The boy quietly opened the door of Jimmy’s pickup and rummaged around. Paul heard the faint clatter of tools and saw an oily rag fall to the gravel driveway. The boy lifted a bottle from under the seat, and Paul saw its brown liquid contents glinting in the light. The boy tucked the bottle into his army jacket with a secretive smirk and jogged toward the stand of scrub pine at the back end of the trailer park.
And he’s a little thief to boot. What that boy needs is a good ass-whooping. I’ve been whooped by hickory switches and thumped with the Bible and ground under the boot of the military and it ain’t hurt me not one little bit.
He strained his ears toward the Mull trailer. A window was open, and he could hear bedsprings groaning in rhythm. And Peggy was panting in that way that half the town knew. The wrinkled fingers of Paul’s left hand cupped the jar of moonshine while his right hand went down to salute the old soldier.
###
Preacher Blevins looked up from his lunch. He wished he hadn’t.
His wife, Amanda, was looking at him through the greasy black slits of her eye-liner. He choked down the throatful of bland tuna salad and reached for his coffee cup.
Was she trying to become the next Tammy Faye Bakker? One was enough. He didn’t need a caricature trophy, a tin-voiced verse-spouter sitting on his shoulder.
“Do you like your sandwich, Armfield?” she asked in her whiny Georgia twang. She stretched his name into three syllables: Ahmm-fee-yuld.
“It’s just fine, dear.”
“I’m going down to Belk’s today to buy me a new dress for Blossomfest. What color do you think I should choose?”
Armfield thought she’d look good in funeral black, with her dewy eyes sewn shut and the Alamo Rose troweled off her lips. Those big puffy lips that he’d once made her use in the way that had gotten the Sodomites burned. The image of him slipping on top of her while she was in her coffin popped into his head. Not that she could perform much worse dead than she did while living.
The devil was at him again. He took a gulp of coffee and said, “Get whatever kind of dress you want, dear.”
“Maybe I’ll get something that will work for Easter, too. Maybe something robin’s-egg blue with a touch of pink lace and a yellow chiffon scarf.”
He took another bite of his sandwich. Damn that Sarah and her whole-wheat bread. Now she had taken to keeping tofu in the refrigerator. It looked like an albino cow patty to him.
He thought of Nettie, who was coming in to work at the church that afternoon. The image of the church secretary made his pulse beat faster. He drank the grainy dregs of his coffee and looked at Amanda, wondering if he might spend his sudden passion in her well-preserved lap.
No, never after she’d already put on her makeup. And never in daylight. And never on Sunday. And never when Sarah might hear. And never when her favorite shows were on television. And never when—
“Armfield, how do you think I would look with a perm?” She touched her burnt red hair with a wispy hand.
“I think you look fine the way you are. But whatever makes you happy makes me happy.” He tried on a smile that stretched his top lip over his twin beaver teeth. “And you know you’re shining in the eyes of the Lord, and that’s all that matters.”
“Oh, Armfield.” She tittered, and she may have blushed under her sheet of foundation, but Armfield couldn’t be sure. Her clotted smile was enough to shrivel away the last of his excitement.
“Got to go to the church, honey.” He walked over and kissed the top of her head. The kiss tasted of chemicals and her hair didn’t move.
“I think I’ll buy me a hat, too,” Amanda said. “Then I’m going to ride out to see Genevieve Moody about this year’s blood drive. See if she wants to spend some of her husband’s money. Maybe get her to go with me to the mall down in Barkersville.”
“The Lord wants us to enjoy the fruits of our labors,” Armfield said, heading out the door.
Just don’t max out the credit card. I can only steal so fast. Even the Lord’s bank accounts aren’t bottomless.
“Have a good day, dear,” he called cheerfully before crossing the yard to the church. “Say hello to the Moodys for me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jimmy Morris rolled over onto his back, sweat ringing his unwashed neck. The room smelled of chlorine and olives. Peggy curled into the crook of his tattooed arm, nuzzling his coarse chest.
“Jimmy, you sure know how to treat a lady,” she purred.
Jimmy grunted and reached for the bottle that he’d left on the bedside table. He fumbled among the condom wrappers and cigarette butts and old dental floss until his hand struck glass.
He reached his arm over Peggy’s damp stringy hair and twisted off the cap, then poured a slug of brown liquor into his mouth. He swished a couple of times to get the taste of Peggy off his tongue, and then swallowed. Fire raged through his gullet and he smiled in satisfaction.
Peggy lifted her head, making a splotching sound as her cheek lifted from Jimmy’s sticky skin. She took the bottle from him and sipped at it like a baby taking suckle.
She don’t know what she’s missing. If she ever got ahold of the good stuff, she’d be spoiled rotten. But she’s happy with this four-dollar-a-pint antiseptic that passes for whiskey, so I might as well save that Jim Beam in the truck for the gals who need to feel pampered.
“That sure was fun, sugar,” Jimmy said. He winced against the light pouring through the trailer window. It must be getting toward evening. He wondered how long he dared to stay. Sylvester could drive up any moment. Not likely, but a possibility.
But the danger was part of the thrill. And if he could get Peggy to go along with his idea, there would be a whole hell of a lot of thrill. He took another painful swig and put the bottle down. He cupped Peggy’s worn chin in his hand. Dark grease filled the swirls of his fingerprints.
“You know you’re good at that, darling. The best I know of,” he said, in what he thought of as his George Clooney voice.
“Jimmy, you’re just saying that,” Peggy said, not hiding the happiness in her voice.
“I mean it. You’re worth a little risk.”
“You mean to do this, or do you mean it’s risky to love me?”
Jimmy frowned and looked for a different path, one that led away from fool emotions. “What I mean, sugar, is you’re too good to waste on Sylvester. What kind of man stays out in the woods all the time when he’s got something like this at home?”
He ran a hand over Peggy’s freckled breast. Her nipple flexed and stiffened, like an earthworm caught with its head out of the ground.
“Now, Sylvester’s a good man,” she said. “He’s never raised a hand against me—well, at least not much. And he provides for me and the kids.”
“Just what the hell do you got, Peg? Look around.”
She looked. Leak marks on the ceiling resembled coffee stains. A hole gaped in the thin paneling where a shotgun blast had ripped through the siding. Mice had gnawed at the foamwood baseboard. The closet doors hung awkwardly off their tracks like two drunks dangling from a railroad trestle. Peggy took a sharp breath, as if he had just slapped her across the face with her own autobiography.
“If Sylvester loved you, he wouldn’t keep you like this,” Jimmy said quietly. No need for added cruelty. Awareness had heaped enough pain on Peggy Mull.
Peggy put her head on his chest and was still. Then he felt a small warm wetness on his skin, and the mattress quivered with her sobs.
“Hey, honey, it’s okay,” Jimmy said, stroking her matted and tangled hair. He’d have to get her to take better care of herself. Maybe he’d buy her some fancy shampoo. To increase the value.
“J—Jimmy. I just get lonely sometimes,” she said in her broken voice.
“We all do, sweetheart. Misery loves company, too.”
“I try so hard. But Sylvester don’t make much, and he won’t let me get a job. Says it would make him feel like less of a man.”
Jimmy chortl
ed and went for the other nipple. “How much of a man is he? Can’t even give his wife a little loving when she needs it.”
“But he’s my husband. And I love him, in some kind of screwed-up way.” Her sobs eased and she craned her neck to look at Jimmy’s face. “But I love you, too.”
Jimmy smiled and looked into her smoky blue eyes. They were her best feature. He’d have to figure out a way to make them stand out more. Packaging was what made the merchandise.
“And I love you, honey,” he said, touching her lightly on the nose with his index finger. “And I want you to be comfortable.”
She burrowed into his chest hair. “I’m comfortable right here.”
“I mean with money.”
He felt her tense a little.
“Good money,” he said, breaking the silence.
“How?”
“I got it figured out.”
“What?”
“Five hundred dollars a week, free and clear.”
He let that sink in. Twice what Sylvester probably made trucking feed all over Bumfuck. When he even worked, that was.
“What are you talking about, Jimmy?” Her words crawled across the air like baby spiders down a thread of web, fragile and cautious.
“I’m talking about putting you to work, woman. Turning pleasure into business.”
She thumped him on the chest, the fleshy sound echoing hollowly off the cluttered furniture. “I ain’t no hooker, you asshole. I like to do it. I like to do lots of things. But I got my pride, see?”
She sat up in bed, pulling the dingy sheet around her waist. The knobs of her spine flexed as she started crying again. Jimmy let her cry until the hurt and shock dulled. He took a drink of cheap whiskey while he waited.
Finally she turned, her eyelids puffy and red. He waited for her to speak. She shook her head from side to side. “I can’t do it,” she whispered, speaking more to herself than Jimmy.
“Think about it, sugar,” he said. “You won’t have to scrap for cigarette money. You won’t have to beg for liquor.”
Her fury returned, a storm blowing in from a half-forgotten wasteland. “If you think I’ve been loving you for liquor, then you better think again.”
Jimmy reached out and touched her flushed cheek. “Easy, honey, I didn’t mean it that way. I just mean a lady like you deserves good things.”
He let his hand trail down her neck to her breast and he gave a gentle squeeze. “Stuff this nice ought to be wearing silk, girl,” he said. He let his hand slide lower. “Cause it’s silky smooth.”
Not a bad little advertising pitch. I’ll have to remember that, come Friday nights at the Moose Lodge when the boys are peckered up and out for foxtail.
Peggy relaxed a little under his caress. Her tears had stopped but the salt of their tracks still ran down her sharp cheekbones. As Jimmy stroked, he decided that this was seventy-five-dollar stuff if he’d ever seen it.
“I don’t know, Jimmy,” she said, then gasped from arousal.
“Shh. Don’t say nothing. Just think about it for a while.”
“What about Sylvester?”
“You and me managed to work around him just fine. Don’t you worry about that.”
“And the kids?”
The kids. Might make evening business a little awkward, but Jimmy was an optimist. Besides, if this got rolling, he could branch out into dope peddling. And it would be convenient to have distributors in both the elementary and high schools.
“Just think of what you can buy for them,” he said. “Won’t have to run around in ratty-assed boots anymore. They can get Nikes like the rich kids. And they could have hamburger for dinner instead of macaroni and cheese.”
“What if Sylvester starts noticing all the little extras?”
“Tell him you’ve been stretching the dollar. Hell, it’s not like he notices things anyway.”
Peggy trembled against his caress. A low moan escaped her lips.
Damn, she is a hot one. She can probably turn half a dozen tricks a day. Maybe even do a party scene once in a while. I’ll have to work out a rate card for different positions.
“Jimmy,” she said, breath coming fast now.
Jimmy rolled away. He wanted to leave her aching. Might make the idea of an endless parade of men seem more enticing. He started to get out of bed. She grabbed him by the most convenient handle.
“Jimmy, where are you going?”
“Got to run, honey.”
He reached for his clothes as she wrapped her hands around his waist. Her lavender nail polish glittered in the sunlight. He stood and she fell back onto the bed, her legs wide. “Jimmy, don’t leave me like this,” she pleaded.
Perfect. If she could act this good with him, there was no reason why she couldn’t pull it off on demand. He looked at her while he stepped into his pants.
“Think about what I said, Peggy.” He tugged on one of his snakeskin boots, resting his other foot on the bed.
Peggy lay still and pouted, her lips curling. He picked up the whiskey and turned to leave the room.
“Jimmy?”
“What, darling?”
“What would that—you know, what you’re talking about—do to us?”
“Not a thing, darling. You know I love you, no matter what.”
“Wouldn’t it make you jealous, knowing?”
“There ain’t no room for jealousy. There’s business, and then there’s you and me. What we got is special.”
Peggy scooted out of bed and wrapped a nightgown around her torso. She followed him to the door with quick, shuffling steps, kicking the dirty laundry away from her ankles.
Jimmy looked out the glass slats of the trailer window, making sure the coast was clear. Peggy was at his shoulder. He reached out and absently stroked her hair. “If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me,” he said.
“How much did you say we could make?”
He looked out the window again. “I figure forty bucks a shot for the basics, fifty for special treatment. We split it fifty-fifty.”
And Jimmy would keep the extra.
Peggy gnawed at a thumbnail, clattering her small sharp teeth. “I don’t know,” she said around her thumb.
“I’ll round up the customers, and all you have to do is send them away happy. Everybody wins.”
“But it’s so—dirty.”
Jimmy faced her and took her firmly by her bony shoulders. “Look here, Peg. It might be a way out of this,” he said, jerking his head toward the interior of the trailer. “Maybe we can get away someday, just you and me.”
“But the kids—”
“It’ll take a few years.”
“I don’t know.” She looked down at the ragged welcome mat.
“Think about it,” he said, his hand on the door.
She leaned forward quickly and pecked him on the cheek. He handed her the nearly empty whiskey bottle.
“Are you sure you’d still love me?” she asked.
“Of course, darling.” Just like he loved his Ford F-100 pickup with the Leonard camper top and CB radio. Just like he loved the hunting knives that he traded at the Piney Ford flea market. Just like he loved his silver Dale Earnhardt belt buckle. Like he loved all his favorite possessions.
“And things will be just like before?”
“Sure. Maybe better.” Except there was no way in hell he’d be poking her after she started working. Not with the kinds of diseases people spread around these days. But she’d learn all about that later.
“I’ll call you,” he said, before putting his weight on the corrugated trailer step.
Peggy sat at the kitchen counter with the bottle in front of her. Jimmy’s tailpipes thrushed as he backed out of the driveway and headed downtown. She idly scraped at a flake of dried gravy with her fingernail as she thought about Jimmy’s offer. She took a sip of the whiskey, enjoying the numb tingling feel of her lips against the glass. Just for practice, she slid her mouth down the bottleneck. It went in easily.
It was Paul Crosley, wearing his terrapin grin.
###
Mayor Virginia Speerhorn looked down from her seat at the podium. She enjoyed her elevated view of the Chamber of Commerce members. She surveyed the pink tops of bald spots, the stray hairs that sprang free from severe barrettes, the seam lines of wigs and toupees. “Progress report, Mr. Patterson?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Melvin Patterson. He looked as if he’d love to put a tongue on the tip of her strapless dress shoe. WRNC provided good coverage for her during the election seasons, and Patterson was too dull-witted to know he was giving away free political advertising every time WRNC interviewed her.
“I’ve gone over security for the weekend with Chief Crosley,” she said, her authoritative voice rattling off the oak rails and teak walls of the Town Council chambers. “That leaves entertainment, which I believe is your area, Mr. Patterson.”
“Yes, Madam Mayor. The musical acts have signed contracts, and country star Sammy Ray Hawkins is headlining. And the storytelling group will be there. Except they perform for free, of course. Then there are the usual attractions like the Volunteer Fire Department turkey shoot—”
“With air pistols, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am. The library will have a book fair and the Baptist Sewing Circle will be making quilts for auction. And most of the vendors will have displays and free activities to draw children to their booths.”
“Very good, Mr. Patterson. All family-oriented, correct?”
“Yes, Mayor.”
She insisted on formality at town meetings even though everyone knew each other. It kept things on a firm footing. This was civic business, after all. “And who’s in charge of the vendors?”
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