The Empty Trap Read Online Free PDF Page B

belly, his burned feet. He knew he could never be the same person again. He knew he could not go back to what he had been before. He had learned, abruptly, a special kind of hatred. He thought he could not hate any more violently than he did in those moments. Yet an hour later the hatred was stronger. The next hour tempered it, like a cherry red blade thrust into the quenching oil.
    “She wants come out!” Valerez called in a nervous tone.
    “So let her come,” Tulsa said.
    Sylvia appeared in the doorway. Her jaw was bruised. But she stood proudly, her head up, her eyes furious. She looked beyond Tulsa and Benny at Lloyd and her face changed. She tried to come to him, and Benny thrust her back roughly. “Lloyd, darling!” she said. “What did you two do to him?”
    Benny burlesqued shyness, rubbing the side of his foot on the floor. “Well, we had a sort of like a cook out.”
    “You filthy monsters,” she said, and her eyes filled with tears. She looked at Tulsa. “Are you taking me back to Harry?”
    “Harry don’t want to have to look at you, Mrs. Danton. Harry all of a sudden got tired of you, like.”
    Lloyd saw her bite her lip, glance toward the bluebag. “You’ve got the money. Why don’t you go and leave us alone now. You’ve done enough to Lloyd.”
    Tulsa spoke patiently to her, an explanatory tone. “Harry wouldn’t much like that. He said you should have a real hard time. Most of all you, Mrs. Danton. A worse time than Lloyd darling here on account of he didn’t know the score as good as you know it.”
    She looked at him with spirit and with bravery. “All right, Tulsa. Beat me up. Or should Benny hold me?”
    She wore the pale blue linen dress he had bought her in Mexico City, at the shop on Juarez when her terror was so great she would not leave the hotel. Tulsa reached out with one hand. She tried to move back, but he caught the square neck of the dress and ripped down. He tore out the entire front of it. What was left of the dress hung from one shoulder. He plucked it off and tore away the wisps of nylon. She tried to cover herself and then let her hands drop slowly to her sides. Some of the courage was gone, some of the spirit. She kept her chin up, her eyes fixed on Tulsa, but her mouth trembled.
    Benny made a grunt of appreciation. Tulsa said, “You look maybe a little better than I guessed, Mrs. Danton. Scared?”
    “What … what are you going to do?”
    “Right now? Get a drink. You stand right there, Mrs. Danton. Hell, you’re a lot better than a pinup. More real. You want a drink?”
    “No.”
    “Seriously, Mrs. Danton, that’s the only break I’m giving you. Harry wouldn’t like me doing this, giving you a drink. You want to know how it goes? You got yourself killed. When you and Lloyd darling were twenty miles outside of Oasis Springs, you were a dead girl. Didn’t you know?”
    “Can’t you …”
    “Not with Harry giving the orders, I can’t. You’re just as dead as Lloyd darling. You’re standing there dead. Now you want a drink?”
    Her eyes were staring. She looked at Lloyd and through him. “Yes,” she whispered.
    Benny brought Tulsa the glass and the bottle he had just opened. Tulsa poured the glass more than half full of tequila. She sipped it. Lloyd stared at Valerez. The man looked uncomfortable, embarrassed. Benny glanced at Sylvia greedily.
    “Hurry it up,” Tulsa said.
    She gulped and coughed and gulped again. Her face looked dulled, her eyes glazed, her complexion grayish. There was sweat on her face and shoulders and breasts. She finished the last of the tequila. Tulsa took the glass from her, threw it to Benny. Benny caught it deftly. Tulsa pushed the girl back into the bedroom and closed the door behind the two of them.
    Lloyd stared incredulously, with a sick horror, at the closed bedroom door. He shut his eyes hard upon the scene in his mind, but he could not blot it out. Benny pulled his chair—the chair with Lloyd in it—over to the