08 Illusion (49 page)

She wasn’t ready for it, couldn’t believe it was happening. Without warning, Buck pounced from behind her and locked his mouth over hers, making a long, lewd show of it. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She tried to turn her head away, but he stayed right on her, even gripped her head from behind and wouldn’t let her go. His buddies in the third row were on their feet, cheering. Jim threw up both arms as if seeing a touchdown, “YAHHHH!”

The crowd reaction was mixed. Most were trying to play along and be good sports, laughing, but the mood was going south.

Imprisoned. At their mercy. Icy, animal terror coursed through her. She groped at the ropes from outside herself, digging, yanking. The ropes were tight, the knots stubborn.

He put his hand on her waist, started working his way up.

She couldn’t think of anything funny. She could only feel his hand exploring her. The whole room became tea-stained; there was a low rumble and the smell of smoke; other times, other Bucks, other Jims, other Mandys began to layer atop the present …

PING! She spit the pellet into his mouth, breaking off his front tooth.

He jerked backward, staggering,

… his mouth over hers, making a long, lewd show …

… jerked backward, staggering …

his hand to his mouth.

… saw the blood on his hand …

She could see him from behind, from the audience, from above, from anywhere she wanted. She also saw herself, bound to the chair. From a hundred directions, she grabbed for the ropes.

… grabbed for the ropes …

… see him from anywhere she wanted …

He saw the blood on his hand and cursed her, getting mad enough to be stupid.

With all the other hands she could find she dug at the knots and they finally came loose. She grabbed for the ropes.

The ropes came alive, uncoiling like snakes, and the audience let out a cheer. The heroine was beginning to rally!

… about to backhand her …

Buck stepped up and would have backhanded her—

One of her threw the rope around his ankle and yanked him backward.

… yanked him backward; he body-slammed …

He body slammed the stage, and it had to have hurt.

… she yanked the rope and he went sprawling …

… he went sprawling …

… she came out of the chair …

The audience didn’t laugh. They weren’t sure what to make of this.

Jim was stunned and squatted down to check on his buddy.

The stage was moving like a ship on a rough sea. Mandy’s hands broke free as the rope fell away, but her body was tied fast to the chair.

She was standing midstage, addressing the audience, rubbing her sore wrists. “Wow! Guess you got a real show tonight!”

… her hands broke free …

She grabbed a pellet out of the little box beside her, spilling all the others, and popped it into her mouth.

Now Jim cursed her, rising, coming toward her.

She was working the ropes that bound her to the chair.

… standing in front of him … he was coming toward her …

She was in the chair, but standing there, too. The standing Mandy was no boxer, but anger and impulse made her throw a vicious punch to his face.

… the rope snaked behind him …

She didn’t feel a thing, but he reeled back, stunned, nose bleeding.

She held the rope in many hands.

It snaked behind him and looped around his chest. He fought it, beat at it, tried to grab hold, but it was alive, still coiling around him, keeping him busy.

… Buck got to his feet …

… Pfft! Try using
that
tonight! …

The audience was getting noisy, some cheering, some questioning, everybody murmuring. The goons were on their feet, trying to decide what to do.

Buck got to his feet …

It used to work on the moose and deer that ate her and Daddy’s flowers, only she used a slingshot to ping
them
in the ribs. She spit this pellet where it would really hurt, and it did. Buck doubled over.

“Try using
that
tonight, you son of a——” Yes. She really said it, loudly, and she meant it. She wanted to hurt him, and she wasn’t through.

Her ankles were free, and the other Mandys were frantically working, uncoiling the rope from around her, whipping and snaking it above the stage. One half tangled itself around Jim, the other half around Buck… .

From above, she grabbed hold of the rope.

The middle of the rope hefted upward as if in the hand of an invisible giant. Their bodies came off the stage, collided, then dropped in a heap.

… then dropped in a heap …

… Jim doubled over, hit in the groin …

She rose from the chair, rubbing her sore wrists.

… still bound to the chair, afraid …

By now, at long last, Andy, Carl, and two security guys ran onto the stage and gathered up Jim and Buck with the ropes still around them.

Mandy wasn’t thinking much, just raging, wanting to hit somebody, bite somebody. She locked eyes with the four goons in the third row, her fists clenching …

They cleared out, heads down and arms raised to shield themselves.

She, in some form, would have gone after them, but Andy put out a gentle hand. “It’s okay, it’s okay, they’re leaving.”

He and the other men hauled Jim and Buck up the center aisle and out the back.

Dead space. Mandy stood in the spotlight, hair tousled, face crimson and slick with sweat, her lipstick smeared, half gone. From somewhere she heard rustling, murmuring …

Oh. There was still an audience sitting there. She rubbed her sore wrists and worked up a smile even though her voice was unsteady. “Wow! Guess you got a real show tonight!”

They were still undecided how to feel about it.

In Mandy’s worlds, there were still Jims and Bucks on the stage, Mandys fighting and yanking ropes, different audiences watching different parts of what had just happened, was still happening, was going to happen.

Ladies and gentlemen,
came a voice.

… let’s have a round of applause …

… prop manager …

She focused on the lounge and audience that weren’t rolling, shifting, and tea-stained. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a round of applause for Buck Johnson, our prop manager, and Jimmy Hansen, our, uh, hairdresser!”

… our, uh, hairdresser …

… Whoo! They had me scared …

Now they were astounded, feeling fooled, and so relieved—at least some of them were.

Johnson? Hansen? She hadn’t a clue what their last names were. “Whoo! They had
me
scared!”

… had me scared!

… me scared!

Andy made the decision and ordered the curtain dropped. He made an announcement over the sound system that the show would close early. The people filed out of the lounge in many moods. Some were cheering for the brave girl, some thought it was the sickest stunt they’d ever seen, some felt gypped, everybody left the lounge talking about it.

The crew went to work. There was blood to mop from the stage and about a hundred quarter-inch steel pellets to sweep up.

Back in the dressing room there was yelling and screaming, mostly by Mandy, at Andy: What took him so long? How could he let them do that to her? Wasn’t he watching? How dare he close her show?

Andy kept trying to calm her down: he wasn’t sure how far to let it go, was wondering if she could play her way through it, didn’t know they’d be that brazen, was just about to put a halt to it, was she all right?

“No, I’m not all right!” she cried, immersing her face in the sink, smearing on soap, sloshing and slobbering the water into and out of her mouth to cleanse herself. “I’ve been violated! I’ve been, I’ve been shamed!”

“And you wanted to keep going?”

“I told you, it’s my show!”

“It’s my lounge.”

She smeared on more soap and washed her face again. “No, I am not all right! What kind of town is this, anyway, they let people like that run around violating people right in front of everybody!” She was crying, even yelling in the sink, her voice bubbling in the water. She soaped her hands and face again.

“This is Vegas,” Andy explained. “People can forget themselves—”

“I am not all right, can’t you see that? And I’m not one of your stripper, show-it-off showgirl bimbo nincompoops! I’m Mandy Whitacre, Mandy Whitacre, and I have some dignity!”

“You’ve already washed your face.”

“Well, I haven’t!”

“Listen, I should call a medic—”

“No doctors!”

“You should let them check you over.”

“No, I’m not all right! Seamus should have known, he should have known this would happen. What are you doing here?”

“I’m making sure—”

“Well, try knocking!”

“I came in here with you. You could hardly walk, remember?”

“No, I am not all right! How many of you are there, anyway?”

He shied back, hands extended as if she might attack him. “I’ll get a medic.”

She saw herself in the mirror. “I gotta get out of this outfit. I gotta get out of here.”

“Mandy, you’re upset, you’re beside yourself—”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“I’ll get someone—”

“Get out of here! And you get out of here! And you, too!”

Several Andys went out the door like a succession of instant replays. Mandy slammed the door shut, went to the mirror—the door slammed shut again, then again—saw her crimson, overwashed face and water-spiked hair with soap still in it; she’d splashed water and soap down the front of her costume, and there was a scary, psycho-banshee look in her eyes. If any medics came in here right now they’d inject her, take her away, and lock her up where doctors would give her pills, take away her clothes, her toothbrush, her freedom.

… Get out of here! And you get out of here! …

She toweled her hair, changed into her street clothes, and got out of there, leaving the place in a mess.

She worked her way down the hall behind the lounge … and into the main casino, staying on the carpeted throughway next to the wall so the security guys wouldn’t bother her. She hurried by the banks of slot machines, the roulette table, her hand on the wall to keep from getting lost in the wrong world.

… the roulette table …

… changed into her street clothes …

She couldn’t go home because she didn’t dare drive not knowing which car she was driving through which intersection and in what order. She thought she could sit in the Claim Jumper restaurant for a while, just have a salad, stay put, and wait out the storm. The restaurant was just off the casino floor, a short walk.

She saw herself up ahead, hanging a left into the restaurant. Okay. It looked like it happened, or was about to happen. She followed herself.

The hostess looked right through her, talking to somebody else. Mandy reached for a menu on the counter. Her hand passed through it. Wrong time. She ventured into the restaurant to do a quick visual search and spotted herself sitting in a corner booth, looking miserable and picking at a Cobb salad. All right, the corner booth. Now all she had to do was find the hostess who was here now.

She went back to the front, and the hostess noticed her. “Good evening. Table for one?”

“How about a corner booth?”

“We have one.”

When she got there, the miserable Mandy looked up and said, “I don’t want to talk to you! Go away!”

“You go away!” She immediately had to tell the waitress, “Not you, I was talking to a bug.”

The miserable Mandy dissolved. The booth was empty and the table was clean. Mandy sat down, ordered the Cobb salad, then anchored her hands to the tabletop to connect with the present world and wait until all the other worlds and times went away—if they ever did. The noise was terrible. Every voice, every spoken word, every jingle of a slot machine or clang of a jackpot was doubled and tripled upon itself, happening, having happened, going to happen, all at once. People walked by on their way to a table, then walked by again on their way to the same table, having the exact conversation as before. She overheard phrases from the tables around her several times before, while, and after they were spoken. Four people at one table sounded like twenty. She even heard conversations between people at tables that were empty, before the people arrived. She was sitting in the same restaurant again and again, all at the same time.

Oh, God, help me.

The waitress brought her salad, but it wasn’t there yet. She came again with the same salad, but Mandy could see the table through the leaves and plate. The third time, the salad was real. The fourth time she ignored it and paid attention to the third.

But she could hardly touch it. How many times would she take the same bite, how many times would she swallow it? Maybe this was going to be one of those mythological hells, sitting in the same restaurant eating the same salad over and over again, bite by repeated bite, for all eternity, full and hungry at the same time, the plate empty, the plate full. She almost laughed, she felt like crying. From outside herself she was getting a kick out of this comedy, but inside she was the hapless foil it was happening to, and that girl was quietly, privately losing her mind over a plate of salad.