‘Sure, honey, if there’s any left. I dunno how much I spent…’ Rosie dragged herself unsteadily to the chair by the telephone and sat down. “I’ll wait a while, then call him. I need to talk to him. I’m sorry, but I guess you’ll do better without me. I knew I’d make a lousy sponsor. Jake was right about that.’ She leaned back with her eyes closed. ‘You must be proud of yourself. You didn’t have a drink with me, did you?’
‘Nope, guess I didn’t.’ Lorraine emptied Rosie’s purse, and walked out.
She had no intention of seeing Rosie again. She felt almost lighthearted, a strange new confidence in herself: she had not taken a drink. She might have finished the bottle if Jake hadn’t walked in when he did but, as it was, she had not had a drink.
The late-afternoon sun was brilliant, blistering down, and she could feel the pavement scorching through her cheap second-hand shoes. The feeling of being in control of something as simple as her own feet, of walking in a straight line, made her confidence jump a tiny notch higher. She took off the elastic band from her hair, and shook it loose. It smelt of lemons, just like the old shampoo she used, how long ago? Lorraine reached the corner, and stopped to light a cigarette. Tossing the match aside, she inhaled deeply and let the smoke drift slowly out of her mouth. She sucked again at the cigarette, watching the lit rim of tobacco move up the white paper before she exhaled. She didn’t want to think about the past, about what or who she had been.
A car crawled to a stop just ahead of her. She’d seen it out of the corner of her eye even before it passed: a dark blue Sedan. She could even describe the driver — linen jacket, blue open-necked shirt, cropped blond thinning hair, round, rimless glasses, and a wide, wet mouth. That was all she focused on as he leaned out of the window. He smiled, running his thumb around his shiny wet lips as he asked if she needed a lift any place. Lorraine stepped closer, inclining her head, making sure the jagged scar couldn’t be seen, keeping her lips half closed. She didn’t want to scare him off, didn’t want him to see too much of her teeth — or lack of them. She was an old hand at this and knew that if he was a cop he would try to get her to name a price. She bent lower, down to his level.
‘You lost?’ She said it softly, her hand reaching out to the door handle. ‘You need me?’
He stared at her as if sizing her up, then looked past her both ways before he jerked his head. ‘Get in.’
Lorraine went round to the passenger side and climbed in beside him. He drove off fast like they always did, acting flash. Acting stupid. He said quickly, licking his wet lips all the time, that he wanted oral, he wanted it public. Did she understand? Lorraine leaned her arm along the back of the seats, but as she touched his neck, he jerked away. He didn’t want to be touched, he said, he hated being touched. He kept on driving, passing every car on the highway until he wheeled into a supermarket car park. The ground level was almost full, people staggering to and from the store with bulging bags of groceries, their hatchbacks open wide as they loaded up.
He bypassed the first level, then the second, tyres screeching as he drove round and up the narrow entrance lane. In the fourth-storey parking area, he pulled into a space. He had hardly switched off the engine before he unzipped his trousers. Lorraine put her hand out. He swiped it aside. ‘I told you, I don’t want you to touch me!’
‘Okay, chill out, man, want me to talk dirty, you like that? That what you want?’
His body was tense, his hands clenching and unclenching.
‘No, I reckon you want to be sucked off, right here, like with maybe someone close enough to catch you at it, that’s exciting, isn’t it, bad boy? You’re a very bad boy, aren’t you? Well, you got lucky because that’s my speciality. I give the best head. Come on, you want to ask me for it, yes? That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ His lips twitched, his eyes darting round the gloomy parking lot. She kept her voice low, whispering, making sucking sounds, and he closed his eyes. ‘Like I said, I’ll make you feel good, real good, and this is a real public place, but we got to sort out my dough. Can we sort that out? Yeah?’
He looked out of the window, getting more excited as a few customers stashed away their groceries, their voices echoing in the concrete building. He loosened his belt, as if he hadn’t heard her, pulling at his pants. ‘Just do it, bitch.’
Lorraine’s back pressed against the passenger door and her left hand felt for the door handle. If he played games, she was out. ‘Twenty dollars.’
A woman with her husband and two kids parked directly next to them. As they headed towards the elevators, Lorraine’s john started to jerk himself off, his mouth stretched in a weird wet smile of pleasure. His erect pink penis burst up from his crumpled flies and he began to pant, leaning his head back, as his left hand flicked the switch for his seat to recline.
Lorraine tried again. ‘Twenty dollars.’
He lost his erection and gave a half sob. She swore, realizing he was one of those half-a-minute stand-up-for-America and then the weeping impotent syndrome.
Fumbling in his wallet, he took out a thick wedge of bills, peeled off a twenty and tossed it at her. ‘See what you can do for it, bitch!’ He reached over and grabbed her by the hair, forcing her face onto his pink flaccid worm. Lorraine could smell him, smell his trousers, even the cotton of his blue striped boxer shorts. His hand on the back of her neck was holding a strand of her hair as he pressed her further down onto his crotch.
Was it the sweet lemon smell of her freshly washed hair? Or that she was stone-cold sober? She knew exactly what she was being paid to do, she’d done it too many times before. But never sober. Face down between a john’s legs, having just been paid twenty dollars for a blow-job in a shopping precinct car park, the ghost of Lieutenant Lorraine Page resurfaced and fought back for a tiny fraction of respectability. She couldn’t suck him off.
‘I’m sorry. You can have your twenty dollars.’
He held onto the back of her head, forcing her down. She pushed up with her hands trying to free herself. He was much stronger than she was now and, leaning over the seat towards him, she was vulnerable, incapable of getting away. He was able to hold her down with only one hand, and her head was stuck under the steering wheel. She heard the click of the glove compartment being opened but couldn’t see what he had taken out. She forced herself to relax, to try to get into a better position so she could move off him, but he still held onto her hair.
The first blow stunned her for a second — it glanced off the back of her scalp — but he had hit her with such force that he had automatically released his hold. She pushed upward with all her strength, propelling herself against his chest. He slipped back in his reclining seat, and it was then she saw the claw hammer. As he tried to raise it to strike her again, she knew he could kill her if he wanted.
Lorraine twisted her face towards his, and bit into his neck. She held on ferociously, her teeth breaking the flesh. He screamed, now more intent on getting her off than on using the hammer, but she wouldn’t release her bite.
The family loading their groceries looked over to the Sedan parked next to them. Its windows were steamed up, but the screaming made the woman push her kids inside their car. She even shouted for her husband not to go across, but he took no notice, and as he reached the driver’s door, he called out: ‘You all right in there?’ He turned back to his wife, who gestured for him to walk away, but he bent down, his hand tentatively reaching for the handle on the driver’s door. ‘You all right in there?’ he repeated.
As he opened the door, Lorraine fell out, face forward onto the cement floor, almost knocking him off his feet. The family started to shriek as they saw the back of her head covered in blood, and blood streaming from her mouth.
The Sedan jolted backwards, dragging Lorraine with it — her dress was still caught on the reclining seat lever. The man who had come to her assistance made a grab, almost had the driver by his sleeve, but he too fell, as the car swerved to make a turn. The door slammed shut, and with burning rubber tyres the blue Sedan shot down the exit ramp.
The woman was bending over Lorraine as she struggled to stand. At her feet was the wallet: it must have fallen from the john’s jacket in the struggle. She snatched it up. ‘He tried to rob me, he stole my bag and—’
The woman shouted for her husband to call the police, but Lorraine shook her head. ‘No, no, it’s okay — I’ve got my wallet. I’m fine really—’
‘But you’ve been injured, look at you.’
Lorraine backed away from their concerned faces. She touched her head. ‘It’s nothing, I’ll report it to security. Thank you very much.’
By now the woman’s husband had run back to them, red-faced and shaking with nerves. ‘I’ll get the police. Are you okay?’ The woman suddenly became suspicious of Lorraine, and caught her husband’s arm. ‘Get in the car, just leave her. She said she doesn’t want any help.
Get back to the children!’
He looked from his wife back to Lorraine, who managed a half-smile. ‘I’m okay, thanks for your help.’
Still he hesitated, but his wife called him again, and as he hurried across to her, Lorraine could hear the shrill voice. ‘Can’t you see what she is? Didn’t you see her face? She’s a whore, she was probably trying to steal from him. Just get in the car!’ They continued to argue, even as they drove out and he stared back at Lorraine, confused and shocked.
In the ladies’ room Lorraine soaked a handful of toilet tissue, and held it to the back of her head. She had lost a shoe, her dress was bloodstained and she couldn’t stop the flow of blood from the back of her scalp. Her mouth, too, was bloody, and she panicked. Had he hit her in the mouth? But it wasn’t her blood, it was his, from the bite she had given him. She was shaking now, her legs jerky, and she had to sit down on the toilet seat to stop herself fainting.
With trembling hands she opened the wallet. A driving licence plus a photograph — but not of the man inside the car. There were odd ticket stubs and dry cleaning receipts, and more than three hundred and fifty dollars. She folded the money, and stuck it into her panties. Then she stuffed the wallet into the trashcan.
She remained at the washbasin for another fifteen minutes, using more tissue soaked in cold water as a pad. When she had recovered enough to make her way slowly outside, she still felt dizzy and faint, so she hailed a passing cab and gave him Rosie’s address.
Lorraine hardly had the strength to get out of the cab and the driver was blazing when he found his seat was bloodstained. Jake, who had returned to check on Rosie, was watching the display from the apartment window.
Thinking her as drunk as Rosie had been, he nevertheless helped Rosie to carry her upstairs. When he spotted the wound on her head he insisted Lorraine go to the hospital. She refused. She didn’t want any hospital or police reports — she was fine. And she had not had a drink.
The wound was still bleeding freely, so reluctantly Lorraine agreed to go with Jake to his clinic to have it stitched. By the time they arrived she was subdued. She lay on the couch as Jake examined the gash. He doubted her claim that the wound had been caused by her falling on a loose paving stone. It looked to him as if someone had struck her from behind; if the blow had landed an inch further up, her skull could have been shattered. She’d been lucky.
Lorraine returned home with Rosie and Jake, her head bandaged and with a cropped haircut. Rosie put her in her own bed, and gave her the sedatives and antibiotics Jake had prescribed. Once she was asleep, Jake began to quiz Rosie. ‘What did she tell you that you think is lies, then, Rosie?’
Rosie shrugged. ‘Oh… just that she used to be a police officer.’
Jake smiled, his eyes concentrating on unscrewing the hinges of the damaged screen door. Well, that may be fantasy, of course.
I
think she’s a whore and that’s why she didn’t want to go to the police. Someone nearly killed her today, though. But my worry is you — because you are my main concern, Rosie dear, and you were doing so well before she came on the scene.’
‘I don’t think she had anything to do with me tying on a load, Jake. That was down to my husband.’
Jake squinted at the hinge. ‘Maybe, but you’re vulnerable right now, sweetheart, and it won’t take much to make you fall off the wagon. How long has she been dry? Not long. Right?’
Rosie knew he was right and that he meant well, but she couldn’t keep calling him just for social reasons — even though she had every right to call him when she was in trouble. ‘I get lonely, Jake. I need a friend.’
Jake held up the new hinges. ‘Who am I to say what you should or shouldn’t do? I’ll have to come back and fix this tomorrow. These aren’t the right screws.’
Rosie sighed and looked to the bedroom. ‘I think we’ll be okay, for tonight anyway. It’ll take my mind off things looking after her.’
Jake put on his jacket. ‘Up to you, but keep your eye on her. I don’t trust her.’
He had made no mention of Lorraine’s reaction when he had seen the thick wad of notes fall out from under her skirt. Her expression was angry and when he asked about the money she had told him to mind his own business; it was just her savings. Jake was sure she had a police record, he could tell by her face: that hardness. She must be as tough as any man to have taken such a crack and still be able to walk around.
Rosie started to make some chicken soup, even though it was eighty degrees outside. She was feeling a bit wobbly and had almost eaten the entire pot before taking a small bowl in to Lorraine. She had been awake for quite a while, but kept her eyes closed, wincing as Rosie collapsed onto the bed. Her head ached, a sharp nagging pain that pressed into her eyes.
‘Soup,’ barked Rosie, holding up the bowl and a large spoon. Lorraine smiled. It was the last thing she would have thought of asking for on a warm clammy evening but when she tasted the first spoonful, it hit the right spot — as her mother always used to say. She took the spoon from Rosie, and fed herself, dunking the fresh white bread into the remains, and finally wiping the bowl clean.