“Oh, I thought they were all Siamese twins.”
God what a moron, Dee Dee thought, but he is cute. Dee Dee was imagining herself and Cutter making a similar love connection. She envisioned them copulating in mid-air, gliding over the palm trees, spinning over the peridot green Gulf, riding the waves, tumbling through space in the moment of ecstasy.
“Oh, God, yes. Harder, faster, grab my ass; pump me faster with every hard, hammering thrust!” Dee Dee squealed.
“Uh, what did you say?” Cutter said, looking up from scraping bugs off the windshield.
“It’s the Tourette’s talking,” Dee Dee said. “But if you like it, I could keep talking.” She flashed him a lewd and lascivious grin. “Or we could act it out. Who needs a lot of talking, right?”
Cutter could feel his face flush and his ears burn with embarrassment.
Dee Dee figured she had planted the seed of imagination in Cutter’s mind and once he thought about it a bit he would want to reciprocate by planting something in her. But enough of that for now, she had a plan. She slipped the master cardkey into Cutter’s hand. “Hussey is busy with those old geezers in the pool. You got at least twenty minutes to get into her room and get the zombie powder.”
“I’m not sure,” Cutter said, “I mean, if she catches me sneaking into her room she’ll never speak to me again.”
“Just go get the powder,” Dee Dee said. “I’ll worry about Hussey.”
Cutter crept along the upstairs hallway until he came to Hussey’s room. He slipped the keycard into the lock, stepped inside and gazed around the room, his eyes stopping on Hussey’s unmade bed. Something didn’t look right. Then it came to him; two people slept in that bed last night, there were indentations on both pillows. That bitch was sleeping around already. It made him feel a little less guilty about stealing the zombie powder.
Cutter found Hussey’s medicine bag in the closet, reached inside and found a vial of purple powder. He couldn’t make out what the label said in the dark but it looked like the right stuff.
Beneath the bag he found the Conjures book and flipped through the pages until he found the chapter on making zombies. He scanned the page, committing as much as possible to memory. After he placed the book back in the closet, his lips still moving as he tried to commit the zombie-making process to memory, he opened the door a crack and peeked out to make sure it was all clear. He slipped out of Hussey’s room, locking the door behind him.
When Cutter returned to the parking lot, Dee Dee was nowhere in sight, probably keeping Hussy busy he thought. He patted the vial of powder in his pocket and returned to scraping bugs off his van.
“Well, sugar,” Dee Dee said, as she stepped out of the hotel office moments later, holding a tray of drinks and egg sandwiches stacked in a pyramid, “did you get the stuff?” Her voice dripped honey, estrogen and lust.
“Yeah, I got it.” Cutter fished into his pocket and retrieved the small vial of purple powder. “And I found Hussey’s voodoo book. It tells you how to make people into zombies.”
“So where’s the book?
“I didn’t take it. I figure she’d miss that, so I tried to memorize the steps on the page.”
“So what did it say?” Dee Dee said.
“Uh … I forgot.”
“You are a real re re,” Dee Dee muttered as she forced the vial of zombie powder into the back pocket of the tight cutoffs. As she stared across the parking lot, she saw a fire-red convertible pull in. A man wearing hand-tooled boots and cowboy hat stepped out of the vehicle quickly, as if he was exiting a burning race car. Dee Dee shielded her eyes from the sun to get a better look. A slow smile sneaked across her face as she stared at him. “I’ll be damned,” she said to Cutter. “Providence just goosed me, in a good way. That’s Rebel Buford, the race car driver. Our cash cow may have just delivered itself to the butcher.” She watched the tall lean man swagger across the parking lot and through the door to the Fugu Lounge.
“What?” Cutter said, returning to scraping the bugs off the windshield of his van.
“I gotta get back to work now.” Dee Dee gave Cutter her sexiest smile. “Try not to think too much about me.”
She spun on her heel and did a little exaggerated bump and grind across the parking lot and into the bar of the Santeria Hotel.
Chapter Ten
Rats And Chickens And Bears … Oh My!
Deputy Ignatius Jones shifted the thin folder under his arm as he stepped into the sheriff’s office and took a seat. “I found the cat killer,” he said as he opened the folder and passed the first sheet across the desk to the sheriff.
The sheriff picked up Jones’s report between his thumb and forefinger and dangled it in front of his face like something he found on the floor of a bus station bathroom. He lowered his bifocals and gave the paper a cursory glance “What the hell is this?” he said to Jones, dropping the paper on to his desk. “A cat cult leader is killing the pussies and orchestrating cat orgies behind the Santeria Hotel. What am I supposed to do with this? Call all these old ladies and say ‘we found the culprit, a kitty Koresh’? If I gave the Mayor this crock of shit I’d be hunched in a sand dune every night on sea turtle watch and you’d be back in New Orleans patrolling what’s left of the Ninth district. This is nuts.”
Jones peeled the second page from his folder and passed it to the sheriff. It was a print-out of the picture he’d snapped with his cell phone in the alley of the Santeria. “I have a witness to this pussy cat committing felinicide – this cat poisoning the other cats with fugu fish. I caught him red-pawed handing out some kind of kitty mega-Viagra.”
“This is a picture of a black cat sitting on a dumpster and a bunch of other cats fucking. So what?” the sheriff said.
Jones ran his right hand across his face. In his left hand he was holding the last page in the folder, a forensics report on the toxin found in the dead cats’ brains. “I just got this from the vet’s office,” he told the sheriff. “It confirms that the pussy cats were poisoned with tetratoxin, same stuff found in the fugu fish they serve at the Fugu Lounge in the Santeria Hotel. The cat culprit lives in the dumpster out behind the hotel and he is feeding the stuff to other cats. I know how it sounds, Curtis, but it’s true. I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The little monster killed a dozen pussies with the stuff. I actually witnessed him give the cats some weird powder that turbocharged their libidos. I would have arrested him but I didn’t have any evidence of the poisonings and, besides, I don’t have any handcuffs that fit pussy cat paws.”
The chief tossed the stack of papers in his trash can and Jones’ eyes followed them down. “Call all the ladies who lost their pussies and tell them the cats got into some poison, and don’t include the kitty cult crap.”
“Fill ’er up again,” said Rebel Buford to Roland, as he pushed his shot glass across the bar, “and pour me a beer too. I was playing poker on the casino boat last night and I won big … couple of thousand.”
“Lucky you,” said Cutter. He’d followed Dee Dee into the bar and taken a seat between Tony and the famous race car driver.
“Fill me up too,” said Tony, “I’m as dry as an Egyptian mummy eating saltine crackers and chasing them with chalk dust. By the way, did you know you have a whole bunch of cats fucking like crazy out by your dumpster?”
“Yeah, I know,” said Roland, “they’ve been going at it all night. I couldn’t sleep because of all the pussy cat mating calls. They have to get tired sooner or later.”
“You got my money?” Cutter said to Tony, as he settled in to the bar stool.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Tony passed an envelope along the bar to Cutter. “Damndest thing I ever saw. That dog never won a race in his life and now the fleabag can’t lose. How did you know?”
“Just some inside information.” Cutter smiled, flipping through the bills in the envelope as Hussey strode into the bar. He quickly shoved the envelope into his back pocket.
; “If you’re going to work here, you need to stay in the kitchen,” Hussey said to Cutter, as she passed him. “The sight of you makes me sick.”
“It’s a public bar. I have every right to be here. I’m just having a beer with my old friend Tony. Isn’t that right, Tony?”
“I ain’t getting involved in this,” Tony said, taking a large gulp from his glass.
“And you’re awful high and mighty for a girl who had a little fling last night,” Cutter said. He enjoyed delivering the snide remark and hoped to embarrass Hussey.
Roland and Hussey exchanged glances. Hussey raised an accusatory eyebrow at Roland who answered with a shrug.
“Look asshole,” Hussey said, turning her attention back to Cutter. “First, I happen to know you were with Dee Dee last night and second it’s none of your damned business what I do. We are not together anymore.”
Rebel Buford, old number 13 on the NASCAR circuit, was sipping his beer, studying the drink menu and ignoring the conversation. “What is this Special Bufo tequila shot?” he said to Roland. “I’ve never heard of that brand.”
Roland smiled and reached for bottle of tequila, filled a shot glass and placed it in front of Rebel. Rebel started to pick up the shot glass but Roland raised a finger stopping him. Reaching under the bar Roland produced a little wire mesh cage with a large toad inside and placed it beside Rebel’s shot.
“What am I supposed to do with the frog?” Rebel said.
“That’s a Bufo toad. You do a shot of tequila and then you lick the back of the toad.”
“I’ve heard of body shots but never toad shots.” Rebel grinned. “What the hell, I’ll try it.”
“So you won big, huh?” Roland said.
“Shhhheeet,” Rebel said, around a tongueful of toad. “If I had this kind of luck on the track, I’d win every race. What is this toad licking supposed to do? My tongue tastes like swamp water.”
“Wait for it.” Roland smiled, then he added, “You’re a NASCAR driver, right?
Rebel chased the taste of toad from his mouth with more tequila and watched as Roland slowly turned into a huge rat with a baseball hat and a blue T-shirt with a picture of a cartoon rat on the front.
“Oh Jesus.” Rebel was now gasping with horror “It’s him!”
The Roland rat, smiling widely, with two large, yellow rat teeth sticking out in front, reached out and picked up the empty shot glass from the bar. Rebel rubbed his eyes, looked again and Roland was back to normal. At least he was back to being Roland.
“That was a hell of a shot,” said Rebel. “I think I’m starting to hallucinate.”
“It’s the toad,” said Roland. “It makes you see all kinds of things. You were saying you’re a NASCAR driver?”
“Well, I drive, I just don’t win,” Rebel said, looking at Roland’s face expectantly, waiting for it to become something else. “I’m a little claustrophobic, and when I’m packed into that little driver’s cockpit I tend to have anxiety attacks. When I have those attacks I have to pull over, get out and walk around a bit; take a few deep cleansing breaths like my doctor told me to do. I’m usually in the lead until I have an attack.”
Dee Dee, eavesdropping from her sushi table, stopped slicing thin strips of blowfish and sidled up closer to the bar. “Didn’t I see you race at the South Boston Speedway once?” she said.
“Yeah, I raced that track. I had an attack in the fourth lap and had to pull over. I don’t ever win.”
“I’ll say you don’t win!” Dee Dee snapped. “I had fifty bucks on you at Talladega. You were in the lead until you freaked out. I saw it on television, you owe me fifty bucks!”
“Sorry,” Rebel said. “I couldn’t help it. When the claustrophobia hits, I just gotta get out of that little closed car. I love the speed, and I love racing, but I hate small closed-in spaces.”
Dee Dee sat down beside Rebel at the bar, sandwiching him between her and Cutter. “So you have claustrophobia, huh?”
“Fear of small, closed-in spaces,” said Rebel. “When I was a kid I got locked in a pizza place all night, the kind with all the arcade games. My mom and dad split when I was about six, and my mother started hitting the bottle pretty hard. She’d be passed out by the time I got home from school and there was this pizza place with an arcade down the street near the mall. I would sneak in there just about every day after school. I’m not sure if I snuck in or the folks there felt sorry for me and happened to walk away from the front door about the time I snuck in every day. Anyway, one day some big kid locked me inside the Skeeball game.
“Man, those balls kept coming at me through those little holes and I was screaming my head off but every kid in the place was screaming too and nobody heard me. I guess one kid threw a ball hard enough through the middle hole to knock me out. When I woke up the place was dark and quiet. I figured it must be the middle of the night. I also figured my mom was passed out so she didn’t miss me; I was stuck there until they opened the place in the morning. I was scared to death for a while, staring up at the dark through those little holes. Eventually, I got up enough courage to kick open the little door and I wandered around the place. Let me tell you, that place wasn’t near as much fun in the dark, all those big characters staring at me …” Rebel shivered.
“Jeez, that’s awful,” Dee Dee said.
“Well, it wasn’t all bad,” Rebel said, perking up a bit. “I found a whole drawer full of tokens in the manager’s desk and I played the NASCAR game all night. That one was always my favorite. Every time I looked around the room I would see those big characters standing there, staring at me, that huge rat, the fat bear, the big, scary bird, so I focused on playing the game, kept my eyes glued on the road, the turns and the other cars. By the time they opened up the place the next morning and let me out I was pretty good at it. That’s probably why I went into stock car racing later in life. I’m good at driving, but whenever I’m strapped into the driver’s seat of that little race car I start having flashbacks of being locked inside the Skeeball game. And I can still see all those shadowy figures looming over me.”
Rebel shivered again. “Anyway,” he said, snapping out of the terrible memory, “I haven’t been able to abide small places ever since.”
As the effects of the Bufu toad began to kick in again, Rebel looked over at Dee Dee. In Rebel’s mind Dee Dee had morphed into a talking chicken. Her button nose extended into a beak and her hair took on a straw-mop quality in day-glow yellow. She was wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon rat on it like the bartender-rat.
Rebel stifled a scream. “You were there too”, he said, visibly terrified, “one of the shadows in that dark, dark place.”
Dee Dee looked up at Cutter and flashed him a wide grin. “Aah … right,” Dee Dee said, “I heard you say you won some money playing poker last night. Is that true?”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Rebel wiping his forehead with a bar napkin. “I won a bundle.”
“I hope you’re keeping the money nice and safe,” Dee Dee said. “There are lots of wicked people around.”
“The money is in my hotel room in the safe,” Rebel said, calming down, “nice and safe, maybe that’s why those things are called safes. Gee, I never thought of that before.”
Rebel looked to his left and noticed Cutter had turned into an overweight bear playing a very small guitar. “Tequila,” he said, turning to Roland and found Roland had once again turned into the big rat and was baring his yellow teeth at him while he wrapped his long naked tail around the bottle of tequila and poured him another shot.
“Th … th … thanks,” Rebel managed to stutter. He noticed the Bufo toad was smiling at him.
“Pssssst,” Dee Dee whispered toward Cutter.
Rebel watched the chicken woman, strut and cluck over to the sushi table; the fat bear with the little guitar followed. “Can I talk to you in private for a minute?” Dee Dee said.
“I think we found our first zombie candidate,” Dee Dee whispered.
“Who did you
have in mind?” Cutter said.
“That race car driver, Rebel Buford. You heard him tell Roland he could win but he’s got a bad case of claustrophobia. If we could do a little voodoo on him, fix the claustrophobia, maybe he could win.”
Leaving Cutter to consider it, Dee Dee sashayed back over to Rebel at the bar. “Hey, there’s my Mr. Race Car Driver!” Dee Dee squealed. “Are you ready for another drink? How about a little lunch?”
Rebel gulped as he stared at the chicken woman who was standing beside him, her chicken head bobbing forward and backward in a pecking motion. He was hungry. Actually, it was more like his stomach felt hollow and kind of knotty, and his mouth was awful dry. “I guess I could use something to get the taste of this toad out of my mouth,” he managed to say, still staring. He glanced again at Roland behind the bar, and beheld the giant rat polishing bar glasses. Rebel smiled at him. The rat smiled back, baring his huge yellow teeth. Rebel looked down at the toad and it winked at him.
“Good,” Dee Dee said as Cutter returned to his seat at the bar and nodded at her. “Why don’t you go over to that table and I’ll fix you something good and in the meantime I’ll get you another drink.” She gave Cutter a sly wink.
Rebel took one more look at the rat and followed Dee Dee to a table in the corner.
“What can I get you to drink?” Dee Dee said as Rebel took a seat at the table.
“Maybe something sweet. I know, make me a Zombie,” Rebel said.
A wide grin spread across Dee Dee’s face as she headed for the bar.
Rebel watched the chicken woman talk to the giant rat at the bar. He watched the rat pour large helpings from different bottles into a cocktail shaker and shake them vigorously. He watched the chicken woman put the concoction on a tray and strut towards him, chicken-like, carrying a tall red-orange drink. About halfway over, he watched her morph back into the beautiful, strawberry-blonde woman in her mid-twenties with a killer body.
Dee Dee set the drink on the table and slipped into the chair beside him. “So if you didn’t have your fear of closed places you could win races?”
Homemade Sin Page 15