The Empty Trap Read Online Free PDF

Lloyd’s chin holding him upright, while he ripped his big hands into Lloyd’s middle, working him the way a fighter in training works the heavy bag. He worked him until Lloyd’s arms flapped loose as empty sleeves, until his chin bounced idiotically on Tulsa’s shoulder, teeth clicking, room bouncing in his dazed vision. Then Tulsa backed off, held his left palm flat against Lloyd’s chest, chopped him three times in the face with an overhand right. With the last blow the room bulged, turned red, and collapsed around him like a tent.
    When he came to, he was in a cane arm chair, hands tied together behind the chair, mouth wedged full of cloth. The door was ajar and he could hear voices out there, hear the Swiss talking to a stranger in Spanish. His chair was shoved over into a corner. Tulsa stood listening. Benny stood behind Sylvia, holding her close to him with one thick arm around her slim waist, a grimy hand flat across her mouth. Sylvia’s black hair was tangled, her eyes wide and hot and furious.
    The voices stopped and Valerez came into the room and shut the door. “He go now,” Valerez said in clumsy English.
    “What did he want?” Tulsa asked.
    “Too many peoples he said for one place so it is more. I give him eight pesos.”
    Tulsa shrugged. He went to each of the three windows, checked to make certain the blinds were completely closed. He paused in front of Lloyd, lifted his chin up, looked down at him. “Good morning, baby! Had a nice little vacation? Had a nice honeymoon? Wait a minute! Hell, she’s still married to Harry, so what do you call it? Couldn’t be a honeymoon, now could it? You’re a bright one, baby. If you wanted action, you should have done something not so risky. Like maybe jumping off the hotel roof.”
    Sylvia began to kick and writhe. Benny cursed her. Tulsa said, “Quiet the bitch down, Benny.”
    Benny spun her violently, hit her with one quick clean motion, and the noise of the blow was small and brutal. He caught her as she fell forward and grinned at Tulsa, evil and meaningful grin on the clown face. “Where at you want her, Tuls?”
    “In the bedroom. Then we hunt the money.”
    They found it easily. Tulsa brought it in, pulled the table over under a light, dumped it out. Benny sat down and counted it with the professional skill of a bank teller, jotting down totals for each stack, packing the stacks neatly in the zipper bag. He totaled his figures and said, “Sixty-four thousand eight hundred and ten, Tulsa. It’s supposed to be more than that, isn’t it?”
    “Harry couldn’t tell for sure. You know how it is. They’d claim more anyhow, wouldn’t they? Giz, keep an eye on the dish.”
    “Dish?” Valerez said, looking around helplessly.
    “Watch the girl, stupid! And just watch her, nothing else.”
    Then they turned the radio up again. Tulsa took off his shirt. They took the gag out of Lloyd’s mouth. He had felt pain before. Not this kind of pain. This was a white light that kept exploding in his head. When he bucked in the chair and tried to scream, Benny would clap the towel over his mouth. Lloyd knew he fainted, but he did not know how many times. He would have told adozen times had the pain been smaller. But the pain came in bursts that prevented his speaking. And when the pain faded, a dull stubborn anger closed his mouth. “That’s all there was,” he would bellow. He shouted it a dozen times.
    Tulsa finally straightened up, dropped the cigar, turned his foot on it. “I’ll buy it, Benny. Stuff his mouth again. And go get that tequila.”
    “Aren’t we going soon?”
    Tulsa looked at his watch. Benny tied the gag roughly in place. Tulsa said, “We kill time. Valerez says we can find a good place not too far, but not in the dark. So we leave about four. It’s after ten now.”
    Lloyd sat with his chin on his chest, the tears running out of his eyes, breathing hard, sobbing against the gag. He could smell the rich stink of his burned chest and