“Well maybe you’ll just have to make do with your high school Mary Jane’s from now on. Maybe they’ll let you put your hand under their cardigans and pinch one of their little boobs after six months or so of watching rom-coms.”
Gina turned around and snapped a pedal bin open with her foot. She bent over and dropped the crumpled serviettes into it, allowing Bobby to get a good view of her creamy thighs as her short dress rose up.
The odour of decaying food from the pedal bin wafted over, mixed with Gina’s overdosed perfume and cherry lip-gloss.
He leaned across and whispered to her.
“Gina! Why don’t you keep your fucking voice down? These old bastards got nothing to do all day but play dominoes and talk about what they heard in here. I don’t need your whiskeyed-up husband banging on my door with a shotgun crooked over his arm at four in the morning. Because I will fucking defend myself Gina. I will take a hockey stick right across his fat head and…”
“Why good morning Sherriff, can I get you your usual?”
Bobby lowered his voice and followed Gina’s gaze as he felt Sherriff Daggett sidle up next to him. Bobby kept his eyes on the counter, trying to control his breathing and lower his heart rate.
“Morning Sherriff.”
Sherriff Daggett gave Bobby a mumbled greeting and nodded to Gina. Bobby always thought Daggett’s grit-teeth way of talking displayed a permanent air of disapproval and suppressed intolerance. He was one of those fellas that breathed real heavy through his nose and always seemed to have his jaw bolted near shut. He looked like he grew his moustache in the exact shape to express maximum disapproval.
“Everything ok with you there Bobby? You sounded agitated when I walked in. You ain’t stressing Gina out I hope, are ya? Keeping her from her work?”
Bobby took a deep breath. Daggett smelled of polished leather and harsh soap. His uniform was starched and pressed until it looked like it was made of thick beige cardboard.
“No sir. Just psyching myself up for hockey practice this morning. Playing Coldknife Canyon next week. Don’t think they got the right people on their team this year, odds are on us.”
Daggett stroked his moustache as Gina poured him a black coffee.
“Uh-huh. Well I’m sure you’ll do your best. Maybe just keep all that natural aggression of yours for the game, huh?”
Bobby flexed his powerful shoulders and bit his lower lip then forced a response. “Yes sir, I certainly will.”
An old man in a red check shirt and scuffed skipper cap who sat at the end of the counter called over to Daggett. “Hey Sherriff, Edna was asking if you’d have time to make it over to the farm this afternoon? She’s pretty shook up about those sheep.”
Daggett flipped out his notebook and pencil then made a scribbled note.
“Damn it I’m sorry Eugene, I meant to come over yesterday afternoon. I damn well asked Tina to remind me. What’s the point of a station secretary that needs reminded of stuff, I ask you. How many animals she lose?”
The old man flipped his cap up high on his head and blew out hard.
“Oh it must be four or five of her stock. If lose is even the right word Sherriff. Them beasts were mutilated. Some sick bastards out there. But that’s what happens when you start letting all these Eastern Europeans in the country. All these Serbian war criminals and bloodbath cannibals. They go unnoticed in Toronto or Montreal, but out here in the sticks it’s different.”
Daggett took a sip of his coffee, winced at the heat. “Come on now Eugene, we can’t go assigning blame until we’ve looked at the evidence. Apologize to Edna for me though would ya? I know she feels pretty isolated out there when you’re off on the trucking runs. I’ll make sure and do a drive past at least once a day.”
The old man nodded. “Appreciate it Sherriff. If you’d seen what someone did to those animals you’d understand. The cruelty of it, like something out the Spanish Acquisition.”
Gina refilled the old man’s cup and stroked his wrinkled hand with her red nails. “It’s inquisition sweetheart. You want that salt beef sandwich to take away, Eugene?”
The old man furrowed his brow then nodded.
Bobby slid his cup across the counter and tutted. “We don’t need to look as far as Transylvanian refugees to know who’s the sort to be mutilating animals for no reason. We got our own home grown potential spree shooters living right here in town. That creepy lame little bastard for example. We all know how he likes to cut things just to watch them bleed.”
Daggett blew on his coffee and Bobby caught a whiff of his breath, mint covering tooth decay. “Now Bobby, don’t go digging all that up, there’s enough bitter blood in Carnival, people feuding ‘cos their granddaddy stole another granddaddy’s mule back in ’23 or some non-sense. I will not tolerate it son. I am here to keep the peace and it will be kept. You follow me?”
Bobby crumpled a napkin and tossed it across the counter.
“You act like you don’t remember seeing exactly what he did to Jimmy Crane. That poor guy still don’t have the courage to show his messed up face in public. What kinda animal takes a broken piece of antler to a guy? Well I do not forget such transgressions against my friends and brothers, Sherriff.”
“Well that all sounds very Old Testament young Bobby, but if I catch you raising your fists to anyone, I will slap you down and you will spend the night in the cooler. Long as you know. You know my personal feelings on the matter much as anyone, and I do not dismiss my friendship with your father, Bobby, but I got a job needs upheld.”
Bobby sighed and sneered. “You know he won’t leave Gina alone. She thinks it was him tried to break in here the other night.”
Daggett furrowed his sweaty forehead and glanced at the young waitress, who chewed her gum and couldn’t meet his eyes. “That true Gina? You got some evidence or witness testimony you wanna share with me?”
Gina shrugged and shook her head. “All I know is that someone broke the lock on the back door.”
Bobby smirked. “Gina’s very protective of her back door, Sherriff.”
Daggett finished his coffee and slapped the counter. “Well that’s why I dropped by, other than to wake myself up with a cup-o-mud. You wanna take me out back in the alley and show me the broken door?”
Gina cast a guilty glance at Bobby then called over to a colleague, a chubby dark haired girl with a lip piercing. “Keep an eye on things for me Kelly? Gotta show the Sherriff out back.”
Daggett stretched out his broad shoulders and cracked his neck, before striding lazily around the counter and following the waitress out back.
Bobby slid a toothpick out from the little pot on the counter and proceeded to chew it. His mind had got to thinking about the Billy Larose incident and now his blood was up and his brain just kept chewing it over. He hated all the old families that originated out at Dreamcatcher Falls on the far side of town. Bunch of inbred old French colonists that had too much truck with First Nation folk and lived forty to a household. Their yards always cluttered with cars up on blocks and turkeys stuttering about everywhere. That Billy kid, before his old man crippled him, kept showing Bobby up at hockey and basketball matches. Wiry little bastard was a natural, could leap about like a cat. Bobby had always taken great pleasure in bringing him down a peg, humiliating him in front of the girls. Ugly little bastard. His buddy Jimmy had always known the most cutting remark and just when to say it, brought the little wretch close to tears of rage on several occasions. But it was just hacking, same as all guys do, wasn’t supposed to escalate into violence. It wasn’t over though, now first blood had been drawn, Bobby had spent the whole year planning a way to make that degenerate Billy Larose disappear. A few of the guys on the team had been speaking about it when they were drinking a crate of beer after the game last Saturday. Tommy Sherman said the best way to get rid of someone around Carnival was in the old Spear Creek mine on the town’s outskirts. There were so many abandoned sinkholes and shafts in the woods and quarry that nobody wo
uld ever be found again. After he had sobered up Bobby felt guilty for even speaking about planning someone’s death. He honestly didn’t know if he had it in him even on his worst day. One thing that really creeped him out though was the way that Billy Larose used to hang around Gina. He hated the way that the freak would shyly gaze at her from under his droopy eyelid. Bobby had decided that if he ever tried it on with her that would be the final straw. Gina might be married but she was his woman and he knew she loved him. That no good gambling waster of a husband she had ended up with didn’t deserve her.
Yeah. That would be the final straw he needed to bundle that inbred into the boot of his car and take him up into the woods. The husband and Billy both.
Bobby crunched on the toothpick and it caught the inside of his cheek, drawing blood and a wince of pain. “Goddammitt.”
Gina leaned back against the damp bricks in the alleyway out the back of the diner. Sherriff Daggett’s utility belt was pressing into her stomach, the leather radio holder and baton pouch hard and uncomfortable. The cold serrated edge of one of his handcuff bracelets was leaving a red indentation on the soft milky skin of her inner thigh.
She smelled the old spice and sweat on his thick bull’s neck, his stubble and moustache grating against her cheek. It was that dad smell and it highlighted how inappropriate her current predicament really was. His calloused hands were fumbling with the buttons of her cotton waitress dress, scooping out one of her pale breasts and crudely kneading it. She winced at his infantile groping but then gave him an affected whimper of encouragement. He held her head still for a moment then roughly kissed her, and she tasted the coffee and breath mints mixing with her own cherry lip-gloss. His tongue rolled her now tasteless chewing gum around her mouth like a hockey puck, and when she pressed her own tongue into his she exchanged the malleable gobbet of gum with him for a few seconds. She managed to balance one leg up onto the refuse bin next to her as she started to gently bite and suck his earlobe. As he groaned in his gravelly tight jawed way, she whispered wetly in his ear.
“You gonna make sure Garth spends the whole weekend in lockup, Marty?”
Daggett grumbled an ok as he unzipped his flies.
Gina broke off for a moment, fixed his eyes to ensure he was listening.
“Please I want him gone, Marty, can’t stomach his drinking and temper this weekend. You can come round as much as you want to.”
Daggett grinned at her beneath his moustache. “I know I can girly, I’m the fucking law.”
Gina reached down and slipped a hand into her white cotton underwear. Gina held down her revulsion and forced a coy grin. “You conduct all your investigations this way, Sherriff Daggett?
Daggett’s shiny face was slack and mesmerized. She thought he looked like a mentally retarded sweating ogre that was about to faint, and felt a sudden wave of self-loathing. Gina had never figured out if she was punishing her horribly abusive husband with her indiscretions, or ended up in these situations as way to punish herself for her disgusting nature. Had her self-esteem been so beaten down she figured this was the only way she had left to secure her safety in a town like Carnival?
She had somehow ended up married to the most popular athlete in high school, who also happened to be a violent alcoholic and drug addict. Her summer job as a waitress now defined her, she had even heard people refer to her a Gina the Waitress.
Now somehow she was here, a twenty year old coffee pouring technician with the face of an innocent starlet, getting screwed by a fifty three year old law enforcement officer who used to deliver drugs awareness talks at her high school.
Daggett growled into her ear, his hot dry tongue flicking at her cheap earrings. “Don’t you worry darling, that idiot husband of yours is so fucking dumb he practically walks himself into jail most weekends. I know just what to say to him after he’s had a few jars to provoke him, then it’s night night. Guess you’re pretty good at provoking him yourself though, huh?”
Gina knew that however sordid and amateur the Sherriff’s sexual skills were, he was true to his word in some respects. He would put Garth away in jail for the weekend under false pretences and she would get a few days without violence or abuse. Gina knew that Daggett only did it so he could swing by on the way home to his family dinner and loudly unload his balls in her as he rested his beer belly on her ass, but at least there was honesty to that kind of deal. Daggett was a pig, but at least he oinked.
Gina watched the Sherriff with detached curiosity as he sank down into a world of his own, his face a ruddy mask of shiny concentration. He chewed on a corner of his moustache as he thrust into her with short desperate strokes. He reminded her for a moment of that nineteen seventies porn star with the droopy moustache, she couldn’t recall the guy’s name. Her mind started to drift to the chicken she had taken out the freezer that needed cooked that evening.
Daggett grabbed her upper arms, pressing the flesh until it turned red. He had reached that point where it was obvious he had forgotten she was there and then in a sudden exclamation he buried his face in her shoulder and shouted as he shot his load.
“Iamthelaaaaaaaaawwwwwww.”
Daggett was still breathing hard as he folded himself back into his trousers, smoothing down his uniform and tucking his shirt in. He didn’t look Gina in the eye but instead glanced up and down the alleyway to make sure no one had seen him carrying out his duty.
Gina found the twisted part of her actually believing that this was the good Sherriff of Carnival just doing his job and defending the weak. In the oddest sort of way it was. Gina had to admit, she found Daggett a very strange sort of man. Like most people in Carnival. The town was rotten beneath the surface, always had been in her opinion.
You just did what you had to in order to survive.
9.
Family.
Not one of us was born into a decent one. Only one I ever found was taken from me by monsters. Until I found this merry little gathering of killers.
Usher looked around the table at the motley group of desperados that made up his primary caregivers. Every one of them had the same look as he did, that same happy-go lucky fatalism that hid vast reservoirs of chewed-down pain.
Every one of them would die for him and he knew it. Daft buggers, he thought, but he knew he would take a bullet for any of them in turn.
In their wayward youth the majority of them had seen care homes, prison, violence and degradation. Each one of them a story of one good teacher that took the time to see their potential, one drill sergeant that saw the steely determination behind their delinquent eyes.
That same fire that could have burned them up like a dying star had been hammered and tempered until the men sat around the table playing cards and drinking beer, waiting for the call to arms, were amongst the most professional and dangerous soldiers in the world.
The Lucky Few.
That was the nickname jokingly given to them by the other Empire teams in the STG. Every soldier in the teams was the cream of the Special Forces crop, drawn from a variety of backgrounds and specializations, and they had all seen their fair share of blood on the ground. Yet somehow, whenever the shit really hit the fan, it was always Empire One right in the middle of the storm.
It was turning into a running joke in their organization.
Usher’s team had been backs to the wall, last stand against a sea of ungodly monsters more times than any of them could count. They had taken turns carrying one another bleeding and screaming from war zones on four continents and the fringes of other worlds. They had been quite literally held together by their teammates until the helivac arrived, unthinkingly stepped in front of bullets for one another, made promises to look after one another’s family on cold desert nights when the enemy was closing in.
They had seen one another cry and held each other tight without a hint of shame or awkwardness. They had all lost good friends to the Unseelie Court.
Usher looked at them all and realized that despite his loneliness
and constant search for what he had lost over the years, he had somehow found something worth keeping. A group of other lost souls like him, with a sense of duty and honour who like him would fight against the Dark to the last bullet.
They were family.
They didn’t tell each other that, obviously.
“Right you cunts, whose round is it?”
“Brock, I’m not saying you’re retarded, I’m not saying that, but if I was saying that…”
Brock grabbed Isaac by the lapel, his bristling blonde beard almost touching the smaller man’s face.
“Isaac, no one wins that many hands without being a cheating son of a whore. Life’s just one big casino to you, but I tell you you’re close to getting black-balled here, my friend. Right in your fucking face.”
Isaac looked at Brock’s frothing goatee. “I do not even know what that means, big fella, it’s like a non sequitur. What can I say I’m having a lucky night?”
Sitting opposite them, the Australian surfer Stromberg cracked open another bottle of beer and leaned back on his chair with his big boots up on the table. He looked round at the rest of the team grinning, frozen with their cards in their hands.
“By black balled I take he means bummed to death, mate? I’m not up to date with all your British sayings yet. But it’s anal sex, right?”
Usher stood up and raised his hands.
“All right boys, stop fucking about. We’re on the C-130 to Vancouver in two hours. Make sure your kit is in order and make that your last beer. Remember you’re representing the European wing of the STG here, and we need to show those Moose-fuckers what bunch of cold hearted monster hunters we really are.”
Brock patted Isaac on the head affectionately with his huge hand and went off to the fridge for a final beer, all anger gone. “Alright brother, I’ll just put tonight down to your gypsy magic. But I’ve got my eye on you. I tell you that.”
The Last Line Series One Page 40