Everyone Pays Read Online Free PDF

Emily gave me was Doug Farrow.
    His place in the Tenderloin was only a short walk. I broke in late, and as I came in, he stood at the desk, naked, fondling himself, entirely without shame.
    Red anger. I wanted to kill him right then. No waiting. No words.
    “Who are you?”
    I didn’t answer, couldn’t speak. I got closer, saw he stood before a table of pictures. There among the others was Emily.
    My Emily. My charge.
    “No!”
    I backhanded him with a closed fist, turned and caught him under his chin with my left hand and drove him back, off the floor and into a wall so hard it cracked. His hand finally left his sex to manage some minor defense but too late. The thrum in my ears blocked out his words, the world.
    I held him above the ground, both hands at his neck, him coughing. Threw him airborne into his bathroom sink. He landed, knocked it off the wall. I rushed in and grabbed what I could, found myself holding the faucet fixture in my hand, its odd-shaped metal coming clean off from the white porcelain, jagged grout around its edges.
    Then the rest was urge and violence—lack of control, my own abandon, blood. Something else took over. When it was done, there was very little left of Farrow’s face to see.
    I stepped out of the bathroom into his studio, my chest heaving. I bent, put my hands on my knees, worked to catch my breath. Then stood hands on hips, breathing harder than I could remember. I was gassed.
    I counted. Five. Seven. Ten. That was all.
    Water poured out of the wall above Farrow’s head, gurgling behind me. Running over what remained of his face.
    I turned to the table, lifted Emily’s picture up out of the rest. A mess in front of me. Too many girls, poses, straps. Filth. Emily was in another shot and another. Her face among a mix of many others, all mired in filth, her thin body contorted to his desires.
    I took what I needed—only one picture of her—and left Farrow in his bathroom. Shut the door behind me, tucked the picture inside my jacket, close to my breast. Brushed off my hands, saw the cuts, didn’t care. I wiped the blood off on my pants and walked out of the building, onto the street, toward home.
    Emily’s soul one step closer to clean.

CHAPTER NINE
    I lay awake at 3:57 a.m., listening to her breath, longing to touch her in ways I never would. Protector, savior, absolver . . . these were the roles I played for her in the name of our Lord.
    But lover? That would never be.
    Under the bedsheets, I allowed myself one touch.
    I brought my fingers along the length of her thigh, hip to knee—not even. Stopped myself inches from her knee, just touching with the pads of my first fingers. Just two! The softness of her skin. In the dim dawn light, I saw her side move as she inhaled, lowering as she let go. Her soft sounds.
    I allowed myself one long touch, put my palm against her side where she felt warm. This, in the night, was where I committed my own sin. I wanted to believe she liked it. My hand burned. I felt the fire of my own urges—more than I could take.
    The cold floor shocked my bare feet when I pushed myself out of bed on the opposite side. I wanted to come around and watch her face as she slept, but couldn’t risk waking her. Instead, I moved to the sink, where I splashed cold water on my face and under my arms. I knew the movies where men like me self-punished with whips and straps, flagellating their backs. Silly. Why would I want to do that when the streets beckoned with a wealth of sinners waiting to be claimed in His name?
    Outside on Larkin, I headed north, into the heart of the city at its worst. At this time of night, I passed addicts nodding on the concrete, bodies laid flat. Beyond them walked the last peddlers of physical sin—those too broke, without a home to go back to, barely standing in the light for the last hopes of a trick that might pay what they needed to cop. He was in the middle of all this, out here for me to find.
    Emily had given me one final