7. Dante
7
DANTE
“G et off her.”
My voice is controlled and methodical. I let the door bang shut behind me to announce my arrival and cock my gun, knowing he hears it, otherwise why would he stop what he’s doing and stand still?
I’d waited three whole minutes after I’d seen him walk into the restroom behind the mystery woman. Three whole minutes before my conscience got the better of me and I cursed, leaving the comfort of my car. I stole up to the deserted block, listening at the door before I decided the couple wasn’t in fact acting out some lurid fantasy and the woman was in trouble. I may have had a job to do, but I wasn’t bastard enough to let a woman get raped and possibly killed by some pervert.
The man straightens, righting his body but keeping one hand firmly on the woman’s lower body. I look down at the woman, still bent over the basin, her hair falling forward to cover her face. The stranger turns to face me, still holding the woman down. I hold my gun with unwavering hands, pointing it directly at his chest.
“We’re two adults here having consensual sex,” the man says, put out by the interruption. He isn’t wearing any underwear, and I can unfortunately see the angry red swell of his cock needing some much needed relief.
“That so? In a public restroom?” I ask.
“It’s how we like it,” the stranger shoots back, super annoyed at me.
“Then you won’t mind me confirming with the lady,” I counter, tipping my head in her direction.
The woman squirms under the man’s hand and flings it off, before raising herself to stand. The man looks at her as she lifts her jeans up her long slim legs. She may have just traded one monster for another, but I bet she’s willing to take her chances with me.
“This animal was going to rape me,” she says, looking down at the man’s swollen cock. She scoffs then looks up at his face, giving him a shake of her head. “If you’re going to threaten to drive your ‘big, hard cock’ in one end and out the other, better get a transplant first,” she laughs.
The man lunges at the woman, but not before she artfully sidesteps and watches him go sliding down the wall. Turns out she hadn’t needed my gun, after all. I watch as she zips up her jeans and crouches down by the man’s side, looking him in the eyes.
“The next time you decide to do this again, let the girl blow you first. Maybe the world will get lucky and she’ll bite your dick off.”
I watch as the woman picks up her bag and heads for the door. The stranger is still sitting against the wall, trying to figure out what just happened. He looks like he may even be a little concussed. But that isn’t my problem. I put the gun in the back of my waistband and follow the woman out into the night, finding her standing in the dimly lit gas station. She now has two bags with her, and I look from the handbag that was on her arm earlier to the carryall that she probably had stashed in the restroom, my mind trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together.
She stands at the edge of the station, as far away from the bad lighting as possible, so she is but a shadow in the dark night, and looks up at the sky, before she turns and walks back to the public payphone which has seen better days. I keep my eyes glued to her as she lifts the receiver and puts it to her ear, then brings it down and looks at it, then back to her ear. When she confirms it’s out of order, she starts to slam the receiver into the phone, cussing and cursing at her apparent misfortune.
“Where’s your phone?” I ask her. She regards me with some suspicion and tells me she doesn’t have one before turning her back and ignoring me. The stranger I almost shot stumbles out of the restroom, tucking his shirt into his jeans, muttering ‘damn stupid bitch’ when he sees the woman, then continues on his way back toward the club.
“You have sixty thousand dollars in your handbag but you don’t have a phone?” This mystery woman is getting more mysterious by the minute. “What sort of woman carries around that sort of cash but no phone?”
The woman turns back to me in a sweeping pirouette and falls back on her heels with a thud. “Listen, thank you for your help back there,” she starts, indicating with her chin toward the restroom. “Unless you have a burning desire to steal my money now that you know how much I have in here,” and she lifts her hand with a flourish for dramatic effect, “please leave me alone so I can get on with my night.”
I extend my arms outward to indicate the deserted gas station. “Look around you – you’re in the middle of nowhere. I’m not going to leave you here alone… without a phone.”
“I saw you… in the club. Watching me. What do you want?”
“Let me give you a lift. And I wasn’t watching you.”
“You’re a good liar, too.”
“Lady, I have places to be. Let me drop you off where you need to be and we can both get on with our night.”
“You want the money?” she asks, holding out the bag in my direction.
“If I wanted the money, I’d have it already. I’m the one with the gun, remember?”
She goes quiet and looks at me, obviously assessing me and my reasons for helping.
“What do you want?” she asks.
I look at her carefully, not sure what she is seeing. Obviously, my charm isn’t enough to set her mind at ease. There isn’t an ounce of fear in her; caution yes, but she is absolutely fearless as she faces me with flat, emotionless eyes. They remind me of the eyes of a killer. Don’t ask me how I know what the eyes of a killer look like. When pushed far enough, there’s a killer in every one of us.
“To not read about you in tomorrow’s paper,” I respond, and she scoffs, hauling her carryall higher on her shoulder.
“Thanks again, but I’ve got this from here,” she says, taking slow tentative steps backward as she tries to make her exit. She doesn’t want to turn her back on me, which tells me she doesn’t trust easily. Which is a good thing, because I’m not a man that can be trusted.