Free A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block

stood up, looking unsteady on her feet at first, then getting hold of herself and walking from the room. I heard the bedroom door click shut and still waited, in no great hurry myself to see what happened next. After a minute or two, though, I worked the remote and turned the whole thing back on again.
    I watched it all the way through to the end. About ten minutes in I heard Elaine's bedroom door open but I kept my eyes on the set. I was aware of it when she passed behind me to reclaim her seat on the couch. I didn't look over at her, though, or say anything. I just sat there, bearing witness.
    When it ended the screen went blank again, and then we were abruptly plunged back into the action of The Dirty Dozen, with the major's gang of cutthroats and sociopaths unleashed on a castle full of Nazi officers enjoying R-and-R in occupied France. We sat and watched the damn thing all the way through to the end, watched Telly Savalas have his wild-eyed psychotic break, watched our heroes fire guns and hurl grenades and raise all-around hell.
    After the final frame, after the credit roll, Elaine walked over to the set and pressed Rewind. With her back to me she said, "How many times did I say I must have seen this movie? Five or six? Every single time I find myself hoping this time it'll be different and John Cassavetes won't get killed at the end. He's a rotten person but it breaks your heart when he gets killed, doesn't it?"
    "Yes."
    "Because they've pulled it off and they're in the clear and then a last bullet comes from out of nowhere and just like that the man's dead. John Cassavetes is dead, too, isn't he? Didn't he die last year?"
    "I think so."
    "And Lee Marvin's dead, of course. Lee Marvin and John Cassavetes and Robert Ryan and Robert Webber. Who else?"
    "I don't know."
    She was standing in front of me now, glaring down at me. "Everybody's dead," she said angrily. "Have you noticed that? People keep dying left and right. Even the fucking ayatollah died, and I thought that raghead sonofabitch was going to live forever. They killed that boy, didn't they?"
    "That's what it looked like."
    "That's what it was. They tortured him and fucked him and tortured him some more and fucked him some more, and then they killed him. That's what we just saw."
    "Yes."
    "I'm all mixed up," she said. She went over and threw herself down on the chair. "The Dirty Dozen, people get killed left and right, all those Germans and some of our guys, and so what? You see it and it's nothing. But this other thing, those two creeps and that kid-"
    "It was real."
    "How could anybody do anything like that? I wasn't born yesterday, I'm not particularly naive. At least I don't think I am. Am I?"
    "I never thought so."
    "I'm a woman of the world, for Christ's sake. I mean, let's come right out and say it, I'm a whore."
    "Elaine-"
    "No, let me finish, baby. I'm not debasing myself, I'm only stating a fact. I happen to be in a profession where you don't necessarily see people at their best. I know the world is full of weirdos and nut jobs. I'm aware of that. I know people are kinky, I know they like to play dress-up and wear leather and rubber and fur and tie each other up and play mind-fuck games and all the rest of it. And I know there are people who lose it and go off the chart and do terrible things. I almost got killed by one of them, do you remember?"
    "Vividly."
    "Me too. Well, okay. Fine. Welcome to the world. There are days when I think somebody ought to pull the plug on the whole human race, but okay, in the meantime I can live with it. But I just can't get my mind around this shit, I really can't."
    "I know."
    "I feel dirty," she said. "I need a shower."

Chapter 6
    I would have called Will first thing the next morning but I didn't know how to get hold of him. I knew deeply personal things about him, I knew he started drinking cough syrup at twelve, I knew his fiance had broken up with him because he'd gotten into a drunken argument with her father, I