The Lion Tamer (Completed)

Chapter Seven - A Big Mistake

Chapter 7

Danny was bored. He signaled for Eddie to bring up the boy again and, once again, he watched as he gasped and coughed, wracking his body forward until Eddie pulled him upright again.
Danny waited a few seconds before speaking.
“The money.”
Evan blew air in and out of his face, his cheeks flushed pink and red and his hair strung across his head like a used mop. Danny knew that the boy probably didn’t even have two dollars to rub together much less two thousand but Leo made the rules and according to him, they were to keep it up. Fine.
He thought over to the girl that was in the locked room across the hall and wondered if she was listening. He looked over at the walls with their soft-looking women who all let him know that they wanted him and felt himself beginning to get hard. He walked over to the door and put his ear up against it and listened but all he could hear was Evan sputtering and making sloppy sounds.
He rapped lightly on the door. No answer.
“Danny?” Eddie said, his head still firmly grasping the back of Evans wet head.
Danny put up his hand to quiet him briefly and he listened again, trying to isolate any sound coming from the other side of the door. Still nothing.
He looked back to Eddie, who was looking over his shoulder at him, and motioned for the boy to go under again. Eddie pushed down again and this time Evan tried to resist.
“I can’t, please, I can’t…” and then his words went underwater with him.
Danny watched for a second and then put his fingers around the doorknob, slowly turning it until the button in the middle popped open. The door opened with a creak and he let his eyes adjust to the dark. He could see that there was a lamp inside as well as an overhead light in the ceiling but the girl hadn’t turned anything on. Maybe she was waiting for him? He swore he caught a look in her eye that was just for him, or maybe just for them.
He looked back to Eddie and gave him a quick, sharp whistle which turned his head. Danny was never good at reading Eddie’s expressions, but he looked like he was paying attention.
“Keep it up. I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”
Eddie nodded but cocked his head to the side and was about to say something when Danny faded from view into the dark room with a sinister smile.
Evan was pulled up again and he barely had the energy to raise his head above the tub now. Clear water ran from the corner of his mouth and his breath came in rattled rhythm. Eddie felt awkward now that he was alone with the kid.
“Money,” he said softly and the boy didn’t respond. His eyes were slits and he moved his head from side to side but it was almost imperceptible.
“Money,” Eddie said again but still got no answer.
He looked over to the closed door where Danny had disappeared behind and he heard thumping over there. He also heard a slap.
He put the boys head down into the water. This time he didn’t resist and almost seemed to be welcoming it, letting his head fall forward without struggle and resting there. Eddie looked up and let his gaze fall across the wall and the dozens, hundreds of pictures of women around him. They were beautiful and they made him feel different, especially the ones where he could see everything. He wondered if women really looked like that when they took their clothes off and why would they want to do that?
He heard a crash across the hall and then muffled voices beyond the closed door. He wondered when Danny was coming back because he was bored. He kept the boy’s head firmly gripped from behind without even noticing the feeble pushes back which then subsided after a burst of bubbles from the water. Eddie kept gazing towards the posing women and their silent invitations. Some had one of their fingers stuck in their mouth, letting the tongue play around it. Others had themselves bent into impossible shapes, but maintained the look of sexual comfort. Just another day.
The sound across the hall stopped and Eddie breathed out deeply, thinking that it might get Danny to come out of the room sooner. He let go of the back of the boy’s head and took a step towards the hallway when he realized that the boy simply hung against the side of the metal tub, his hands behind him and his head under the still water. The entire top half of his shirt was soaked down to his stomach and his skin looked white against the rich blue of the dripping tee-shirt. He stepped cautiously behind the boy and reached to grab the back of the collar.
Raising the head, he looked into Evan’s face and saw that the skin seemed loose, making it appear mask-like to him. His mouth dropped open and water ran out and his pale pink tongue looked rough and alien. Eddie shook the boys collar and his head rolled to the side before settling forward against his chest. He leaned him against the side of the tub and his head slowly sank under the water. Eddie moved to the toilet and sat as he fiddled with his large fingers, making loose fists and watching the still body of the boy who looked as if he was praying.
He heard a door open and the voice of Tommy and his brother filtered down to him. He looked nervously from the body to the door. Tommy was laughing and saying something about his girlfriend and he heard Leo laugh as well.
Another door opened and he watched Danny emerge, adjusting his pants and tightening his belt. Somewhere in the gloomy room behind him was a faint crying sound and Danny spied him and smiled and then cocked his head to one side. He turned to see Leo approaching.
“What the hell ya doin’ in there?” he asked and Danny quietly shrugged. He leaned past him and peered into the darkness. Hearing the low sobs, he closed the door and threw him a dark look.
“What the fuck did you do?”
Again, Danny shrugged and zipped his pants.
“Hey, we’re here to do…”
“Leo,” Eddie said, interrupting.
“Wait a sec,” Leo said and held up a hand towards him. “We’re the instructions not clear? Was there anything I said to make you believe that it was okay to…”
Leo hesitated, the words hanging in front of him. Danny looked straight at him but Leo put his hand down and turned to Eddie.
“Eddie?”
Eddie sat with his hands on his knees and bounced his one large leg. His face was pleading and his brown eyes showed soft under the harsh light of the bathroom. He finally let out a shaky whine and his head dropped into his hands and he shook.
Leo pushed his way into the bathroom and looked to see the young boy still hunched over the lip of the tub, the water so smooth it appeared he had placed his head under a sheet of glass.
“Oh shit!” he yelled and grabbed the shoulders and wrenched the head back up. Eddie looked up, his eyes moist and child-like and continued to blubber.
“What the fuck did you do?” Danny yelled and that made Eddie warble even louder.
“Shut the fuck up!” Leo screamed and he layed the body face down on the floor. “Eddie, get outta here, Tommy help me get him in the other room!”
They both grabbed the body and dragged it lifeless out into the room which still stank of pot smoke. Leo pulled a switchblade from his pocket and sliced open the duct tape and the arms fell apart. He rolled him over.
“Jesus Christ, why did you leave him alone with Eddie?” He shouted at Danny, who had fallen onto the floor next to the body and was busy lifting his shirt over his hairless and pale chest. He began massaging the boy’s torso while Leo leaned over the head, pinched the nose closed and began breathing into the pale lips. Tommy strode from one side of the room to the other and simply said, “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck” over and over again and watched them.
“C’mon, c’mon Evan let’s go…c’mon, wake up,” Danny chanted as Leo continued to force air into the boy’s lungs. Leo finally pulled away and slapped the face a few times. It sounded final to him, like dead, wet leaves.
Eddie sobbing was echoing in the hallway and Leo looked into the young boy’s face as it sat before him, sagging and sad. He suddenly dropped the dead boy and his face screwed up into a snarl and he rushed out the door and grabbed Eddie by the shirt with two white fists.
“What the fuck happened?!” he screamed. Eddie howled louder and covered his head up with his forearm, but Leo threw it aside and looked up into his brother’s eyes. Tommy crumpled to the floor on his ass, dropped his head into his hands and was quiet. Danny looked away out one of the small windows and plunged his hands into his pockets.
Leo’s face was pink and red but the skin above each eye was white, his normally complicit hair gone astray and hanging down. He balled up a fist and held it as if to land a blow but kept it cocked while Eddie flinched and squeezed more tears from his eyes.
Then Leo stopped and he pointed the hand that carried the fist towards Danny, who was rolling his tongue around his mouth and keeping his eyes aimed at the rectangular shape of sunlight.
“You!” he said and his eyes went wild. Danny brought his gaze around but didn’t move his head. Leo removed his other hand from Eddie’s sweaty shirt and walked over to him. Danny turned to him and removed his hands. In his left he carried a long switchblade with the silver knife still folded into the handle. He held it away from his body slightly as if to strike and Leo halted.
“What were you doing?! I told you to watch him!” Leo screamed again but Danny still remained where he was, the muscles in his body coiling like a spring being wound too tightly.
Finally, he said, “He was supposed to keep him down, but not too long. I was checking on the girl, you know…”
“Oh, yeah, I know, Danny!”
“Well, I was only gone for a few minutes!”
“It was long enough to kill this kid, you asshole!”
Danny quieted. He fingered the knife but kept it closed.
Leo thought for a moment and he could hear Eddie’s low moaning cries, could hear him sniffle and then let out another wet sob.
It was quiet and then Leo said, “We are in some deep shit…oh, man.” And he lowered himself until he sat on his heels. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph…we are in some real shit, guys…I mean…” and his voice trailed off. He looked around and saw Danny looking back at him, still with that look of a viper who was cornered but carried venom. Tommy now sat cross-legged on the rug and ran his hand through his hair, tussling it. He breathed hard and looked at the floor before raising his eyes to meet Leo’s. Eddie was leaned up against the wall, trying to stifle his crying with his hands.
We gotta move…now, he thought. Only a matter of time before this gets out and it will, oh it will. And then John Pronti is going to take a huge shit on all of us, me first. Probably have the crazy motherfucker with the smile…
His thought trailed off and he raised himself back up.
“We gotta go,” he said.
The three men looked to him and then to each other. There was a moment of unclear purpose in the room and it hung in the air like a storm cloud. Leo said the sentence with such calmness it was as if the day had been turned back and none of this had happened, as if they still sat in the car in the driveway and hadn’t stepped out yet. Evan was still giggling gray smoke from his mouth with his friends and trying to follow the plot of Get Smart!
Tommy hesitantly nodded and took a few deep breaths. Danny replaced the blade back into his pocket and adjusted his shirt.
“What about the girl? She’s seen us,” He asked as he straightened his tie.
“Well, she sure as hell saw you. You think I give a fuck about her after all this? She can say whatever she wants to say; she can go to the cops, whatever. We are not going to be worth a three minute shit by the end of the day, whether she says something or not, I can guarantee you. When John finds out about this…we’re dead.”
Eddie’s sobs began hitching again and Leo turned to him. “Shut the fuck up!”
Eddie managed to quiet himself but stared at his brother with wide and still tearing eyes.
They locked the door to where the girl was still crying and left the body on the living room floor. Then they quietly climbed the stairs and left, Don Adams voice breaking through the quiet, asking his nemesis, “Would you believe?”