Blood Games

    Helen realized that Maxwell was holding back. Staying with her, even though he was capable of running much faster.

    ‘Go!’ she gasped. ‘It’s you he’s after.’

    ‘True.’

    With that, he halted and turned around.

    ‘Max!’

    ‘Run!’ he yelled over his shoulder.

    He was still looking over his shoulder at Helen and before she could call out a warning, the man from the Porsche shouldered into his belly. Lifted him off his feet. Drove him backward, rump first. Slammed him down on the pavement.

    Maxwell cried out as he skidded.

    The assailant, straddling him, punched Maxwell’s face. Right fist, left fist, right, left.

    It was then that Helen recognized him.

    Andy ‘Wildman’ Wilde.

    A senior. A star of the wrestling team.

    A skinny, short little guy. But quick and strong.

    Quick enough to grab Helen’s foot when she tried to kick him in the face. Strong enough to throw it high with just one hand, hurling Helen onto her back.

    ‘Stay out of it, lard-ass!’ he warned as she got to her feet.

    ‘Leave him alone!’

    ‘Beat it.’ He resumed punching Maxwell.

    Helen dived onto him, hugging his head, throwing him sideways to the pavement. So fast that she didn’t know what was happening, he slipped out of her hold, rolled her and came down on top of her. He pinned her arms beneath her back. He began to strike her face.

    Open handed. Slapping, not punching. Apparently in deference to her sex.

    ‘A fuckin’ gentleman,’ Cora said as she listened to Helen’s story.

    ‘Well then I called him a dickless pip-squeak.’

    ‘Smart move,’ Finley said.

    ‘So after that he really slugged me.’

    ‘Nobody came along?’ Abilene asked.

    Helen shook her head.

    ‘Anyway, he finally just quit and went back to his car.’

    ‘How’s Maxwell?’ Vivian asked.

    ‘Oh, he was…’ Her chin shook. She began weeping again. ‘His face was awful. All bloody, and… He was so much worse than me, but when he crawled over and looked down… He started to cry. It was like he didn’t even care about himself. He cried and touched my face and kept saying, “Oh, Tulip. Oh, Tulip.” Helen shuddered with a sob.

    They plotted. They followed Wilde. They kept watch on his apartment.

    Each morning, he left his apartment at seven o’clock and jogged to Benedict Park, where he ran on the trails for an hour.

    Friday, they were waiting for him.

    He stopped running when he came upon Cora crouched in the middle of a narrow stretch of trail above Benedict Creek. She was tying a shoelace. She wore red gym shorts, a pink tank top, sunglasses and a red wig that Vivian had borrowed from the costume room of the theater department. She smiled up at him. ‘Oh, hi.’

    ‘Morning,’ he said. He started to step around her.

    ‘Say, aren’t you Wildman? The wrestler?’

    ‘Sure am,’ he said, halting and smiling down at her.

    She rose to her feet. ‘I’ve seen some of your matches. You’re really great.’

    ‘Thanks. Do you go to Belmore? You don’t look familiar.’

    ‘I’m a frosh,’ she lied.

    He nodded. ‘And you’ve seen me at work, huh?’

    ‘I sure have. I love to watch wrestling. Especially you. You’re so quick and strong. You’ve got a wonderful body.’

    His eyes roamed down Cora. ‘You’ve got a great body, yourself.’

    ‘I used to wrestle with my brothers. I always won.’ She grinned. ‘Think you could take me?’ it’s sure tempting.’

    She got down on her hands and knees, looked over her shoulder at him.

    ‘Are you kidding?’

    ‘Do I look like I’m kidding?’

    ‘You asked for it.’ He peeled off his T-shirt and draped it over a bush beside the trail. It blocked Abilene’s view. She slipped sideways. Peering around the bush, she watched Wilde sink to his knees beside Cora. He hunched down against her back and hooked his right arm across her belly.

    ‘On the count of three,’ Cora said.

    ‘Nobody’s ever gonna believe this,’ he muttered.

    ‘Let it be our little secret.’

    ‘Man, this has to be the weirdest come-on I’ve ever seen.’

    ‘Maybe I just like to wrestle.’

    ‘Yeah. Right.’

    ‘Three,’ she said, grabbed his wrist and dropped flat, pulling him down on her back.

    Abilene darted out, threw herself onto Wilde’s back and jammed a pillowcase over his head. As he writhed beneath her, she looped a short length of rope around his neck to keep the pillowcase on. Finley stepped into the trail in front of her, taping. Vivian rushed in from the side, grabbed Wilde’s left hand and snapped a metal cuff around his wrist.

    ‘Hey!’ he yelled. ‘What’s… Get off! Goddamn it, what the fuck is…?’

    ‘Okay.’ Helen’s voice.

    Abilene rolled clear. She saw Helen on the trail behind Wilde, tugging at the rope she’d looped around his ankles. Vivian, the other cuff in both hands, was stretching Wilde’s left arm. His right was still trapped under Cora.

    Cora twisted out from under him, bringing the arm with her. Twisting it so hard that he cried out in pain.

    Dropping a knee onto his back, she shoved the arm up behind him. She held it there while Vivian lunged forward, sank to her knees, and bent his left arm back. She snapped the other cuff around his right wrist.

    ‘Weirdest come-on you’ve ever seen,’ Cora said.

    ‘Cunt!’

    She punched the side of his head through the pillow case.