The Sound of Broken Ribs(46)

Belinda slapped him on the shoulder as he passed her. “No,” she said in a stage whisper.

“Why not?”

“Let’s see what she does.”

“Whatever.”

Belinda leaned out and around the corner just in time to see the stranger move away from the window and into the room right next door to theirs. Belinda told Carl what she’d seen.

“Whataya wanna do?” Carl slurred.

“Not sure. She’s inside now. Let’s get back to the room. I gotta think.”

*

Jack Kennedy eased shut her hotel room door and pressed her back against it. Her heart thudded angrily inside her chest. Pinching the cross under her blouse, she prayed, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of evil, I shall fear no death.”

She’d seen violence in Belinda Walsh’s eyes—an evil she’d not seen in person. Not in another human being, anyway. When she was young, there’d been a neighborhood dog that used to snaffle and growl and foam at the mouth every time she’d walk by its yard on her way to school. She’d seen evil in that mutt’s eyes. And she’d seen the same evil in Belinda Walsh only seconds ago.

Maybe she was just scared, Jesus.

Yeah. Maybe. Fright could be mistaken for evil. It gave off the same smell, anyway. The smell of cockroaches and excrement and sulfur. The smell of the devil.

Jesus, be with me. I ask this in your name. Amen.

Jack grabbed the remote from the nightstand. Or she tried to, at any rate. The remote had been affixed to a bracket, and that bracket bolted to the particle-board nightstand. Jack knew she could easily rip the thing from the fake wood, but she didn’t think the loss of her deposit was worth the convenience of being able to walk around with the clicker. She thumbed the power button, and the television flickered on, blaring soft-core porn.

The woman on the screen was being sexually assaulted from behind. Her shrieks of terror filled the room. Jack clapped hands to ears. A dilemma immediately presented itself. Remove her hands from her ears and listen to the rape and torture of the poor, innocent lady on the screen, or ignore it. This wasn’t something she could ignore though.

The man smacked the woman’s ass and Jack flinched, as if she herself had been struck. The woman moaned in torment and ground her rump into the man’s crotch. She must be trying to snap off his Dirty Stick. That was the only explanation. The man flipped the woman over and entered her from the top. Nails raked down his chest. Good for her, Jack thought, fight back. The woman sounded near to pleasure, and if Jack hadn’t known any better, she would have thought the exploited woman was enjoying herself.

She’s playing a part for him, lying in wait for the right moment, and then she’ll snap his Dirty Stick from its base.

The thought made Jack smile. She approached the outlet, where the television was plugged into the wall, and nudged the cord upward with the tip of her shoe. The plug fell out of the socket and the din of sexual agony abruptly died.

Jack was left in peace. She sighed contentedly.

She lay down on the mattress and pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket. Her fingers danced in unlocking movements. In her profession, a simple lock screen would not do. Too much valuable information on her phone. She’d had a program installed—what the man at Best Buy had called ‘an app’—that allowed her to set her lock screen to only accept an intricate pattern. It took all four fingers of her right hand to pull off, along with the thumb of her left. She was still so shaken up over the obvious rape of the woman on the television that she screwed up the pattern four times before she was able to unlock the phone.

She had two missed calls; both from her mother. She highlighted the last missed call and pressed send.

Her mother never left voicemails. Many times, she had told Jack, “Why should I leave you a message you’re just going to ignore? You see I’ve called. Call me back and see what I want. And don’t text. Texting is for monkeys.”

The phone rang twice before Annise Kennedy answered her landline. The sound of the handset rattling in the base as her mother picked up the phone was a noise so antiquated that Jack associated the sound to her mother alone.

“Took you long enough,” was how her mother answered the phone. It was how Annise Kennedy always answered the phone when her daughter called her back, be it ten minutes, ten hours, or ten days.

“Sorry about that,” was how Jack Kennedy always answered her mother. No matter how innocent she was of any transgression; be it implied, imposed, or erroneous.

“Have you stayed away from men since last we spoke?” This was the woman who had named Jack. Jack wasn’t short for Jacquelyn. Her name was simply Jack, named so after her father—given a man’s name so that men would always question whether or not Jack was truly a woman.

“Yessum.” When Jack spoke with her mother, the Alabamian in her came to the forefront of her speech. When she was working, she managed to keep what her father had always called ‘the Country Negro’ from her voice. But while on the phone with any kin currently residing in Alabama—be it mother, aunt, or cousins—the Country Negro reared its ugly head.

“Good girl. Have you said your prayers today?”

She had, but she answered her mother’s question with one of her own. “How’s dad?”

“He’s dying, Jack. How do you suspect he’d be?”