Page 27

“Richard, come on.” His voice changed the moment he saw my face. Whatever argument he had been preparing died before it reached his mouth. “Please don’t do this.”

I stepped forward and swung the meat tenderizer into his face. The metal head punched through skin and cartilage with a wet crack that sent his head snapping sideways into the wall. A thick spray of blood hit the paint and slid down in a dark smear. Jerry slumped for half a second before his body jerked upright again. Both hands flew toward his face while a stunned, wet sound left his throat.

I hit him again.

The second blow smashed across the front of his face. Bone gave under the textured metal. Blood burst over his fingers as he tried to cover what was left. His nose had flattened and split open. The skin around his mouth tore wider with each impact, showing teeth and torn gum. He tried turning toward the wall and curling his forearms over his head, but I grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him around.

I wanted to see his face.

Then I hit him again.

The swing caught him full in the mouth. Several teeth tore loose and hit the floor with a small hard clatter under the music. Jerry’s skull struck the wall behind him hard enough that plaster dust mixed with the blood. More of it sprayed across the paint and ran in uneven sheets toward the baseboard. His body sagged. One hand still hovered near his cheek. The other dropped useless against his chest. Blood poured from both nostrils and from the split that had opened his upper lip down to the gum line.

I kept swinging.

The shape of his features started coming apart. The bridge of his nose no longer sat in the middle of his face. Cartilage and small fragments of bone shifted under the next strike. His mouth became a ragged hole that leaked blood and saliva onto his shirt. Each impact drove his head back into the wall, then gravity pulled it forward again. Fresh blood coated the metal head of the tenderizer and ran down over my knuckles.

Jerry stopped begging somewhere in the middle of it. I barely noticed when that happened. All I could hear was what he had said.

She’s just some girl.

Samantha wasn’t some fucking girl.

Another strike landed and caved more of the midface inward. Then another. By then Jerry was no longer trying to get away. His legs had gone slack. His weight hung against the wall and the baseboard.

The anger stayed in my arms anyway. I kept hitting until the face I had known since Preston no longer held any recognizable parts. The arrogant smile was gone. The pretty-boy lines he used when he wanted something from a woman were gone. Even the loose resemblance to the man who had been sitting on my couch drinking bourbon a few minutes earlier had disappeared under pulp, blood, and broken bone.

My breathing had grown heavier than I realized. I stood over him with the meat tenderizer hanging from my hand. Blood traveled slowly down the handle and reached my fingers in warm lines.

Jerry’s body stayed crumpled against the wall. Small twitches still moved through his shoulders. A wet rattle came from what used to be his mouth.

Third Eye Blind kept playing through the speakers as though the room hadn’t changed. The television threw shifting light over the furniture. The broken bourbon glass glittered on the hardwood. Blood covered the wall behind Jerry and pooled on the plastic beneath him. Teeth lay in the mess near his knee.

I stared at what remained of his face.

He definitely wasn’t handsome anymore.

That made me smile.

I wiped the meat tenderizer against his shirt until the worst of the tissue came off the metal.

“Sorry, Jer.”

I stepped over his legs and went to turn up the music.

Then my phone rang. I looked toward my jacket on the chair. Nobody called me this late unless they wanted something. I wiped my hand against my pants, crossed the room, pulled the black Motorola StarTAC from my jacket, and flipped it open.

“Hello?”

“Richard?”

It was Samantha. Her voice pulled my attention away from Jerry.

“Hi.”

“Is this a bad time?”

I looked back at Jerry. Blood covered the plastic beneath him. One of his shoes had come off somewhere near the couch, and the bourbon he’d been drinking was spilled across the floor.