by Karen Pullen
BOOMERANG, by Bonnie Wisler
Harry Wellington III struggled out of his Range Rover into the hot sun, leaned on his cane, and wiped his brow. Putting out a cigarette under his foot, he steadied himself then headed into the Gentleman’s Club. A strip club was not where most folks would think of going on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, but this Sunday was his birthday. And audition day. As one of the Club’s most generous patrons, he often received invitations to watch private auditions. What better way to celebrate his special day?
Several young ladies in stilettos, tight shorts and low-cut tank tops were waiting inside the dimly lit club when he arrived. Two giggled and smoked in the corner, one texted, and the fourth, wearing jeans, her blonde hair in a ponytail, looked too young for a place like the Gentleman’s Club. He didn’t have high hopes for this group to have much stage presence.
But when the blonde—Lacy Jane, she said her name was—took the stage, he changed his mind. She stripped down to a thong bikini, shook out her hair, and executed suggestive pole acrobatics that Harry had only dreamed of watching.
“OK, ladies. You three can leave. You’re hired,” the manager said, pointing to Lacy.
“Thanks so much, boss!” she exclaimed. “And thank you, Mr.…what is your name, sir?”
“Harry Wellington. But honey, you can call me Uncle Harry,” he said, taking in every luscious square inch of the half-naked Lacy. Young, but certainly not naïve, he thought. “Only my favorite girls call me Uncle Harry, and I have a feeling you will be one of my favorites.” He pulled a wad of money out of his pocket and tucked a hundred-dollar bill in her thong. “Remember to keep that on, honey. I don’t want you to be locked up for causing a riot.”
“Well now,” she said, glancing down at the money, “Ben Franklin is one of my heroes, and I do believe you will be one of my favorite customers.” She gave him a long kiss, sending shock waves from head to toe, arousing long-sleeping parts. “One more thing, Uncle Harry. Do you know where a girl like me might be able to find a nice place to call home?”
Harry certainly did; opportunity was a good friend of his. It seemed that he and Lacy were made for each other.
* * * *
Luther Small was in love. Lacy Jane didn’t belong here at the Gentleman’s Club; she was too sweet and too pretty to be dancing for men for money. He knew she went behind the curtains with those men, but she did whatever it took to take care of her sick mama and he admired her for it. For months he’d been trying to get up the nerve to ask her out. If his buddies were around it would be different. But the work release program had made it difficult for him to run with the same crowd, cutting off his connections and his courage.
Sweat beaded and dripped from Luther’s brow as he worked over the steaming stove in the Club’s kitchen making hot sandwiches and wings. His heart lifted when the kitchen doors swung open and Lacy Jane sashayed in, wearing a short turquoise robe. Her blue eyes, accented by bright blue eye shadow and heavy eyeliner, excited him.
“Hey sugar—look what that gentleman from up north gave little ol’ me for a lap dance. Wow, if I keep this up, I’ll be able to call that nursing home in Charlotte and get Mama moved in real soon.” She blew him a kiss, grabbed a handful of pretzel rods, and disappeared back into the smoke and noise of the strip club.
And if I got a job that paid real money, I could help you, he thought as he dropped a basket of wings into the fryer. “I love you, Lacy Jane,” he said under his breath, wondering how she could stay so upbeat and happy while doing such demeaning work, but that’s what made her so special.
The kitchen door swung open again. “Luther honey, would you drive me to the garage to pick up my car later?”
“Anything for you, Lacy Jane.”
* * * *
The morning sunlight was always a shock after leaving the dimly lit bar. Luther was tired after a long night in the kitchen but eager to spend time with Lacy Jane. “How about we go to your place and I cook you some breakfast first?
“That sounds yummy. You smoke?”
“Depends what you’re smoking,” he said with a chuckle. His smile widened as she pulled a baggie of pot from her purse. He wanted to kiss her right there in the parking lot, but didn’t have the nerve.
A quick stop at the grocery store gave him all the ingredients he needed for this to be his lucky day: bacon, eggs, bread, and rolling paper.
“Whoa—this is some place, Lacy!” Hardwood floors with a white fluffy rug in front of the fireplace, eat-in kitchen, and a lake view. His confidence faded. Maybe Lacy would laugh at him for even thinking he’d have a chance with her. But watching her role a joint, he felt better. He needed a hit bad.
“Isn’t it great? Uncle Harry, you know Harry, the old guy with the cane that comes to the club all the time? The whole building is his, so he gives me a special deal.” She lit the joint and took a long hit before handing it to Luther. “I’ll stir up some bloodies while you make breakfast. This will be so much fun!”
A couple of hits were all Luther needed to feel comfortable and cocky. Stoned with Lacy in her apartment—he was in heaven. He took another hit and moved behind Lacy, kissing her silky shoulder, her neck, inhaling her sweet flowery scent as she leaned back against him.
He didn’t even mind, leaving her room hours later, that the groceries were still in the bag on the counter.
* * * *
Harry pulled the Range Rover into his reserved spot at Lacy’s apartment complex. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, he smoothed his silver hair, and popped a blue pill. What started out as one afternoon a month to “collect” from Lacy had quickly turned in to an almost-daily addiction. His step quickened as he approached Lacy’s apartment and heard smooth, sultry jazz emanating from within. He raised his silver cane and gently tapped on her door.
“Hey, Uncle Harry,” she purred, as she opened the door a few inches to reveal a shapely naked leg. “Want to play doctor today?”
His eyes consumed the sensual beauty before him, from her long legs to her low-cut, short candy-striped uniform. Lately, he felt like a schoolboy, consumed with thoughts of Lacy, day and night. In one step he was with her. His cane fell to the floor.
Their afternoon trysts were anything but routine, and Harry sighed heavily when he realized it was time for him to head home. “Here’s a little something extra for that sick Mama you keep talking about. I’m still not sure if you’re telling me the truth about her, but at my age, it doesn’t matter. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Lacy.”
“Harry—you have to believe I love you—you’re the best thing that ever happened to me too.” Lacy rummaged through her purse and pulled out a DVD. “Here you go—I was thinking of you when I recorded this. But make sure you’re alone when you watch it!”
Harry grinned down at his little vixen as he accepted the DVD. “If I didn’t have a pre-nup that would land me in the poor house, I’d marry you today—you are the sweetest little southern belle I ever did meet.” He pulled a fat money clip from his pocket, peeled off several hundreds, and slipped them into her pink bra.
* * * *
Monday. Luther’s day off, and the day he and Lacy got together for his weekly fix of pot and sex with his darling. He found her in the lounge, touching up her lipstick. No one was looking when he took her arm, pulled her onto his lap to look into her crystal blue eyes. “Baby, what do you want for breakfast today? Pancakes? My special sausage?”
Lacy poked her lip out, so cute. “Oh, sweetie, I can’t see you today. Harry is coming over. So sorry, you know I am.”
Harry again…Luther couldn’t disguise his disappointment. “You’ve been spending a lot of club time with that old man lately, and I’m getting jealous.”
Lacy put her arms around him, her soft cheek against his throat. “Baby, you know I’m only playing up to old Harry for money to help Mama. It’s you I really care about, but today’s his birthday and I kind of promised.”
“I thought we were an item and yo
u were just using the old man to get money for your mama. Now you’re spending more time with him than me. It’s not making sense.” He’d never cried in front of a woman, but he was about to lose it.
“No, Luther, don’t be silly, it’s not like that. Think about it. Harry’s rich. Richer than you or I could ever hope to be. He owns half the city. He has no children. He doesn’t have anyone else to spend his money on, so why shouldn’t he help me and my mama? And he’s harmless; he can’t get it up any more. He says he’d marry me, Luther! We’d have it made then, wouldn’t we?” Her big blue eyes gleamed. “Of course, there’s the teeny weeny problem of the wife.”
He was being stupid and selfish. This beautiful girl loved him, asked him to understand that she would do anything to help her mama. He wanted to help her in the worst way. The wife…the wife. Harry must not even like his wife, the way he dotes on Lacy. If Lacy could marry Harry…was that the answer? “Baby, I’ll find a way,” he said, regretting he’d shown her his jealous streak.
* * * *
Luther tugged on his baseball cap, pulling it low over his eyes. He slumped down in his parked car, waiting for the vintage blue Mercedes to park in front of Harry Wellington’s large stone home. A steady rain provided the perfect cover for him. He felt hot and clammy, his clothes clung to his body. But he had to focus and wait for the blue Mercedes. That was his target. He was nervous, and his heart raced. He had to help Lacy Jane.
Getting rid of Mrs. Wellington would solve all their problems. It would open the door for Lacy Jane to marry Harry, get his money, take care of her mama, and still have plenty left over for the two of them. His sweet, pretty girl wouldn’t have to work at the strip club any more, and the two of them would be set for life.
Guns and knives were not his style—too bloody, too violent. And he didn’t want to go to any of his old drug buddies. Helping his pretty little princess was his job, his responsibility. And when Lacy Jane told him that Mrs. Wellington always parked her vintage Mercedes on the street because she couldn’t back out of the driveway, he knew he could arrange an accident.
Headlights flashed in his rear-view mirror as a Mercedes, an older model, drove slowly past him and parked in front of the Wellingtons’ house. Had to be the wife’s car, that beautiful dark blue. Luther’s heart raced and he swallowed hard. A shame to damage that car, but the hell with that. He started his engine, waiting for the driver’s door to open. The windshield wipers smeared the glass, blurring his view. “C’mon, old lady, step out of the car…what are you waiting for?” Blood pounded in his head, his arms. He felt a surge of pride at his daring. Lacy Jane would be so proud of him. Finally, a large black umbrella emerged from the car, then a leg, and another. Adrenaline surged and he floored it.
“For Lacy Jane!” he yelled above squealing tires as his car raced toward the Mercedes, slammed into the body, and with a screech of metal, ripped the car door off its hinges. Something hit his windshield and bounced off. Glancing back he saw in the street—glistening in the rain, lit by the streetlamp—a silver-handled cane.
* * * *
Driving rain pelted down on Harry Wellington III, lying in the street next to his soon-to-be widow’s blue Mercedes. As he took his last breath, his hand released its grip on a sodden envelope. A legal-sized envelope containing his ticket to a happier life with his sweet Lacy.
Divorce papers.
CATCH YOU NEXT TIME, by Donna Campbell
Doreen set pork chops and butterbeans on the table and poured the tea. “Vern, come eat.” A meat-and-three man, Vernon liked his big meal at noon.
She reached for the remote to mute the mid-day news until Vern could mumble grace, but a reporter caught her attention. The woman’s blonde hair captivated her. Did she use Miss Clairol or L’Oreal?
The camera cut to a shot of a young girl about the age of Doreen’s twins. Miss Yellow Hair’s carefully pitched somberness cast a chill into the room. “Yesterday, ten-year-old Louise Hardwick of Pine Hollow vanished while retrieving her grandmother’s mail. Grace Hardwick watched from the porch as her granddaughter walked toward the highway mailbox. She says she left her porch to answer the phone, but when she hung up, Louise had not returned. Linda Jenson is reporting from the scene.”
Eyes riveted to the television, Doreen ignored the food shedding steam. Linda Jenson stood in the yard of a weathered dogtrot house. “Fear has gripped this rural community of Pine Hollow. One of their children has become the latest in a string of unsolved disappearances here in the Midlands. Little Louise was the apple of her grandmother’s eye, a happy girl who loved horses and baton twirling. Her family asks for your help and prayers to return Louise safely to them.” The camera focused on Mrs. Hardwick’s devastated face as she begged for someone to bring her granddaughter home.
Four women and two little girls had vanished since spring. Louise made seven. Doreen thought of her twins, only a year younger than Louise. They were with Memaw, Vernon’s mama, for the afternoon. Doreen knew they were safe with Memaw. No small woman, she could have worked the pro wrestling circuit. Thank goodness, the girls took after Doreen’s side—blonde-haired and small-boned. She’d call after lunch and make sure they’d heard about Louise.
Vernon came to the table. She pointed at the television. “There’s another one that’s disappeared, a little girl over in Pine Hollow.”
“Damn. That’s what, maybe twenty miles as the crow flies?”
“About. Hush.” A police sketch filled the screen—a man, about Vernon’s age, maybe late thirties, with narrow eyes and high cheekbones like Elvis.
“Authorities ask that you call 911 if you see this man, believed to be driving a blue Ford pickup with a broken headlight on the right side. A neighbor saw this individual near the Hardwick home shortly before the child’s disappearance.”
She hit mute. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Best to know so you and the girls can protect yourself. Lock the screen doors and the deadbolts when I’m not here. I’ll put the shotgun behind the coat rack. Just don’t shoot anybody.”
“It’s an awful way to live, looking over your shoulder every minute.”
“Ain’t no use getting ill over it. Just use good sense. Where are the girls?”
“Over to your mama’s. I got to get my hair cut and then go out to Kitchens Mill to Jeanine’s. She’s going to hem my new skirt. Memaw said she’d take the girls to Sears this afternoon and buy them something for back-to-school.”
“That’s good of her. Mama ain’t going to let anybody near ’em. Hell, she scares me. You got any chow-chow to go with these butterbeans?”
“Sure. Let me get it.”
Doreen pushed her dinner around with her fork. The picture of the man with the Elvis cheekbones had taken hold of her. She only ate because it was a sin not to.
Vernon gobbled his cobbler and retreated to his recliner for a nap. She cleared the table, but she could not clear her mind of the man, his narrow eyes, his ears too large for his head. He looked like the kind of man who would steal little girls. That poor grandmother.
Doreen called Memaw. The twins were fine. She’d heard the news. They’d take no chances.
Doreen dragged her worries with her into the shower. The man violated her peace of mind as he’d surely violated his victims. More than once she glanced nervously over her shoulder while she bathed.
She applied a little makeup. The laugh lines around her eyes seemed deeper than before. Good thing I got Vernon. Gawd! What’ll I look like at forty? Hell, just shoot me. She’d had her share of suitors, not so long ago. She’d been hot stuff when she’d met Vernon.
She returned to the den where he still dozed. Before the twins arrived, the man in the chambray shirt had rocked some deep part of her. But their struggle to keep it all going—the fields, the fences, the pastures—had banked those fires. How long had it been since she and Vernon drove down a firebreak in the pine forest and made the truck rock and roll?
“Hon’, where you work
ing this afternoon, the hay field or the soybeans?” She wished he would throw in the towel and move them all to Greenville where the plants were hiring. Lately it had been a hardscrabble life. She liked to kick up her heels once in a while. She wouldn’t mind being closer to the malls and the Walmart. Not much worth doing in the country.
“The hayfield. Just waiting ’til it cools off a bit. Junior’s going to drive the truck.” Hay had been good to them this year what with the horse farms spreading out from Aiken.
“I got to get these errands done, but if I get back in time, I’ll drive while you boys load.”
“That ’ud be good, sugar. Be safe. Keep your eye on what’s behind you and lock your doors.”
“Don’t worry. No pervert would want me.” Doreen half hoped he’d say something nice, like “I want you woman” or “Say what you will, but you’re one fine looking hunk of womanhood”—anything but silence. Just a few years past thirty, she sometimes felt like sixty. Deflated, she pecked Vernon on his damp forehead and headed out.
Doreen locked the car doors, then relocked them, to be sure, before she pulled onto the road that wound between fields of wilted soy beans and cotton. She kept her eyes on the blacktop and the rearview mirror.
Geeze Louise! What would I do if I saw a blue Ford pickup? You’d think they could be more specific about that truck. Old? New? Half the state owns a damned Ford truck.
She’d never realized how empty the countryside was. Not a house to be seen until she got to Bebe’s. It was lonesome here where the pine trees grew so dense they sucked in the daylight and made it disappear into black tunnels of straw and shadow.