Excerpt: Backing

I wanted so badly to go fetal that I forgot for a moment that my hands were tied and I wrenched a shoulder in the attempt. I blinked several times to clear the tears. I moved on pure instinct, when what I really wanted to do was hold still and listen until my vision cleared. I nearly panicked when I couldn't, when the rustle of my dress on the carpet obscured the sound of his shoes.

I could feel the man pacing behind me, staring at me, and I heard footsteps above. The tears subsided, and though the light coming from the doorway was not that bright, I squinted from the pain in my head and struggled to keep my eyes open.

Stairs squeaked to my left, the slow steps of a large, heavy person. I could hear the person's breathing long before they reached the door. Step, exhale. Step, exhale. Stale cigarette smoke and an odor that made me think of sweaty feet and... chewing gum? Something sweet.

Things were coming into focus. I leaned my head back and watched Mr. Leather Shoes shift from one foot to the other and tense and relax his hands. He met my eyes without expression and a shiver rippled between my shoulder blades.

The door creaked, and Sandy shuffled through. He wasn't obese so much as alarmingly unhealthy. His slack, pock-marked face looked from the floor to my legs to my eyes, and I managed to hold his gaze even though I wanted to disappear inside the pole behind me. I shifted my knees slightly and uneasily and worked my dress down an inch or two.

He didn't fit any of the descriptions I'd imagined. A thin gray t-shirt stretched across his "golfer's breasts" and was too short to conceal the considerable dimple just above the button of his worn blue jeans. He carried a massive carpenter's level that he pressed against the wall as he walked. His great eyelids cradled wide, cloudy blue eyes, above which sat wild salt and pepper eyebrows. He glanced at the window and at the turn of his head revealed a short, bushy ponytail that stood straight out against his thick neck.

He turned back to me, slowly, and with affected menace said, "You've had some time alone."

It seemed a stupid thing to say and didn't require a response. He waited for a reaction, but I was determined not to give him one. In the back of my mind I knew that at any moment either of them might strike at me or lift my dress, and I stifled those fears so I wouldn't act on them. My mind raced, grasping for any insight that felt like a modicum of control.

He leaned against the wall and wiped his forehead. "I'm hoping you'll be honest with me. That's what this is all about."

"I don't know what this is," I said, my voice wavering a bit.

The skinny one spoke as he moved to my line of sight. "We don't want any shit, you hear?"

"Rudy," the older man said, lifting a hand to silence him. He softened his expression. "No, we don't. This could be simple."

"What could?"

"We had a certain business deal with your husband, Mrs. Cassini, and it didn't exactly go as planned."

I sighed involuntarily. That fucker. Goddamnit, I knew it.

"Might as well speak up, bitch," Rudy said. "We aren't going away."

I didn't want his sleazy technique to work on me, but my stomach lurched all the same. "I don't know anything," I said, closer to a statement than a plea, though I could feel the strains of begging in the base of my neck. Just a matter of time until they worked their way through my mind and out of my mouth.

Rudy pulled a hammer from his belt and struck the pole above my head. Against my greater judgment I let out a sob as the metallic jolt shot through my head.

The heavy man grabbed Rudy's arm. "Why don't you go hit some shit upstairs?" he said, and he was not prepared for an argument. Rudy looked at me as if he wanted to spit, then wiped his shoes before going back upstairs.

In my favor, I was alone with the man who was in no shape to do much harm unless he had a gun, or... took his time. I shuddered and squelched the terror before it rose to my lips. I tried to move my head to follow him as he walked behind me, opened a door in a wood paneled wall, and retrieved a folding chair from the adjoining room I'd guessed about the night before. He leaned against it as he crossed the small room, unfolded it before me, and sat heavily. He hunched forward, resting one hand on the level and the other on his knee.

"I have all day. And I'll tell you, so do you." Footsteps crossed the house above us, and we both looked at the ceiling. "This house can be quiet for days. Months. We're in the wasteland, honey, and no one gives a dog's ass what happens out here. Houses like this go empty for a year, easy, and no one's gonna ask any questions when we stop in and do a little work." He lifted the level from the floor and tapped it on the carpet, waiting for me to respond.

I wanted to. My mind reeled, and no words came.

"You owe us a lot of money. We're going to get it."

I closed my eyes. Everything I could think to say was a cliche. He stared, waiting, until I finally blurted that Frank was in jail and our bank accounts frozen.

The affected menace faded as a genuine threat surfaced in his eyes. "Who do you think put him there?"

The question rippled through me and left goose bumps on my skin.

He didn't blink, just waited calmly and let his question sink in. Then he softened again. "It's better than shooting him under a bridge, yeah? Let him sit there for a while, if he can't hold his end of the deal, and let you do it for him."

I hated myself for panicking and talking too fast. "I can't even get my own money. The bank won't let me have it. I don't know --"

He slipped the level under the edge of my dress and I fell mute, pulled my legs under me best as I could.

"Who buys your clothes? Hm? Your car. Your vacations."

I shook my head. "I bought this on sale. We don't take vacations."

"Whatever the fuck you do," he spat. "Who do you think owns you?"

My head kept shaking, side to side. "I have a job," I said, and it sounded ridiculous but I couldn't stop, even when I saw his mocking expression. "I make decent money, but it's never enough when the business isn't doing well. We don't have much. You have the wrong people."

He laughed then, a sound devoid of joy, an opening to the all the ugly things he'd seen and done, and it swallowed my words. Truth didn't matter to that sound. "The wrong people." He laughed again, and the air itself seemed to disappear.