Bad to the Bones

by Layla Wolfe

  The way she squirmed, spread her thighs and wrapped her arms around his broad, bare back let the world know she wasn’t being coerced. And the way he swiveled his hips, his jeans-clad glutes clenching as he pressed into her, made it painfully obvious that he wasn’t being forced, either.

  I had no fucking idea who she was. Only that her abundant tit squished out the side of her flimsy black tank as Knoxie pressed on top of her, and that her upper arm boasted a grey wash drawing of a cartoony skull wearing a sombrero with a banner declaring “La Vida Loco.” There were some other trendy things, jalapenos, guitars, bombs and what have you—I wasn’t really concentrating on that, but for some reason that fucking skull wearing the sombrero got to me. I blamed it for all my troubles. Maybe it being a skull made me think this cunt was affiliated with The Bare Bones, one of their sweetbutts.

  I guess a gust of wind reached the writhing couple. They suddenly detached, and just as Lytton behind me said “Maybe we should go now,” they whipped their heads to see me.

  That was the worst. Not only was I being rejected in a hugely public way, Knoxie about to get his pole varnished in the middle of fucking Rael Street, but now they had seen me, and my fucking mortification was complete. The whore’s eyeliner was smeared like some kind of Kiss groupie, her lips swollen by his brutal kisses.

  Knoxie raised his torso off the slut. “Bellamy!” It was hard to tell what emotion his voice conveyed other than embarrassment at being caught red-handed.

  “Come on,” Lytton insisted, yanking on my arm and taking the umbrella from me.

  It was the sanest thing I’d heard all day.

  Pushing past Lytton, I stomped blindly down the street in the rain. He was instantly at my side guiding me, saying,

  “It’s all right, Bellamy. That slut means nothing to Knoxie. You’re his old lady.”

  The thing was, as well-intentioned as Lytton was, his remarks completely missed the point. “I am not Knoxie’s old lady, Lytton! He can do what he wants!”

  “But hasn’t he claimed you? Put his mark on you?”

  I thought of the wooden locket Faux Pas had brought into my room. The one Knoxie had snatched away. I might have been hallucinating again, but it sure didn’t look like Shakti’s portrait in that round wooden frame. It was obvious that Knoxie had gotten Faux Pas to do something, change the photo in the frame, but Knoxie had apparently changed his mind and didn’t want that anymore.

  “No! He’s done nothing of the sort. I told him I’d be faithful to him for reasons of STDs but I didn’t make him promise the same. Who cares, anyway? We’re just friends. He’s my guardian, my protector. And you’re the one doing that most of the time anyway!”

  I stomped along, even though I was going in the wrong direction, Lytton holding the umbrella over my head as he scurried next to me. With every breath I sucked in, I saturated myself with the air of uncaring. With every breath, I steeled myself to be cold, callous, tough. With every exhalation, I breathed out the air of empathy, caring, giving a shit.

  With every breath I took, I forgot I had loved Knoxie.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  KNOXIE

  Something prevented Knoxie from running down the street after Bellamy.

  Maybe all her statements about how casual they were. Maybe her insistence that they keep things on a superficial level, that things be zipless. It just wouldn’t seem right running after a girl who had just proclaimed they were only about bonding with no emotional entanglements. Why run after her when he’d only been doing what would be logical after being hit by declarations like that?

  What else did Bellamy expect? He was a man, a rough and tough tattoo artist, and now officially a biker. Bikers especially didn’t run down the street with a hard-on after women who had rejected them. Bikers definitely didn’t let it be known they gave a shit about anything.

  So after his initial shock—who would’ve bet on Bellamy even coming into town, much less his studio?—Knoxie pulled himself together. He really couldn’t go on feeling Misty’s tits and grinding against her crotch. He got off the ink bed and went to the cooler to pour himself a water.

  “Who was that?” Misty asked casually. “Your old lady?”

  “I don’t have an old lady.” He must’ve felt the need to talk about it though, because he added, “That was the cult chick we saved from death.” That was no big secret in the community. People knew the bikers had saved some homeless people on that mesa. It was giving the club a leg up in town opinion and probably helping propel Mann Montana to a win in the mayoral race. People knew the judge and councilman had been poisoned by the whackos, driving them to certain wins, too.

  It was kind of a given that the poor guy who had hitched his wagon to Bihari’s cart in the councilman race was regretting it now. As Knoxie had predicted, journalists were saying the only votes he’d get would be within the walls of Bihari. The Bum Steer had, for the first time in its existence, been packed to overflowing with lookie-loos feeling bold, wanting to hang out in a biker environment, to see and be seen. Bobo Segrist and every other Bare Boner hoped it wouldn’t last.

  “Oh, was that her? I heard about that. I hope we didn’t traumatize her with our behavior. They do some weird sexual stuff up there, don’t they?”

  Knoxie scared himself with the intensity of rage he felt toward Misty. Just because she dared to criticize where Bellamy came from, the protective demon came out in him. “A lot of girls have been victimized by those whackamoles. Our not-so-secret goal is to run them out of town. They’re not contributing a damned thing to the community.”

  “Yes,” said Misty, “a few showed up last month at Triple Exposure looking for work.”

  “What?” Knoxie did a spit take, spraying the woman with a fine mist of water. “What the fuck? Women? As actors?”

  Misty wiped off her neck with her palm. “Right. Of course Mel didn’t hire them—he’s not that desperate—but we sort of wondered why these girls would be wandering around looking for work like that. I thought everything was self-contained up there. I know I’ve seen them selling dream catchers and peanut butter, but…a cum factory?”

  Knoxie was livid with rage—at Bihari in general, at Bellamy for keeping him at arm’s distance, and of course at the guru of perversion himself, Swami Shakti. “They must be getting even more desperate than usual, especially since their tax exempt status was revoked. So you brought your drawing for that back piece your client wanted?”

  Knoxie did want to look at Misty’s proposed drawing, but the truth of the matter was, he no longer felt like getting up on her. He would convince Bellamy he was the only man for her. He just needed to be patient. Bellamy had been through a lot. It was assholish of him to expect her to immediately jump into a close knit relationship with him. It was also ridiculous when she was literally just discovering herself. Maybe she wouldn’t even turn out to be right for Knoxie, once she got all the scattered pieces of herself put back together. Maybe he wouldn’t even like her.

  But he doubted it.

  “So there you are, Mr. Stranger!” called Adrian, breezing into the studio with plastic bags bulging with supplies. “And if it isn’t Misty Day, straight from my favorite blockbusters, ‘Womb Raider’ and ‘Assablanca.’”

  Misty was up for Adrian’s snide challenge. She followed him into the supply room. “My personal favorite is ‘Sex Busters.’ I aint’ afraid of no ho!”

  If Adrian thought it was funny, he wasn’t showing any signs of it. The serious piercer began putting away boxes of rubber corks, oral rinses, and needles. “Now I have the answer to my question, where has Knoxie been the past week? Why, just having a bit of giblet pie in my ink studio.” This last part was delivered with a piercing glare. “You know how unsanitary it is having a hot roll with cream in a sanitary environment like this, Knoxie. Isn’t that what Triple Exposure Studios are for? For spreading germs willy nilly, heedless of which open wound they’re going to slap up against?”

  Knoxie finally got a word in edgew
ise. “We weren’t exactly doing a little bush patrol right here in public, Adrian. Right, Misty?”

  “Right.” Misty knew of Adrian’s fondness for colorful euphemisms for the work they used to do at Triple Exposure. “He wasn’t exactly parking his yacht in Hair Harbor.”

  Twirling around, Adrian jammed his hands onto his bony hips. “Well, it’s none of my business what you do as long as you don’t spread letch water and bull gravy all over my flash rack.”

  Knoxie held out a soothing hand. “We’ll try to keep the Oil of Man off of the work stations. Listen, I’ve just been super busy. I was down at the border for a few days, but now I’m back. There aren’t any vortex or acupressure conferences in town, so I doubt I missed much.”

  Adrian compressed his lips. “If The Bare Bones work is going to take this much of your time away from our studio, maybe I will be better off with Misty as a partner.” He looked at the shapely woman. “But only if you change your name. What’s your real name, anyway?”

  Misty raised her eyebrows. “Would you believe Barbara Boxer?”

  “Oh, dear,” said Adrian. He looked at Knoxie. “Is she serious?”

  “Serious as a midget in a nudist colony,” said Knoxie.

  “That’s okay,” declared Adrian, turning back to shelving his supplies. “We can think up something more suitable for you, something bland and harmless. Like Jenny McCartney.” He twirled back around, his face lit up with joy. “Oo! How does that sound? Jenny McCartney?”

  “Already taken,” Misty said irritably, and left the room.

  Knoxie didn’t blame her. Adrian’s penchant for micromanaging everything irked him a lot of the time. Changing the subject was Knoxie’s only hope. “Listen. I hope not too many people came by looking for me. I shouldn’t be gone for days like that again.”

  “The usual suspects came by, our friends as well as frenemies, some morons from that scab factory across town.” Any ink studio that wasn’t theirs was always “some scab factory.” “Probably hoping to steal some of our flash ideas. Oh, and one of those fruitcakes from Merry-go-round Park came by looking for you. I imagine he was looking for poor Bellamy, so I’m glad you never told me where you’re hiding her. You know how bad I am at lying.”

  Knoxie did indeed. And it already gave him a very uneasy feeling. About a month ago, Adrian had blindly outed him while having a simple conversation with one of Knoxie’s pass-arounds. Knoxie hadn’t even known he was supposed to be faithful to the first girl until Adrian blabbed about the second girl. It devolved into a drag ‘em out chick fight over in Triple Exposure rooms, with hair weaves being flung and puncture wounds inflicted with stiletto heels. Knoxie had the impression that Adrian was sort of satisfied with his handiwork.

  So Knoxie was wary now. “What did you say to this fruitcake?”

  Adrian turned to Knoxie, a serene, thoughtful expression on his face as he fingered a box of tattoo ink. “You know, it’s funny. When he started talking, I could see the appeal of living in a place like that. So…soothing. I felt almost mesmerized by his speech.”

  “That’s how they reel you in. So what did you tell him?”

  “You certainly wouldn’t have to worry about the day to day of eating or paying bills when everything’s taken care of for you. Well, he started talking about their therapy up there. How it’s all based upon which particular trauma is stunting a person. As you and I discussed about Bellamy. Her trauma is her father leaving, her mother turning into a cold, unfeeling witch.”

  “Yes…” This did not bode well.

  “Their approach is to take the trauma and reenact it, so the person can live it again and move through it. Makes sense from an organic gestalt point of view.”

  “Yes, yes, blah blah, so what did you tell the freak?”

  A bit of hesitation finally crept into Adrian’s tone. He tilted his head and crossed his arms. “Well…I believe I started saying if that was the case, then you should be thrown into a lion’s den with a bunch of perverted priests, because as a teen you were molested by—”

  “Motherfuck!” The next thing Knoxie knew, he had Adrian’s stupid shirtfront in his fist and was pounding the astronomer’s head against the cupboard. “What gives you the fucking right to shoot your fucking mouth off about my past?”

  He’d never laid a finger on his business partner before, and Adrian was understandably terrified. His eyes bugged out like a Pixar character, and his fingers scrabbled with no effect at Knoxie’s fist. His voice came high and feminine, as though he were trying out at a singing competition. “It just came pouring out of me! I couldn’t help it, Knoxie! He had some evil, mesmerizing power over me—it was almost as though he hypnotized me into talking! He—he had a broken nose and he said he was a doctor and it all just came spilling out of me!”

  Knoxie got ahold of himself. Standing upright, he rattled Adrian around a bit for good measure before tossing him into a stainless steel sink. Adrian made no effort to yank his head and torso from the sink, instead blinking sideways at Knoxie, his features skewed like a lizard that had been run over.

  Knoxie raved, “You don’t fucking understand what you did, Adrian! You think it’s all hypnotic, spiritual fun and games. But the most dangerous part of that cult is the fucked-up doctrines they spew. The root of all their rot is the frailty of human nature. We’d rather trust others than ourselves. We need to learn to trust ourselves again!”

  Adrian squeaked from the sink, “That is a very true truism, Knoxie.”

  “Everyone up at Bihari is guilty! They all see that twisted swami driving by every day in his luxury Hummer. Why would a man who lives in peace with the land and the spirits need a fucking Hummer? How do they justify that to themselves?”

  Adrian unfolded himself carefully. “They all must be brainwashed, like that guy brainwashed me.”

  “They’re mostly all people with good intentions looking for spiritual redemption. But some of them care more about power than spirituality, and that’s where the problem lies.”

  Adrian cracked his neck. “Well, if that’s what you are doing with The Bare Bones, bringing that fake spiritual organization down, then I’m all for it. It was very scary being hypnotized like that. It was like he pumped me full of sodium pentothal or something, some truth serum. Suddenly I was spilling deep, dark secrets that should be left buried.”

  Knoxie glared at his partner. “They come to you because you’re a cheap easy fucking mark. They exploit homeless people—it cost the club thousands of dollars to ship back the ones who didn’t die of exposure on some remote plateau. Listen, bud.” For good measure, Knoxie gripped the same handful of Adrian’s shirt, just to shake him around and punctuate his point. “Don’t speak a word about anything to any of those whackos. You see one coming, you close and lock the door.” Setting Adrian on his feet, Knoxie added, “I’m going on another club job. Hopefully it’ll only take me overnight. What else did you tell the fake doctor?”

  Adrian didn’t say a word of protest this time, his confidence having been shaken out of him. He saluted like a good, but shaky, soldier. “Nothing, I don’t think. I think that was it.” He punched the air feebly. “You go get ‘em, Knoxie. Or should I say Rex Havox? They’ll be calling you Rex Havox before this is over.”

  As he left The Missing Ink, Knoxie didn’t really have a solid plan in mind. Everything hinged upon the intel Rafael would give him when they met at the truck stop later that day. Rafael would return to Nogales for another load of “granola” and cheese heroin to ply the ashramites with. The A-1 dope would be stepped on with baking soda and mannitol—or worse, brick dust, glass, or floor cleaner—before mixing the sugar, coloring, and PM sleeping pills in for the teen crowd.

  It was up to Rafael to coordinate with the DEA when and where they wanted to take out the woo-woos. Knoxie wanted to hit them again when they were down in a double whammy.

  He had to give Bellamy time to recover from her ordeal. But in the meantime, he was going to bring Shakti and his followers d
own to the ground.

  Swinging around the corner and onto Rael Street, Knoxie barely paused his stride as he swiped a poster declaring MIKE FRYMIRE FOR COUNCILMAN from where it’d been taped to his storefront window. Frymire was the zombies’ choice for candidate, and Frymire was going down with the rest of them.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  BELLAMY

  I stopped at the main guard house on my Sporty, having stolen some purplish clothing from Madison. I acted like nothing was unusual, I’d just been out on a tampax run. Mention tampaxes, and men clam up real fast and shoo you on your way. But I was sure the daimyo guarding that entrance immediately called Shakti. There was probably a giant photo of me inside his shack, like America’s Most Wanted.

  Now that we both had phones, Virginia was expecting me up at the composting facility. Not everyone knew I had been cast out, apparently, because I rode past many friends who waved at me. My goal was to stay off Shakti’s radar, as Knoxie would say, until I could get Virginia out of there, along with any other women who wanted to come.

  It was weird being back there, canyon carving down the winding roads past work gangs of people I had chanted and breathed with. There were very few vehicles at Bihari, and that day I didn’t pass a one on my way up the side canyon to Ginny’s facility. My phone vibrated again against my hip, but if it wasn’t Ginny, I wasn’t answering it. Madison had called me several times already, probably noticing I’d borrowed an overnight backpack of hers and stuffed some clothes and toothbrush in it. I hadn’t told her what I was doing because she wouldn’t go along with it. She’d say it was dangerous going back within those walls, and to let the club do its work.

  The club was working too slowly for me. Ginny had received a visit at her composting plant from Bodhisattva, asking questions about how far along she was in her pregnancy. I didn’t want Knoxie to risk his ass, either. Last time he’d returned from there, well Bodhi had had a broken nose, sure. But I doubted he’d been shot in Nogales. I had a feeling it had happened up at Bihari. Lots of people up there were heavily armed with AKs and Uzis and other military grade weapons they theoretically shouldn’t have any use for unless they were planning on starting a major turf war. I had always questioned the necessity for that, especially now as I drove past several of those armed daimyos, and I had nothing more than a Swiss army knife to protect me.