The Sound of Broken Ribs(50)

The hotel phone rang at a quarter past four in the morning. Jack glanced at the clock, then the phone, and then back to the clock. She repeated the back and forth again before she frowned and lifted the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is Brenda at the front desk. I’m sorry about calling you so late, but we seem to have lost your information. I apologize, but I”—a soft titter— “but I don’t even have your name.”

Without so much as a thought or hesitation, caught off guard by the bubbly personality on the phone, Jack said, “Jack Kennedy.”

“That’s short for Jacquelyn?”

“No. Just Jack.”

“That’s so neat!” Brenda sounded like a valley girl. Jack had come across only two other women this effervescent in all her life, but not even seeing had been believing. There wasn’t this much happiness in all the world, much less in one person.

“Is that all you need?” Jack asked.

“Unfortunately, no. Is there any way”—the line became pregnant with Brenda’s pause— “you can come down so I can take another copy of your credit card.”

“I paid cash.”

“Oh. Well, see, I don’t have anything on file. I at least need a driver’s license… Please?”

“Can I come first thing in the morning? I’m… I’m in bed.”

“Oh, no. Okay. I… I guess so.”

Jack swung her legs off the side of the bed. “Is that a problem?”

“Not really… But it kinda is. It would be a problem for me. I think I’m the one who deleted your information. I’m so sorry.”

Jack smiled. “God is with you, Brenda. Let me get dre—out of bed, and I’ll be right down.”

“Oh! Oh, thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome.”

Jack dropped her towel by the bed. She stepped into her day-old panties, jeans, and white blouse, then slipped on her flats. She was ready in less than two minutes.

She flipped off the security bar and threw the bolt. She pulled the door inward.

A large black shape rushed her, spun her by the shoulder. A hand clamped over her mouth and she was driven crotch-first into the bed. Forced to bend over the bed and terrified at the possibilities of such a position, she shrieked and wailed into the smooth palm over her mouth. She sounded no louder than a mouse under a thick blanket.

“Shut up,” growled the voice of a man. She knew who had her though. It was the sodomite. She could smell the sin coming off him. Would a queer rape a woman? Of course he would. Rape was about power not attraction. Violence not lust.

She mumbled “Don’t hurt me” but all that came out were muffled vowels.

“Shut. Up.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

Jack heard the door to her hotel room click shut and the bolt engage.

“What do you know?” This was a woman’s voice, off to the side. Jack tried to twist her head in the direction of the voice—who she knew to be Belinda Walsh; who else could it be?—but the sodomite held her fast. “Let her answer me.”

The thick middle and ring fingers over her mouth parted about half an inch. Jack tried to scream. All she was allowed was a short burst, loud as a whistle but short enough that it would likely go unnoticed among the tenants in the other hotel rooms.

“Try that again and he breaks your arm. I swear to God he’ll do it. He’s crazy.” Belinda sounded as if she were trying to convince herself more than Jack. Jack, however, knew the sodomite didn’t have it in him. He had sheer brute strength due to his size. But it took a man’s mentality to do violence on another human being. Women and queers were incapable of such things. The only reason Belinda had been capable of harming Lei Duncan was because she’d had a car between them. But, when it was in person, flesh on flesh, sodomites and women were cowardly by nature.

“Give her another chance to answer.”

The sodomite’s filthy, likely semen-soaked, feces-encrusted fingers parted once more.

This time, Jack got out “HEL—!” before the sodomite shoved her face first into the bed. Her nose and mouth smashed closed against the comforter. She couldn’t breathe. Something heavy—so damned heavy—came down on the back of her neck. Then another impossibly heavy object settled down on the back of her left arm.

“I warned you,” Belinda Walsh said.

Jack saw what had happened in her mind’s eye. The sodomite had kneeled on top of her: one knee on the back of her neck and the other on her bicep. She felt his foul, icy-cold hands wrap around her left wrist and forearm. He squeezed to the point of cutting off circulation.

With one quick movement, he wrenched her arm upward, against the natural bend of Jack’s elbow, against the brace of his knee on the back of her arm. The elbow joint gave way with a sound akin to snapping a chicken quarter in two—leg from thigh. POP!

The pain was immediate and intense. Pain like nothing she’d experienced. A lightning strike of pure agony raced up her arm, through her collarbone, and into her chest. Her heart stopped. Skipped a beat. Started again.

Had she the air in her lungs, she would’ve screamed.

Instead, she passed out.

*

“Get off her before she suffocates,” Belinda said.

Carl, looking shaken and terrified and sweating profusely, did as he was asked. But even as he eased off the unconscious woman, he looked ready to pounce back onto her, should the need arise.