. Eddie pulled her straight.

“Oh,” said Vince, “you're right, Eddie, she's got
beautiful
legs! I'm scared, I'm really scared but I'm getting a hard!”

It was true, her legs were beautiful and full, packed, like ripe figs on a tree, culminated, perfect, almost to the point of bursting in the tight pantyhose. Vivian reached up and clawed and raked Eddie's face with the fingernails of each hand. He hit her again, hard across the face, and her hands dropped. He unzipped and the thing was before him, mad and untended. He bent over her, grabbed her ass and pulled at it. Her eyes stared at him. They were wide and a deep brown. He remembered the old Marlon Brando movie and he reached down and tore her pantyhose in front, in between the legs. “I'm going to squirt it inside of you, you bitch!” He poked futilely, then reached his hand down and forced the head of it in. She was trembling and wiggling, a snake creature. Then it entered a bit more. And then he plunged it in, totally. He began to ram wildly, watching her head bob and bounce against the floor. There was no holding it back. He could feel the climax arriving and he thrust it wildly and deeply in, then it came. It seemed as if he had endless semen, it came out and out as he stared at her wide brown eyes. Then he was still. Eddie slowly got up, stood a moment transfixed, looking down at her. Then he put it back in, zipped up and turned to Vince.

“O.k., your turn now. I'll go get your stewardess.”

“You guys can't get away with this!” said Henderson.

“You think not?”

“How are you going to get away with it? How are you going to get out of here?”

“Let us worry about that. Meanwhile, shut up a while!”

Vivian rose from the floor, her skirt falling back into place, although rumpled. She swayed, and pulled the handkerchief out of her mouth.

“How'd you like it, baby?” Eddie asked her.

“You low-life swine,” she said, “you stank! If I could kill you, I would!”

The flight door opened and the other stewardess entered, the tall one with the awry hair. “What's going on here?” she asked. “I've been serving drinks out there all alone and
everybody's
thirsty!”

“Get out of here, Karen!” said Captain Henderson.

“Just stay where you are, Karen!” said Eddie. He walked over and took the briefcase from Vince and slid his hand under the upper flap.

“Vince, lock that door. We've got all the company we need.”

Vince locked the flight door. Karen looked at Vivian. “Oh . . . what happened to you?”

“I've just been raped . . . ”

“And now it's your turn, Karen,” said Eddie.

“He's got dynamite in the briefcase, Karen,” said Henderson.

“What? That doesn't mean I submit to this type of thing,” said Karen.

“Karen, you're next. My friend desires you. We have the TNT and we are prepared to use it. Remember you are to protect the plane, the crew, and the passengers in all moments of duress. I had a friend who worked in baggage once. He told me about the rule.”

“To hell with the rule,” said Karen, “nobody's raping me!”

“Captain Henderson,” said Eddie, “are you ready to say our last prayers?”

“Look, Karen,” said Henderson, “I believe these guys are crazy enough to do it.”

“Captain Henderson,” said Marty the co-pilot, “Karen is my girlfriend.”

“Think of the passengers,” said Henderson, “think of the aircraft.”

“You're just thinking of your own ass, Henderson.”

“Go ahead, Vince,” said Eddie, “take her! I can tell that none of these want to die! Go ahead, take her!” Eddie slipped his hand deeper under the upper flap of the briefcase. He was beginning to sweat below the hairline, little beads forming on his forehead.

Vince began to move toward Karen. “Captain, please take the controls,” said Marty. Henderson took the controls. Marty turned and looked at Vince. “Stay away from her, son of a bitch!”

“Go ahead, Vince,” said Eddie, “
take
her! One move out of anybody and I'm blowing us all to shit! I mean it!”

“O.K., Eddie . . . ”

Eddie looked at Karen and he could then see why Vince wanted her. It was that wild uncombed hair, the pointed nose, and the lips, the way they pouted, slightly idiotic. Vince moved to Karen, grabbed her. His mouth was on hers and her hands pushed against his chest, weakly. She seemed stricken, numbed . . .

“You got the best one, Vince,” said Eddie, “you son of a bitch, you lucked it!”

Then while still kissing Karen, Vince held her with one hand around the waist and lifted her skirt with the other. Her legs were long and slim and glorious. Her pantyhose were dark. Vince held her about the waist still kissing her, bending her backwards, and with his free hand he mauled her ass.

Marty got up from his seat. “Stop it, you bastard! I'm telling you, stop it!”

“Just stay out of this, Marty,” said Eddie, the sweat now running awkwardly down his face, “just stay out of this Marty, I'm telling you! I wanna
watch
this one!”

Then Vince reached down and grabbed her between the legs. He kissed her under the throat shoving her head back. Marty charged from his seat and leaped at Vince, and then there was the mark of the sun and the fuselage and the wings separated and the engines shook loose from the wings and dropped and the fuselage dropped, spinning nose-down whirling like a very large dart and losing its tail section as the engines fell through the sky. It was over a small town in Midwest America and not much damage was done except for part of a tail fin which sheared through a roof and sliced off a right arm to the shoulder of a seven-year-old girl working on her history lesson.