He collected everything from the car—water and Pepsi bottles, wrappers from a couple of Hostess cupcakes and three Slim Jims, and aWalking Deadcomic book, anything they might have touched with bare fingers—and followed Kort into her room. She was in the bathroom, naked from the waist down, and said, as he came in, “I can’t see anything—you’re going to have to look at my ass.”
Not an inviting prospect, but had to be done. Either that, or kill her. He thought about it. He could tell their employers that she’d been mortally wounded and he’d had to bury her body in the woods. They’d probably believe him. On the other hand, they might send another Kort-type to talk to him about it. He decided not to kill her. Not immediately, anyway. He really did hate the bitch.
“It’s killing me,” Kort moaned. “Help me, you fuckin’ moron.”
Soto pulled a washcloth off the rack in the bathroom, soaked it in the sink and squeezed out the excess water, and said, “Lay down on the bed.”
She did and he used the washcloth to wipe away a lot of blood and took a look, a memory he wouldn’t cherish. “Went through one cheek, across your butt crack, and into the other cheek but not through. I think I can see it. There’s a black bump below the skin.” Purple blood was seeping from the three wounds.
“Where? Put your finger on it.”
Soto put his finger on the bump and Kort reached back and felt the bump, kneading it, and said, “It’s the bullet. You gotta get it out.”
“Ah, man, how am I supposed to do that?” Soto asked.
“Knife,” she said.
“Igota knife,” he said.
—
BEFORE HE OPERATED,he walked out to a Walgreens drugstore and bought a bottle of alcohol, a box of extra-large medicated Band-Aids, a roll of extra-wide surgical tape, a bottle of Aleve, a tube of Neosporin, and, almost an afterthought, a pack of single-edge razor blades, which he guessed would work better than his knife. Back at the motel, Kort was still lying on the bed. Soto looked at her butt, shook his head, took one of the razor blades out of the pack, poured some alcohol over it, and said, “This is gonna hurt.”
“It already hurts. Just fuckin’ do it, okay, dipshit? Do it. Gimme a wet wash rag, first. Not the dirty one, a fresh one.”
He handed her a wet washcloth and she rolled it into a tube shape and bit down on it. Mumbled something that sounded like, “Go ahead.”
Soto, with the razor blade in his hand, looked at several approaches—straight in, from the side, a kind of scalping move...
Kort spit the washcloth out and demanded, “What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck?”
“Trying to figure out the best way,” Soto said. “I gotta tell you, your ass ain’t the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen. Looks like two basketballs doing a revenge fuck.”
“Fuck you.”
“Put the cloth back in your mouth. I’m gonna cut.”
Kort lay back down and Soto bunched up a layer of fat, with the slug at the top, like an unpopped pimple, and then with the corner of the razor blade, went straight in.
Kort screamed into the cloth, but Soto squeezed up the lump of yellow butt fat and the bullet popped out. So did a lot of blood, though the wound was small. Kort stopped screaming, spit the cloth out, and asked, “You get it?”
“Yeah, I did.” He sounded pleased with himself. “You can wash the holes off yourself. Don’t bother with the brown one in the middle.”
“Fuck you, you asshole.”
“Least I got only one,” Soto said, cackling at his own joke.
Kort washed all four wounds with the alcohol, weeping as she did it, at both the pain and the humiliation. When the skin had dried, she squirted on some Neosporin, put the Band-Aids on, and then a strip of surgical tape, crossing the middle of the Band-Aids.
Soto was lying on the bed, reading theWalking Deadcomic book. When she started digging in her suitcase for a clean pair of underpants, he asked, “All done?”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re still bleeding a little. Try not to get it on the sheets. We don’t need any questions.”
“Fuck you.”
—
