by Kirk Alex
“WATCH HIM, STELLA!” Lana made her way to the end of the staircase. She had stowed the lighter and waved the box cutter around. “WATCH YOUR BACK!”
Betty and her daughter moved up from behind, the former wielding an ice pick, the latter had yanked one of her brogans off and swung it up and down like a hammer.
“COME ON, YOU BASTARD!” Stella screamed at the cowboy. Saw him try to kick at her with those boots he had on, and then attempted to leap on top of her.
Emerging from the Bunk Room, bandaged right hand and neck, Greta whirled her chain overhead and whacked the cowboy across the face with it. Stella rolled, regained her equilibrium, and slashed at the man’s back and legs with the cutter.
The cowboy cursed, kicked at her wildly and finally ran off to disappear toward the front of the basement in the darkness.
Stella reached down to help Dione get to her feet and was unable to in time, as Miss Betty directed the wheelchair she was in right at her, toppling Stella once again and causing her to lose the cutter.
Mildred made shrieks as she pounded away at Stella with the shoe in her hand, missing Stella for the most part and smacking Dione Aragon across the face and chest, knocking her out cold.
Lana leapt over the Rumanian. Cocked her left arm, and sent a vicious fist into Mildred Elizabeth’s face and the old woman fell on top of her mother, forcing the wheelchair to bounce back against the cooler door and both mother and adopted daughter went down, the wheelchair flipping on its side.
Stella had a sense of panic about her now. Pissed and frustrated. Couldn’t see well enough in the poorly lighted cellar.
“I lost it. I lost it. I can’t see where it landed.”
“What, goddammit? What the hell is it?”
“The cutter. I dropped it.”
“These fucking degenerates! We gotta get outta here. WE GOTTA MAKE IT.”
“Where’s Pearl? Where is she? We need her.”
“Good question. I think she’s gone back upstairs to bargain with Cecil and the idiot.”
“How do we get outside? It’s like Cybil Brand in here.”
“I know one damned thing: we’re in the basement. There’s windows down here. All we got to do is bust one of these windows open. That’s what we gotta do. Find something to do it with. If we try to go back upstairs he could shoot us. I’m not saying he would, I don’t think he would—but he could.”
“Do you think he might listen to reason? All he’s guilty of so far is abduction. As far as I can tell—nobody’s dead, Dione isn’t dead. Hurt. She’s definitely hurt, but alive. He would have to go to jail for keeping her against her will.”
“Fine. What about Danny? Where’s Danny?”
Lana had her lighter back out. Flicked it on. Carefully walked around a bit, while holding onto the cutter. She stopped, tripping on a dead rat and began to gag. Stella walked over, and was nauseous herself.
Dione moaned back to life. Cried out to them.
“The window in the bathroom at the other end of the basement. The window. Has a curtain over it. That’s our best hope. . . . Down there in the corner. Windows are boarded up and got bars. At least you can climb up on the counter—and do something. . . . You can try. . . . Please. . . . Try. . . . Please. . . .” And she fainted again.
CHAPTER 182
Upstairs, on the first floor, Pearl fired another round. Stood silently, and waited.
The commotion that had transpired down in the basement a moment ago had subsided a great deal and she had no idea what was taking place at this point. She was sure of one thing: she would have to be sparing with the bullets. She had used up three shots, four to go. Someone out there must have heard those shots. I have to believe it. Olivia is sure to get them help. She prayed she was right about that. Police will be paying Cecil Biggs a visit pretty soon.
She reached what was the kitchen door. Tried it. Saw that it was locked. So was the door directly across, as was the back. Could hear Biggs and Marvin whispering at the other end of the hallway, and that left her no place to go but back down in the basement and join the others.
“Stella? Lana?”
“What are you doing? We can use you down here! We’re outnumbered! Got us way outnumbered!”
“Come on down!” Lana seconded. “Careful with that gun! Make the bullets count! She’s right: We got us a bunch of crazy muthers down here, but we’re all right! We’re kicking ass! We’re gonna bust out through a window in the john! Give us a hand!”
Pearleen felt her way to the open basement door. Paused at the landing.
“All we want is to get out of here, Cecil. I don’t want to shoot nobody. Just want to get out of here.”
No one responded.
“Hear me, Biggs? Brother Trusty? Your neighbors musta heard some of this at least: gun shots, screaming. Rollers are on their way, Biggs. Think about it. I would if I was you. Livia’s over there right about now telling them what she saw.”
“I don’t want to harm you. In fact, the deacon and I don’t want to harm any of you ladies. You have to believe that. What would be the sense in it? We just want you to get all prettied up again and dance for us some more, that’s all. I’ve got some great toot left and it’s yours, yours and your girlfriends’, or yours alone, if you like. I know how much you love this stuff, Peaches. That’s why I went to all the trouble and risk to score for you, to get the best: LSD, PCP, ’ludes, rock candy, Ecstasy, you name it; reefer, meth. Spent good money, Peachy. Just to watch you dance. You’re a beautiful dancer. Second to none.”
“Yeah? That why you locked your front door and won’t let us leave?”
“Like I tried to explain to Olivia Duarte a minute ago. Doors are kept locked due to an increase in crime in the area. Law-abiding types like Deacon Muck and myself have to protect ourselves, don’t we? It only stands to reason. You know as well as I do that Valley PD can’t provide adequate protection. Home invasions are commonplace these days. A man has a right to protect his life and valuables. You were a victim yourself recently, were you not?”
“Why did you have to kidnap Dione? What have you been doing to her?”
“Dione be all right, sugar-bush. All you got to do is talk to her. See for yo-self.”
“She’s just fine. Well, sort of. Took it hard when she found out hubby fled the coop for Bakersfield with baby and funds. Dione is tripping on PCP. As I said: it devastated her.”
“You’re lying, Cecil. You’re lying; playing games. Only it won’t work, Cecil.”
“You know how badly you ache for toot, Peaches. Why torture yourself this way? Why deny yourself? Put that pea-shooter away and we can be friends again. You can do your fabulous LaBelle of the Ball number for us. How about it, Pearleen?”
Pearleen Bell said nothing. Swallowed hard. She wiped sweat from her brow, and proceeded down the basement stairs. She caught sight of Lana, or at least what she perceived was her silhouette.
“Watch yourself, Pearl. Fucker’s got a whole mental ward down here. Buncha straitjacket candidates.”
Mildred struggled to assist her mother back into the wheelchair. Did what she could to lift her up that way, and only managed to falter back, with the mother landing on top of her and the wheelchair on top of the mother.
“Stand the chair up first, dammit, daughter. Get the chair up first. And then give me a hand. The chair goes first, and then get me into it.”
The daughter fought back, screeched like a wounded animal, and it was hopeless for her. “I did, Mother! I want to help you but you won’t let me! You won’t let me! I want to help! I don’t know what you want me to do, Mother! I’m trying! It’s too dark! It’s too dark, Mother! Too dark to see!”
“Help me up, daughter! Stop sniveling, dammit! What’s it matter that it’s dark? You’re legally blind!”
“I am not blind, Mother! I am not blind! You say I’m blind when that is not true!”
“You are legally blind. Don’t argue with me. Damn you, daughter. Sure turned out to be some kind o
f helpless ninny.”
CHAPTER 183
The daughter worked to get the wheelchair up against the cooler door and then helped lift her mother into it.
“Men are such assholes. I want kids, lots of kids. My biological clock is running out.”
“Mama, you got me.” Mildred was at a loss as to what to do. What she truly needed and wanted was to hug her mother. Fear and nerves stopped her from following through.
“I want kids, lots of kids running around. But as I have pointed out many times in the past: men are such incorrigible rectums. Useless. Absolutely useless. Worthless.” She recovered her icepick. Asked the daughter about her shoe. “Where is it? Bishop won’t like it if you lost another.”
“I don’t know, Mother. I once had two. Now down to one.”
“Oh, stop your sniveling, you perverted, over-the-hill floozie.”
“Take that other shoe off your foot and prepare to thrash them with it for the Lord.”
Mildred Elizabeth heeded the advice.
“Now all you have to do is point me in the direction of that harlot who assaulted us, the filthy slut who dared show her presence in this House of Worship, the Lord’s House; the unwashed floozies dared taint this air what once was pure and holy. You can always tell when a heathen fornicator is present: they foul up the very air we breathe with their foul thoughts.”
Lana Sepulveda had had her fill of the old hag. Far worse than her own mother even. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, you rancid old witch.”
“You can always tell the direction heathen like you is headed—the same direction you come from, the same direction you’re traveling directly to—and that could be only one place: the lower world. HADES. You come from it and will be going there shortly. Hades is the place for cheap strumpets like you. The lower region. And it will be my great pleasure to send you back to burn for all eternity!”
“You talk too much, you old bag of bones.”
CHAPTER 184
Having dug her cigarette lighter out of her purse and used it for the limited illumination it provided, Pearleen was able to descend a few more steps, and paused.
Ionesco was still in a lot of pain, but he was looking up at her, thinking of going after her, maybe tackling her; at least grabbing her feet. Could he make it that far up the flight of stairs? Although he was clearly aching, he negotiated a single step, and then another.
Pearleen trained her weapon on the slobbering slob.
“I’ll cap your ugly ass. I will.”
The Pinko Punisher’s gaze remained fixed on her feet, wincing, considering the move all the same. It was tempting. He was willing to chance the risk.
“Don’t make me smoke you.”
“Ja ja, African kurva, you vill die; Ja ja, so vill I.” The one-time Beverly Hills cabbie and former “Butler to the Stars” was intent on going for it. If he got shot, so be it. It would solve his problems.
Lana decided she’d attempt to solve her colleague Pearleen’s dilemma by running up from behind and slashing the Rumanian across the buttocks a few times with her box cutter and watched the man roll back down the stairs and land on his head. Took him a moment to regain his senses and remind himself where he was. Soon enough he was reaching back with both hands in a futile effort to do something about his lacerated posterior. Alas, Ionesco’s only recourse was to scurry away on hands and knees.
“That’s how you deal with these insane fucks. The way I see it, we’re stuck in a lunatic asylum—for the time being, anyway—and the only way to deal with these loons is to hit back, hit hard. We give them ten times as much grief as they try to put us through. Lookit what they did to Dione.”
Dione “Divine” Aragon was coming back to again. Pearleen reached the bottom of the staircase. Dropped her lighter in her purse to save it for later use. Knelt down to help Dione sit up. Heard her yelp in agony when her arms were accidentally moved. Stella assisted.
“They broke both of her arms. I don’t know what happened to her eye. It doesn’t look good. She needs a doctor.”
“They killed Danny. My husband; they killed my husband. . . . In the woods. . . . Buried him in a shallow grave. They kept me in that pit because I tried to call for help from a cell they had me in. . . . I stood on a coffee table, this crappy coffee table . . . and for that . . . they . . . Help me. . . . Please help. . . . They’11 . . . If we don’t get out of here . . . I’m weak. . . . They starved me. . . . Forced me to eat dog food . . . mixed with . . . It had . . . it had . . . You don’t understand. . . . They’11 keep you around for a while . . . for kicks, so they can rape you; so they can torture . . . Please help me get out. I need my baby girl. . . . Clarissa . . . My little angel . . . Clarissa . . .”
She passed out.
CHAPTER 185
Biggs was upstairs standing by the entrance to his basement and he was eating a Butterfinger candy bar and listening to what was being said by Dione and her pals. He was satisfied with the way things had turned. They had the vics in one place, where he wanted them. That was fine. Made things a lot easier.
“What now, Cecil?”
“We wait.”
“You heard them: they want to bust out that crapper window down there.”
“Let them try.”
“Let them try?”
“It’s boarded up: inside and outside, both. Not to mention wire mesh and wrought iron bars. Three hopped up bitches can get past all that? Let them try.”
“What chu call a Messican stand-off, ain’t it?”
“Hardly. We don’t have to do a damned thing—just leave them down there.”
“I don’t be getttin’ it. You don’t want some more of that vagina?”
“We starve them out. Let them go without food for two or three days. They’ll come crawling out, begging for a Pop-Tart or dog biscuit—like the others, like all the others. It’s relatively simple.”
He would wait if he had to. Also thought of a way to have some fun with the trapped captives in the meantime. Biggs did a head gesture in the direction of Marvin’s room. The sidekick understood all too well what it meant. Made him none too happy.
“I’ll be in the basement.”
Marvin shook his head, unwilling to go along with the unspoken request. “What chu gonna do, Brotha Trusty?”
“Do it, Brother Base. Make yourself useful. I’ll be waiting downstairs.”
Marvin did not want any part of what was on the man’s mind, neither would he want any part of the bishop’s wrath for refusing to go along with the program.
He entered his room.
Biggs made it down the stairwell with his Maglite. Headed toward the laundry area outside the john. The bitches had obviously decided to make their stand in the bathroom. He was at the door. Listening. The vaginas were whining about something. Vaginas were always groaning and moaning, bitching and pissing about something.
He looked about the area. Didn’t like what he was not seeing: they had the Maytag dryer with them. Washer was untouched. Large playpen that contained clean clothes for the geeks was there. Noticed that both hampers were also gone. No doubt had them braced against the door.
He borrowed Betty Lou’s icepick and poked it in the hole in the center of the doorknob to unlock it, for what good it did him. Door was no longer locked, true enough—only the cunts had it fortified to the point it kept him from being able to push it in.
CHAPTER 186
Inside the bathroom a degree of disappointment had washed over all three strippers. They had the dryer and hampers lined up in a row, braced against the door—and were still about a foot and a half short. There was a utility cabinet below the sink. Pearleen thought to yank one of the utility cabinet doors off and placed it on the floor lengthwise, between the tub and the last hamper—so that it reinforced what they already had.
Not a one of them doubted that eventually Biggs and his goons would be able to force their way in. At least for now they figured they’d be able to buy some time with what they were able to do.
Pearleen gave Da Bottom a glare that clearly said: Got any other bright ideas?
“I knew about it. We all did.” Lana climbed down. “All these windows got bars on them. It was still worth a look.”
They heard Cecil Biggs, their captor, clear his throat on the other side of the john door.
“There’s no real reason why we shouldn’t be able to reach some sort of compromise, ladies. I offer you prime toot . . . in exchange for companionship. Doesn’t sound unreasonable to me.”
Pearleen shook her head at the women with her. They whispered to one another; they had to. Lana looked at the other two.
“What about it?”
Pearleen did not like it. “Companionship? What the fuck is that?”
“What the fuck is what? What do you think it is? It’s an offer.”
“Olivia Duarte will be getting help. We have to be patient.”
Stella wished she could agree with Pearl. Wanted to. “You hope that diva is getting help.”
Biggs let it be known he remained on the other side of that door. “Still awaiting your answer, ladies.”
“What about it? He’ll give us toot—”
“Don’t be stupid, Lana. You know what they did to Dione. You heard what Dione said, how they took Danny out. Probably killed the baby.”
Lana faced the door. “What about that, Cecil?”
“Like I explained to your friend Pearl a moment ago upstairs. Dione practically had a nervous breakdown when she found out that hubs absconded with funds and baby and took off for the Central Valley. That’s where they’re from originally, isn’t it? He hated LA, and couldn’t wait to get out. Dione wanted to stay on; liked the money she was making as a peeler. Their big fight was over her wanting to do porn; the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. Her way of dealing with it was to trip out on PCP.”