Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah

by Welch, Annie Rose

  The phone was turned over to Tommy, who was stuttering at his regular pace.

  “I’ve got some things, Hank. Barb, she’s a real charmer. You wouldn’t believe the traps that are wide open to you when you have boobs and heels. Nothing else matters. You shake ’em a bit, lift your leg a little, show some heel, and guess what? That entire tasty lure is yours. It’s a wonder they don’t rule the world yet! I feel powerful when Barb is in control. And let me tell you, she’s gotten some great feedback. First things first, though. I have some information on Delilah.”

  “You’ve been snooping on her?”

  “Why, yes, Hank. That’s a big part of why we’re doing this. Delilah Mae Turner has stumped me. Everything checked out real nice. At first. She was born in New Orleans, on a hot July 5th, to Willow Mae Turner and Wyatt Colt Law. Which is great, if ghosts could have children.”

  Hank sat up. “What do you mean? If ghosts could have children.”

  “I started digging, Hank. And it was like digging up an old grave filled with secrets. Willow Mae Turner was Willow Mae Turner until she married Wyatt Law. Her name changed when she married Wyatt, yet on Delilah’s birth certificate, it wasn’t. From what the birth certificate states, Willow and Wyatt had Delilah when they were ten feet under. Both of her parents had died in a car accident before she was born. Remember the night at Pistol Fanny’s when I felt like I knew Katherine and Hennessey but couldn’t place them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I placed them. Wyatt and Willow had five kids before they passed on to greener pastures. Three girls and two boys. Katherine Law, Lilly Beth Law, and Rosemary Law. The two boys are the youngest. The baby of them all, I can’t find a damn thing on him. The other is a deliveryman. And Katherine is ‘Kitty’ and Hennessey is ‘Slide Clyde’.”

  “Who?”

  “They were bank robbers in the ’60s. Big time, Hank. Kitty is good with a gun and a rope. Slide Clyde was like a ghost himself. He would hide and you couldn’t find him for nothing. They almost caught them once. He had a low blood sugar while robbing and fell from the rafters of the ceiling. He was hiding on the ceiling! They could never prove it was them, but people know. She drove the car straight through the bank and rescued him.

  “Not only that, but those ghost parents of hers, they were none other than Wild Wyatt and Weepin’ WillaMae. Wild Wyatt was just that—a wild man. No one in his or her right mind messed with him. He’s a legend. Was deadly with a six-shooter. Papa taught his babies well, it seems. Weepin’ WillaMae they say was so beautiful she could make a grown man weep tears of joy. She was as lithe as a cat, sneaky as one, too. Sometimes they called her a ghost, just like Pistollette. She was the lure, he was the trap.”

  “They did some robbing, but they were known for stealing off the New Orleans Riverfront. Lots of loot goes through New Orleans, Hank. Legend has it they once stole a highly prized golden pig with ruby eyes right off the boat from China. Invaluable in worth. They were wanted by the feds for a while, but they could never prove it was them that committed the crime.

  “Your little Delilah Mae is related to some of the most notorious outlaws in history. The kicker is, it’s the women who always pull the men in, and together they become infamous. The men are their sidekicks. WillaMae was famous before Wyatt. Kitty was famous before Clyde. Delilah Mae, well, if she’s Pistollette, she was making headlines before Honey Hole.”

  “Who is Honey Hole?”

  “That’d be you, buddy. Rumor has it, that’s what they’ve named you.” Tommy laughed. “But these are not bad people, Hank. The money they stole, they always gave away. They were for the poor, the ones usually without voices.”

  “God Almighty.”

  “Hank, why do you do that? When the situation is not dire, it’s always, ‘Heaven Almighty!’ But when the situation is extremely upsetting it becomes, ‘God Almighty!’ Anyway, we can save that for later. Lilly Beth is dead—she was shot to death, right in front of a house in Greenville, Louisiana. By a man named Moses Shuger.”

  Hank looked over his shoulder. The shower was still running. “Was he married to Pepsi?”

  “Yes! How did you know that?”

  “I think I met his wife.”

  “Things get stranger, Hank. Moses died in prison, too late for me to talk to him. His family and Katherine Law all fought for his release. The police found him with the gun, blood on his hands. It was an open and shut case. This has a Cray Lusianno smell all over it. Remember I told you he has a lot of kids? He does, but he knows about all of them. Every. Single. One. None of them have his name, but they all have their mother’s maiden name. Their middle names all start with the letter L.

  “He used to send his brother in his place, to act as the father. He would make sure all of the paper work was filled out correctly, and he would make a note of who was who. He keeps paper trails. If Delilah were his, why wouldn’t she have her mother’s maiden name? Law? She belongs to Willow and Wyatt, ghosts, who gave her the name Turner.

  “Something happened with his brother, too. Anthony O’Hanan. He’s thought to be dead, but nobody knows where he is. People say Cray killed him. His own damn brother.” Before Hank could ask why, Tommy burned through the pause as quickly as Delilah burned a mile.

  “Why? I have no idea. They speak lightly about Cray and Booty. But Barb gets what she can. I started going over the bank robberies, and take a guess at what’s the one common denominator in most of them? They’re all his banks. There are a few here and there that are odd—no association with him whatsoever. It’s staged. They want the law to believe they’re not aiming just for him. But they are. And if I know it, he knows it, and so do the feds.

  “They’re toying with him, Hank. Cray is money hungry. All that hot green fills him with power. And they’re stealing it from right underneath him like it’s water from the tap. Then they’re giving it away—to a bunch of dame charities. Slap one cheek,” the sound of hand walloping skin rang out from the other end of the line, “punch the other.”

  Curly let out a whine. “Why’d you have to hit me? This isn’t acting class!”

  Tommy chuckled. “As lightly as the chatter is flowing about those two, it’s even lighter about your Pistollette. They’re terrified of her. She’s fast, Hank. Much too fast for a person to be. And she has it in for Cray. She’s taunting him, taking the power back little by little. She doesn’t rush, she knows his every step. He’s not a patient man—she’s very patient. Slow torture for someone like him. They know about you and her, Hank. Barb got that much. If she truly is Delilah, they know she’s in love with you. So, let me ask you a question, Hank. What’s more powerful than money? What can bring us to our knees when nothing else can?”

  “I don’t know.” Hank’s voice cracked. In all honesty Hank knew, but he was too afraid of the truth to acknowledge its presence.

  “Yes, you do. But I’ll tell you anyway. Love can, Hank. He knows she loves you. You’ve become very valuable to him. He’ll find you, and he’ll have the one thing she wants. She had nothing he could steal before; the playing field was extremely unbalanced. She had it all—now, she’s vulnerable. All that she did to take back power no longer matters. The playing field has been evened, and if anything, he has all the power again. He has you, and I’m a betting man, Hank. I’ve laid my money on the table. If he’s stolen from her before, she won’t allow him to do it again. She’ll die before she allows him to hurt you.”

  “What do I do?”

  “You confront her, Hank. You ask her. Tell her about Booty. Tell her everything. Be straight. This is no time for treading lightly. She’s walking on mines ready to explode. If you love her, Hank, truly love her, you’re going to either have to know or walk away. Walk away and pretend like everything was just a lie. Either way you go, it’s a damn pickle.”

  The water shut off and Hank hung up without saying goodbye. His mind felt burdened, all of the circumstances and pickles weighing him down like ten-ton iron. He rested his head in his hands to
relieve himself of some of the burden.

  “Hank.” Delilah laid her hand on his shoulder. A towel was wrapped around her body, one side tucked in; her hair was wet, water dripping down her shoulders in glistening stripes. One of the droplets landed on his arm, and his eyes were drawn to the tiny bubble.

  Delilah was a patient woman; she had no use for impulsive urges. Hank knew no matter how long he sat with the weight, she would wait patiently next to him, until he was ready give over some of the burden.

  “I think we need to talk, Delilah,” Hank said, finally.

  It was only then that she moved, leaning in to kiss the scar on his head. He took her hands in his. They stared at each other for a moment, rocking their hands back and forth, before they moved from the bedroom to the living room.

  Sitting down beside each other on the red sofa, neither one of them got comfortable. Hank could see the goodbye in her eyes; if anything, she had moved further away from him. He wasn’t sure if he could hold onto that wind any longer, but Jesus, he couldn’t let her go.

  “Delilah, I want you more than I’ve wanted anything in my entire life. I’m guilty of love in the first degree. But, we can’t continue to…” Hank shifted his position. Some odd object with a hard exterior continued to rough his rear up from underneath, and it made an uncomfortable situation literally unbearable. When he moved, the television remote fell off the sofa, landing button side down.

  The television blared in the background. The news appeared with a vengeance. The news team reported live from the bank across the street from Delilah’s new place—it had been robbed an hour ago. By five women, one of which carried two pistols. The one with the pistol had killed a man. The remote dropped from Hank’s hands. They watched in silence.

  Another hour later, the phone rang, shrill and demanding. Delilah answered it just to hand it over to Hank. He was feeling the cold sweat and his heart was beating overtime. It was Tommy again.

  “Five down, nowhere else to turn. Delilah and Pistollette, yeah, well, they’re probably sisters, Hank. At this point, man, I don’t have a clue. All I know is they’re both linked to him. You need to walk away, Hank. Just walk away until this shit is settled and life is back to normal. Delilah has no place in this. And if she does, it’s probably on the other side. I know people. I called and spoke to a friend. They are killing innocents now! The guy was a real estate agent from Italy—”

  Hank hung up, his hands trembling. He couldn’t even think about the eager Italian with his designer suits and wide smile, his colorful tie all bloodied and—oh, he had to push the images to the back of his mind, bury him with Judge Pilgrim and REO. He couldn’t think about Pistollette and the vow that had died when the Italian real estate agent took his last—Shovel a little faster, Rivers, he told himself.

  Delilah had turned the television off and her back was to him. “Who is she now, Hank?” Her voice was floating, lost on faraway shores. Most likely tearing down coasts. “Who is she?”

  “I thought… I just thought that ya’ll were…. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Oh, Hank,” she said as she turned to leave. “My heart might be broken, but I’m a fast healer.” She stopped when she was just past him, going for the bedroom. “Molasses has made it up the mountain. Our one more day is up, baby.”

  A few minutes later, in the silence of the stone and glass, music floated toward him. She was playing Patsy Cline. “She’s Got You.” Hank flung his hands to his face. He couldn’t bear the strain. The shovel was flinging mud, and the music was disturbing to say the least, like inappropriate music at a funeral. God Almighty, Hank thought, when the music truly reached him, she was playing Patsy! Delilah was pulling the stopper, everything going down the drain, even the poor, poor baby.

  “Delilah.” Hank’s soft voice somehow tangled with the sad music. It floated back toward her. “About everything I said…”

  “It’s forgotten, Hank. The bottles have been capped and put back away. The poison has run its course. I don’t remember a word of what you said.”

  That hurt Hank, more than anything else. “No, Delilah, I meant every word I said. I mean it even more now. There is no Hank without his Delilah. I love you, darlin’.”

  She didn’t answer him. Not right away. When she did, her voice was sharp, like beautifully shaped candy that was turned into barbwire, skewering him with its intensity and sweetness, with its undercurrents of blood and iron. “Hank, keep yourself out of trouble, you hear? Go back to Tupelo and find yourself a nice girl. Make a little love on Saturday nights; make sure you go to church on Sundays. Stay away from her. Stay away from me. I hope she makes you happy, Hank. I really do.”

  Hank couldn’t speak. His hands shook with the ferocious feelings of loss and ache. Only if she’s you, only if she’s you, he thought over and over.

  She met him at the door a little while later, dressed all in black; black sweater, black jeans, black heels and soles, those diamonds in her ears, a diamond watch on her wrist.

  “It’s time to go, Hank. Come on and kiss me before it’s time to say goodbye.”

  They left together. All those secrets left behind in the stone and glass house. Ashes floating somewhere in the melody of the perfect rhythm they had created, floating somewhere in that black hole, trapped forever in the cold, hard reality of time.

  Pistol tapped at the screen of her phone. It was just about that time. The next minute ticked and the phone rang. She answered it on the second ring. “Hello, baby.”

  “Hey, baby,” the sweet voice muttered back.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh nothin’, just all my damn buns burned black and the damn mail was late!”

  Pistol sighed. “Well, ain’t no use cryin’ over black buns and late mail. We just have to move on and make a new batch is all. And threaten the mail man’s boss.” She almost laughed. If the situation had been any less serious, it would be comical.

  “I suppose. You’re not upset about the burnt buns? I sure as hell am!”

  “Well, we’ll just bake a new batch. It’s not that hard. You just gotta remember to take them out before they get too dark, you know. Try a new recipe. Shock everybody.”

  “If you don’t care about all my burnt buns, what are you caring about, baby girl?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Red buns, I guess.”

  “Red velvets?”

  “Red velvets. I’ve been cravin’ ’em real bad. They got me going a little crazy, wantin’ ’em so madly.”

  “Huh.” There was a pause. “You’ve never craved those before. We’ll have to do something we’ve never done before. We’re going to have to have a red velvet party and we can all cry over my burnt buns.”

  Pistol smiled lightly. “I suppose.”

  “Oh, and you know what’s worse than burnt buns?”

  “Can’t be much worse.”

  “Yes it can. Dirty old mud pies. You remember those old boys? Billie and Mack? I was thinkin’ real hard about hitting them right in the face with their own patties. Or disguising it as a Mississippi mud pie and feeding it to them. I guess that would be just fine, considering how they been checkin’ out your new car real steady and all, but…” There was a long string of profanities.

  “Did you say mud pies?”

  “I did. The kind that gives you worms.”

  “I see.”

  “Take care of yourself, baby. And don’t let no buns get you down. I’ll have everything ready for you. New batches without the char, and a whole bunch of reds to replace the ones you been missin’.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Woo hoo,” they said in unison.

  Pistol hung up and dialed another number. Two rings and she heard, “Hello, baby.”

  “Hey, baby,” Pistol rested her head. “How’s business?”

  “Good, real damn good. I’ve had six or seven come through here already.”

  “Good, real good. It’s good to have that many. Four or five would be perfect, but si
x or seven. Wow.”

  “Wait.” There was a short pause. “Did you say four or five?”

  “Yeah, I sure did.”

  “All right. My phone was breaking up, wasn’t sure I heard you right.”

  “No, you heard right. Crappy reception, I guess.

  “Hey, you know what I found out about your new car? I did some research. Car history and all that.”

  “Anything good?”

  “Real damn good, Pis. Well, I guess it just depends on how you take it. That car of yours, the value has sky rocketed. It’s got a history with blood on its tires. It’s like an old artifact with Napoleon’s history attached to it, or like a celebrity, or even a pirate, if they drove cars instead of boats.” A piercing whistle shot through the receiver. “Imagine that! Good thing, huh, Pis, that pirates no longer exist? They’d probably want that car back, if they drove cars. Pirates always want their gold, and that car has a history. Like I said.”

  “Big pickin’s, huh?”

  “You got that right. Hearsay has it the only reason it hasn’t been touched is because a rough little gal named Little Sister has been hiding in the back seat. And you know how people feel about her. They terrified. I say you should just trash it. Sell it, get rid of it, go ahead and dump it in the river. Drown it. Too much trouble for such a thing. Too many people want to touch it, when it’s probably not even worth that much.”

  “Have you heard from Older Brother?”

  The laugh that came from the other end was just like an extinct animal coming back from the dead. A rare noise, if there ever was one. “Boy, did I! He’s so mad. He thinks you foolin’ around on the side on him. Called me up demanding I tell him who the new meat was. ’Cause nobody told him, and he was in a very precarious situation.”

  “I see,” Pistol said, closing her eyes.

  “You all right, baby?”

  “Fine. Just fine. I’ll see you soon, all right?”

  “All right.”

  “Woo hoo,” they said in unison, and then the call went dead.

  Hank was hurtin’ real bad without his Delilah. Four days ago, they had driven to the airport together. Once there, she squeezed his hand, and in the next breath, she was gone through a crowd of people. He had called Dylan and Jesse to pick him up. And if Dylan hadn’t offered his place, Hank would be staying in Wild Thang. June-bug was bugging him to come home and stay with her. She was overflowing with questions that he didn’t have the energy to answer. When he told her he wasn’t coming home because he was having a problem with Preacher John, she hung up.