by JJ Zep
Ruby turned away from the scene and back towards the stage where the can-can girls had been replaced by a lone dancer in a sequined swimsuit. The dancer was staggering around the stage with a huge snake draped over her shoulders. Ruby supposed that the dance was meant to be seductive. She found it frankly ridiculous. Even the snake looked embarrassed.
four
It was two in the morning and the crowd was showing no sign of thinning out. Ruby circled the room for the umpteenth time. The place was a cacophony of noise, shouts and laughter, clinking glasses, the mechanical jingles from the one-armed bandits, the clack-clack-clack of the roulette wheels, whoops and cheers from the crap tables, the orchestra playing a lackluster version of Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York.
So far this evening Ruby had broken up a couple of knife fights, ejected miscellaneous drunks, pickpockets and unlicensed drug dealers, sent several of the house whores to the aid station with bottle cuts and broken bones, and confiscated an assortment of weapons ranging from zip guns to switchblades and, in one case, a hand grenade. By the standards of Saturday night at the Bucket, it was peace on earth and goodwill towards men.
Ruby was just beginning to think that this was going to be one of those rare nights when no one got killed, when a scream drew her attention to the stage.
The stripper with the snake was back for her second act. Only now she wasn’t dancing. She was involved in a tug of war with a large, bearded man in dirty jeans and a denim cut-off. The rope they were using was the stripper’s python.
“Let go! Let go of him you son-of-a-bitch!”
The woman’s voice cut through the din as the orchestra brought their song to a stop that sounded like an auto wreck. No one had been paying any attention to the stripper’s act before, but now everyone in the place was watching the little drama unfold.
Ruby started to move towards the stage then saw that Alex was way ahead of her, already climbing the stairs, already liberating the baton from his belt.
The standard operating procedure for dealing with unruly drunks at the Bucket was to strike first and ask questions later. Alex was following that protocol to the letter, coming up behind the man without speaking a word. The drunk paid Alex no mind, focused as he was on relieving the stripper of her pet snake. Alex had his baton free, extended it with the flick of a wrist, drew it back as he prepared to strike.
Then, in an instant, everything changed. The man released his grip on the snake and spun to face Alex and Ruby saw the flash of light off the blade. The knife carried through the air in an upward arc. Ruby tried to shout a warning, but the words wouldn’t form in her mouth. She saw Alex stiffen, saw the baton loosen from his grip and clatter to the floor, the sound of it very loud in the room, which had now fallen deadly silent.
Alex staggered back a step. His hands moved almost absent-mindedly to his midriff and came away bloody. Then his knees unhinged and he might well have spilled to the floor had the man not stepped forward and grabbed him by the hair. The man brought the blade up again, swinging in an arc this time, burying the knife deep in Alex’s throat. A gush of red spurted from the wound.
The stripper was screaming, her wails soon joined by shouts of, “Move aside!” and “Out of the way!” as other members of the security team jostled their way towards the stage.
Ruby was closest. Without noticing she’d been pushing through the crowd. Now a path suddenly opened up and she was sprinting. The twenty foot expanse of the orchestra pit lay before her and she took it on the run, becoming airborne, flipping in midair, landing in a crouch just ten feet from where the man was still hacking away at Alex.
The man turned towards her. He was big, not quite as tall as Alex, but six-four, six-five easily, and bulky with it. There was blood on his face and on the front of his shirt. His hands looked like they’d been painted red. The glint in his eye, the insane, predatory grin on his lips, told Ruby what she needed to know. Drugged up, strung out on Angel Dust, this guy was going to take some stopping.
The man allowed Alex’s corpse to slump to the floor. Then he came at Ruby, passing the knife from one hand to the other, that maniacal smirk still plastered to his face.
Ruby let him come, holding her ground until the very last moment, then dropping under his lunge, scissoring her legs and dropping him to the floor. He went down face first, making no effort to break his fall. The crunch of his nose being flattened against the boards was very loud.
Ruby was up in and instant and on the man even as he tried to rise. She delivered a boot to his kidneys that did some serious damage and would have put most men down for good.
Not this one. The man staggered to his feet, turned towards her, his face a mess of blood, the grin below his smashed nose unwavering.
Another of the security team, one of the new guys, had now reached the stage. Ruby backed him off with an upraised palm. She had this.
She did a sweep to her right, taking in the crowded expanse of the casino, the punters jostling for position trying to get a better view of the action. Some had even climbed up onto the crap tables and one-armed bandits, a move that would have got them thrown out had security not been otherwise engaged. She caught movement in the upper tiers and thought she saw Montague Pipe and his guests hovering in the shadows.
Ruby took in all of this in the split second before her opponent launched another attack. This time she stood her ground, evaded his grasp, slammed the heel of her hand into his sternum. The blow drove him backward and forced a projectile of gore-tainted vomit from his throat. Ruby circled the mess, feigned left and then got a grip on the man’s shirtfront and flipped him.
The man was sent over her shoulder, spinning through the air, coming down on an ankle that immediately gave way under him and broke with a loud snap. Amazingly, he staggered to his feet, gained his balance, tried to hobble forward, losing traction in the sticky blood, falling. He slammed into the stage on his back and Ruby wasn’t going to let him rise again. She closed the distance, brought her left boot down on his throat, crushing his windpipe. The heel of her right collided hard against his temple, snapping his neck.
five
“The boss wants to see you,” Duquette said in his breathy falsetto.
“I’ve got work to do,” Ruby said. She’d managed to wash the blood from her face and hands, rinsed most of it out of her hair. She’d changed into a fresh t-shirt and blotted as much of the gore as she could from her black jeans.
“Mr. Pipe wants to see you,” Duquette insisted. “You want to continue working here, I suggest you get your patootie topside.”
“We’re one short on the floor.”
“You let me worry about that and get a wiggle on. Go on now.”
Ruby could see that it was pointless arguing. She zipped her vest and left the locker room without another word, walked from there along a series of backstage corridors that brought her out at the goods lift. She rode that up to the second floor and exited into a storage area overflowing with props and costumes from the theater’s heyday. Wending her way through the clutter, she arrived eventually at a door that gave access to the mezzanine foyer.
A couple of guards looked up sharply as she stepped through, then relaxed when they recognized her. One of them hooked a thumb towards the lushly carpeted staircase.
She headed upstairs, every instinct alarmed for danger. Why exactly she was so on edge was unclear. She’d done nothing wrong. Weren’t the standing orders to eliminate troublemakers with extreme prejudice? Hadn’t Duquette told them that those instructions came directly from Mr. Pipe himself? Hadn’t they been told that it was the only way to maintain order, to send a message that causing trouble at the Bucket was going to get you killed? Besides, the guy had killed Alex in front of hundreds of witnesses. Even if she hadn’t killed him, he’d have been swinging from a scaffold in front of the courthouse by tomorrow. Justice in Galveston was swift and unambiguous.
But even if Pipe took exception to the way she’d handled the situation, what was
he going to do? Fire her? She’d been thinking about quitting anyway, thinking about heading back to California and her family. Lately she’d been thinking about that a lot.
A couple of guards stood behind a velvet rope at the top of the stairs, each with an Uzi slung over his shoulder. From beyond Ruby could hear the tinkle of piano music, the low babble of conversation, a jangle of laughter.
One of the guards unclipped the rope and nodded her through. Ruby stepped past him and into a sumptuously decorated annex. The area was open plan and subtly lit. The walls were covered in dark patterned wallpaper, the carpet was thick-piled and burgundy in color. Generous couches and chairs were finished in burgundy and gold.
The area was lit by a dimmed central chandelier and by muted, strategically placed lamps. There was art on the walls. A liveried bartender stood behind the dark oak counter of a well-stocked bar. There were other, similarly attired, serving staff in attendance. The entire area was hazy with aromatic cigar smoke.
Ruby scanned the room and spotted Montague Pipe just as he beckoned her towards him with a hooked finger. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being summoned in that way, but she held her peace. Whatever Pipe had to say to her didn’t much matter anymore. She had decided while surveying the room that she was quitting, quitting the Bucket, and Galveston, and Texas.
She approached the cozy cluster of furniture in the middle of the room. Pipe was sitting forward in his chair, a tumbler of amber liquid clutched in one hand, a fat cigar in the other, a lecherous smile playing on his lips. Sitting left of Pipe was the gaunt man she’d seen earlier, to his right, taking up half the expanse of a roomy couch, sat the Native American giant. The gaunt man watched her with mild interest, the Native American, impassively. There were a couple of women in the group too – comfort women – but now Pipe shooed them away.
Then he turned towards Ruby. “Ruby,” he said, his voice dripping with faux affection. “So glad you could join us.”
six
In the five weeks that she’d worked at the Bucket of Blood, Ruby had never met Montague Pipe, never spoken a word to him, never formed an opinion of the man, one way or the other. She formed no opinion now either, other than noting that for such a powerful man, Pipe was unimpressive. He was wizened and scrawny and seemed almost too small for the expensive suit he was wearing and the chair he was sitting in.
Pipe took a slurp from his whiskey glass and leaned forward to place it on a table. He dropped his cigar into an ashtray that was whisked away almost immediately by one of the staff. He waited a moment longer before speaking. “Don’t be shy, Ruby. Step forward into the light where we can see you.”
For no reason, other than this was her last day on the job, Ruby complied.
“Ah, that’s better,” Pipe said. He gave a phlegmy chuckle. “My, you are a fine specimen, are you not?”
Ruby said nothing.
“That was good work out there tonight, Ruby. Damn fine work.”
“Not that fine,” Ruby said. “Two men died.”
“Pah!” Pipe all but spat, “a coked up junkie and a security man who got himself killed by a coked up junkie. Not worth the price of spit, the one of them.” He looked her up and down as though appraising a prize heifer at market. “You on the other hand are a quite exceptional specimen, very exceptional indeed.”
He picked up his tumbler, drained it, snapped his fingers. As if by magic, a fresh glass was placed in his hand.
“Where’d you learn to fight like that, Ruby?” This was the other man, the tall gaunt one.
Ruby kept her eyes fixed on Pipe. “Here and there,” she said.
“Mr. Cain asked you a question, Ruby. The polite thing is to look at him when you answer.” Pipe sounded annoyed.
“I apologize,” Ruby said, turning towards Cain. She almost made a connection between the face and name. “Right now we’re short handed on the floor. I really ought to –”
“Let’s not worry about that,” Pipe cut in. “Cyrus has a proposition for you, don’t you Cyrus?”
Cyrus? Cyrus Cain? The name swam maddeningly close to the surface of Ruby’s memory.
“Not so much a proposition as a job offer,” Cain said. His tone was semi-amused, as though Ruby was the butt of some in-joke between him and Pipe.
“Job offer?” Ruby said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cain but I’m not really –”
“At least listen to what the man has to say,” Pipe interrupted sharply.
“No point, really. Like I said, I’m not really interested. Matter of fact, Mr. Pipe, I’ll be leaving Galveston at the end of the week. Consider this my notice.”
“What!” Pipe was out of his chair. “Notice! You don’t get to give me notice!”
Ruby faced him down. The little man shivered with rage in front of her.
“Mr. Duquette said –”
“Duquette don’t know shit from shinola. Fact is, I own your sweet little ass so if I say you work for Mr. Cain, you work for Mr. Cain, comprender?”
“No,” Ruby said.
“No?”
“No, you don’t own me. Far as I know, slavery’s illegal in Texas.”
“Ha!” Pipe said, “That’s where you’re wrong girly. Nothing’s illegal in Texas any more, as long as you got the means to back it up.”
Ruby heard the clunk of Uzis being cocked behind her.
“Now I already sold out your contract to Cyrus here. At a pretty fair price, too. So how about you be a good sport and go quietly?”
Ruby took stock of her situation. Pipe’s goons were blocking the exit, Uzis no doubt trained on her back. But they couldn’t fire at her without hitting their boss, most likely Cain and his Native American sidekick too. Surely they must see that?
She moved quickly, grabbing Pipe by the front of his shirt, yanking him towards her and spinning him as deftly as a ballroom champion. She was now facing the guards, Pipe between them, serving as a shield. Pipe tried to wriggle from her grasp, but stopped struggling when Ruby applied pressure on his throat.
“Now,” she said. “I don’t want to have to hurt Mr. Pipe. So how about you boys put down the guns and step away, I walk out of here and we all go home happy.”
The goons looked at each other with matching perplexed expressions but stood their ground.
Pipe was struggling again, kicking, trying to speak. Ruby loosened her grip.
“Just do it you idiots!” Pipe gasped. “Put the goddamn guns down!”
The two goons did as they were told, crouched down and placed the weapons gently on the ground.
“Good. Now back away from the entrance,” Ruby said.
She’d barely got the words out when a huge pair of hands closed on her throat, cutting off her air supply. A constellation of stars danced across her vision as she was hoisted upward, her feet leaving the carpet. She tried to wrench free but succeeded only in loosening her grip on Pipe, allowing him to scurry away.
The pressure on Ruby’s throat increased even more, sapping her strength. She kicked back, striking something that felt as immovable as the trunk of a California Redwood. She angled her head backward and looked into the impassive face of the Native American giant. How had he moved up behind her so quickly, so quietly?
The light was fading, gray to black. Just before she passed into darkness Ruby’s mind finally made the connection she’d been seeking. Cyrus Cain. She knew where she’d heard that name now. She’d seen his face staring down from a giant billboard on Seawall Avenue “Cyrus Cain’s Extravaganza of the Apocalypse,” it read.
seven
Charlie trotted up the final flight of stairs and stepped out onto the roof of the gymnasium. He scanned across the darkened expanse of the rooftop, picked out the sandbagged bunker, the silhouette of the M-60 just visible under a moonless sky.
“Lieutenant?”
The voice drew his attention to the side shadowed by trees where the sentry, Boyle, was scanning through night vision glasses. Charlie had managed to scrounge the glasses from Morales
and they were a godsend now that he’d had to scale back his perimeter watch.
He crossed the rooftop in long strides. Boyd was scanning the area to the east of them, on the other side of the main gate.
“What is it, Boyd?”
“Nothing, sir. I see nothing.”
For a moment Charlie was annoyed. “Lieutenant Pasquali said you reported a problem. He said you…”
He took the glasses Boyd was holding out to him, raised them to his eyes and scanned the green-hued darkness along 10th Street. Nothing moved out there. The gathering of undead creatures that normally surrounded the school, night and day, was nowhere to be seen.
He withdrew the glasses from his eyes, gave Boyd a quizzical look. “This the same along Imperial and the other sides?”
“Far as I can tell,” Boyd said. “Unless they’re pushed up against the fence where I can’t see them.”
That, of course, wasn’t possible. Not with the REPULSE radio frequency being broadcast along the perimeter. Charlie brought the glasses to his eyes again, scanned along West Orange, past the Lutheran Church and beyond. Impossible though it seemed, not a single Z shuffled on the sidewalk. It was as though a zombie rapture had occurred.