by Edward Lee
“I wonder how many of them there are?” Phil said.
Susan’s gaze never strayed off their backs as they grew tiny beyond the bend.
“Who knows?” she answered.
— | — | —
Ten
Back in Black, Paul Sullivan thought along with the pounding juke music. Right now this hotter-than-hell redhead was dancing up a cock-stoking storm on stage. Big tits, like a Penthouse Pet, and legs that looked a mile long. Vicki Steele, her name was. He and his buddy Kevin Orndorf just got off a bag run out near Waynesville; Krazy Sallee’s was the perfect place to drop a few beers after a sale. It was also a good place to meet their partners and point men, talk some quick business and make arrangements. Of course, they’d never actually sell the product here—that’d be crazy. Paul and his people, after all, were big time runners, not dime-baggers. Kevin himself was a little cranked up; he’d lit up a dust roach in the parking lot and he was hopping. Paul had lit up himself, but just a toke; he didn’t want the shit turning his brain to mush. Just a quick hit once in a while.
The joint was packed. This redhead on stage was pure fucking dynamite, the best bod he’d seen in the house all night. Wonder how much a gal like that’d cost, Paul’s thoughts strayed. Couple hundred at least. Maybe five.
But it would be worth it.
“Too bad they gotta wear them fucked-up g-strings here,” Kevin postulated, stroking his goatee. “Bet she’s got a snatch redder than a pit fire.”
“And them tits?” Paul added. “Christ. You could hang your hat and coat on ’em.”
“Be right back, partner. Got’s to drain the love-snake.” Kevin drunkenly rose, then wended through the jammed aisles. The music was so loud it seemed to swell Sallee’s old plank-wood walls. Strobe lights throbbed to the beat, along with the redhead’s sultry dance moves. Her firm, big breasts jiggled as those long legs traipsed across the stage. Dollar bills fell like confetti…
Man, she could tease the cock out of the Pope’s pants just with her smile, Paul theorized. What I wouldn’t give for just a half hour with that piece of pie.
Not that he could complain. Darleen, his current squeeze, was tough stuff, and almost had a set of tits to match. And she could get down on the rod like Sandra Scream in them porn films he watched sometimes on card night. But, Christ, there was so much out there… For a guy to confine himself to one girl, well, that was like going to McDonald’s every fucking day and having a Big Mac. Every now and then a fella might want some McNuggets or a fish sandwich.
Right?
The music compressed in his ears; he could barely hear himself think, not that Paul Sullivan ever needed to think all that much. He lit a Lucky and looked up. Kevin, clearly half shit-faced, was talking to some creepy looking kid by the john door. That dumbass better not be trying to move any dust here, Paul fretted, but then Kevin disappeared into another door off to the side, while the creepy kid hung out another minute, then went up the stairs.
“Hey, what’s in that back room?” he asked the waitress when she came along. Typical beat redneck mama, probably dropped eight kids by the time she was thirty, and now she looked fifty.
She emptied a clogged ashtray and asked, “You want another Carling?”
“Yeah,” Paul said. “And what’s in that back room? I just seen my buddy go in there.”
“Pinball machines,” she quickly replied. “You said you wanted another Carling, right?”
“Right.”
A half hour later, Paul was getting drunk, and Kevin still hadn’t come back. Pinball machines? He ain’t into that shit. Never been. The redhead had long since finished her set; some skinny tattooed brunette—who looked pretty drunk herself—had replaced her and was now feebly dancing to some bass-ripper by Motorhead. Sheets of cigarette smoke wafted before the lit stage; at one point, the brunette lost her footing and fell down, which brought a burst of laughter. This was getting dull; Paul wasn’t even looking at her. He didn’t like tattoos on women, and this gal in particular wasn’t dancing for shit anyway. And—
Where the hell is Kevin?
It was almost last call, plus they had a run in the morning. Havin’ to drive the first runs themselves was a pain in the ass, but it seemed like every time they hired some new drivers, the fuckers disappeared. Scared off, he figured. Kids, most of ’em. Come to think of it, a lot of point people had run off lately, too. Can’t find good people fer shit…
Just as Paul was about to get up and go find his partner, Kevin appeared at the door by the john and headed for the table. He seemed antsy with excitement when he sat down, or maybe it was just the dust he’d toked. His goateed grin leaned forward. “Man, you won’t believe what they got back there, partner! They got—”
“Pinball machines,” Paul didn’t let him finish. “Big deal.”
Kevin’s Orndorf’s broad, goateed face ticked in a moment of perplexion. “Pinball machines? What’choo talkin’ about? What they got, they got another stage, and more dancers. Thing is, though, the girls back there are Creekers.”
“Creekers?” Paul expressed his own perplexion. “Stripping?”
“Yeah, man. You wouldn’t believe, it’s great!”
Great? He couldn’t figure what could be great about a bunch of Creeker women dancing in a strip joint. He’d seen Creekers plenty of times; they were inbred, deformed. Had heads that looked like balloons and lopsided eyes. “Man, are you nuts? Them Creeker girls are ugly as all hell. They got faces on ’em like pigs.”
“Not these, man. These girls are hot, let me tell ya. They’re a little fucked-up, sure, but they’re still lookers.” Then Kevin, his face still lit up in some arcane thrill, put his half of the tab down on the table. “Here’s dough to cover my beers. I gotta go.”
Paul’s face pinched. “Go where?”
“I’m buyin’ me one.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me!” Paul thought he might puke up his eight Carlings right there at the tabletop. “You’re payin’ for a Creeker whore?”
“Yeah, man,” Kevin tittered. Suddenly, the wicked, pumped-up smile within the sharp goatee made him look like a redneck version of Lucifer. “They got one gal—you ain’t gonna believe it! She’s got four tits…”
“Aw, man,” Paul complained, “you can’t be doin’ shit like that. We got a big drop to make in the morning,”
“I’ll be there, man, don’t worry.” Kevin rubbed his broad hands together in some perverse glee. “I can’t wait to get me a piece of this bitch. See ya in the mornin’.”
Paul frowned after him. Kevin went out with that kid he’d seen talking to him earlier, who Paul guessed must be a Creeker too, on account of the funny-looking head. And… Did the kid have two thumbs? It looked like it. Ain’t that the dumbest shit I ever heard, Paul thought, and drained the foam out of his last Carling. The juke cut off then, the last dancer stepping drunk off-stage to not much applause, and the house lights went on. “Last call!” shouted the barkeep, a thin balding guy in a T-shirt which read Shut Up And Do Me. “Order up or get out!”
I’ll get out, Paul decided. He was, after all, a drug dealer possessed of a professional sense of responsibility. Got a big drop tomorrow, got to get up early. Ain’t got no time to be fuckin’ around with whores. Sometimes he just couldn’t figure Kevin out. The guy was a wild man. And who the hell would want to fuck some deformed Creeker girl with four tits? Now that redhead, Paul surmised. That’s different, that’s natural. But…a Creeker? That kind of kinky shit just wasn’t Paul’s speed…
Paul shuffled out through the thinning crowd. Headlights swarmed the parking lot as one pickup after another started up and pulled out. The hot night seemed static; the big blinking KRAZY SALLEE’S sign winked off. The moon peeked over the tree tops just past the ridge, an ugly, cheesy yellow like the color of his daddy’s skin when the old fuck had checked out from pancreatic cancer. Paul got into his own truck and idled out of the lot. He looked around for Kevin’s truck but didn’t see it anywhere. Gues
s he’s already gone, him and his Creeker whore with four tits.
And Paul Sullivan was right about that. Kevin was gone, all right.
Kevin Orndorf was gone forever.
««—»»
For the next week, Phil did pretty much the same thing: he’d maintain a visual surveillance of Krazy Sallee’s—in plain clothes, and in his own car—until after closing, snap a few pictures, and log every tag number in the lot each night, for a future cross-reference. Then he’d change into his police uniform, and finish his night shift in the department’s patrol car. Routine police work in Crick City was unsurprisingly dull, but at least this stake-out operation each night helped breakup an otherwise gruelling 12-hour shift. On a few occasions he’d caught glimpses of Vicki Steele, leaving Sallee’s with Natter in the mint Chrysler Imperial. But at no time did he witness Vicki or any other woman engaging in any parking-lot prostitution. Still, though, the snapshots Mullins had reluctantly shown him continued to stick in his mind…
Between rounds, he’d hang out at the station and shoot some bull with Susan, whom he was beginning to like. She seemed made from a different mold, not a typical Crick City woman at all, but enlivened to pursue an education and career that would one day take her away from this place. (And he hoped she had better luck than he had.) The variety of her intellectual facets intrigued him; she was very smart, she knew a lot about lots of things, yet she clearly possessed a persona which transcended her bookishness. She was sassy, opinionated, even hot-tempered at times; when they disagreed on a particular topic, she wouldn’t hesitate to be in his face about it. Phil admired that.
He also admired her looks. She’s beautiful, it occurred to him every time he’d come in for a coffee break. She struck him as idyllic in a way; her beauty—a very real, unassuming, and unaugmented kind of beauty—made her shine in his eye. How do you crack a woman like this? he wondered almost constantly. He’d asked her out three times, and three times she’d politely declined, citing her evening classes would not permit it. Perhaps Phil was paranoid, but it felt to him as though she liked working with him, but had no desire to date a municipal cop. He could only hope he was wrong.
Chief Mullins remained typically oblivious, chewing his tobacco, chugging atrocious coffee, and bellyaching about anything that suited his redneck fancy. He never seemed to ask much about what was going on, but this was typical Mullins: as chief he didn’t expect to have to ask, he expected to be told, and in all honesty, aside from a few SRO’s and traffic citations, Phil had nothing to put on the so-called “blotter.”
But after his second week on the job, Mullins did indeed ask one morning: “So how’re things going with your stakeout?”
“All right, I guess,” Phil answered, transferring his surveillance notes to an official log. “Too early to get a decent read on things just yet.”
“Yeah?” Mullins seemed to grumble, pouring the black ichor he thought of as coffee. “I thought you were supposed to be moving on this.”
Phil frowned up from the desk. “I am. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.”
“Bugger Rome. This is Crick City. You making any headway out there or just gandering your ex-girlfriend through the binocs?”
Sometimes I could kill him, Phil thought. “Chief, I’m doing this the way we talked about. I’m logging the plates of the regulars so we can eventually get a decent cross-reference. Things like this go slow.”
“Yeah?” Mullins packed a wad of Red Man, then chased it with coffee. “Too slow if you ask me.”
Phil all but threw his hands up. “All right, boss. You’re the one who wanted me to check out this PCP net in town. You think I’m doing this wrong, then tell me how to do it right.”
“Don’t bust out into tears yet, Phil. I didn’t say you were doing it wrong. I just said you’re taking too much time.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Phil repeated and got back to his writing.
“You’re right, it took a thousand years, which is fine for Rome. But I ain’t got that kind of time myself. You sure you’re not stalling a little?”
This time Phil’s frown creased his face. “Stalling on what, for God’s sake?”
“Well, you’re sitting out in Sallee’s parking lot every night, writing down tag numbers like a good little boy, sure. But don’t you think it’s time for you to get a move on? I mean, how many tag numbers can you write down before your hand starts to hurt?”
Phil leaned back in the chief’s office chair, arms smugly crossed. “Chief, save us both some time, will ya? What are you implying?”
“Implying? Me?” Mullins chuckled, scratching his formidable belly.
“Yeah, you.”
“Well, maybe I’m merely suggesting that it’s time for you to move on to the next step. After all, this whole procedure was your idea.”
“Fine. The next step. What have you got in mind?”
“See? You are stalling. You’ve got enough tag numbers, Phil. You’re staking the lot in your POV, you’re in plain clothes, and nobody knows you’re back in town, and even if they did, nobody would remember you anyway. It’s high time, ain’t it?”
Phil still didn’t know what the chief was talking about. “High time for what, Chief? For the Yankees to win the pennant?”
“No, high time for you to get your ass into Sallee’s and check things out from the inside.”
“Sure,” Phil agreed, “but don’t you think it’s still a bit early for that?”
“Hell no. Why don’t you just admit it, you’re stalling. You don’t want to go in there ’cos—”
“Because why, Chief? Because I know I’ll run into Vicki? Is that what you’re driving at?”
“Well, yeah,” Mullins said, and spat into his ubiquitous paper cup. “I think you’re a little bit chicken to run into her again. Christ, you dumped the poor girl like a load of heavy diapers.”
Phil simmered in his seat. “I did not dump her, Chief. And keep in mind I’ve been a cop for over ten years. I do know how to keep my personal past separate from my job.” Phil felt convinced of this, but he also felt…a sudden distant queasiness. “You want me to go in there, Chief. Fine, I will.”
Mullins packed a pinch more Red Man into his jowl—if it was tobacco, he chewed it: snuff, leaf, plugs. “Glad to hear it, Phil.” Then he spat a big one. “Get your ass in there tonight.”
— | — | —
Eleven
“What are you nervous about?” Susan asked behind her Motorola station base.
“I’m not nervous,” Phil asserted. He’d just changed into his street clothes in Mullins’ office, then came out to the commo room. It was just past midnight.
“Not nervous, huh?” Did she smile? “Looks to me like you’re about to tinkle in your jockey shorts.”
“How do you know I don’t wear boxers?” Phil quickly changed the topic. He changed it, he knew now, because he was nervous, and he also knew why.
Evidently so did Susan. “It must be the girl, huh? Vicki what’s-her-name, your ex-fiancée?”
Phil seethed. “No, it is not. Christ, can’t Mullins keep his mouth closed about anything?” He shuddered to think what else the dubious chief had told her.
“Did you really dump her ’cos she wouldn’t move?”
“No, I did not! Jesus!”
“Don’t get whipped up. I was just asking,” she said, adjusting the frequency modulator on the radio. “And if you don’t mind my saying so, you make a great-looking redneck.”
“I’ve never been more flattered.” But he supposed she was right. Tight, tapered Levis over pointed shit-kicker boots, a big buck knife on his belt, and a black-and-red flannel shirt. It astounded him how the societal contingent colloquially thought of as “rednecks” insisted on wearing flannel shirts even in the middle of summer. He’d also slicked his hair back with Score.
“Look at the bright side,” Susan added, cueing her mike once. “How many guys actually get paid to sit in strip joints?�
��
“Hmm, you’re right. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it. Might as well be me. Anyway, I’m out of here. I’ll be back around two.”
“Wait, wait,” she was suddenly complaining. She got up from behind her console. “Don’t you know anything about redneck fashion? You’ve got to show some hair.”
“Pardon me?”
She walked right up to him, so close he could smell her herbal shampoo. Phil was six-feet even, while Susan stood about five-seven. He looked down at her, instinctively noting the lean compactness of her body, the sudden proportion of her waist and hips, and the stunning white-blond hair. In the small “v” of her blouse, he spied a breast satcheled in a plain beige bra. The simple, beautiful image nearly shook him.
Then she began unbuttoning his shirt.
“What, uuuuuuh,” he asked, “what are you doing?”
“I told you. You have to show some hair. It’s the redneck’s version of a tie.”
“Oh,” Phil replied.
She unbuttoned his shirt all the way to his solar plexus, then fluffed it out some. “There, that’s much better,” she said. “Now you look like a true Crick City redneck.” Her eyes thinned momentarily, and her mouth turned up in the slightest grin. “Nice pecs, too. If you don’t mind my saying so.”
Jesus, he thought as she went back to her commo cubby. “That’s all? Just nice?”
“Get out of here,” she said, laughing.
««—»»
Nice pecs. Well, he thought. He hadn’t touched a barbell in five years, but at least Susan’s remark, even if she hadn’t been serious, offered him a welcome diversion during the drive. He realized, most fully now, that what Mullins had accused him of this morning was absolutely on the mark. I’m a fucking nervous wreck, he admitted after parking in Sallee’s dusty gravel lot. And he realized two things more, just as fully: