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"I never slept with her"

"I didn't sleep with her," he said "I just screwed her like you'd screw a sheep Or a chicken You wring their necks as you co her neck I broke it Snap, like a twig breaking"

I didn't say anything

"And then out theIt was just luck she hit the boy on the way down"

"Luck"

"I was trying for Andrea"

"Who?"

"His girlfriend Of course I didn't expect to hit anybody, but I was trying for her"

"Why?"

"I'd rather kill a woman," he said

I told hied in a cage He hurt aveon ravel and broken glass, stu around, settingfor his approach He rushedwhatever I had into the punch

He slipped the blow The follow-through carried ed one step, then lost it coround

I lay there, gasping for breath, waiting for whatever was co next

He let ht now"

"Why don't you"

"You wish I would, don't you? Good In a week you'll beg et up onto my hands and knees He kicked e I scarcely felt it, the pain refused to register, but I stopped trying to get up

He knelt atthe base of the skull His thu to me but my mind was unable to track his sentences

His thu into the spot he'd found The pain reached a new level, but I had gone so to one side, observing the sensation as a phenoony

Then he turned up the pain a notch There was already nothing but blackness in front of my eyes, but now the blackness spread behind ainst a sea of inky black Then the red shrank to a pinpoint and went out

I couldn't have been out long I came to abruptly, as if someone had thrown a switch I used to co There was a period of time when I never fell asleep and never woke up Instead I would pass out and co hurt I lay still at first, taking an inventory of the pain, trying to assess the extent of the dae It took me a while, too, to make sure that I was alone He could have been hunkered down alongside et up I did so slowly and tentatively, partly out of prudence, partly of necessity My body didn't seeot up onto my knees, for exath to stand Then, on my feet at last, I had to wait until the dizziness passed or I would have fallen back down again

Eventually I found h the obstacle course of litter to the fence and groped along it until I got to where the opening had been cut I eed on Attorney Street I remembered that here I was, but I'd lost all sense of direction and couldn't tell which as uptown I walked to the corner, which turned out to be Rivington, and then I must have turned east instead of west because I wound up back at Ridge Street I turned left at Ridge and walked two blocks and finally got to Houston Street, and I didn't have to stand there too long before a cab ca

I held up a hand and he drew up and slowed down I started toward hiood look at me then and didn't like what he saw, because he stepped on the gas and peeled off

I would have cursed hith

Instead it was all I could do to remain on my feet There was a mailbox nearby and I walked over and let it take solad I hadn't wasted breath cursing the cabbie I was a s laid open at the knee, my jacket and shirtfront filthy, rit No cabdriver in his right mind would have wanted me in his hack

But one did, and I can't say he cae and Houston for ten or fifteen minutes, not because I really expected anyone to stop for ure out where the nearest subway entrance ht be, or trust myself to cope with it once I did Three more cabs passed ht I was a police officer I was tryingup my billfold as if to display a shield

When he stopped for e his ," I assured him "I won't mess up your cab"

"Fuck the cab," he said "I don't own this heap of shit, and so what if I did? Wha'd they do, jump you and roll you? This is no place for you at this hour, man"

"Why didn't you tell o?"

"Hey, you're not too bad off if you got your sense of huet you to a hospital Bellevue's closest, but o someplace else?"

"The Northwestern Hotel," I said "That's on Fifty-seventh and-"

"I knohere it's at, I got a regular pickup five days a week across the street at the Parc Vendo to a hospital?"

"No," I said "I just want to go home"

Jacob was at the desk when I stopped to check forunusual aboutin his manner showed it Either he was more diplomatic than I'd ever realized or he'd reached that point in the terpinhydrate bottle where relatively few things got his attention