The Silver Star(51)
By then it was dark. As Wayne drove through town, he heard the two of them struggling, the girl begging Mr. Maddox to stop and him backhanding her a couple more times. Then they came to a red light. The girl suddenly jumped out of the car. Mr. Maddox jumped out after her, but the girl ran around the car and jumped back in next to Wayne, locking the door. “Go!” she screamed.
Wayne took off, leaving Mr. Maddox at the street corner. The girl was sobbing. Her shirt was half torn off, and she was holding it together with both hands. Wayne said he mentioned, by way of showing some sympathy, that whoring could be a rough line of work, but the girl said Tinsley Holladay was her uncle and she wanted Wayne to take her to Mayfield. That, Wayne said, was when he realized she wasn’t a hooker after all.
“She was awful upset, Mr. Holladay,” Wayne said. “But I was in ’Nam, and I know how to deal with people losing it. So I stopped at the Park ’N Eat and got her a Coke. I think that helped calm her.” Wayne kept looking back and forth between me and Uncle Tinsley, like he wanted our reaction. His adrenaline seemed to be pumping.
“Thank you for doing this,” Uncle Tinsley said. “I know it wasn’t easy, but you did the right thing.”
“Mr. Maddox has got to be pretty pissed with me, but I don’t care. I’m pretty pissed with him. What he did was wrong. It was wrong—and I’ll testify to that.”
I didn’t know what to say. I tried to hug Liz again, and this time she didn’t turn away, but her body was completely rigid. Her shoulders felt so thin and frail that it seemed I’d crush her bones if I hugged too tightly. Then she let her cup drop, the ice scattering across the floor, and collapsed in my arms. I felt that if I didn’t hold her up, she’d fall to the floor as well.
“Thank you for all you’ve done, Wayne,” Uncle Tinsley said. “You’re a good man.” He was usually tight with money, but he took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and offered it to Wayne.
“I couldn’t accept, sir,” Wayne said. “I didn’t do it for the money.”
“I insist. After what happened, Maddox certainly isn’t going to pay you.”
“Well, then, thank you very much.”
“Thank you, Wayne,” Uncle Tinsley said. “We can handle it from here.”
He opened the door. Wayne walked out, giving Liz and me that nod that said, I got you covered.
I squeezed Liz again. “Liz, are you okay?”
She shook her head.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Uncle Tinsley.
“Let’s get Liz cleaned up and into bed,” he said.
“Shouldn’t we call the police first?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Uncle Tinsley said.
“We’ve got to do something,” I said.
“I told you two to stay away from Maddox, but you wouldn’t listen, and this is where it’s gotten us.”
“Still, we’ve got to do something,” I said. I gave Liz a gentle shake. “Don’t you think?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” Liz said. “I just don’t know.”
“Don’t you want to press charges?” I asked. I kept thinking about Wayne saying he’d testify. It sounded like he thought going to the cops was a foregone conclusion.
“I don’t know,” she said again.
“What’s done is done,” Uncle Tinsley said. “You can’t undo it by pressing charges. It’ll only create more trouble—and more scandal.”
“What do you want to do, Liz?”
“I just want to take a bath.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I ran Liz a bath. I worried I might be destroying evidence or something, but Liz really wanted that bath. She also wanted the water as hot as it could be, and she asked me to stay.
“What happened, Liz? Did he actually—”
“He tried to. But I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Shouldn’t we go to the hospital?”
“That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“But you might be hurt.”
“I don’t want anyone examining me.”
“Are you worried about getting pregnant?”
“No. He didn’t . . . I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
When Liz climbed into the tub, she kept on her underwear. She didn’t explain why, but I understood.
“You were smart, Liz,” I said. “You got away from Maddox just like we got away from that perv in New Orleans.”
“I’m not smart,” she said. “If I was smart, I never would have gotten in the car.”