A Warrior's Return Page 2

  I’d seen big men before, but he was big and something more besides. I’d only seen black men with the muscle structure and frame size that this man had. But it wasn’t just the size and strength of the man that was imposing. There was an easy confidence in the way he lounged in his chair with his legs spread out.

  It was, as if he was a big cat lounging idly, as he watched for prey. Ready at any moment to spring into action and crush his helpless victim. My greatest fear watching him watch me was that I was his next victim.

  I ended a little earlier than usual, which I never did. I couldn’t take it any longer!

  I had to get off the stage!

  I rushed off into the darkness of the hallway and pressed my back up against the wall trying to catch my breath, even as my heart pounded in my chest.

  “Are you all right Evangelina?” Asked one of the other girls waiting to go out.

  I nodded hurriedly and motioned her on, but no, I was not all right.

  I felt like I was about to feel the teeth of a lion sink into me at any moment and rip me apart. I realized then that I had left behind the few dollars thrown up onto the stage.

  There was no way I was going back out there! I had to get out of here fast!

  I ran into the dressing room and hurriedly got dressed and within moments I was running out the back of the dance hall into the dingy dark alley that ran behind it. I quickly hurried down it trying to stay out of the mud and piles of refuse.

  Looking back once I thought I saw movement. I was being followed!

  Panic spurred me on and within seconds I made the main street although it was little better in appearance than the back alley had been. I started hurrying down it looking back constantly.

  I didn’t even see the car that came to a screeching halt beside me, until it stopped. Recognizing the car I hurried on, but the car door opened ahead of me blocking my path. A hired gun in a black suit got out quickly. His face showed no readable emotion. It was like that old saying, out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  “Victor wants you.” The hired beef said in a monotone voice.

  With what little bravado I had left I shot back, “Yeah well, tell Victor he can keep looking! I told him the last time, was the last time!”

  I made to go around him, but he caught my arm and pulled me back. I kicked him hard in the shin and was rewarded with a backhanded slap that almost took my head off.

  Knocked half dizzy, I stood tottering on my feet, as he opened the back door of the sedan. He shoved me into the car so hard that my head hit off the other passenger side door.

  I sat up in the seat slowly, a frisson of fear going through me. I tasted the blood at the corner of my mouth, as the realization set in that tonight might be my last.

  The car pulled up at a house in the wealthy section of town. The house was one of those modern ones that was all glass and sharp angles. I didn’t care for it or the slimy little maggot it housed.

  I was yanked out of the car and practically dragged up the walkway to the front door. We made our way past more guards inside and then I was thrust into a room I took to be the study. Victor, a slim tall weasel of a man, rose from his black leather chair behind the room’s only desk.

  Normally with a man of his slight build I could handle my own against, but Victor was different. Victor had the strength mentally unstable people often have, because he was unstable. He in fact was completely insane and capable of doing anything.

  I knew fear as he approached me. I never knew how my sessions with him would go, but they never went well. It was more a question of how bad it would be.

  “Goodness Evangelina what’s this?” He asked drawing his finger along the crack in my swollen lip.

  He glanced pointedly at his hired gun.

  “She didn’t want to come.” Her captor said simply in way of his defense.

  With the eerie light of craziness in his eyes Victor asked me, “Is that true my dear?”

  “Yes.” I muttered out knowing it didn’t matter what I said, so it might as well be the truth.

  His hand snaked out and slapped the other side of my face hard. A swelling welt rose quickly along my cheekbone.

  “The truth won’t get you anywhere here Evangelina.”

  I stood stone-faced, as he ripped my blouse open and then promptly shoved me over backward. My head cracked off the hardwood floor and stunned me.

  My breath escaped me, as he sunk a fist into my stomach. He straddled me on the floor and in a flurry of movement started flailing away at my head and chest.

  Almost beaten senseless I felt him inside of me. Through the fog in my brain I could hear him grunting like a pig on top of me, as the guards still in the room laughed.

  I felt his long stringy fingers at my throat, as they began to tighten. I struggled to breath and I felt myself start to black out.

  Light pierced into my eyes painfully and I lifted my eyelids further to see Victor getting to his feet, as he pulled his pants back up. It felt like it had been hours, but knowing Victor it had probably been less than a minute.

  He slipped back his greasy hair with one hand and smiled charmingly down at me, almost appearing sane for a moment.

  “I’m afraid I have to run along now my dear. I have a dinner appointment to keep.”

  And then with dramatic effect he added, “With your loving father no less!”

  Laughing hard he pulled his wallet out and dropped several bills down upon me. I felt the currency land on my stomach, as if it was a lead weight.

  “If you think I paid you too much.” He leaned down and socked a fist hard to my right eye, knowing that the resulting bruise would put me out of action on the stage for over a week or more.

  “Now you don’t. Do drag yourself out of here before I return!”

  He straightened back up and left with his guards following close behind him. One of them stopped briefly and picked a bill off of me. He gave me a wink before continuing after his master.

  I lay there for a long time and then slowly I began to move. I turned onto my stomach and groaned.

  Slowly I began crawling toward the study bathroom. I reached the sink and began to pull myself upward, leaving bloodstains on the pristine white marble countertop in the process. I got to my feet leaning heavily on the countertop and then unwillingly I lifted my head and looked at myself out of the one eye I could still see out of.

  No emotion could express how I felt other than completely hopeless. I should just end it. I could at least tick Victor off, by bleeding out all over his expensive carpet, in my final death throws.

  “No!”

  My fist shot out and smacked into the mirror sending cracks out across it.

  Rafael would be getting worried. I needed to get cleaned up and get home. That was what I had to do!

  I turned the water on and got a towel wet. I started to wash some smeared blood off of my arm. I rubbed hard and then harder, but I couldn’t get the stain off of me!

  I rubbed so hard that I made my skin bleed.

  My body jerked on a sob and I grabbed my bloody face with my hands, as I sank back down to the floor sobbing painfully.

  I’d never be clean!

  Ever!

  It may not have been cold, temperature wise outside, but I was cold. The slight rain didn’t help any. It was over a mile from Victor’s house to where I lived.

  Even though there was light enough to walk by and find my way, I kept walking into things on my blindside. I must have looked completely pathetic, as even the late-night muggers left me alone. Their thought must’ve been, ‘what else was there left to be taken other than my worthless life’.

  Finally I reached the rundown apartment complex where I lived. It was actually better than most in the city, as with my occupation I could afford a little better, although for how long I didn’t know.

  I could feel the weight of Victor’s money in my pocket. Oh how I hated money!

  You needed it to live, but you had to die to get it.

/>   I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and made my way down the completely dark hall by memory, until I reached my door. I found the key hidden in a slit in the wall, where the drywall had been torn away. Fumbling with the key I unlocked the door and stepped inside, quickly locking the door behind me.

  I let my forehead rest against the door for a moment. It wasn’t much, but it was at least something. To have a locked door between me and the world, for at least a little while, was as much security as I could ever hope for.

  I made my way around the kitchen table to the doorway of the second room and listened. I heard Rafael’s breathing and I relaxed a little. I made my way back to the kitchen, when I sensed a familiar feeling.

  I ripped open the little drawer next to the refrigerator and reached for the old pistol hidden under some hand towels. My fingers found it and I yanked it free, as with my other hand I flipped the light switch on.

  The weak light bulb located over the table flickered to life and cast its weak glow into the dark room. I held the big pistol up with both hands wishing I could see out of both eyes.

  I had three bullets and I hoped they would be enough to take the big man down, who was sitting in the chair across the table from me. I wasn’t sure if three bullets would be enough. He scared me and put me off balance more than any man ever had and I didn’t even know why!

  “Put the gun down.” He said firmly, his voice deep and full of authority.

  Before I realized it the gun in my hands had lowered halfway in obedience to the man’s voiced command. I jerked the gun back up breathing hard.

  What was he doing here?

  How did he know where I lived?

  They didn’t even know where I lived at work! He had to have followed me home in the past!

  Was he here to kill me?

  With the last thought fresh in my mind I pulled the trigger involuntarily and a flat hollow click sounded loud in the room. I panicked and pulled the trigger again and again.

  Click!

  Click!

  What was wrong with it? Maybe I had the cylinder in the wrong place. I yanked on the trigger three more times.

  Click!

  Click!

  Click!

  I gazed at him in terror out of my one good eye. He hadn’t moved the whole time. His hand reached out toward the table and slowly, as if pausing for effect, he set my three pistol shells in a row on their bottom ends along the table’s edge in front of him.

  His blue eyes blazed brightly in the semidarkness of the room, “Put the gun down.”

  I sensed the threat in his voice and I slammed the pistol down to the counter and peeled my fingers away from the false hope that it had offered me. From underneath my small table, he shoved the chair nearest to me, at me. I jumped back against the counter at the unexpected movement of the chair.

  “Sit down.”

  There was no denying the command of his voice. Every part of me was quivering, as I half stumbled forward and sat down.

  He played with one of my bullets on the table in front of him as he began, “I have a proposition for you and you’re going to agree to it.”

  He looked up pointedly from playing with my bullets to make direct eye contact with me. The sudden irrational thought given the situation that occurred to me was that he was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. The most deadly man as well.

  “I need a place to stay for a while and you are going to provide it for me. Lodging is all you are going to provide me with. Do I make myself clear?”

  I nodded yes, even as I was consumed by shock at his words. Did I look that bad?

  He had me at his complete mercy and all he was insisting that I provide him with was my small home?

  “There’s one more thing you’re going to provide me with. You’re going to tell me everything you know about Victor Uchenko. Him, his houses, his possessions, his guards, his likes and dislikes, in short everything you know about him.”

  A cold dread filled me with the sounding out of his words and I started to shake my head no, “He’ll kill me!” I whispered out past my swollen lips.

  He looked at me across the table his face unreadable as he said, “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

  A single tear leaked out of my eye and down my cheek, but I continued to shake my head no. He got out of his chair and walked toward me and I gripped the side arms of my chair tightly.

  It did no good to run. I had nowhere to go. I was going to die. He stepped behind me and I couldn’t help but begin to shake.

  I jumped when his strong forearm slid across my throat, as his hand gripped the side of my face. I couldn’t help the whimper of fear that escaped my mouth, as I felt his other hand close over my head. He was going to snap my neck!

  Hurriedly I choked out, “Please don’t hurt the boy!”

  A moment passed that nothing happened and then I jumped when his words were said directly against my ear, “You would make a far better warrior than you do a whore.”

  He withdrew his arm and hands and I sucked in a big gulp of air not realizing I had been holding my breath.

  I watched, as he went back to his side of the table and picked up his hat. He came back to stand beside me and stopped. I had to look up because he was so tall.

  “I’ll be back in the morning. In the meantime you should get some rest. You’ll tell me what you know about Victor tomorrow.”

  I made to speak, but his callused finger touched my lips gently and I stopped.

  He repeated, “You’ll tell me what you know in the morning.”

  There was no question in his words and I don’t know why, but I nodded yes.

  He nodded his head in acceptance of my submission. He set my three pistol shells on the table in front of me and I looked at them and then back up to him in shock. The look in his eyes was different somehow.

  “Don’t forget to lock your door Evangelina.”

  He turned to go and I don’t know what possessed me to ask, but I did.

  “What will you do, if I don’t open the door in the morning?”

  He turned back and nonchalantly said, “Bust it off its hinges. Good night Evangelina. Get some rest. I’ll bring something for that eye in the morning.”

  He closed the door and I just sat there in shock over my encounter with the stranger. There was a slight per-functionary knock and I jumped up and locked the door. I heard him walk away down the hall then. I stared at the door and reached a hand up to my swollen eye.

  What had just happened?

  I didn’t know, but he would be back in the morning that I didn’t doubt.

  Chapter Three

  The Morning After

  I sat nervously staring at the door in front of me, waiting. I hadn’t been able to get much sleep. My thoughts had been too focused in stressful anticipation of this moment to rest. Rafael would be waking up soon and I wondered what his opinion of the strange man, who would be staying with us for a while, would be.

  Probably not good. I wasn’t comfortable with the big white man staying with us either, but what choice did I have? I hadn’t really been given one.

  I almost fell off the chair when an abrupt knock sounded on the door that rattled it on its hinges.

  Nervously I approached the door and asked, “Who is it?”

  My voice came out as a squeak. I cleared my throat and asked again.

  “Guess.” Came the deep voiced reply from the other side of the door.

  I reached out and slipped the deadbolts free. I quickly backed away from the door towards the counter. I had laid the big pistol on the counter earlier and now I stood beside it, but I didn’t pick it up. It wouldn’t do to provoke him in any way.

  The door opened and he came in and kicked it shut with one foot. His arms were full of bags!

  He studied me for a moment and then my proximity to the pistol on the counter and seemed to nod his head in approval before continuing on to the table where he dumped all the bags. What were in the bags?

  It lo
oked like food! He had brought food?

  He picked up one bag and motioned for me to sit in the chair at the table. A moment of panic overwhelmed me, because that meant I had to leave the pistol behind!

  He must’ve read my mind, because he scooted the chair towards me and I for lack of anything better to do sat down on it next to the counter. He got the other chair and placed it directly in front of me and before I knew what he was doing he raised a leg over and sat down blocking my knees inside of his wider spread ones.

  He was way too close! He didn’t seem to mind a bit that he was completely invading my space. He was lining stuff up on the counter beside us. Medicine!

  He had bought medicine for me?

  My one eye must have conveyed some sense of the shock I felt at the knowledge that he’d spent money on medicine for me.

  “What?” He asked studying me curiously.

  I shook my head and looked down at my lap where my hands were nervously clutched together. I heard movement and glanced up to see Rafael standing there in his bed clothes right beside us. His little face was one of shock and utter consternation, as he looked from one to the other of us.

  Finally he looked at the stranger and spoke with a gusto only matched by a five-year-old, “You did this?”

  The big stranger shook his head no watching the little boy, “No I did not.”

  Rafael looked uncertain then as to what to say.

  “Rafael this man will be staying with us for a few days.” I said softly.

  The little boy quickly came to the most likely conclusion and turned back to me and spit out the word, “Whore!”

  He then turned and started to storm back toward the bedroom, but he stranger caught a hold of him with one hand and halted his progress, “That’s no way to speak to your mother!”

  Rafael struggled within the stranger’s grasp and screamed out, “She’s not my mother! My mother’s dead!”

  The stranger let go of Rafael, who ran into the bedroom and slammed the door. The stranger’s frankly curious gaze came back to mine asking a question.

  Quickly I mumbled out, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I looked down hoping that he wouldn’t make me tell him. He was quiet for a moment and then he started to clean my face better than I had done last night. His big fingers were surprisingly deft in their task, even gentle.