Posted by PK on July 24, 2003 at 18:29:25:
"'Ello, ello, ello, what's all this then?" a mocking voice spoke.
Sophie couldn't reply due the the hand gripping her windpipe and the knife at her sternum.
She had almost gotten used to the idea that she was about to be raped and killed, her brain
was a little starved of oxygen, but in her final moments she not only recognised the accent as
British but gathered that it was some sort of parody of a TV show she'd seen once upon a
time. Her vision was blurring but the hand at her throat relaxed enough for her to see the
intruder. She'd almost hoped it was a cop. Not something she usually did in her profession. It
wasn't. It seemed to be a woman and she wasn't armed. She tried to croak 'get the fuck out
of here," but it came out as 'gaahk..'
The next bit was a blur. Some of the gang members seemed to be flying or bouncing off
walls. She heard phrases like 'cut you, bitch,' and laughter. Really strange laughter. She
closed her eyes for a moment. Ignored the screams or tried to. Opened them again.
"You all right?" A tall woman in a leather jacket was looking at her with some indefinable mix
of concern and amusement. There was no sign of the the gang. She blinked. Unless those
inert bodies...were they dead?
The woman passed a hand in front of her eyes. "Hello? You okay? Speak to me." This time
the accent was cultured English, not the fake cockney.
"Are they...."
"Dead. Gone. Rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisibule. Legged it. Whatever,"
the woman said. "Do you care? Third time lucky..are you all right?"
"I'm alive," Sophie said, almost to herself. The woman (she was big, she noted) nodded in
approval.
"Right to the essentials." She offered a hand up and Sophie realised that she'd been rescued.
By whom or what exactly?
"I'm Amanda," the woman said offhandedly. "Nice to meet you." She seemed to shake
herself somehow, as if dusting off cobwebs or breaking chains. "Now that's a cure for jet lag.
Don't let anybody tell you New York isn't a fun place. Know any good bars?"
Sophie couldn't help noticing the bodies. Not all of the gang were here. She guessed they
had 'legged it' as her Amazon rescuer had suggested. Those who remained...well, they
weren't going anywhere. Ever again. The word 'bloodbath' swam into her mind. How? The
woman hadn't been armed - or so it had seemed. Hard to tell while being strangled. "Bars?"
she echoed. Her manager wasn't going to like her going off with this...whatever she was.
Bodies. That one...
The big woman caught the direction of her gaze. "Oh, him," she commented. "Improvised
rectal surgery. You know the old joke, I assume?"
Sophie allowed herself to be led away while her rescuer, or captor, chatted amiably.
"This guy goes into a bar, in the old Wild West. Not heard it? Well, he pulls out a six-shooter
and shoots up the bar. Bottles smashing, all that stuff. Finishes up shooting the cigar out of
the piano player's mouth. You sure you haven't heard this?"
Sophie shook her head dumbly.
"Wouldn't want to bore you. Well, the barman asks the cowboy for a look at his gun. Gives
an expert appraisal. Says, 'If I were you, I'd file the sight and trigger guard down a bit, and
maybe apply a coat of oil', right? Oh come on.."
"My, er.." business manager might not take kindly, she thought. I don't guess it would bother
him too much if I'd been cut...left for dead in a dumpster...
"Oh, your pimp? Call me psychic, but I don't think he'll mind if I hire you as my native guide.
If he does, well," the Amazon made a slight regretful gesture. "Too bad...well, back to the
story..."
Sophie had just about begun to imagine what might happen if this creature met
her...pimp...he had a gun. She was sure of that.
"Does he have a pink cadillac? I've never seen one...sorry, I digress. I do that."
Sophie found herself trying to say that no apology was necessary but it didn't come out right.
"Well," the Amazon continued, "The cowboy asks the barman if this will improve the speed of
his draw. Big thing in the Wild West. The barman says..."
Sophie had almost pieced it together when Amanda ploughed on. "When Wyatt Earp's done
playing the piano he's going to shove that thing straight up your arse. Okay, it's not that good
and I'm terrible at telling jokes. Now, the bar thing. Somewhere really dirty..."
"Dirty?" Sophie echoed. Not doing too well on the conversational front here, she noted.
"Where I can get a tough drink," the woman - Amanda - said. "You know, milk in a dirty
glass. People who wear leather underwear and sunglasses after dark. A few strippers and
some evil music wouldn't come amiss. I've seen all the movies, I want the T-Shirt. Call me
tourist, call me Ishmael. Don't have a thing for whales, though."
Sophie was sure that Amanda was speaking English, but it seemed to be in a code only she
understood. Oxygen deprivation, she guessed. The big woman wasn't part of any reality she
normally inhabited. Big? Only seven feet tall. No. Not really. Hardly more than six inches
taller than her, just....
It hit her. Amanda. Big redhead. Not that one, it couldn't be. Borrowed time flashed through
her mind. No. It couldn't be...
"Cat got your tongue?"
Sophie shook her head. "Throat hurts," she croaked. It wasn't entirely faked. Amanda Blake,
she remembered. Psycho killer lesbian cannibal. That's what the media buzz was. It couldn't
really be her, of course. Just because she was English and huge, redheaded, lethal...
Interested in her. Oh fuck. Distract her somehow. Bar. Right. Get enough alcohol down her
and maybe she could escape...
There was a place, she remembered. A club where the bouncers knew her. She'd be safe
there. They might not let this Valkyrie in. "There's a place I know," she said. Too late, she
stopped to think what might happen if they didn't. Could they stop her?
"Then by all means let's go there," Amanda said. "I'm sure you need a little stiffener after
your ordeal. "I don't suppose there's the remotest chance they have any decent beer?"
Sophie considered what this creature might consider 'decent beer' given that she didn't drink
the stuff herself. British ale? It seemed unlikely that it would be available. Some of her clients
liked German beer. She was fairly sure you could get it in bottles. "German?" she
telegraphed.
"Outstanding," Amanda said. "I feared you would threaten my life with a Budweiser. Lead on.
Let slip the frogs of war."
After the drink hit her, and her nerves stopped jangling, Sophie realised that she was a
Hobbit. She wasn't entirely aware of how this satori had come to her; it might have been the
bits of the book she had read or the movie version. She understood it at last in a way she
never could have if she hadn't experienced it. Her mind was still struggling to catch up with
what she'd been through. The casual defeat of the gang by this...her mind shied away from
it...whatever...
The doormen had not been the problem she had expected. She had imagined the
madwoman fighting them. It hadn't happened. They'd just let her in, with herself in tow.
Why? Because they weren't stupid. People who know about fighting don't pick fights they
can't win. Amanda hadn't made it hard for them. She'd let them save face with charm.
"Just sampling the delights of your fair city," she had said. "With my fair companion. Bit of a
thirst. I'm sure you won't mind...what a delightful shirt..."
There had been a subtext there. Amanda never said "Get out of my way or I'll rip your head
off." Not once. As if by magic, they were inside and the bartenders gave her everything she
asked for.
Including a Southern Comfort for her. The reheaded maniac was drinking German beer like
Cola. Dancing, too.
It was all too much. Sophie wanted to go home. She didn't want any part of the struggle
against the Dark Lord. She didn't know who....
"You feeling all right?" the Amazon inquired solicitously. Sophie realised that she was half
asleep or still in shock, at least to the extent that these concepts had any meaning for her.
"Anything I can do? Take you home, kill your pimp..."
Sophie couldn't help herself. She didn't want to do it, but when the Amazon said that, a part
of her befuddled brain said 'yes'.
She didn't say it. She knew that Amanda heard it anyway. She wanted to say 'I didn't mean
that' because the maniac might take it seriously. And she knew, really knew, that all she had
to do was ask. Amanda would do it, could do it.
"Take me home," she said. Home? Where was that? The cheap rooming house she stayed in
where nobody asked any questions about what she did for a living? Her parents' house,
thousands of miles and a world away? She only knew that she was tired and weary and afraid
and sick of being afraid and she wanted to go to sleep. Half-heartedly she thought about
running away, going somewhere else, anywhere but here. There was nowhere else to go.
End of the line. The madwoman had pulled her along with her, she was nothing but a twig in
a stream.
"You're not feeling well, are you?"
Sophie didn't exactly have the courage to look Amanda in the face, it was more like
resignation. She looked and saw nothing she understood. No hostility. The Amazon didn't
have fangs or a tail.
"Better get you home then," Amanda said briskly.
Sophie had seen a kitten once being picked up by the scruff of its neck by its mother. The
kitten had become completely passive when picked up, just waiting to be taken away. She
knew now how it had felt. The redheaded Brit, the predator, took her out, commandeered a
taxi, teased out the information about her address patiently, got her back to her crib. There
had been a brief dialogue between Amanda and the driver. The elements of it seemed to
have been not so much 'get me there quick and you'll get a tip' as 'fuck with me and you're
toast' but it was in British and Serbo-Croatian so she hadn't got the words, just the overtones.
It had taken no time at all.
And now, here she was. Home again. Play the hostess, she thought. How? The place was a
dump. What could she possibly offer?
The answer was depressingly obvious. Her body was all she had, her only saleable
commodity. While Amanda poked around in her kitchen, looking for God only knew what, she
took off her clothes. Maybe the psycho would settle for sex. It seemed a forlorn hope, but
there wasn't much else she could do. Would she be eaten after she died? She supposed it
didn't matter. She imagined the cops finding her bones and a few leftovers, puzzling out what
had happened, like they did on CSI and all those cop shows. Would they ever catch
Amanda? She doubted it. She thought about lying down on the bed and just closing her eyes.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt.
"No beer?" Amanda inquired, emerging from the fridge. "Half a bottle of
Liebfraumilch...gack.. piss in it and it tastes the same...and some second rate red....well,
needs must when the devil drives. Whatever that means. Oh..."
Amanda copped a look. Sophie felt the small hairs on her body standing up.
"We're going for informal dress?" There came a banging on the door. "Right on cue,"
Amanda said, brushing past Sophie. She pulled the door open. "Pimps'R'Us?," she inquired,
"Do come in. Ten minutes more and I'd have demanded my free pizza."
Sophie couldn't help feeling the familiar sinking sensation in her guts that she always
experienced at times like this. She also felt slightly guilty, the way a whipped dog does every
time it sees its master. She didn't know what she'd done wrong this time, but there had to be
something.
"Who's this bitch?" Armand rasped, as he walked straight past Amanda, who was holding the
door open. His enforcer, his attack dog, walked in behind him, but he did spare the Amazon a
brief glance. Sophie wondered how she could explain this. She wondered how Amanda would
react to being called 'bitch' and saw nothing but a look of vague amusement on the woman's
face. Possibilities flickered through her mind. She had been absent from her post for too
long. Armand had sent the street gang to teach her a lesson for some other real or imagined
slight before that and wanted to know what had happened to them. He had heard she'd been
seen with the huntress by some other stooge and wanted to know what was going on.
"Don't look at her, look at me when I'm talking to you," Armand said.
Amanda was humming a tune. "I'm a little pimp with my hair gassed back, pair'a khaki pants
and my shoes shined black..."
"She...helped me," Sophie said. Had she? Maybe.
"So your bigass girlfriend gets a freebie?" Armand sneered. "What the..."
"This IS your pimp, right? I'd hate to make a mistake," Amanda inquired.
Sophie opened her mouth to answer.
"Who the fuck said you could talk, bitch?" Armand snapped out of the side of his mouth. He
must have practised in front of a mirror.
Amanda ignored him and addressed Sophie. "Right?"
Sophie nodded. "Right."
"Oh, good. You know how it is, come to New York, see the Statue of Liberty - God Almighty,
what a piece of overblown kitsch, so bloody French - take in the museums..."
Armand finally seemed to lose his cool. "I said shut the fuck up, bitch."
There is was again, the 'B' word. Sophie could sense a catastrophe in the making, but
Amanda still seemed calm.
"The orchestras. I've heard so many good things about the Philharmonic...."
"Shut her up," Armand said.
"And you would be Big Dumb Guy," Amanda said. She moved as if to shake hands. "Sorry,
please let me introduce myself. Woo woo..."
Something happened that Sophie couldn't follow. Afterwards she guessed that a knee in the
balls had featured in it. Amanda's arm had snapped up too quickly to see and Big Eddie was
falling, clutching his throat and making choking noises. "You might want to duck," Amanda
said conversationally as Armand pulled out a gun, but almost before she had finished
speaking she had ripped it out the pimp's hand and smacked him backhanded in the face
with it. "Or maybe not." She inspected the weapon.
Sophie hadn't moved an inch. Armand was clutching his abraded hand and backing away.
"Piece of crap," Amanda decided and tossed the gun away. "As I was saying," she grabbed
Armand by the throat and shook him.
Sophie noticed that Armand's nose was bleeding. He looked like a rat caught by a terrier.
"Get some pizza, bag a pimp. You know, the whole experience. When in Rome..."
Was she going to be next? Kill a pimp, eat a hooker? She was going to kill him, wasn't she.
Sophie hoped so. She really did.
"Or is that shootin' tigahs out in India?" Amanda mused. She smashed Armand against the
wall and let him drop.
Just like that. She had hardly had time to finish the thought or consider the consequences
and Armand was dead.
"I don't suppose you have a garbage disposal chute here, do you?" Amanda inquired. "I've
always wanted to see one."