Chapter 5 – The Anti-lemon
"You should have seen this girl," Revy said, sucking the cigarette greedily. She blew the smoke out in a rush.. "She was just like me, threw herself out a second floor window and kept running when she hit the ground."
"What else happened today?" asked Rock pulling off his shirt. He folded it carefully and placed it at the end of the bed. He picked up the tube of bacitracin zinc ointment.
"I took some bad crazy medicine, bullied a cripple, and made an injured man fall on a grenade," said Revy disingenuously. The ragged shorts fell to the floor. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or pizza to anyone, but they've always worked for me. We'll talk about biz later, okay?"
"Why do you include pizza?" said Rock. He placed the bag by the side of the bed.
"You're lactose intolerant. I'm not." Revy observed and pulled off her top with a supple stretch. It sailed through the air and out of sight between the bed and wall. She flicked the still smoldering cigarette butt onto a clear spot on the floor, bounced onto the bed and buried her face in the pillow. "Time to play doctor!"
"What?" Rock eased himself down beside and ran a finger up the length of the spine, from the elastic of the panties to the base of her skull. She shivered from his touch.
"You're always complaining I don't give details, so let's do the details – get yer hands in my hair."
After a moment Rock said, "Scar on the left side of your head."
"Courtesy of the NYPD." she murmured.
Both his hands caressed her neck, "There's still an abrasion here in the back."
"Aisin Gioro bitches." her fingers twitched and curled involuntarily.
His hands slid across her defined shoulders, his finger following the curve of black ink to the scar, "Bullet wound."
"Roberta," she turned her head and one eye looked out from underneath a curtain of purplish black hair. "We might as well include the tat, I got the top part done when I was a kid – got it finished up years later when when I was in the slammer."
"Did it get infected?" said Rock continuing down the lengths of her arms. He began to undo the tape that held the gauze on the forearm.
"Nah, like I said, had to fight – survive a beating. Fuckin' got the flu," she twitched impatiently as he ministered to her forearm, and then rebandaged the wound. "Thanks. And yer'not done."
"Two more exit wounds here – NYPD – Scar on your ass – Aisin Gioro again – Leg – Jumbo, Shenhua, one of the two – I think that's it – Not even close, look at the soles of my feet. -- What are those from? They look like white stripes – that's when I was a helpless little shit, I'll roll over... - Didn't notice that before – Got shanked in Phanken Prison, never saw it coming. It was dark. Inch deeper and I woulda drowned in my own blood."
She blinked and looked past him at the ceiling. "That's just the visible shit: Arms, legs and ribs broken. Four concussions I think, some nerve damage to the face. I've been close to starving, freezing and drowning multiple times and been beaten and raped... uh, a lot, before I could give it back in kind. I guess you gotta include the self inflicted damage, all the drinking, drugs, sexually transmitted diseases – I got worms in Mexico." Revy chuckled as Rock hastily pulled away with a grimace. "Don't worry, you know I'm clean. The amazing thing is I'm still hot as hell. Hard living hasn't caught up with me yet."
"But of course there's the big one," she closed her eyes. The ceiling fan spun quietly above. Revy had never bothered getting the air conditioner fixed.
"But none of that's in context," complained Rock. "It's all just random facts. I was there for half of it. And I have no idea what the big one is?" He placed his hands on Revy's ribcage and felt the heart galloping wildly along. How much yaba had she taken? She thought he didn't know her vices.
Her eyes snapped open. "Jeez, you're a dipshit sometimes, no, almost all the time." She poked at her flat lower abdomen below the belly button with an extended finger. "I don't use birth control. There won't be any little Revy's now or ever. That's a good thing, I've seen too many kids get thrown away. Like I was. I'd probably do the same thing to the brat."
"Are you sure?" said Rock, but she convulsively sat up and fumbled for the VHS controller, by her intent indicating the topic was concluded. "You want context, here's some context – Benny found this, you gotta check it out..."
She bounced on the bed with a gleeful look in the gold brown eyes.
The TV screen flickered. A voice blared out, "Tonight, it's the world's craziest police videos! Hi I'm Marshall Tom Cornell. In the next 30 minutes we'll see some of the most whacked out, most insane video ever caught on our cameras."
"What the hell?" Rock rolled over and looked.
"Can't remember exactly when this happened," said Revy apologetically. "After I left New York I did this whole vanishing point across the States. It was crazy bat shit the whole way; living in crack houses, breaking out of juvie halls before they could ID me. Hey, hey, here it is! Check it out!"
"There's a date time stamp in the corner of the video," Rock pointed out, but Revy was hooting and pointing. "Look! There I go!"
"This junkie was sky-high on a two day crack binge and wired to the max," shouted Marshall Tom Cornell. "Watch this low-life teen whore go on a wild shopping spree riding a stolen motorbike. No credit! No sell!"
Rock rubbed his eyes. Sure enough he was watching the end of a high speed chase. A squadron of police cars were attempting to corner the biker that was apparently Revy in a parking lot of a midwestern American mall. Men, women and children fled wildly. The camera view jerked wildly about.
The biker gunned the bike at the mall entrance and crashed through the glass doors. A swarm of cops followed, the camera view blinked out as the cop car collided with some obstacle.
"So what happened?" asked Rock. Revy was giggling and kicking her heels as she watched the show.
"I ditched in one of the restrooms. I knew I was totally boned and at a minimum was about to get the snot kicked outta me by cops again. Then this girl walks in. Totally out of it, no idea of all the crap goin' on. She's snapping her gum."
Revy took a breath and continued with a rapid staccato pitch. "She looks at me. I look at her. She says 'I like your coat' and I'm like 'I like your coat, wanna trade?' 'Okay' she says, and we trade jackets right there. She's all happy and stuff posing in the mirror and I adjust her collar like I'm all helpful. Muzaks playing way too loud. Out she walks – and they kick the crap out of her and haul her away. Look there she is... I wait a bit and stroll out a back entrance. Tada."
"That poor girl," said Rock appalled. Revy shrugged. "Yeah, it wasn't her lucky day. Guess she was some kinda junkie anyway."
"You know," she added, turning off the TV. "If I hadn't kept going, kept moving – that woulda been me."
"What, a crack-whore?" Rock regretted the words instantly. Revy's frowned and a slow flush crept across her cheeks.
"Yeah, a crack-whore," Revy said ominously. "I don't lie Rock – never do, I just choose to leave parts out if I don't like them. If I hadn't kept moving, kept looking for a way out – if I had stopped and hooked up with anyone of the scuzball creeps I hung with, I'd be six feet under. I was that close. All the time."
Revy sat up. "You wanna hear context? I'll tell you fucking context. Two weeks before that mall biz on the tv, I broke into a house in Texas and had to run like hell for a week. It was a police chief's house and he unleashed hell on me. Couldn't eat, drink, shakin' my ass off in culverts with motherfuckin' dogs barking and sniffin' for me in the fields. Then it goes cold, like dead cold and I'm going to freeze to death... in Texas."
She rolled away from Rock. "So I make for this roadhouse, I can tell it's a big biker hangout. I go in and it's rockin'. And, oh crap... you wouldn't even believe what happened next: Hardcore psycho shit. I was never the same after that, fuckin' went eight-ball ..."
Revy closed her eyes, voice trailing off to an indistinct mumble.
The mood had soured. Rock sighed and using the controller turned off the TV. He started to shift his weight forward to stand up when Revy suddenly whipped back over with a feverish look and grabbed him around the waist, pulling him close against her hot flesh. . Her nails dug into his flanks, drawing blood..
It's time for you to rock, baby. I'll do the rolling!"
--
But there was no tenderness, nothing gentle about the sex and no satisfaction.
Afterwards Revy drummed her heels against the mattress and rolled a cigarette between her fingers. "Looks like you need a break. Let's talk biz. What about the girl?"
Rock sat up breathing heavily and fumbled for the lighter and the piece of paper on the small table, "Here's what Benny found out. You're not going to like it."
Revy lit the cigarette with the offered lighter. She took a deep drag on the cigarette and held it a moment before exhaling. She was slick with sweat. "C'mon out with it."
Without a word Rock handed over the brochure.
Revy looked at the logo on the front. She shook her head. "Rowan's Cute Bicthes? I don't get it."
"It's bitches, the printer misspelled it," said Rock patiently. "Open it up."
Rock almost held his breath as a slow blush crept across the woman's face. There was something amusing about the reaction after their shared acrobatics.
"Do Roanapur's infamous damsels of disaster," Revy read it aloud slowly and with mounting outrage. "The chattels of carnage. Huh? Rowan's talented, very youthful stable can provide discriminating clients with the Shenhua? Girls who know a close shave and more – for fetish fans, Eda, the naughty nun, she'll discipline your ass! For those who like their abuse to be morbid – none other than the machine monster, the nameless ghost girl. Finally our most popular and the cheapest...."
Her voice trailed off.
Rock carefully took the brochure out of her nerveless hand. Revy seemed stunned.
It wasn't till the ash from her cigarette fell on her breast and had to be hastily brushed aside that she spoke thickly. "I'm cheap. That's my reputation. Rowan's a dead man."
"You'll have to let it go," said Rock evenly, crumpling the brochure. "He pays his bills and he's up on protection, the Russians got his back. You'll notice Rowan didn't have the balls to have any of the girls dress up like Balalaika. We'd all be paying a special visit to the cleaner if you took him out."
"Fuck Fry-face," said Revy harshly. Rock blinked, he had never heard Revy use that insult before. "And fuck Sawyer. First Dutch and now you, we all got goth-girl stuck in our heads. Mebbe we all need to go to a coffin ceremony and get her the fuck outta our karma. Tell you what, I got something on my mind. Yer going to do me a favor."
Rock met her unblinking stare, an uneasy feeling stirring in his gut. "What do you want?"
"Save the kids," said Revy flatly. "The copycat and the crippled girl I was talking about. I want them out of Roanapur. I want them somewhere safe."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Rock protested. "Benny and I've got work to do for Balalaika, you're off with Dutch for the next few days to Bangkok. And why? What's suddenly so important about these kids? What's the point? Where am I..."
"You did it for Garcia Loveless," said Revy, the gaze sharpening to cobra intensity. "You tried to do it for Yukio 'top oyabun' school girl. And you know what the thing is about both of those two? You thought you'd save them from the crap of this world, because they were all innocent and shit, shelter them from evil."
Her voice suddenly dropped as she mimicked him, "Revy, It's common sense to help children who're in trouble, isn't it? Fuck, and who did all the heavy lifting? Look at my arm! And who got freakin shish-kebbobolated on your little salvation gratification? "
"You did," said Rock nodding.
"It's my turn now. How about the ones already stuck in the shit? Do it for me Rock. I want a little of that self-satisfaction. That's the point, all ya need to know." She closed her eyes finally and rolled her head away from him on the pillow. Rock knew better than to protest, he would do as she asked.
Revy sighed, twitching and her brows drew together as she remembered the last item.
"By the way did goth-girl finally return the go-bag?"she said.
The bag in reference had been left behind a bush on the northern peninsula known as Nakhon Ratch above the city several months ago. The brutal death match against the Aisin Gioro had been eclipsed by the Maid's destructive rampage through the city shortly afterwards. Revy had refused to discuss anything further about the matter once she had recovered.
"For all her oddities, Sawyer is a perfectionist," pointed out Rock, eager to change the topic away from Jackpot Rowan's tasteless venture and the unusual request. He bent down and handed over the canvas bag, he had brought it in with him. "From what I understand nothing in the bag was misplaced, the items inside were even wiped down for prints in case the police became involved. I meant to take it to the boat, but I thought you'd like to double-check."
Revy's hand restlessy moved among the items until she came to the one unfamiliar object. A small white box. She pulled it out. "What's this?"
Something turned in Rock's stomach, "Revy don't open it," he said.
His voice trailed off. Revy was glaring again.
"What? You think I need to be protected? Hell, I don't even think there's anything in the box. Doesn't have any weight."
She shook it, sniffed it, flipped open the card on top "Wish I'd been there, have a nice day xoxo Sawyer?"
"Revy, please," begged Rock. He reached to take it from Revy, but she brushed his hand away with a sneer. "Oh c'mon," She tore the top off with a twist of the wrist. She picked up the object slowly between her fingers.
The long matching lengths of black and white hair had been carefully and intricately braided together into a small noose.