TWELVE

Colt gagged, and for a blinding shard of insight thought someone had shoved a pool cue into the hollow of his massive neck. It seeped into his fading consciousness that the bitch was drilling her index finger into that soft hollow over his windpipe. He couldn’t breathe. His tongue protruded as she drilled and he gagged, gasping for air, eyes bugging as he dropped to his knees, a gun barrel now staring at his nose. Colt’s ears were ringing, blood roaring as the bitch screamed like she was going to eat him tartare.

“You move I’ll blow your brains out motherfucker!”

Minx gyrated. Patrons drank. Backup cops burst through the front door, far away across the dark, smoky room. West had a knee on Colt’s beefy back, and was busy snapping cuffs on his wrists tight behind him. Brazil looked on in awe. Cops hauled Colt and the drunk dudes to jail. Minx saw her chance and walked off her runway, plucking lousy folded dollar bills out of her garter, wrapping up in a sweatshirt, and lighting a cigarette, out of here for good this time.

“Why did I let you get me into this?” West was saying as she unlocked their car. “I don’t do this anymore for a reason.” She climbed in, yanking the seatbelt across her chest, cranking the engine.

Both of them were excited and trying not to show it. Brazil held together his ruined uniform shirt, which was missing half its buttons. West noted that he had a very well-developed chest to go with those shoulders and arms and legs. She instantly stopped transmitting any and all signals, such as body language or glances or words or heat. Where was all this coming from anyway? Outer space. Not from her. No sir. She opened the glove box and rummaged until she found the tiny stapler she was sure was in there somewhere.

“Hold still,” she said to him, as if it were an order.

She leaned close because there was no other way to correct the situation and gathered his shirt together, and began stapling. Brazil’s heart picked up. He could smell her hair, his own seeming to stand on end. He did not move. He was terrified even to breathe as her fingers brushed against him. He was convinced she could tell what he was feeling, and if he as much as twitched and inadvertently touched her somewhere, she would never believe it was an accident. She’d think he was just one more prick out there who couldn’t keep it in his pants. She’d never see him as a person, as a sensitive human being. He’d be reduced to this thing, this guy-thing. If she leaned half an inch closer to the right, he would die right there, on her front seat.

“When was the last time you had to do something like that?” he managed to ask.

West covered her repair job with his clip-on tie. The more she tried not to connect with his person, the clumsier her fingers got, fumbling, and touching. She nervously tried to put the stapler away, and dropped it.