Tats Too: The Case of the Devil's Diamond

by Layce Gardner

“Sitting out there parked on my street with a camera in one hand and your other hand down your pants?”

  She snaps her fingers at me, twice, right in my face, like I’m her damned dog or something. “Fooocuuuus,” she draws out the syllables so my slow mind can understand.

  “Are you a lesbian?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “You said that awful quick.”

  “I knew the answer,” she retorts.

  Her eyes flick to the camera in the corner of the ceiling. Uh- huh. Just like I thought. She’s hiding in the closet.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” she says.

  “Okay. Focusing.” I rub my eyes and shake my head. “There. I’m good.”

  “How long have you known Mrs. Franco Perelli aka Vivian Baxter?”

  “Maybe a year or so,” I answer.

  She asks me another question but I don’t hear it. I’m too busy rewinding the tape recorder in my head. She just asked “How long have you known…” in the present tense. That means she isn’t dead. Or at least it means she doesn’t think Viv is dead. Maybe it even means she knows where Vivian is. “Where is she?” I jump in, instantly sober.

  “Mrs. Perelli?”

  “Stop calling her that.”

  “I was hoping you could tell us.”

  “I lost her. I can’t find her anywhere.” I curl over and press my forehead against the top of the table. Dillon grabs a handful of dreads and pulls my head back up.

  “You’re in a lot of trouble here, Lee. It would behoove you to cooperate with me.”

  “Behoove?” I squint at her. That’s a really good crossword puzzle word. I’ve just never heard anyone say it out loud. Like the word onus. Nobody ever says it out loud either. Probably because it sounds too much like anus. I’m going to use them both in a sentence. As soon as I can think of one.

  Dillon snaps her fingers under my nose. “Lee! Focus.”

  I slow blink at her.

  “Franco ‘Cheech’ Perelli. Ever heard of him?”

  I shake my head. I’m not going to give this bitch anything that’s inside my brain. It may not be much but it’s mine.

  “He has a million dollar price tag on your head.”

  I ask the only question I can think of, “Why?”

  “Your friend, Vivian, is his wife—”

  I interrupt, “Lover. My lover. She’s my lover.”

  “Okay. Your lover is his wife. He’s the head of the LCN in Rome.”

  “LCN?”

  “Mafia.”

  “Listen…” I offer. “I know Vivian was married. Three times. So, don’t try to make it out like she never told me.”

  Dillon continues, unruffled, “Perelli used her to launder money. She was his runner. Making trips into London with bags of dirty money. Charles Townsend. Ever heard of him? He would launder the money through his chain of dry cleaning businesses and Vivian would take it back to Perelli.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. “What’s this have to do with me?”

  “One day Vivian takes three million dollars out of Rome. We also have reason to believe she was carrying the Devil’s Diamond. But she never shows up in London with either one. Instead she shows up in Tulsa and that’s where you came on board. Townsend comes after her and you know the rest of that story.”

  I gulp. I don’t know anything about three million. I thought it was half a million. “Maybe the exchange rate was better over here,” I say.

  “Perelli had a price on Vivian’s head, too. And now you say she’s missing. What is that, Lee, a coincidence?”

  Dillon lets me think in silence.

  “Why do they want me? I don’t have the money or any diamond,” I say.

  “They don’t want you to testify in court for one thing.”

  “But I don’t know anything to testify with.”

  She leans in, putting her nose maybe three inches from my own. I must still be dopey from the drugs because it’s taken me this long to notice that her shirt is unbuttoned a lot lower than it was before. In fact, her shirt is unbuttoned so much that Cheech and Chong are staring right up my nostrils. She’s nucking futs if she thinks I’m going to fall for that old trick.

  Well, okay, it’d probably work if I didn’t hate her so much.

  I bet her nipples are the color of little ripe raspberries. I reach out that three inches and flip open one side of her shirt, saying, “Peek-a-boob!” Then close it.

  Dillon jerks back, surprised, but not before I do it again real quick. “Peek-a-boob!”

  She slaps at my hand.

  “C’mon, that was funny.” I laugh. Vivian would’ve laughed her ass off at that.

  Dillon buttons up Cheech and Chong.

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” I apologize without meaning a word of it.

  She clears her throat and says, “Lee… This is serious. You need to realize the danger you’re in. I’m the only one who can keep you alive. You testify in court with what you know, I can make sure you’re safe.”

  I really think I don’t like this woman. She wouldn’t know a sense of humor if it bit her in the ass. Plus, there’s the fact that I don’t believe a fucking word she’s saying.

  She continues, “All you have to do is testify. Tell the court what you know about Perelli and Vivian and I can take this guy down for good. You can go into witness protection. New name, new identity, no prison record, nothing. You get a fresh start.”

  “What about Georgia? What about my baby?”

  Dillon leans back in her chair. “She’s safe with your mother. Their plane left about an hour ago.”

  “Where?”

  She just stares at me. We lock eyes for a long time.

  She breaks first. She opens her manila folder, pulls out a blank sheet of paper and a pen and pushes it to the middle of the table. “Tell me what you know. Everything about Perelli and his —” She stops herself, then resumes, “Vivian. Gimme a statement to take back to the D.A. and you can go into witness protection with a new identity and a new life. A clean slate.”

  I place my index finger in the center of the paper and squeak it across the table in front of me. I pick up the pen and start writing.

  Dillon leans back in her chair, radiating smugness out of every fucking pore.

  I write quickly.

  I push the paper back to her and watch her read what I wrote: Two women plan a weekend getaway from the asshole men in their lives. They stop at a bar and one of them shoots a man when he tries to rape the other woman. They go on the run. They pick up a hitchhiker and he steals all the money. So they rob a store and stay one step ahead of the cops. They even blow up a trucker’s rig. The cops surround them and they decide that dying is better than living the life all the men want them to. They drive their convertible into the Grand Canyon, holding hands. The End.

  Dillon puts the paper back into the folder and looks at me. “That could be a really good movie except the ending sucks,” she deadpans.

  Maybe she does have a sense of humor after all.

  She pulls a business card out of her jacket pocket and hands it to me, saying, “In case you think of anything.” She gets up and walks out the door, but before she shuts it she says, “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”

  The card is plain white with only a phone number written across it. I tear it into tiny pieces, throw it in the air and let it rain confetti.

  I look at myself in the one-way mirror. That’s when I realize I’m still in the hospital gown. The bitch left me in just a gown with my ass hanging out, barefooted, and with the fucking Mafia breathing down my neck.

  I look up at the camera and say a word you won’t find in any crosswords, “Cunt.”

  Its red eye blinks off.

  I look back at myself in the mirror. It’s like a funhouse mirror, all wavy and distorted. I blink away the waves and take a good hard look at myself. There’s a woman staring back at me, and she looks like homemade shit. Or soap warmed over. When I walk closer and look deep into her eyes, I see something that’
s never been there before.

  Call it survival instinct, call it revenge, call it whatever you want, but the woman in the mirror has the dangerous aura of somebody who’s lost everything. She’s lost her baby, she’s lost her wife, she’s lost her home, she’s lost herself and there’s nothing left to lose.

  Chapter Eight

  It would behoove me to find some clothes so my onus isn’t hanging out.

  A gun wouldn’t hurt either. And maybe a black hat. With a poncho. And a stubby cigar.

  I keep making right turns down beige hallways until I end up right where I began. Who do I have to fuck to get out of here?

  I open the swinging door to my left and see a man with his back to me standing at a urinal with his pants around his knees. It’s Festus the mustachioed man. Looks like I just found the solution to my clothes problem.

  I must have some Indian blood in me, too, because my bare feet don’t make any noise as I sneak up behind him. I double-check each stall as I pass by, making sure we’re alone. When I’m right up behind Festus, I reach around with my left hand and grab his dangling balls in my fist. He jumps, but not too much because I’ve got his family jewels in a choke hold.

  “You ever wonder where the word ballbuster comes from?” I ask low.

  He only whimpers, holding his precious dick in his hand.

  I turn my fist to about three o’clock and feel his knees lock in fear. And probably pain.

  “Listen, Festus,” I whisper into his ear. “Don’t move and you can keep your best parts. I don’t want to hurt you, but I sure as shit will if you make any sound.”

  He freezes solid.

  “Good boy.”

  I squeeze his balls a little bit just like I would one of those cushy stress balls as I reach inside his jacket with my right hand and unsnap his holster and pull out his gun.

  “Don’t hurt me, please,” he whines.

  I look at the gun. I really don’t know that much about them. Except I think I just slide this safety thing the other way…and point and pull.

  I let go of his balls and back up, pointing his gun dead smack at the center of his chest.

  He exhales and grabs his balls with both hands. His whole body is shaking, even his butt cheeks are twitching and jerking around like they’re full of Mexican jumping beans.

  “Turn around,” I order.

  He turns to face me. His pants fall all the way to his ankles, pooling around his shoes. He’s cupping his tender parts with both hands and his lips are pooched like he’s going to cry.

  “Get undressed.”

  His bottom lip twitches.

  I roll my eyes and shake my head at him. “For Chrissakes, you’re a U.S. Marshal, don’t start fucking crying. I just want your clothes.”

  He steps out of his pants, taking turns hopping on each leg to shake them off his shoes. He kicks them toward me and speaks boldly for a man with no pants and sore balls, “You’re in for it now. Federal offense pointing that gun at me. You’ll go back to prison and this time they won’t let you out.”

  “You obviously have me mistaken for somebody that cares,” I say. I’d already thought of being sent back behind bars before I grabbed his gun. But there’s two things he doesn’t know about me: Number one, life on the outside without Vivian isn’t a life I want; and number two, they’ll have to catch me first. “Give me your shoes, too,” I order.

  He steps on the back of each shoe, slips them off and slides them over to me with a kick. “Jacket and shirt,” I order again.

  I keep the gun aimed at him while I step into his pants and slip on the shoes.

  He has to turn loose of his balls in order to take the holster and shirt off, but as soon as he tosses the shirt to me, his hands go back to cupping them. I don’t blame him. It must be really scary to be a man with your stuff hanging out there like that. My dick would be the first thing I protected, too. Car doors would especially scare me.

  “You can keep your man panties,” I say.

  He quickly reaches down and pulls his tighty-whities back up.

  “Now get on the floor,” I command. “On your knees by the sink.”

  He gets on his knees and crawls over close to the sink. I fish his handcuffs off the back of my new pants.

  “Hold your hands out.”

  He holds his hands out to be cuffed. I snap one cuff around his left wrist, run the chain around the pipe under the sink and snap the other cuff onto his right wrist.

  If he’s smart enough and strong enough, he’ll just unscrew the galvanized steel P trap and get loose. But, I should be pretty far away by then.

  I finish buttoning the shirt with one hand and smile at him. “How do I look?”

  He stupidly nods his head up and down like one of those bobbleheads on a car dashboard. I take his gun by the barrel and bring it down hard on the side of his head.

  He wilts to the floor.

  I don’t feel too good about doing that, but he’d do the same to me. And I need to buy some time to get away before he starts screaming.

  I shove his/my gun in his/my belt as I duck out of the men’s room. The feel of cold steel pressed against my belly makes me feel taller. Way, way taller, like a hundred feet taller. And invincible. Like I’m Amazon Woman towering so tall that my head pokes through the ceiling of clouds, and I squish squash Feebies like tiny cockroaches under my gargantuan feet. Amazon Woman’s breasts are bigger than the balloons in the Macy’s Parade and they strike fear in her nemesis. She uses her luscious ass to eclipse the sun and the whiteness of her thighs to blind all mortal enemies.

  Vivian’s right. I do have an overactive imagination. And thoughts like that are probably why she doesn’t want me to have a gun. I have a tendency to get a little carried away with power.

  I’ve made about four left turns and I’m right back where I started. This place is more confusing than Disneyland. And it’s not the happiest place on earth either.

  A voice floats out into the hallway causing me to freeze: “I’m telling you, you need to put them together.”

  I know that voice.

  I edge up to the slightly ajar door on my right and hold my breath, listening.

  “They’ll never sign into WitSec together,” I hear Dillon, my archnemesis, say.

  Is she talking about me and Viv? She must be. She’s back in the interrogation room where I was. But who’s the other woman?

  The door is open next to this one. I quick-peek inside and it’s empty. I jump in and close the door behind me. Yep, just as I’d figured, it’s the room behind the one-way mirror. I turn to the glass window and see Dillon’s back. She’s talking to somebody, but blocking them from my view.

  The other woman says, “Keeping them separated’s not going to work, Dana.”

  Dillon pulls out a chair and sits, saying, “I gotta use them against each other. Make ’em think the only way they can be back together is to sign into WitSec.”

  At first I don’t recognize the woman she’s talking to. She’s wearing business-type clothes, a pantsuit, and her long dark hair is braided. Her right arm is in a sling.

  “Lee won’t rest until she finds her,” she says.

  Holy shit! It’s Poke. My mind reels for a moment, putting all the puzzle pieces together. Poke is undercover with the FBI. She’s invaded, no, wrong word, infiltrated the Hell’s Belles. The Feebies must be the ones who took Vivian. When we crashed, they were following in the Nissan, and they took Vivian before the ambulance got there and hauled me off.

  Son of a bitch. That’s why Poke wanted Viv so badly. To get her into FBI hands and put her into WitSec. I bet Mikey would appreciate this little piece of Poke info. That would cement our budding friendship for sure.

  My ears perk up again when Dillon asks, “Did you fuck her?”

  Poke laughs and snaps back, “Did you?”

  Dillon moves her ass to the top of the table and asks, “How’s your arm?”

  “How do you think?” Poke says, “it’s got a bullet hole in it.�
�

  “You can’t go back undercover now.”

  “Sure I can, Hell’s Belles don’t suspect a thing. They even visited me in the hospital,” Poke answers.

  Dillon looks up at the camera hanging in the corner. The red light’s not on. She grabs Poke by her good arm and pulls her toward her. She kisses her and grabs Poke’s ass, pulling her closer between her legs.

  I look down at all the mechanical equipment in front of me. I don’t even have to figure anything out. Every button and switch is labeled for me. I flip the toggle switch that says “Camera.”

  The camera’s red light blinks on. I flip the switch labeled “Record.”

  The sound of a small motor kicks in and some wheels start whirring. I grab a disc from a stack of blanks and shove it into the open drawer. I close it and a red record light comes on.

  I watch Dillon’s Roman hands and Russian fingers travel all over Poke’s body. This is some good shit.

  “Smile,” I laugh to myself. “You’re on Candy Camera.” Candid. Whatever.

  “I don’t want you to go back undercover. I can’t go that long without you again,” Dillon says between kisses.

  “I have to,” Poke says.

  “You got enough dirt on the Hell’s Belles to lock them away.”

  “I can get more,” Poke says. “Another couple of weeks, maybe a month, I’ll have enough shit on Mikey, she’ll never see daylight again.”

  Dillon sticks her hands down the back of Poke’s pants and kneads her ass. She lays a heavy-duty kiss on her.

  Now would be a really good time to get the hell out while they’re so busy. I eject the disc and sneak back out the door.

  ***

  I find a stairwell and ski my way down in Festus’s too-big shoes. The bottom floor door opens into the back parking lot. I flop inside his loafers and down the alley about five blocks before I duck into a little bar called the Barca Lounge. I feel my way through the dark to a barstool at the back of the place. Once my ass is planted, I call out to the bartender, “Gimme a cold beer. Whatever’s on tap.”

  “Three dollars,” the bartender says, scraping the foam off the top of the mug and sliding it in front of me.