Near To The Knuckle presents Rogue: The second anthology

by Keith Nixon

  Derek went to the table in front of the stage and sat down. Lit a cigarette, leant back.

  It was going to be an interesting night.

  Just what he needed.

  BONKERS IN PHOENIX

  Graham Wynd

  “What a dump.” Kiki yawned and stretched, kicking the empty beer bottles away from her feet. “Where are my mules?”

  The only response was a grumbling grunt from across the room. Marie was getting her beauty sleep yet.

  Kiki ‘Madame’ LaFarge and Marie ‘Brick Wall’ Baker had been in the trailer all weekend. It belonged to some no–neck wonder who had flashed a lot of cash, promised a lot of drugs and booze for a party. When he said he lived in a trailer in the desert most of the girls said pass, but Kiki was bored and sick to death of Phoenix and itching to be on the road again.

  Reluctant to put her tootsies on the carpet that looked as if it had once been a living thing, Kiki scooched her way down the sofa to poke at Marie, who sprawled in the ‘easy’ chair as the guy had called it. “Where’s our host?”

  Marie blinked slowly up at her. You wouldn’t guess it from the slack look of her face in the harsh morning light, but she was as sharp and ruthless a gal as they come. Her sweet face and doll–big eyes sat atop an imposing body. Many an awed man had paid good money to have her crush his puny flesh mercilessly. Brick Wall Baker was one of the most successful dancers in the club even though she couldn’t keep time.

  “Isn’t that him over there?” Marie pointed with a lazy gesture toward the rumpled laundry piled in front of the big screen television.

  Kiki squinted. Away from the window the trailer’s interior was dark and fetid. The smell of liquor, cigarettes, vomit and sex filled the small space, marinating it in filth. No wonder she hesitated to put her bare feet on the floor.

  “They’re behind you,” Marie said with a yawn. Kiki turned and saw her tiger–striped mules neatly placed on the shelf above the sofa.

  Slipping them on her feet she hopped up and headed toward the table. Tossing aside empties she finally found a bottle of vodka with a couple of inches left in it and necked it. The burn felt like slap. “Good morning!”

  “You leave some for me,” Marie growled at her.

  Kiki tossed the bottle to her pal and wandered over to the host. “Yo, Wicker man. You awake?” She poked him with a toe, but the pile of rubbish didn’t move. Sighing, Kiki leaned down, grabbed some of the detritus that covered him and tossed it aside, then blanched. “Oh, that don’t look good.”

  Marie lurched to her feet. She’d not removed her Harley boots before falling asleep in the chair but she wasn’t nearly so fastidious anyway. Kiki had seen her walk barefoot through the club even though that cement floor didn’t get hosed off more than once or twice a year and only then because of knife fights and the blood left behind. “A rock–n–roll death. Vomitus maximus.”

  The pasty white flesh and the filmy eyes testified to Wicker’s exit stage left. A trail of sick spilled down his cheek and pooled under his squat head that seemed attached directly to his oversized shoulders. “I guess we can help ourselves then,” Kiki said rifling through his pockets. There were keys on a rabbit foot keychain, a wallet with a couple Benjamins left, a few credit cards that might be good yet. “Not completely useless, eh?” She grinned over at Marie who was making another canvass of the table top in search of some swallow.

  Half an hour later they’d found what was left of his drugs—some prescription crap, a mingy sandwich bag of Mexican, and then bonus! A compact full of marching powder that made Marie whoop with joy. They decided to forgo showers after taking a gander at his filthy tub. No sense squeezing into a trailer trash shower if it weren’t even clean.

  “Head home?” Marie said as they dug through the guy’s clothes looking for anything worthwhile. Her fingers brushed the back of the closet and hit a loose panel. Shoving the hangers apart, Marie ripped the crude door off the hiding place.

  Pay dirt. “Bonnie and Clyde time!” She grabbed the pistol and waved it in the air.

  “Are there bullets?” Kiki grinned.

  There were and they seemed to fit that gun, too. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Kiki gave her pal a wicked grin.

  “I never know what you’re thinking,” Marie said, shaking her head and aiming the pistol at the row bobbleheads on the guy’s dresser. “But I trust it’s something good.”

  “I say we settle a certain pay dispute with Marty Smith.”

  “Hell, yeah.” Marie grinned and held up the gun. “Better save the bullets.”

  The rabbit’s foot keyring had the one that fit the Dodge Charger outside that looked like a high schooler’s wet dream. It had some part of the engine sticking right up out of the hood of the car and wheels with those stupid hubcap things that kept spinning even after the car stopped, but it was shiny red and the top went down, so in the heat of the morning it seemed like a good thing. Wicker’s trailer sat at the end of a long dirt driveway that connected up with the county road. Kiki recalled the guy saying he had a parcel that he was planning to turn into a goat ranch, but he only had a handful of goats so far. They scattered when the gals came out the door, two of them climbing a pile of tires that leaned up against a sagging wire fence.

  Kiki started up the Charger and they sped off down the drive, a rooster tail of dust rising behind them. Marie shoved the gun and bullets into her big hobo bag then fired up a joint. She passed it to Kiki before washing down her dry throat with a good swallow of tequila. “You think we should hit him this morning?”

  “Yeah, he’ll be there counting out the take from last night.”

  “Even after the party?” Marie shook her head. “I’m feeling a tad bit rough this morning, I can tell you.”

  Kiki laughed, coughing a bit of smoke out as she handed the spliff back to her pal. “He won’t even be hungover. You ever notice, Marty is too cheap to buy drinks himself and he never takes much of anything when everybody is partying, though he sure likes to be in the middle of things when folks are getting nasty.”

  “The horndog,” Marie muttered, swilling more tequila. “I guess sex is his drug of choice.” The witticism made her laugh and Kiki joined her.

  “He’ll be there, counting the cash, rubbing his permanent erection and drooling at porn mags. He won’t have a chance against us.”

  Good thing the club was on the outskirts of the city. If they’d got into the touristy part of town, they’d have had to cut the drinking because state cops were the worst kind of fascists. As a French Canadian, Kiki felt entitled to disparage American lawmen on principle.

  Kiki was feeling her oats by the time they pulled up in the parking lot. That was what her gran always used to say. “I’m feeling my oats,” she’d announce, then wink and snap a towel at the Kiki and her brothers as they tried to dodge out of the way. The crazy old bat. She taught Kiki all kinds of useful things like how to boil eggs and how to sashay into a room and get every eye upon you. Skills like that had served her well, but she’d made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

  Phoenix was supposed to be an oasis but it was like a beige–coloured boil on the rump of the Arizona desert. Kiki had been told that something like four million people lived in the city. About 3 million were divorced and lived in sad little cul–de–sacs of newly–built houses made of ticky–tacky that seemed to go up in a flash along side yet another strip mall, all under the view of the mountains that looked on with disapproval. It was only April but it was already summer as far as the sun was concerned. They’d have to put the top back up on the Charger or suffer heatstroke by noon.

  The back door of the club looked just like the industrial gray of all the other businesses in the strip mall apart from the name spray painted in neat block letters: BEEFEATERS. Marty had explained the name like a hundred times—some English thing, yeah, but Kiki could never remember exactly. Not cops exactly, but guys in uniforms, which of course made a lot of sense for girls with nothing much on taking it all off.
But that’s how Marty got so many girls to work there.

  “Oh you’ll just love his accent!” Terri had promised Kiki when she got fed up with the management at the Silver Dollar. In person though his accent was a lot less James Bond and a lot more Benny Hill. Or at least his personality, such as it was, mimicked that lecherous little half–pint. She remained amazed at the gals who swooned over the dolt. He was no Sean Connery.

  They buzzed and announced themselves to the tinny speaker and the lock clicked open. Kiki led the way down the corridor to the office where sure enough, Marty sat like a king in his counting house. “Girls, you’re in awfully early. How’s our big spender?”

  “Spent,” Marie said with a harsh chortle.

  “You girls give him a good time then?” His gaze scraped up and down Kiki’s body like a fast–moving slug. He was a bit afraid of Marie, so his interest focused on Madame LaFarge.

  “No, spent as in dead. He swallowed his own vomit in the night.” Kiki threw herself down in the chair opposite his desk. Marie followed suit, putting the hobo bag between her boots carefully. Kiki leaned back, allowing her short skirt to hike up. Marty’s eyes homed in her sweet spot as she knew they would. Best to distract him while her own gaze swept the room. The safe was open and the cash box on the desk, though closed. It would be easy enough to open.

  “Ah, that’s a shame. I was hoping he’d be good for a few more parties. He was planning on a big blowout for his birthday celebrations he told me.” Marty smiled though his hand crept off the desk to rub at his crotch. He meant to be surreptitious but failed mostly because he was continuing to stare a hole through Kiki’s skirt. “So you girls at loose ends this morning?”

  Kiki stretched dramatically. “You know how it is when you’re partying and then everybody disappears while you’re still in the mood.”

  “Oh, I am always in the mood, darling. You know that.” Marty practically drooled over his words. Kiki had been counting on that. Marie snorted. “For partying, I mean,” he added with a laugh, as if realizing he had been caught out.

  “Are you?” Kiki asked, looking at him squarely. He didn’t much like that. Marty liked to look at girls who didn’t see him looking, even better if he managed to have some excuse to rub up against them. Unless they were getting on their knees before him he didn’t usually count on success. Most gals figured that out quickly and after they got the job they gave him the high hat. He didn’t seem to mind too much, though there was the occasional twee sprite who he could bully enough to make her think her job was in jeopardy or the crazy ones like Terri who were addicted to beef eating for the accent alone.

  But she was willing to distract him. “I just get so horny in the morning,” she said as if talking to herself, “and Marie just ain’t cutting it today.” She winked at her friend and kissed the air at her. Marie laughed and stuck her tongue out and wiggled it at her. She might have been mistaken but she thought Marty might have whimpered. “What do you say, Marty?”

  “Oh, I got something to satisfy you, baby. Come over here and sit on Marty’s lap.” He laughed and rubbed his crotch enthusiastically.

  Kiki got up and leaned over the desk, making sure her tits were squeezed out to maximum effect. “Get behind me, Marty. I want to do it doggy style while Marie watches.”

  “You don't have to ask twice,” he said, hopping up from behind the desk and undoing his belt as he stepped around behind her. Kiki found herself excited in spite of everything, not because of Marty so much as because of the plan. All that money was going to be sweet and screwing him over was even sweeter.

  “Oh baby, you got a fine pair of peaches.” He pawed at her bottom, pushing her skirt up and yanking at her knickers. He shoved his fingers between her thighs and seemed surprised to find her wet and willing. Marty slipped in, not fully hard yet but quickly getting that way.

  Then they both heard the click of the hammer cocking back. “Hey, Marty, want get a real blow job?” Marie laughed and jammed the barrel of the pistol up against his cheek.

  “The fuck are you doing!” Marty sounded more angry than scared. Kiki noticed he did not lose his erection, in fact he felt harder than ever and she pushed back against him trying to get his dick to hit her sweet spot.

  “Fuck me harder, Marty.” It was difficult to imagine a less sexy phrase. Some names just weren’t meant for passion, but Kiki was feeling it now and hoped Marie wouldn’t blow his head off just yet.

  “You girls are too fucking kinky,” Marty muttered but he kept thrusting into her nonetheless while Marie laughed and laughed.

  “Oh yeah, oh yeah, now now NOW!” Kiki shouted as she came and then she heard the shot, so loud in the little office and Marty jerked against her and she felt all the wet on her shoulders even as her body still thrummed with the pleasure. She stood up and shoved Marty’s body off and ran her hand between her legs. Damn but that felt good. “Oh but look at this fucking mess!” Kiki shrugged off the sweater she’d taken from the trailer that was now soaked with blood and brains and shit. She tossed it over what was left of Marty’s face.

  “Look, his dick’s still twitching,” Marie said, pointing with the gun. Sure enough, his little head still had some life in it even if the big one didn’t.

  “You could have waited a little longer,” Kiki scolded.

  “You said ‘now’ and I thought you meant shoot. We didn’t clarify details.” She shrugged. “Look at all the money!” In addition to the moneybox on the desk, they found three more in the safe, as well as another gun although it had no apparent ammunition.

  “Party time!” Kiki said. “But I need some clothes or I’ll get sunstroke.” They went to the dressing room and Kiki grabbed a frock of Alexandra’s that she had always fancied and a couple other things. Then they loaded up the car with the loot. It would be hours before anyone showed up. Marty was too cheap to invest in surveillance.

  “So, what do you think?” Marie said after they shoved the money boxes under the seats of the car. “What kind of party are we going to have?”

  “There’s only one kind of party to have. We’re going to Vegas!”

  “Woot!” Marie was just as eager to scrape off the desert dust and hit the glitz. They could always get work there when the money ran out. It had to be better than this.

  They hit the 303 and headed north to 60. The day turned cloudy which made it a little less hot, but Kiki knew they’d burn worse than on a sunny day, so she insisted on putting the top up, which had taken some doing to figure it out.

  It wasn’t too long before Marie complained of hunger so they pulled over at the first greasy spoon that looked good by the side of the road. An elderly waitress showed them to a table near the counter. “I want a breakfast with everything,” Marie announced. “Make that two of everything.”

  “Ham and cheese omlette,” Kiki said. “And just leave the coffee pot here, will you?”

  “I thought you liked tea,” Marie said with surprise.

  “You order tea in a joint like this, you know what you get? Tepid water and a bag of Lipton. That’s not tea.”

  While they shoveled the food in the discussed their plans. “What are we going to do once we get to Vegas?” Marie asked.

  “What does everyone do in Vegas?”

  “Get married?”

  Kiki laughed. “We could do that. You wanna marry me, Baker?”

  “In a heartbeat, baby. As long as you’re not spoken for.”

  “Well,” Kiki admitted, “there is a Monsieur LaFarge but he’s not in the picture anymore, as they say.”

  “Divorce?”

  Kiki set down her biscuit and winked at her friend. “Let’s just say there’s a lake near Montreal I hope they never dredge.”

  Marie poured more coffee for the both of them. “Can we get married by Elvis? I always wanted to get married by Elvis.”

  “Sure thing, hon.”

  “They do same sex marriage in Nevada, don’t they?” Marie looked troubled for a moment.

  “T
hey do everywhere now I think except this dog–shit state.”

  “You sinners want to mind your mouths?” This from a sour–faced gent in a well–worn Stetson sitting at the counter with his pal who shared his scowl at the two of them. “This is a family business. Perverts not welcome.”

  Kiki smiled at him. “You want to mind your own goddamn business, asshole?”

  “Don’t you blaspheme in here.”

  “You going to stop me?” Kiki leaned over the table and sipped her coffee as she stared him down.

  “Think he’s a big man?” Marie said, lifting the hobo bag to the empty chair beside her.

  “All hat and no cattle, I’d say,” Kiki said with a laugh. “He’s wearing Hushpuppies.”

  “They ain’t Hushpuppies,” the man said angrily, shifting his feet as if to hide the suede loafers.

  “He spent all that time playing with his hat to make it look like a working man’s but he ain’t no rancher.”

  “I bet the two of them sit side by side watching porn on the sofa,” Marie added. “Wanking and working their hats.”

  “Practically like they was married, too. You kiss each other good night or do you just fuck in the dark and pretend the other’s a girl?”

  The guy stood up, fists tight, face red. “I think you should leave right now.”

  “Or what?” Kiki smiled over her cup. “You going to escort us off the premises? Just you? Or the two of you? Your buddy’s getting a boner just watching you act tough.” His pal looked embarrassed enough to lend some credence to the idea. The danger was making Kiki get all hot and bothered, too. Who knew? she thought. Life is a banquet of unexpected discoveries.

  “Shut your mouth, bitch.” He took a step toward the table but in a flash, Marie had shot him in the side.

  Pandemonium broke loose in the diner. Kiki grabbed the other gun from the hobo bag and pointed it at the pal. “Grab him.”

  Marie wrapped one huge arm around the pale ghost of a man and shoved the gun up against his head. Kiki shot into the air, relieved Marty’s gun actually worked. “People! If I could have your attention.”