Skin Deep Read Free

neck.
    Necks are soft, but my knuckles popped as I hit him. He looked cross-eyed for a second and then started to go after me with the broken glass in his bleeding hand. I kissed the Marquis of Queensbury good-bye and kneed him in the nuts. When he folded forward, dropping the shards of glass onto the girl's stomach, I caught him under the chin with my other knee. His neck snapped back, and he let out an agonized little "whuff" and flopped backward into the sawdust on the floor. I put my foot on his throat and pressed down, hard.
    "Finished?" I said happily. I was glad to see that he'd bitten his tongue when my knee hit his jaw. Blood flowed from his mouth and collected in the dimple on his chin. He didn't answer. Probably he couldn't.
    "You stinkin' alkie cowboy," someone said behind me in an accent that was pure Panhandle. "Get off him, you dickhead." The voice belonged to the Korean girl, and she was crying. She'd pulled herself to a sitting position and she tugged her skirt down over her thighs in an oddly modest gesture, considering the fact that she'd just been decked in front of eighty or ninety people. She wiped a forearm across her eyes and looked at me fiercely. "Don't you dare hurt my baby," she said.
    "Hurt him?" I said. I was confused. I was trying to play mix and match with the Korean face and the Texas voice and failing. "Urn, lady," I said, giving up, "I don't want to hurt him. I want to kill him. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."
    " 'Cause," the Korean girl said, sitting back slightly. I must have looked pretty fierce myself. " 'Cause it's not his fault, dammit."
    "Then whose fault is it?"
    She passed a forefinger over her front teeth, checking to see that they were still there, and then cranked out a smile. A very small smile. "He's not usually like this. He's just drunk."
    "So am I," I said. "And I've wanted to kill somebody all day." I ground my foot into his throat. "Yum, yum," I said.
    A circle of people had gathered around us, watching as passively as if we were the film at eleven on the evening news. "Hey," the Korean girl called to the room at large, "isn't anybody gonna do anything?" Most everybody in the circle looked away, unwilling to get involved, but one zealous-looking jerk in a frontier-style plaid shirt shouldered through the folks around him and sprinted for the pay phone. "Do something," the Korean girl pleaded. "Jesus, something terrible could happen."
    "If something terrible hasn't already happened, I'd like to read your datebook," I said. The bar had hushed except for the sound of the plaid shirt punching buttons on the telephone. I felt some of the adrenaline wane, and I looked down at Mr. Beautiful. His face was very red and the veins on both sides of his forehead were throbbing. With some reluctance, I lifted my foot. He rolled his head from side to side, gasping for breath and trying to spit out the blood in his mouth.
    "Toby," the Korean girl was saying in thick Texan, "Toby, honey, I'm sorry." If I live until the third millennium, I'll never understand women.
    I bent down. "I can either rearrange the rest of your facial furniture, or not," I said. "It's up to you."
    "I'm through," he said.
    "Toby," the girl said, bending over him. "Sweetie, you okay?"
    He brought one hand up to his throat. "Do I look okay, you fucking idiot?" he said. I stepped on his throat again, hand and all, just to refresh his etiquette. He gagged, and the girl grabbed ineffectually at my ankle. As her fingers scraped at my skin I could hear the plaid shirt talking on the phone. I raised my shoe and inspected it. Mr. Beautiful hadn't bled on my laces.
    He coughed. "Is he calling the cops?" he rasped, staring wildly at Mr. Zealous.
    "I certainly hope so," I said.
    "Jesus. Get me out of here. Now, get me out of here right now." He was talking to the circle, and he looked panicked. A buzz arose from the circle as its members began to discuss what they'd just seen as though it had happened on the other side