Devil Girls

by Ed Wood

  “You mustn’t talk that way.”

  “But I mean it.”

  “You don’t. Not really! You’re a bit disturbed, mixed up now, but you’ll be alright again as soon as you decide to face up to your obligations.”

  Jenny crossed back to stand beside Reverend Steele’s chair. “Reverend Steele, I’ve killed an old man—a very old man. I’m in a hopeless situation. I’ll be tried and convicted and sent to a juvenile home until I’m twenty-one, then on to some prison for the rest of my life. I’m not lookin’ forward to that. I’d rather be dead!”

  “That is no attitude for you to be taking. You’ve got to pull yourself together. You’ve got to think differently. You can never be any good even to yourself if you don’t.”

  “It’s easy for you to talk. You’re not the one who is goin’ to prison.”

  Reverend Steele’s eyes narrowed, but softened at the same time in making his point. “Jenny! I am also not the one who murdered.” He watched her as the words sunk in, and then she went back around the table and sat down again. “When one breaks the law, one must be punished,” he added, just as softly.

  Jenny was silent for a long time and the Reverend respected her silence. He let her take her own time. When she finally spoke she sounded very tired. “Can I go now, Reverend? I’m very tired.”

  “Just one more thing. My previous question which you have evaded. Who were the others with you?”

  She looked up quickly, defensively. “I was alone. There wasn’t anybody else with me. Nobody but me. I needed bread for junk. Old man Hemp caught me and I shot his head off with his own gun. He fell down and I just stood there like a drownin’ junkie. At least a damned stupid junkie anyway. Then the police came and HERE I am.”

  “The police believe there were others with you.”

  “Let them believe what they want.”

  Reverend Steele stood up. “I think you’re lying to me, Jenny.”

  Jenny jumped to her feet, suddenly angered beyond any further reason. “And you can go to hell with what you think.” She spun to the door she had entered and went out, quickly slamming the door behind her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dee appeared to be suffering no ill effects from her previous night’s experience. Her long hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and tied in place with yellow ribbon which matched her sweater. She sat on a packing crate just inside the great double doors of a warehouse on the docks. Her clear plastic raincoat lay beside her, and was still dripping from the rain it had come through, which could be seen pouring down just outside. She liked the smell of the Gulf when it rained. There was something fresh about the whole scene. But when the sun was bright and hot, the whole area took on a stink only the docks of the ocean could produce; she loathed the smell and kept away from the place at such times.

  Dee drew her knees up on the packing crate in front of her and filled her lungs with the damp, clean air. The sting of it made her spirits lighten. She realized suddenly her thoughts had drifted off to the same old thing. Dee felt so good all over. Perhaps the dope habit was gone, she wasn’t an addict after all. And the more the fresh air stimulated her, the more she was sure of it—this time!

  Lark came in through the double doors. He looked back to make sure he wasn’t seen; then once more turned into the warehouse, took off his rain slicker and shook the rain from it. He tossed the rain gear onto a crate near Dee and she, although retaining her seat, put her feet back to the floor. There was no formal greeting. Just a nod of acceptance between them.

  “Girls over at the place told me you got pretty hung up last night.” He shook the rain from his wavy hair.

  “Booze and H don’t mix. I needed the H, but they saw to it I put down the whiskey.” Then she hastily added as she jumped off the box to stand next to him, “But I’m in great shape now. Don’t even need a pick-me-up!” She affected a dancelike spin. “Lookee here. Just like on television.”

  Lark caught her shoulders on the second turn. He pulled her in roughly, close to his deadly serious face. He spoke through hard, tight lips. “Tomorrow night is important to me!” He shook her shoulders roughly. “Get that, broad? Important! And no goddamned hop headed bitch is going to smash it up for me.”

  Dee began to tremble. Although she had not experienced it before herself, she knew the wrath Lark could dish out. His sudden move to the physical and his hard tones frightened her. She was glad none of her gang could see her flinching under the man’s violent grip on her shoulders. “I won’t mess it up, Lark.”

  “You damned well bet you won’t.” He spat the words directly in her face. “And you’re laying off the hard stuff until after tomorrow. You get that straight broad. You may think you’re running your devil girls, but I’m running the show.”

  “Sure, sure Lark. I got it straight. I wouldn’t do nothin’ to cross you. You know I wouldn’t. Last night . . . I just got a little sick . . . I got . . .”

  Lark cut her off. “Last night is over,” he spit. “You start feeling sick again you take some blended pot so you don’t get out of line. Nothing else. And that goes for any of your squacks. Any one of them disobeying my order, you answer to me. Get it?”

  “They’ll do like I say,” she shivered.

  For a brief moment it appeared as if he might sound off at her again, but instead he roughly pushed her away. She stumbled backward against the packing crate she had been sitting on. Lark moved quickly to the double doors and looked out, while Dee rubbed her right arm which had been scratched on the box. Then she watched curiously as Lark remained in the doorway, seemingly to be waiting for someone or something. Finally he turned and walked back to a spot near the girl. He lit a cigarette. “Your girls are ready?” The words were absent of real meaning.

  “Sure, Lark.”

  He puffed anxiously on his cigarette then looked to his wristwatch and cursed under his breath.

  Dee noticed his apparent growing impatience. “If you’re expectin’ somebody, maybe you want I should leave?”

  “Why should I want you to leave? If I wanted you to leave I’d tell you so,” he snapped, and again his eyes dropped to his wristwatch even though only seconds had passed. “It’s not anyone you haven’t known before,” he furthered.

  The girl rolled her eyes toward the double doors even though no one had, as yet, presented themselves. When she looked toward Lark again, he was crushing out his cigarette on the floor with the toe of his shoe. There was another long moment of silence except for the heavy downpour of rain. Lark once more impatiently paced his way to the door and looked in the direction of town. Having gotten over her fright of the man and being tired of the same spot, Dee slowly crossed to stand near him in the doorway. She leaned her hand out through the opening until it connected with the rain. Her eyes strained as they tried to see; to get some idea whom Lark might be expecting. Her anxiety was to no avail. The streets were clear far beyond the red-light district.

  Both were thus engrossed as Lila’s voice caused them to turn around quickly. “A good general never leaves his rear flanks unguarded.” Lila and Rhoda stood near the packing case which held Dee’s raincoat.

  Lark’s face broke out into a bright smile as he crossed to Lila. “Take off the rain crap and I’ll kiss you.” His tone had brightened considerably.

  “Then what am I waitin’ for?” Lila stripped off the nylon raincoat, and they locked into each others’ arms for a brief but passionate kiss. When they broke, she said, “Man, I thought I’d never get to do that again.”

  He laughed, then turned to face Dee who still stood back by the double doors. She held a sudden angered look to her face. “Come on over and meet a real pro.”

  Dee didn’t like that at all. She stormed across the room. “What in hell’s she doin’ here?”

  Lark didn’t bother to answer the girl. He felt it was most unimportant. “When Rhoda left word you wanted to see me, I nearly fell out of a whore’s bed. When’d you get out, beautiful?”

  “I’m
not!”

  “The wall bit, huh?”

  “What else? When they locked me up last year they put the key in the first man-made satellite and shot it up higher than we ever flew on the big H.”

  Lark suddenly turned serious again. “By any chance are you still on the stuff?”

  “You kiddin’? That’s a pretty dry hole up there!”

  “Yeah! Yeah! Guess it would be,” he said as his attitude changed for the better.

  “Oh, not that it can’t be had if you get to be one of the King Pins, or got enough cash. What’s paid down here is chicken-feed compared to prices up there. But I didn’t have any ideas about stayin’ in long enough to be a King Pin and I didn’t have the cash, so I took the cure cold turkey. That’s the way it is.”

  “You look just great, baby. Just great!”

  “I’ll look even better when I get outta’ this burg.”

  “Cops hounding your old lady yet?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think she knows I’m out. Rhoda’s been nosing around for me. But nothin’s been said. Guess nobody listens to the radio.”

  “It’s early yet. Don’t worry, by noon it’ll be all over town, you can bet on that. And another thing. The cops ain’t dumb. If they even think you’ve come this way they got your place spotted.”

  “I got a special way of gettin’ in and out. I’m real careful. I been around.”

  “You can say that again,” sneered Dee.

  Lila put her hands defiantly on her hips. “Who’s this squack, Lark?” Her words were only to put Dee down.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten little Dee?” he said, supressing his amusement at the game he knew Lila had started.

  “Well, my oh my,” replied the older girl and walked around Dee as if sizing her up from all angles. “So this is what’s become of little Dee-Dee who used to run all my errands.”

  “Don’t call me that,” snapped Dee, fire burning in her eyes.

  But the words fell on Lila’s deaf ears. “My oh my! All growed up and ready for a fight like a hen chicken. Now ain’t that the king’s balls for you?”

  “Dee’s a real big shot now, Lila,” said Lark, still supressing his grin, even though he knew what the eventual outcome would be.

  “What do you know about that.” She glanced to Lark. “A real big shot you say?”

  Dee turned sharply to Lark. There was no pleading in her tone, just a demand. “Tell her who I am, Lark.”

  “I don’t have to tell anybody anything,” he replied factually.

  Lila grinned. “Ah, let me tell her what she is, Lark?”

  Lark bowed low and made a long sweeping motion with his right arm. “Be my guest.”

  Lila’s eyes suddenly turned to pure hatred. Again her hands went to her hips as she glared at the girl. “You’re nobody but a goddamned hop headed shitbird. And sister, that’s all you are as long as I’m around these here parts.” Her eyes narrowed and her voice jammed her further words home to the girl. “I’m the leader of the Chicks. I was their leader long before you got your first brassiere, and I’m back again to continue being their leader. And if you want to know somethin’ more, I don’t think you got brains enough to lead a bunch of five year olds, let alone my bunch.”

  Lark finally let his mouth break into a slight grin. “You’d better listen to her, Dee. She’s got years of experience ahead of you.”

  Dee didn’t turn to him. She kept her narrow eyes fastened on Lila in front of her. “She ain’t nothin’. Maybe less than nothin’.” Her venom poured forth with every word. “I beat every bitch in the gang that wanted beatin’ to become leader, and you ain’t about to take over from me lessen I’m dead. Beat it, jail-screw.” The switchblade knife seemed to jump into her hand as if from nowhere, but in actuality it had been stuck in the top of her Levi’s and hidden by the sweater which was pulled down over it. She had drawn it and snapped open the blade all in one swift motion. “Beat it, I said, or I’ll cut the nipples right off your tits.”

  Lark and Rhoda stepped back out of the way as each of the girls held their ground.

  “Well, well, well. Little Dee-Dee’s got a temper and a knife to back it up.” Lila’s voice softened but her eyes never left the gleaming blade in the hand of the girl who was crouched and looked like she knew exactly how to use it. “Now why don’t you put that goddamned thing away before I shave your armpits with it? And when she made her move it was with the suddeness of a striking rattlesnake. Lila’s entire movement was not unlike the rattlesnake. Suddenly she had coiled, bending low. Her right foot snapped forward, and both her hands shot to the girl’s knife hand and arm. Lila bent in under the girl’s arm and brought it violently down against the top of her right shoulder. Dee let out an ear-piercing scream as the pain shot through her breaking arm and the knife flew to the floor just before her body spun over Lila’s right hip and crashed next to the blade.

  Before Dee could regain her balance, Lila had reached over and with a sweater-covered tit in each hand, she dragged the younger girl to her feet. Lila’s open right hand smashed back and forth across her face until the girl’s eyes rolled back. Then she let her sag to the floor. Dee was not unconscious, but all the fight had been knocked out of her.

  None of the anger left Lila’s face as she retrieved the knife from the floor, then knelt down to straddle the downed girl whose eyes went wide in the horror of facing her own knife blade. “I don’t like you, missie,” sneered Lila and cut the sweater up the front, from waistline to neckline. “You might just as well understand that right now.” She put the blade under the front of Dee’s white brassiere. “And if you stay round, you keep your mouth shut unless you’re spoken to, and you take orders FROM ME, the same as any of the others.” The knife ripped through the flimsy brassiere material. Dee screamed and Lila put the knife to the girl’s throat. “I don’t like screamers. Screamers cause trouble.”

  Lark stepped in quickly. He snapped the knife out of Lila’s hand. “That’s enough,” he said simply.

  Lila looked up to him, then back to the girl whom she gave a parting slap across the mouth before she got up. “I oughta carve my initials, one on each tit, so you know whose property you are!” Lila spoke when she was standing beside Lark, then she spit a large glob of saliva onto the girl’s naked stomach.

  Lark suddenly lashed out and gave Lila a resounding slap across the side of her head, which sent her reeling back against a wall of packing crates. She bounced back quickly, her sharp fingernails ready to claw out the man’s eyes. Lark snapped the knife blade down, ready for her attack. Lila stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t need her belly slit open before she thought twice about continuing the attack.

  The anger slowly abated, but the saliva of her heated anger still drooled from the corners of her lips. “What in hell was that for?” she demanded while she rubbed the side of her head.

  “For stepping in where you wasn’t asked!” Lark said as he watched Dee, using one arm, struggle to her feet.

  “I can step out just as quick,” slammed Lila, “I need this lashup like a hole in the head.”

  She grabbed up her raincoat and turned to her sister. “Let’s get outta’ here, Rhoda.”

  Lark took her lightly by the arm. “Hold on, baby.” He smiled his weird, self-satisfied grin. “That little slap was only to teach you who is the real boss.”

  Lila looked at him through narrow eyes for a long moment and Lark felt, for the first time, a slight uneasiness under her glare. “I’ll let that slap just slip by this time, Lark,” she said tightly. “But don’t let it happen again—EVER!”

  The man shook off his brief feeling of anxiety. His words matched hers in tempo. “Don’t make threats you can’t back up, baby.”

  Lila turned to put her raincoat back on the packing crate where it had been. “You might be surprised just how much I can back up—BABY!”

  Dee fought desperately to ward off the pain as she cradled her broken right arm in her left hand. She hadn’t
dared speak, to interrupt, while Lark and Lila were at each other’s throat. But as they became silent she felt this was the time to talk up. “She broke my arm!”

  Lark spun on her. Lila had matched wits with him but Dee wasn’t about to have the chance.

  “You had the knife.”

  “Next time maybe I’ll have a gun.”

  “And I’ll lay odds she could take that away from you before you knew you had it in your hand,” laughed Lark, his tensions fading away.

  “Easier than the knife, Dee-Dee,” said Lila, then she caught up with Lark’s enjoyment of the situation.

  “Okay,” said Dee. “I’ll pull out. I know when I’m licked.”

  “Don’t be so fast.” Lark’s laughter was short-lived. “You have a job to do tomorrow night.”

  “How in hell can I do any job with a busted wing?”

  “Doc’ll put it in a sling. You can carry an extra load off the boat that way,” offered Lila.

  The words Lila had spoken slowly sunk into Lark’s brain. “How do you know about the boat?”

  “The information is safe with me.”

  “Sure, I know that, Lila. But who told you?”

  “My sister!”

  He looked to Rhoda. “Rhoda?”

  “I only got one sister.”

  Lark eyed Rhoda, then swung around to Dee again. “I thought you weren’t telling anybody the details until tomorrow afternoon? Only that they would be going on a job.”

  “I didn’t tell anybody, Lark. I swear I didn’t.”

  “How about when you were on H last night? How about that, bitch? How about when you were on H last night?” He reached over to grab Rhoda’s arm and he dragged her in between himself and Dee. “That the way it was, Rhoda? She babbled out of her fog?”

  Lark was hurting Rhoda’s arm. She shook her head as she formed the word “YES” silently. Lark let her go with a shove and devoted his full attention on Dee again. “You and your goddamned H. Who the hell else knows the plans?”

  Dee was silent and he repeated more violently. “Who the hell else knows the plans?” And still Dee remained silent. Actually it wasn’t because she wanted to remain silent. But she was frightened into speechlessness at what Lark might do to her. She already had a broken arm and a split lip. She didn’t want any more punishment.