by Danny Hogan
‘That so,’ I said, keeping my attention on the custodian.
‘S’right. Madame Twinkie’s is the only place that’ll let him through the door anymore in these parts,’ spoke up a toothless vagrant.
‘Round the back of Cavanaugh’s is Capri Drive, you’ll find it there,’ he added, with a snort.
I ordered a take-out of a quart of whiskey, paid my account and headed off; leaving them all gibbering behind me.
‘You’re gonna swing for this, you bitch,’ someone called out from behind me.
I’ll be seeing you around, I thought to myself and began my walk towards Madame goddamn Twinkie’s.
44
I was dog-tired heaving my bounty with me and, by the time I came to Capri Drive, it was turning evening. The gaudy lights were beginning to illuminate the city and the sound of revellers could clearly be heard from around the block.
Near the mouth of the road there was a derelict ruin, which not even the vagrants were using, that I hid out in.
I sat there apiece, drinking my whiskey and chewing on some jerky that I had bought along the way.
The hours passed and I must have dozed off for a bit because, the next thing I knew, it was plain night and the sound from the main strip had died down some.
Getting up I stretched my legs and my back, grabbed my heavy bag and that rifle and headed out of the ruin. The weight of the bag and the gun were very unwelcome.
Madame Twinkie’s looked like a regular house from the outside. The only way you would know it was whorehouse was by way of a real bad picture, by its gate, of a nekkid lady doing something nasty with a cream cake.
I walked up the stairs and a bully sitting on the porch stood up and tried to bar my entry.
‘This here’s a members club; you got business here?’ he asked.
‘Sure have friend. Keep out my way and you won’t be part of it.’
He looked at my guns, looked at me, and he must’a seen the devil in my eyes ’cos he let me pass with no further molestation.
A big fat old harlot, all painted up like a gypsy’s outhouse, sat at a comically small table and chair. She looked like some kind of circus prize. I took this to be Madam Twinkie.
‘Well, hello there. We got a fine choice of accommodating ladies right here for you ma’am. What’s your flavour?’ she trilled.
‘Do I look like a dyke?’ I shot back.
She just looked at me like I was stupid.
‘Listen here, I understand you got a business to run and cunts to keep so, you tell me right now if Paulie Bastard is here and you’ll live to trade pussy another day.’
Again, she just looked at me like I was stupid.
‘Ma’am, these armaments I’m hauling ain’t going to be the latest talk of the fashion circles you hear me. They mean business.’ My heart was getting dark and I was almost scaring myself.
‘He’s upstairs in the Regent’s Boudoir,’ she said finally, still glaring at me in the same way but lifting a pig-pork side arm and pointing a little sausage finger to show me the way.
‘Much appreciated,’ I said, touching the front of my bandanna all polite.
With my hand on my pistol grip I began to climb those rickety stairs.
The Regent’s Boudoir was the first door I came to on a plain landing with about three other doors beyond it, all closed. The door itself had a pane of glass in it, like a backdoor.
I removed Comeuppance from leather and lightly gripped the handle of the door. My heart raced as I turned it with ease and pushed the door slowly open.
It creaked like hell and I immediately fixed my gun on the bed that I could just about make out in the darkness. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom I noticed that the bed was empty but it was too late. There was a loud bang and I felt something punch into my right ribs. I tried to breath but I couldn’t. My legs gave out and I staggered back, collapsed against the wall opposite the door and slid down. The door swung shut again.
My breathing was shallow and I was making horrible wheezing noises. Through watery eyes I could see a rough hole cracking the pane of glass in the door. I put my hand up to where I had felt the impact. Holding my hand in front of me, I saw it was dripping red.
‘Ain’t you heard of couriers you dumb bitch?’ I heard the voice of Paulie Bastard, calling from behind the door.
I tried to pull the immense gun from my back but it was no good. It was just too darn heavy and I had no strength. My only hope was with old faithful; my big iron.
With a great fight I thumbed back the hammer and I knew I was nearly finished. I imagined a man in the doorway and, only strong enough to hold my gun in my lap, tried to angle it to where I imagined Bastard’s right arm would be.
Low and behold the door was pulled open and there he stood, stark nekkid.
‘Relax you ain’t gonna die, that was just birdshot I put in there,’ he said, rattling the gun in his left hand and grinning like crazy. I could see then that I might have made a grave error not waiting for him downstairs for, with his right hand, he was rubbing away at himself with savage abandon.
‘You know how many kinds of pox I carry? You gonna die slow and sick, you bitch.’
My pistol kind of fell to the left in my lap but, birdshot in my ribs? I’d had way worse. Getting a grip of myself and sucking in as much air as I could I levelled that gun and pulled the trigger in a flash, hoping against hope I wouldn’t miss
I clear forgot that she was loaded with Talons and, by god, you should have seen the mess I made of his left bicep. The gun fell from his hand and hit the deck with a clatter. He let out a long, pained howl.
Snorting like a horse he bent down with his right to scrabble for the gun he had dropped. I thumped back Comeuppance’s hammer, held her out straight and sent another one of those Talons tearing into his gut.
He rolled back hooting and hollering. I scrabbled to my feet, hobbled over to him and booted his gun away.
I fixed Comeuppance right on him.
‘Elliot and The Colonel will see you hang for this,’ he said, between coughs and sobs.
So much for his courier.
‘The Colonel? I done popped that balloon and, as for Elliot, it will be him what dies sick and slow.’
He looked at me all horrified for a moment and then he snarled like an animal: ‘Houston will see you hang.’
‘Yeah, maybe so but, know this; you’re gonna pass on nutless.’
‘No,’ he screamed.
And I pulled the trigger.
45
I thought long and hard and decided to dump the 2 bore; it was too damned heavy. I gathered up my bag and carried it back down the stairs.
Madam Twinkie was now on her legs and she reminded me of our old mule, if you’d squeezed it into a bawdy dress and gone crazy with some pot paints on its face. The bully was standing next to her, with eyes wide open and mouth quivering. They moved aside and let me pass in silence.
I was slowly getting my air back but I was awful sore on the side. I felt a bit stupid too, for not getting the likely whereabouts of Old Man Elliot but, to be fair, I was not in that practical a frame of mind when I shot Paulie. I just wanted to bring pain to the sick bastard.
My energy was all but gone and the weight of the gold was threatening to drag me under. Slowly I headed north through the streets ’cos everything seemed a little less inhabited up that way and I needed cover.
I thought some of Austin was bad but whatever happened here was worse. As I walked the buildings turned into skeletons and the skeletons turned into piles of rubble with iron and wood ribs poking through hills of junk.
My legs began to falter and it felt like I had to stop. Making sure there was not a soul about I clambered over a mound of broken rock, found a nook with plenty of cover from bits of old board and smashed units, lay down and passed out straight away.
***
The sky was a pale a grey when I opened my eyes again and I felt so very rough. The injury in my side had stiffened me and c
aused a low throbbing pain with sharp stabs every time I took a breath.
I clambered out of my impromptu bed and spotted an aged vagrant, sitting on the floor with his back resting on the wall of a ruin, a little ways further up the road.
An idea came upon me.
Scuttling down the pile of rocks I heaved the bag up on my back having fished a single gold piece from it. I made my slow, pained way over to the old coot.
‘Morning,’ I said, dumping my bag and stretching my back when I arrived at him.
‘And good morning to you, young lady. I don’t suppose you could spare a bit for an old veteran could you?’
Good he still had his wits about him.
‘I got this gold piece, if you could tell me a story,’ I says.
‘Why… well I sure am full of stories,’ he said, licking his toothless lips.
‘Know a fella, goes by the name of Old Man Elliot?’
He looked at me, kind of scared, and said: ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well, I wanna know what you know: and don’t be telling me stuff about undead, ghosts, space aliens coming from the skies or goddamned ape-men from up north. I just want a factual account.’
He looked out yonder a second, sniffed and began, ‘Story goes that, back in the old days, he was a nerd; a mean spirited one at that by all accounts. Not even out his teens he would spend hours on end, locked in his room engaging in all kinds of spite on his damned computer. I tell you, it does no good to a young man’s head to live like that, with nary a breath of fresh air, no ma’am.
‘He was skilled in what he done on, what they used to call, the internet. So much so that one black hearted spark, who turned out to be the future head of the Texas Regional Government, commissioned Elliot to help manipulate things for his own benefit. When the Great Change came along Elliot was given accommodation in the TRG bunkers for services rendered. I knew somebody who knew him around then. Said that Elliot, on entering that bunker, ditched his own family like they were a burden. And now, well, he makes a fortune laying waste to townships out on the range to make way for Houston’s progress.’
‘Did he cause the change?’
‘Can’t rightly say ma’am, can’t rightly say.’ And then he clammed up on the subject, like what all the old’uns did whenever you broached the subject.
I gave him the gold piece, which he bit before muttering a “thank you”. As I turned to go he looked up at me and said, ‘You know, I hear things all the time on my trampings and, as a matter of fact, I can tell you exactly where he will be tomorrow morning, if you got another one of them doubloons?’ And he grinned a wet, toothless smile.
‘If this ain’t good I’ll be back for you, old timer,’ I said, hurling another glinting disk at him.
‘Surely. Word on the road is that he is heading out to take down Victoria tomorrow. Damned shame; I knew some good folks in Victoria. He’ll be rounding up a crew from The Curse before he heads out. And there’s your gold piece’s worth.’ He shook his head. ‘Sure is a damned shame about Victoria.’
‘Well, don’t you worry about it Grandpa. He ain’t gonna make it.’
I began to walk off and then something came to me. I stuffed my hand in my bag and pulled out another coin and tossed it to him. He fairly whooped when he snatched it out of the air.
‘What’s this’un for miss?’ he said, slavering.
I shaded the sun from my eyes and asked: ‘What the hell does “lol” mean, old timer?’
46
Slowly I made my way through those rotting old streets, heading in an easterly direction, away from the main strip. The first civilization I found was on a long, bending road that a bent over signpost said was called Tahoe Drive. There was a lot of woods and grasslands but not much else.
Eventually I came upon a hotel though, of all things, just there on its own. I wondered up its path, all cautious and then, slowly, I pushed opened the big wooden door that served as the hotels entrance and went in.
A stern faced old lady stood in a lobby, writing in a ledger, at a big wooden desk. The scene weirded me out. It wasn’t nasty or anything, in fact, not at all. That was the problem. There was a candle chandelier, way up above my head, and little lamps about the place; providing a warm glow. There was a real nice couch and chair that I wanted to lie on right away; there were small tables around the walls with pots full of flowers and picturesque weeds; paintings of serious looking men in suits were on the wall and I recognised one of them as being the Great Emancipator.
‘You can’t see them, but there are guards watching our every move – if you’re looking to try and rob us,’ she said, without looking up. Then she fixed her glassy eyes on me and added, ‘that’s a fair warning.’
‘I ain’t here to cause no trouble ma’am, just… seems a strange place to have a hotel is all and I was curious.’
‘We cater to the folks coming from the north, along the old state line, and provide a more civilised, Christian lodgings than the whoremongers and sodomites over there in the west.’
‘So you don’t have nothing to do with those’uns?’
‘Nothing at all. Why, you in some kind of trouble?’ she asked, frowning.
‘No ma’am, it’s just a little too noisy over there for my taste and I was looking for a room.’ I tried hard to summon up my geography for a moment. ‘I’m just a humble traveller from out of Dallas, heading to er… Galveston.’
‘It’s a hundred a night,’ she said. If I did not have a sack full of gold I would have run out of their right then, cussing her for her thievery.
Her glassy beads sure lit up when I handed it to her in gold.
‘I been travelling a while and I was wondering if there was anywhere I could get some clean clothes?’
‘You’re in luck. Not only do we provide an extra laundry service for fif–eighty bits, Mrs. Bloomsburg operates a haberdashery outback for weary pilgrims with such a need.’
‘Why thank you, ma’am,’
‘OK then, your room is 103 up top and we also have a pool out front. You may have seen it but I don’t recommend it. Old Mr. Thompson’s constitution ain’t likely to withstand the sight of a young lady such as yourself bathing, and we don’t like to encourage such things at any rate.’
I bid my thanks, took the key she dangled and headed up some nice white stairs with dark wooded banisters. I passed a leery old fella on the landing that I took to be Mr. Thompson. He just sniffed as I walked past and eyeballed me sidelong.
The room was clean but a hell of a lot plainer than anywhere else I’d seen in the building, with nary more than a bed in it. It would do though and it was much more in line with what I was used to back home.
I dumped my bag on the floor and took from it a fistful of gold. I locked the door behind me and headed downstairs to where the lady said I could buy some clothes.
Mrs. Bloomsburg was a fat jolly biddy who seemed to find a smile for everything. She waddled about racks of clothes and neat piles of folded garments. Everything she had on offer was as plain as hell, which was perfect. I bought what I needed and felt real pleased that my plan was coming together perfectly.
I would bed down for the night and nail this problem for good in the morning.
47
Picture the scene, if you will. Ramshackle, crumbling buildings on either side of a dusty beat up road, some of which were businesses such as bars and stores. The street itself weren’t so busy. A botched-together doggy cart rolled lazily down the thoroughfare, dragged by a harassed looking old nag. The vaquero on the buckboard driving it looked ready to fall asleep.
A few dirty old rogues stood outside the bar on the near corner smoking cheroots and muttering darkly to each other. At the far end, on the opposing corner, was the Venus’s Curse. Some roughnecks had gathered idly and one of them had a horse by the reins and was shushing it.
The beast itself was a big old warhorse and, sitting way up on its back, was Old Man Elliot in black leathers, with those awful adornments and a black sl
ouch hat on his head. He was just sat there, steadying his horse and lording it up over what, I assumed, was a new posse he had drummed up.
There were no women to be seen except for, walking down the street towards them, a young lady in a dowdy dress and a wide brimmed hat. Her head was slightly bowed but you could see she had shoulder length hair that was so dark it was nearly black.
Old Man Elliot looked around the street but didn’t seem to spy nothing that alerted his suspicion; just those rogues smoking cheroots on the corner and the young lady off to buy supper for her husband or old sick mother, or some such.
Elliot heaved one of his long thin legs over his horse to step down and the horse budged so that he, and Elliot’s new crew, were all stood to the left of their master.
By this time the young lady had just about walked by them. Except, of course, she didn’t.
***
In one beautiful movement I spun, reached out, pulled that .460 from the holster on his right hip and cocked the hammer with my thumb. The damned thing was that heavy I could not raise it no further than the small of his back in the time I had. With all the love I had in my heart I squeezed the trigger.
There was an almighty explosion and Elliot arched his back unnaturally and unleashed a terrific howl. His horse shrieked and began to reach for the sun with its front legs. Elliot still had his left leg in the stirrup and he twisted around, spluttering and croaking, and tried to snatch the gun from me, but it was in vain. I stepped back and done blasted him again, this time in the gut, with his own gun.
The horse went thundering off, dragging the squealing Elliot with it and bouncing him about on the broke up old road like a rag doll.
I was now in plain sight of his crew, three in total, who were still stunned by the whole scene and gawping as Elliot was dragged off so.