The Sound of Broken Ribs(11)

“I know what I meant and I know what I said. Bisexual. That was Dan.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, although she didn’t think for a second that her man had ever been with anything other than women. “It doesn’t matter now, I don’t guess. He’s gone and I’m looking at life in prison.”

“All right.” Tony leaned forward. The springs of the recliner squeaked and squealed. “Spill it, sis. Who’d you kill?”

“Some lady. Some runner lady.”

Tony cocked his head again. It was an old habit of his to look like a quizzical dog when he was curious. “You killed a stranger?”

“I think so, yeah. She was running down the street this morning when I came across her. I only meant to swerve and clip her, but she twisted around and dropped down to tie her shoe and… Goddamn it—the shoe!” She slapped her knees and dug in her nails, like an eagle on a branch. “I left one of her shoes in the middle of the fucking road!”

“That was stupid.”

“I have to go back and get it.”

“No you don’t. I ain’t letting you go anywhere for the next few days.”

Belinda stood up in one quick movement and made for the door. Tony shot from his recliner and grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her into the nearest wall.

“Off me!” Belinda screamed.

“You wan’ go to jail for real? You wan’ the death penalty? Huh? You want they should shoot you fulla poison while the family of whoever you killed today watches you twitch and shit and they point and laugh? ‘Cause that’s what’ll happen if you go back. They know things about things, Bee. They can run tests on your tires and see if you stopped or not. They can measure whether you meant to hit her. And if you did, ain’t no crazy plea gonna save you from the chair or the needle or whatever they do in this fucked up state.”

“Off me,” Belinda repeated, but all the fight had drained from her. Her tone was listless and resigned now. “I’m not going anywhere. Just, please, let me go.”

“All right. If you ain’t gonna leave, I’ll let you go.”

He released her. Belinda rubbed at the spots on her shoulders were his fingers and thumbs had dug into her flesh. She’d likely look in the mirror tomorrow morning and find ten perfect little bruises.

“No telling that they’ll ever find her anyway,” Belinda said. “I pulled her into the woods and out of sight.”

“Wow.” Tony chuckled and patted her on the back. “I never figured you for a cold-blooded bitch, but I guess you are.”

“Yeah,” Belinda said. She wiped fresh tears from her eyes. “I guess I am.”

*

When the man in the camo hat and wife-beater first stepped into view, Lei thought he was another apparition, that she had fallen asleep again and her mind had conjured a fallacy to entertain her dying brain. He even had one of her highlighter-yellow sneakers in his hand.

And then he spoke. “Holy fuck, what in Christ happened to you. lady?”

He seemed to realize in that second how bad off Lei was. He ripped a cell phone from his pocket and stepped away. But, even though he had moved out of sight, Lei could still hear him talking.

“I’m on 607, just before the Anderson property. Some lady’s been hit by a car. Yeah, she’s fucked up—uh—I mean she’s messed up pretty bad.” The volume of his voice dialed down from eight to four, but Lei could still hear him. “I’m surprised she’s alive, to be honest. Her ribs look like something tried to claw out of her but didn’t make it to the surface—know what I mean? Yeah. Jesus, yes, I’ll hang around. I ain’t no goddamn monster. Sorry. Right.”

Lei wanted to laugh again, but managed to contain the outburst. She’d thought the same thing when she had come to—that some monster was clawing itself out of her torso. Hadn’t she thought of sun worshippers, too? Probably, because it did look like the claws (her ribs) were reaching for the sky.

The man in the camo hat came back and Lei saw that the hat was gone. A band of irritated skin stretched across his forehead like a red bandana where the hat had sat moments before. She saw the hat peeking around his hip and figured it must be stuffed into his back pocket.

“I called the ambulance. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do for you until they get here. I suppose they’re gonna take you to Mercy Medical in Chestnut, because Yorkshire ain’t equipped for this kinda thing. The End’s too small of a town for big injuries, and you’re hurt big. Real big. But you probably know that.”

She knows that.

Lei blinked several times. Not to let this man know she was listening but because she couldn’t put a face with the second voice. She’d heard someone say “She knows that” just as clear as day. The voice was soft, dreamlike, but it had been there.

The camo hat came out of the man’s back pocket and he wrung it like a washcloth. “You bleeding pretty bad. Surprised you’re still—never mind. You don’t need to hear that shit. God, I wish there was something I could do for you. Don’t look like you can talk, either. Your jaws all funky.” The man made a face that reminded Lei of that classic piece of art entitled The Scream. “Wish you could tell me if I could call someone for you.”

It was only then that Lei remembered the cell phone strapped to her bicep. She cut her eyes toward it and back to the man in the wife-beater. Repeated the action. She only hoped he could see what she was talking about; that the holder wasn’t too far out of sight underneath her.