The Girls With Games of Blood (20 page)

She looked up as Fauvette appeared in the door. Her waitress outfit was wrinkled and stained with the night’s work. “Hi,” she said. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah,” Patience said. “I’ve got some things to do before I go down for the night.”

“Oh,” Fauevtte said, making no effort to hide her disappointment. “I was hoping we could talk some more.”

Patience touched the other girl’s cheek. “We will, sweetheart. Soon, I promise.”

Fauvette scowled. “I know you mean well, but please don’t treat me like a child. I just
look
like one. I’m actually sixty years old.”

Patience was silent for a moment, then said, “What’s wrong? Really?”

Fauvette nodded at the flowers. “Did Rudy give you those?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

Fauvette crossed her arms. “If you mean, am I jealous, then yes. Rudy seemed to . . . I thought he and I were on the verge of something, but I can see it was simply his normal self-preservation disguised as tenderness. That’s a bitter thing to chew on. If you mean, do I blame you, no.”

Patience said quietly, “I won’t go if it will cause trouble.”

“It won’t. He’s free, you’re free.” The irony of her situation rode heavy on her; just weeks ago, she had been in Zginski’s position, with both Mark and Zginski battling, subtly and without apparent malice, for her affection. Now she felt abandoned and more alone than ever, and Mark’s disappearance no longer seemed so inexplicable.

She managed a smile. “I thought your show went great tonight.”

Patience nodded in appreciation. “Thanks. It did what it was supposed to do.”

“I could feel it. And see it.”

“Good. Maybe doing it won’t be as hard for you as I thought.”

“Maybe.” She looked down at her shoes. “I still wish you didn’t have to go. That you wanted to spend time with me instead of . . .” She waved her hand in disgust.
“Boys.”

Patience took Fauvette’s hands. “Sweetheart, I’m not picking boys over you. We have all of eternity to get to know each other. One night won’t change things.”

“It only took one night to make us what we are. That was a big change.”

“You know what I mean.”

Fauvette nodded. “Yeah. Well, have fun. Rudy knows how to treat a woman, I promise. Just try not to get your heart involved.”

Before Patience could reply, Fauvette pulled away and rushed back into the dining room. Patience sighed, picked up her guitar, and turned out the light. She left the flowers behind, but the note was safely tucked into the guitar strings.

Cocker went to his car in the Ringside lot, started the engine, and turned on the air conditioner. Beside his own, only three cars remained. He knew Gerry’s Trans Am, so one of the other two must belong to Patience. And the singer, no doubt, would head straight to her boyfriend, Zginski.

Patience suddenly appeared out of the darkness next to the long, low black LTD. She put her guitar in the trunk and pulled out into the almost-deserted street. Remembering his failure with Zginski, Cocker stayed far enough behind her that she couldn’t possibly know he was there. He turned on the radio, and the first song was some of that obscene jungle music, in which the singer berated a woman for not following through on a promised tryst. “I gotcha,” he gloated, and Cocker smiled.

Patience kept going into the run-down neighborhoods off Lamar Avenue. This was where the pushers and pimps skulked about with impunity, and where Cocker’s white face was as rare as a black one back in McHale County. She turned down a street with no working lights and finally parked in the driveway of a run-down faux antebellum mansion, the kind that were often cut up into welfare-family apartments. Cocker drove past and saw her put her key into the door and go inside.

He parked across the end of the driveway, blocking her in. When he got out, he heard music and laughter from one of the other houses, and watched a low rider drift past checking out the big white guy. He went to the front door, knocked authoritatively, and said, “Open up! Sheriff’s office!”

He waited. There was no response. The single mailbox indicated that the house had not yet been subdivided. He saw no sign of life beyond the dark windows.

He tried again. “Open up or we’ll break down the door.”

He was about to knock a third time when the door suddenly opened, and his hand met no resistance. Instead it thudded against flesh, and a female voice cried, “Ow!”

He jumped back, and the porch light came on, momentarily blinding him. Patience stepped out, one hand to her face. Furious, she yelled, “You punched me in the eye, you
asshole
!”

Startled, Cocker blurted, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

She glared up at him with her good eye. “And you’re no sheriff, you’re that drunk who passed out at my show tonight. How about I call the
real
sheriff and get you locked up for assault?”

The threat cleared his confusion, and he was back on track. He put his hand on her sternum and pushed her back inside, closing the door behind them. “Turn on the light,” he snapped.

After a moment a single overhead bulb came on, revealing Patience in a simple black cocktail dress. She had one hand over her eye, but the other still blazed with fury. “Look, pal, I don’t know who you think you are—”

“I’m the man looking for Rudy Zginski, bitch,” he said. “And since you’re dressed to go out, I figure you’re going to meet him. So you’re going to tell me where he is.”

Patience stared blankly at him, then laughed. “Is that right? No, I don’t think I am. I think I’m going to ask you to leave, and since that won’t work I’m going to
make
you.”

He smiled. He was twice her size, and had no moral problem forcing a woman to do anything. “Sweet thing, you best start saying ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ if you don’t want that pretty dress torn. Now where is he?”

She lowered her hand. The eye behind it showed no sign of injury. Then she turned away and went into the sitting room. The walls were faded and water-stained, and except for an old couch and stacks of unopened boxes the room was empty. She turned on another lamp and faced him again.

“You’re used to getting your own way, aren’t you?” she
said casually. “Using aggression and violence to accomplish things. I’ve known a lot of men like you. A
lot.
”

Cocker smiled coldly. “You ain’t known nobody like
me,
hot stuff. Now where is Rudy Zginski?”

“You’re thinking that if you threaten to beat me or rape me, I’ll tell you.” She mimicked his heavy drawl. “But you ain’t known nobody like
me,
either.”

“Are you threatening me?”

She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Maybe I like the thought of being raped by a stranger. Maybe I want you to slap me around.” She fingered her neckline and licked her lips voluptuously. “Did you ever think of that?”

Cocker said nothing.

“Or maybe I just want you to do enough so that when I kill you, it’s clearly self-defense. Maybe close enough to kiss is close enough to kill. Maybe I’m just waiting for you to make a move.”

Cocker’s eyes flickered around the room. He saw no weapons, but the girl’s mocking tone and blatant sexuality had him off-balance.

Suddenly he froze. A painting propped on the mantel, barely visible in the light, transfixed him. He tilted the lamp shade so more illumination shone on it.

The face, the blond hair, the regal cheekbones, all looked familiar. It was unmistakably Mama Prudence as a young woman, beautiful and cold and somehow frightening.

His eyes opened wide and he stared at Patience.
Now
he knew why she had seemed familiar; the painting in Mama Prudence’s living room was clearly
her,
dressed in the fashion of a century or more ago.

“Who is that?” he whispered, nodding at the painting.

“That? It’s my sister, Prudence.”

“Your
sister
?”

She smiled. Her canine teeth looked abnormally long. “Yes. Beautiful, isn’t she?”

Cocker began to back away. “Stay away from me, bitch.”

Patience laughed. “ ‘Bitch’?” You mean little ol’ me has scared big, strong
you
?” She looked at him in an odd, new way that truly did terrify him. “Friend, you don’t have any idea how scared you should be of me. If there’s a lick of common sense in that dense redneck skull of yours, you’ll leave now and never come back. Not here, not the bar, maybe not even to Memphis.”

Cocker’s back was to the door, and he fumbled for the knob. “I got friends on the force,” he said, but it sounded weak and pitiful. “They can make life real hard for you.”

“And I’ve got friends out in the night,” Patience hissed. “Friends who leave bloody pulps where there used to be human bodies. Friends who aren’t half as scary . . .”

And here she stepped close so quickly she seemed to vanish across the room and reappear right in his face. “As I am,” she finished with a whisper.

He wrenched the door open and fled down the drive. By the time he reached his car the door was again closed, and all the lights were dark. He roared off into the night.

P
ATIENCE WATCHED OUT
the front window for a long time to see if the man would return. At one time this sort of encounter would have sent her fleeing the city, possibly the country. But the man clearly had no interest in her except as a way to Zginski. That certainty allowed her to brush off the encounter, but it also meant she couldn’t risk putting Zginski in danger by keeping her date with him. Still, he was bound to approve when he learned of her reason.

Zginski was a handsome devil, and his manners reeked of a bygone time. He was certainly sure of himself, in a way that both infuriated and fascinated her. He reminded her of Vincent, in fact, and that thought made her hands slide slowly up and down her thighs.

Vincent. Young, dashing Colonel Vincent Drake . . .

Why must we wait until our wedding night?
he whispered as his hands slid over her corset.
You will be my bride, and surely a few days can make no difference?
She could barely breathe as he unlaced the garment, and her body blossomed with desire as his lips traveled from her shoulders to the curves of her breasts. She had no idea that a grown man would
want
to suck on a woman’s nipples, let alone that the sensation would practically
immobilize her. By the time she lay naked on his cloak in the summer night, she was too overwhelmed to resist. And once the initial sharp pain of his penetration had faded, she had not
wanted
to resist.

Oh, Vincent, you damned fool,
she thought now,
if you’d only been as true as you claimed to be.

She gazed at her sister’s portrait. Prudence was tall, slender, with Grecian features and the haughtiness that accompanied them. Beside her, Patience always felt fat and dumpy.
That’s the only thing that isn’t right,
she thought for the millionth time.
Prudence, your eyes were
never
that kind.

They certainly weren’t the night before Patience’s wedding, when her sister looked up from beneath Vincent, her pale thighs spread wide for him, his firm behind clenching as he poured his seed into her. Prudence’s eyes were triumphant, looking over Vincent’s shoulder at her sister frozen in the garden shed’s doorway. Then Vincent, oblivious, had said, “You are so much more a woman than your fat sister.” Prudence’s eyes had turned triumphant with delight, and her laugh made Vincent say, “Oh, my love, my love,” just as he had done to Patience beneath the summer moon mere days earlier.