Friends by Stephen Dixon Read Free Book Online Page A

arm from around me, pulls a knife out of his pocket, though the blade’s still in the shaft. “You believe me, right?”
    I nod.
    â€œYou can speak. I’m not preventing you.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYes what?”
    â€œYes sir? What?”
    â€œDo you believe what I’m saying?”
    â€œI believe you, I believe you.”
    â€œYou’re not a beautiful girl.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œI’m sure most men think you’re gorgeous but to me you’re ugly. And that’s disappointing you are. Those are my odds though.”
    â€œWhat can I say.”
    â€œGet the money.”
    I reach up and get the shoe box off the closet shelf and give it to him. He opens it and takes the money.
    â€œAnything else of value around?”
    â€œI’ve a television, stereo, speakers, jewelry, mostly antique and costume. Take it all. It’s all right.”
    â€œI know it’s all right.”
    â€œI’m sorry. I was just saying.”
    â€œYou’re scared.”
    â€œYes I’m scared.”
    â€œYou smelled scared. Do I smell scared?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œBecause I’m not. I’m happy. This was so easy. In getting into your downstairs was so easy and easier still that you gave me a safe place to stay for you on the stairs to the roof. You want men to wait for you to take all your things?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSure you do.”
    â€œI don’t. I’ve nothing to do with the design of the building. That was done fifty years ago and the old downstairs lock is the landlord’s. Now please go. You have all my money.”
    â€œThe jewelry, television, whatever else of value.”
    â€œI’m sorry, I forgot. Jewelry’s in that case.”
    He grabs my arm and we go over to the jewelry case on the dresser. He opens it, looks it over, selects what he wants from it and sticks the jewelry into his pockets.
    â€œThat’s the TV?”
    â€œOnly one.”
    â€œToo big. It’d take two of us to carry. Stereo’s probably no good either. They’d see me a block away with it unless you have a suitcase I can fit it in. Where’s the stereo?”
    â€œThe other room.”
    â€œI like this room.”
    â€œI don’t have a stereo here.”
    â€œBut I like it. A bed. Get undressed.”
    â€œPlease, I don’t want to.”
    â€˜â€œPlease, I don’t want to.’” He takes the knife out of his pocket and opens it. “I’ve used this. But first show me the suitcase and stereo but suitcase first.”
    If I lived on the second floor I’d run to the window, throw it open and jump out and maybe even jump through it without opening it. I’d risk the stitches and broken leg, two of them, broken hips, a broken head, to avoid getting raped and maybe knifed and killed. But I’m four flights up. He’d beat me to the door. Or if I beat him to it, by the time I opened it he could knife me. Would he? How much is bluff? He seems he would. And knife me after he raped me? Seems there’d be less chance of that than hi s doing it if I tried to escape, just because I did what he asked and didn’t anger him. I don’t know. I’ll give him what he wants, even suggest things I have he didn’t think of—the blender, an antique figurine—and then plead with him to leave. If he doesn’t, if he insists, if I see there’s no way I can convince him otherwise or escape without getting knifed, I’ll give in.
    I get the suitcase out of the bedroom closet. He takes me to the livingroom, pulls down the shade, turns on the lights, says to sit right beside him on the floor next to the stereo.
    â€œI don’t think it’ll fit,” I say.
    He turns it on, listens to it, unplugs and fits it into the suitcase by a couple of inches on all sides, closes the case and lifts it by the handle, testing its weight.
    â€œIt’s