“Jesus Christ!”
“What the fuck?”
“Who the hell are you?”
The protests came in unison.
Earl didn’t respond. He raised his camera and clicked off a series of auto-shots in quick succession, capturing the men, their naked bodies, the implements in their hands, and the girl tied spread-eagle on the bed.
“Now, wait a minute,” one of them said, stepping away from the bed, a bottle of Southern Comfort in his grip. The other men came to join him, the gang of them standing there, genitals dangling.
Earl snapped another shot.
There was a stunned moment in which no one moved. Earl was broader and at least a foot taller than any man in the room. But there were four of them. He no longer felt the need to keep his eyes distant. He slipped his glasses off and leveled a steely gaze their way.
Just then, Melon began to bark. Another man had entered the room behind Earl. “The fuck you doing here?”
It was Ray Tarvis, come to join his club mates for the festivities.
Earl put his glasses back on and stepped to one side, his shoulders in line with his flanking opponents’.
“Who the hell is this asshole? What’s he doing with the camera?” the man with the bottle wanted to know.
“He’s fucking blind!” Tarvis said. “He ain’t seen a thing!”
“He sees enough to take pictures!”
Tarvis studied Earl more closely now, trying to peer beyond the lenses of his dark glasses.
Earl tipped the glasses forward on his nose and looked across them, let the man see the truth of the matter for himself.
“You’re going out in a fucking box!”
Tarvis started forward, then —
Chick!
— the sound of the switchblade clicking open stopped him in his tracks. The other men had closed a step. They also halted.
“I see you all understand the language of the streets,” Earl said. “I took it off your boy.”
Earl pointed the knife alternately at Tarvis and at the gang of men.
Tarvis grabbed a heavy ashtray from a nearby dresser and hurled it in Earl’s direction. It whizzed past Earl’s head, missing by inches. Tarvis followed with a charge. “Give me the goddamned camera!” Tarvis cried, rushing Earl, head down like a bull.
Earl let the cane drop and caught the man about the neck with one big arm. The momentum of his charge rocked Earl back a step, but he used his size to quell the force. He wrenched Tarvis’s head upward so he could see the bed, the girl, the savage damage that the men had inflicted. He still had the knife pointed toward the men.
“Take a good fucking look!” Earl said.
There was nothing but hate in the man’s eyes. “Fuck you!” Tarvis said. “And fuck the little whore!”
Earl brought the blade around in a swift arc and buried it deep in Tarvis’s stomach, just below the rib cage.
There was an expression of startled disbelief on Tarvis’s face. Earl let it linger there a moment. Then he shoved the knife up hard beneath the ribs and held on until the light in Tarvis’s eyes flickered and died.
Earl let him drop to the floor. Melon let out a chuff.
The others had remained fixed in place, unsure of Earl’s prowess, perhaps, or just insecure in their naked vulnerability. But now they started forward as a group.
Loretta suddenly burst into the room. She had her gun out. Her eyes were wild with fear.
It halted their advance.
“Cut the girl loose!” Earl said to them.
A couple of the men moved to carry out his orders; the other two glared at him as if trying to say We will remember you and there will come a time.
Loretta handed the gun to Earl and rushed to her daughter’s aid. The girl-child lolled, made dopey by the weight of Rohypnol or some other rape drug. But her eyes were aware and shifting between Earl and her mother.
Loretta dragged her to her feet, gathered her clothing, and dressed her as best she could.
When they were at the door and ready, Earl popped the small memory card from his camera and held it for the men to see. “You try to fuck with me or my family ever again, not only will this go to the media, but I’ll come looking for each of you myself.”
There was little of what could have passed for shame on the four white faces. Earl considered for one brief moment the idea of opening up on them with the gun. But the priority for now was to get his daughter and granddaughter to safety. “Are we clear on all this?” he asked, fixing his eyes on each of the men in turn.
“What about him?” one man asked, motioning to Tarvis lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
“I understand you’re all members of Atlanta’s finest,” Earl said. “I’m sure you got ideas how to make a body disappear, make a crime as though it never happened.”