GERTIE

Okay, so I have to preface this story by explaining where it came from. I dreamed this entire thing last night. I had been lying awake in bed from about 4:00 through 7:00, and I finally fell back to sleep from 7:00 to 9:00. During that time, I had this dream. The characters, the dialogue, the setting, the whole damn thing is directly from the dream. Don't let that stop you, it's pretty linear and cohesive.

It was bouncing around in my head all day, completely written. So instead of watching TV tonight, I sat down and pounded it out. I only paused for about thirty minutes to read a couple of chapters of my kids' book to them at bedtime.

It's sick. I know it's sick. You don't have to tell me it's sick. But it's kind of sweet, too, in a horrible, horrible way. I don't know. We can't control our dreams. But we can write them out to disgust others.

Let me know what you think.

E.H. 08.24.09

Gertie

I was standing outside the entrance to the subway with Gertie, waiting for the lady with the brown hair to show up. Stamping my feet and rubbing my hands together wasn't doing much for me, but the warm air drifting up from the subway stairwell helped out a little. Gertie didn't seem to notice the cold, she just stood there, crooked and still, little clouds of warm breath coming from her nose. It was just Gertie. Just how she was.

I had met Gertie a few years before, and we settled into a nice team sort of thing. Sometimes I referred to us as the Dynamic Duo, but Gertie didn't understand what I meant, so I didn't say that too often. I didn't like to make her feel bad. I had been on the streets for a couple of years. Gertie, I think she had been out there most of her life. She didn't know a lot of things that other people knew. She couldn't name any of the presidents. She didn't know who Gilligan was, or anything about Bugs Bunny or none of that. But she could round you up some hot food on a cold day, and that was something. The other thing was, people never saw her coming.

Sometimes I thought I saw Gertie looking at me, you know, all romantic like, but sometimes I think I was just imagining that. Gertie was waiting for her knight in shining armor, her Prince Charming. He would come sweep her off the street and take her someplace nice and safe and warm. That sure as shit wasn't me. I wasn't going nowhere, except maybe to some motel when I had a bit of cash in my pocket. And when I did that, I always felt stupid the next day when the cash was gone and I was right back out in the street again. I always took Gertie with me to the motel when I went. Like I said, she was kind of my partner. But she never tried nothing or nothing. She just slept on the floor, curled up in her little Gertie ball.

"Where is this bitch?" I said out loud. This brown haired lady was always late. "I'm gonna leave if she don't get here soon."

Gertie didn't say anything back, she just stood there looking at me. She knew I wasn't going anywhere. The brown haired lady had what we needed, and I would wait there until the next morning if I had to.

Finally, what seemed like forever later, the brown haired lady hustled up. She was wearing a big overstuffed yellow orange coat, and she had her hands stuffed down in the pockets. I stood for a second, looking at that coat. The thought crossed my mind that I could throw this bitch down the subway stairs. I could stick her and take that fucking coat. But after a second I stopped thinking that way. She had what I needed, so I had to not kill her. I had to do what she said.

"Hello Gertie," she said. "Hello," she said to me.

"Hey," I said. "Did you get it?"

"Oh yeah," she said. "I got it. I got everything. I got just what you asked for. Times, dates, location, the whole enchilada. I got it all."

"Well," I said, "are you going to give it to us?"

She shifted around, bouncing from foot to foot. She looked like she had to pee.

"Not yet," she said. "Gotta do something for me first."

"Oh, for fuck sake," I said. I was getting pissed. I was always getting pissed. "Haven't we done enough?"

"Just one more," she said. "It'll be easy. No problem. One guy. What's your hurry, anyhow? It's not like it's going anywhere."

"One guy," I said. "Just one guy." Gertie looked up and took a step forward.

"Yeah," the brown haired lady said. "Just one guy. And Gertie, I want you to do him like you did that other guy that one time. This guy and I, we used to , I don't know. Have a thing. I want him to smile."

Gertie smiled for a second. I looked away. I hated when she smiled.

"Here's the address. Roger. He lives in the basement, B-16. You can take your time. It ought to be quiet down there." She handed me a little piece of paper. I shoved it in my pocket. The brown haired lady turned and walked away, hands shoved back down in those pockets.

"Bitch," I said, spitting on the ground. "Always one more with her." I turned and started down the subway steps. At the bottom I stopped for a second to let Gertie catch up. She wasn't so good on stairs. Her heel got caught a lot. She had to hold the railing.

"Do you think he'll like me?" she asked when she made it to the bottom. In the warmth of the stairwell, her cheeks were glowing a bit. "Do you?"

"Yeah," I said. "He'll like you. They all like you."

****************

It was warm in the basement. After coming in from the cold, my glasses were fogged up. I took them off, and pulled my shirt tail out of my pants to wipe them off. Putting them back on, I could see that the brown-haired lady was right. There wasn't going to be any problem here.

The place looked like one of those horror shows I watched in the motel sometimes. The floor in the hallway was wet, and the lights were so dim I could hardly see. The walls were covered with mildew. Bare, rusty pipes seemed to be running in every direction. This was the sort of place that you could saw somebody's head off right here in the hall, and no one would even peek out the door to watch the show.

We walked down the hall to B-16. Gertie's bad foot made a gooshing sound as it dragged behind her. I didn't mind. She took too long to move if she didn't just let it drag. I shifted the duffel from my right shoulder to my left.

Standing outside the door, I looked over at Gertie. She was really something.

"You ready, Gert?" I asked.

She nodded. She was pretty much always ready.

I pounded on the door with my fist. I used to just kick them open, but I stopped because it hurts my knee. They don't show you that in the movies. The shock runs right up your shin bone and into your knee. As I got older, I stopped doing stupid shit like that. You got to take care of yourself.

"Who is it?" a man's voice called from inside.

"Are you Roger?" I asked through the door.

"No, I'm Paul," the voice answered. "Who are you?"

"It's the girl scouts. We have Roger's cookies. Open the fucking door," I said.

"You don't sound like girl scouts," Paul said. "Roger! Did you order some cookies?"

"Fuck this," I muttered. Patience has never really been my thing. I pulled my gun from the small of my back where it had been tucked into my belt.

"Hey Paul!" I yelled, and shot five bullets through the door in a circular pattern. Wincing, I took a step back and kicked the door in. The instant pain in my knee pissed me off.

Paul was lying on the floor in the fetal position. He was bleeding from somewhere, but I couldn't see where.

"I told you to open the door," I said, kicking him a little. "Where's Roger?"

"Oh GOD!" he yelled. "You shot me! Roger, run! Hide! It's a man! A bad man and a midget thing! God! Roger! Help me!"

I slung the duffel from my shoulder. Gertie was already scurrying around this chump and heading into the apartment. I pulled the masking tape from inside, and tossed her the duffel.

"I only brought enough rope for one," I said, as I kneeled down and jammed my knee into Paul's spine. I quickly wrapped the tape, two quick layers around his entire head. Then I taped his hands behind his back. I tossed the tape back to Gertie.

"Belt," she said. "Use your belt."

Good idea. I unbuckled my belt and slid it from my pants. Making a quick loop, I threw it around Paul's neck and snapped it tight. He screamed through the tape for a second, but stopped as soon as the belt cut off his airway.

"Come on, Paul," I said, throwing the belt over my shoulder and dragging him behind me. He jerked some, but the more he jerked, the harder I jerked back. Bathroom, bathroom, where was the bathroom?

I heard a shot come from the next room. Gertie wasn't wasting any time.

Turned out the bathroom was right inside the apartment and on the left. Dragging Paul in there and holding the belt near his neck at one end, I threw the other end over the shower curtain rod, which was actually a pipe hanging down from the ceiling. Seeing what I was about to do, he started flailing around again, but a few good punches to the ear took the fight right out of him.

"Nothing personal, Paul," I said. "Wrong place and time and all that."

I hoisted him up and wrapped the belt around shower curtain about five times. He was low enough to the ground that he could stand, and eventually he figured that out. Hope gleamed in his eyes as he stood up. He stared at me with a puzzled look in his eye. I saw that the blood was coming from his right ear, which had been shot mostly off. Not so bad, considering what it could have been. I pulled my gun back out and shot him in both knees, and down he went. His eyes began to bulge out, but I didn't stay to watch.

I left the bathroom and made my way down the hall and into the dingy bedroom. There, a man was tied to a grimy bed, one hand to each post at the top. His feet were taped together and tied to the board at the foot of the bed. He was wearing nothing but boxer shorts. I noticed that his feet were bloody. This must be Roger.

Gertie was standing near his head, with her gun in his face.

"Shot him. In the foot," she said.

"I see that," I said.

"He wouldn't settle," she said.

"Um-hmm…" I replied, glancing around the room.

"Oh my God!" Roger shrieked. "Who the hell are you people? What the hell is going on here? What the fuck? Who is this? Why did she shoot me? Goooooddddd…"

Gertie hit him in the temple with the butt of her gun. "Calm down," she told him. He immediately quieted.

"It's nothing personal," I said. "We're just doing what we do. I guess you pissed someone off."

"Who? Oh my God, who? Whoever it is, whatever they are paying you, I can beat it. I can top it. I can pay you twice what you are getting for this!"

"Not about money," I said, shrugging. "Brown haired lady, she has something we need. Gotta do you to get it. Nothing personal."

As I was speaking, Gertie had gathered the sheet from where it had been laying rumpled beside the bed. She carefully tucked it into the edges at the foot of the bed, then pulled it up over Roger until it rested just under his chin.

"What? What is she doing?" he said. "Please! I think…"

"You think too much," I said, and shot him in the belly. Roger screamed. A neat little black hole appeared in the sheet. It was clean for a moment. Then a little red pool started spreading through the fabric. "She just likes her privacy."

Roger stopped screaming. "What? Oh my God, what? What is she going to do to me?"

Gracie slipped her teeth out of her mouth and sat them on the tiny night table next to the bed. She took off her shoes and set them together by the door. "Don't want to get the sheets dirty," she said. Without her teeth it sounded like "Done wanna gedda shits diddy." That made me smile.

She lifted the edge of the sheets and crawled up under them. Roger started bucking and screaming, his ass bouncing up and down like one of those electric bulls you could ride at the country bars.

"Hey," I said. "HEY! You're going to want to settle down over there. If she gets hurt, it's going to be worse for you."

Roger was beyond listening. His shrieking grew louder.

"Oh GOD! What is she going to do? What is she? Why does she look like that? What sort of sick fuckers are you? Oh GOD! Is she going to bite me? Oh GOD!"

"Put your finger in the hole, Gertie," I said. "That'll get his attention."

"Wha one?" came the muffled voice from under the sheet.

"Belly," I said. "Jam it in there real far."

"Kay," she said.

Roger's body under the sheet looked like he had just been hit by a cattle prod. His back arched up until the only things touching the bed were the top of his head and his toes. His scream ripped from his throat, and this time I noticed there was a slight gurgle to his voice. His head slammed from side to side wildly. Finally, he slumped back down in the bed.

"Okay, Roger, now that's enough of you carrying on," I said. "Here's how it's going to be. I'm going to put this tape on your mouth because I'm tired of hearing you go on the way you have been. You are going to lie there quietly and let Gertie do what she does, and you aren't going to make one peep about it. I understand that girls might not be your thing, but you just close your eyes and pretend it's someone else, and we'll all be just fine. I'm sorry it had to be like this, but this is the way it is."

I grabbed the tape from the duffel and gave it two good wraps around Roger's face.

"Okay, Gert," I said. "You ought to be good now."

"Doon wadge," she said.

"I won't," I said, and I turned away. I did peek a few times to make sure she was okay. Her head was dutifully bouncing up and down under the sheet, so I turned back away.

Roger made tortured moaning noises through the tape, which eventually stopped. There was silence in the little room for a while except for the tiny slurping sounds coming from the bed.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the sounds stopped.

"Kay, done," said Gertie from under the sheet.

I turned and shot Roger twice in the head. He didn't even have a chance to open his eyes. Gertie slid sideways from under the sheet, kicking her little legs until her feet made contact with the ground. Her hair was matted to her forehead with blood and sweat, which ran in little rivers down her face and onto her neck.

"Good job," I said. "You may want to take a shower. Let me get Paul out of there and you can take one before we go."

She went to the nightstand and retrieved her teeth. After she slid them back into her mouth, she looked up at me, eyes glowing with excitement and exertion.

"Do you think he liked me?" she said, a starry look on her face. She reminded me of a teenage girl who had just been asked to the dance. "Do you? Do you think he liked me?"

"Of course he did, Gert," I said, patting her gently on the head. "They always like you."