Pretty Like an Ugly Girl (Baer Creighton Book 3)

by Clayton Lindemuth

  “No, I’m just surprised. A little overwhelmed. That you would trust me with this. I mean. This can’t be legal?”

  “Nowhere close. This is a good old-fashioned brothel, and those girls are fresh from L’ America. We bring them up every month, give them instruction in capitalism and when they’ve satisfied our customers, we introduce them to new employers, in other cities.”

  He’s testing me.

  “I think it’s disgusting.”

  He shifted.

  “What on earth would make a white man desire that?”

  Wayman exhaled hard. Laughed. “It’s called Strange. Most men want a little strange, time to time.”

  “And you? Is that what this is about? You defining the rules of the relationship? You want to have this conversation here, with her?”

  “No, no,” Wayman said. He grinned. “No. I just wanted to show you some of the business. Because I told you a couple days ago. I’m going to marry you.”

  “Not if you want strange.”

  “I don’t want strange.”

  “Okay.”

  “You want to meet one of the girls?”

  “Not particularly. I told you.” Claudia curled her lip at Amy. “I don’t like these people.”

  “It’s important. For us to be able to trust one another,” Wayman said.

  “Fine.”

  Claudia steeled herself.

  Wayman turned. Amy led them out of the room and down the hall to a door. She opened it with a key and stepped aside.

  A young girl was on the bed, under the sheets. Claudia stepped into the room. Wayman followed.

  “This one has been here for two months. She’s used to the routine. She’s been a good earner.”

  Claudia stood at the side of the bed. The girl sat up. The sheet fell away. The girl reached to Claudia’s waist.

  Claudia stepped back. With a set jaw and squinty eyes, she opened her hand and smacked the girl across the face. “Don’t you ever touch me.”

  She marched past Wayman. “And don’t you ever bring me around these people again. Don’t fucking do it.”

  Claudia strode to the elevator and waited for him to arrive with the code. “I’m furious with you.”

  “You’ll get over it.”

  “I fucking hate these people. Why did you do this?”

  “I had to know. Because the business has another floor.”

  “I don’t want the tour.”

  “Let’s go down to my place. Have a drink.”

  “I don’t want a drink. I’m going home. I need to do my yoga. My hypnotherapy technique. Why did you stir all this shit up in me?”

  They rode the elevator to the bottom floor. He exited with her, walked beside her through the nightclub’s storage rooms, through the back of the bar. Glaring, she allowed him to peck her cheek with a goodnight kiss, and left him there.

  Outside the Butcher Shop, she walked quickly to her Chevy Nova, unlocked it and sat inside. Claudia stared out the window a long while, then opened the door, and threw up on the blacktop.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Headlights up the drive like a flying saucer buzzing the field. Got the main lamps, and my fentanyl head make ’em spin.

  “Girl. Tat! The man kill your boyfriend—he comin’ up the road!”

  I’s in front the house. Nowhere to hide and couldn’t get there if they was. Standing on the fire leg, pain come and go. Most time it’s way off, but I move sudden it jumps in like a flash. Give a man a scare.

  Truck come up and stop without going in the bay. He back twenty feet at least. Maybe a quarter mile. Perception come and go. I remember I got the drunk on ’fore the orange hair gimme the pills. Poor liver about to give up on account the hate.

  Door open and the Isuzu refrigerator truck lights stay on.

  “That a diesel?”

  “What?”

  “I say, that a diesel?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the feller executed your boy Cephus. He was gonna shoot the Tatti girl. Tat. What the hell kinda bringin’ up you give that boy?”

  Can’t see the man too well with the headlights behind him. Though the snow is bright and light come from the open garage bay.

  “Oh, and I shot yer wife.”

  He step closer. Hands in the pockets. That’s where his gun is. I bet.

  “She in the house,” I say. “Couldn’t let her go, not with how I’s fittin’ to kill all the rest y’all.”

  Realize I don’t yet got Smith in hand. And he prolly got a gun in the coat already pointed at my belly.

  “Oh, hey. Don’t worry though. I didn’t violate her. Just shot her in the head. And by the way. Some sick shit, you got the punji stakes up there. Thought you might like to know you got me.”

  He pull his hand out his coat and it’s like I thought. Had the gun on me. Can’t see the size but it some kind automatic.

  “See? Look my leg.” I twist it.

  “So what’s your story? You come out of nowhere and just start murdering my family, and we’ve never met? Who are you?”

  “I’s nobody. To you at least. That Stinky Joe—I’m his whole fuckin’ world. But nobody special to you. I was campin’ is all. An your boy shot the Mexican. He come back with the girl. You know I thought she was a boy till I pressed them titties on accident. Anyways, I was ready fer yer boy. God favors me that way.”

  “And that’s it? Our paths have never crossed?”

  “Nope. Well, I coulda pissed on ya when you was at my camp. The tent. That Mexican girl stole all my shit. But she a good girl and y’all shoulda just let her go.”

  “Who else knows about all this?”

  “Oh, hell. You know that fella ain’t running for governor? He don’t know. And that girl your boy was ’bout to shoot. She don’t know either.”

  Luke Graves stop walking. Now he close, I see his face. Uncertain eyes. Don’t know if we’s alone. Prolly wishing he could have what I’s having.

  “Well I guess it’s time to play cowboy.” I reach for Smith and miss. Catch Luke Graves by surprise and he don’t shoot. Make another swing at Smith & Wesson; get hand on grip and ’fore tube leave leather Luke Graves shoot.

  Gun a little twenty-two or something.

  Smith & Wesson drop the snow.

  I got the bullet in my arm—like getting stuck with a lawn dart. It hurt, but the arm still there. So that’s good. In all. But that’s mebbe the fentanyl dope.

  “Hold on,” Luke Graves say. “Don’t move. I want to understand a couple things, ’fore I kill you.”

  I keep the eyes on Luke Graves, but out the peripherals a black shape move quick and silent on the snow. They’s a sparkle in the light. Tat coming up from his blind side, back around the truck. If she make a sound the diesel engine cover it.

  “Sure. What you wanna know? Yer old lady didn’t see it comin’. If that mean something to ya. One second she’s the queen of the log cabin, royal highness above all the blackhairs. Next her head got a hole like a football bat screwed a cantaloupe.”

  “Baseball bat.”

  “Yep.”

  Tat’s up on him. Only a couple feet behind. She musta got Mrs. Graves’s pistol—the one she pulled on me—from the house. Or mebbe took it and had it all along, since she come back to help me. She ain’t but four feet and change and Luke Graves’s mebbe six. She point the gun at his head, then like afraid she’ll miss, lower the tube.

  “I’m still not sure I understand why you’d inject yourself in someone else’s business?”

  Tat ain’t shootin. All she gotta do is squeeze but she don’t. Meantime my hand’s slippy and cold in blood. Got the right leg pert near dead. Got the right arm shot. That oxy drug got the steadying effect, but shit if this ain’t enough to stretch a man’s patience.

  “Mister Luke Graves. You buy them kids from south. The blackhairs, and sell them up north. You sell their sex. Yea, or no?”

  Luke Graves a wary sombitch. He shift the gun to me, center mass.
<
br />   “Go ahead.”

  “What?”

  Fire blast out Tat’s silver tube. Luke stumble forward; his arm off pitch. I go to the left knee while the right won’t bend. Fall to the side. Luke swing the gun after me and Tat fire again, this one in Luke’s neck. He go limp. Drop.

  Tat’s face is messed like the crick washed away the bank and showed all the tangled roots. Pulled back here, snarling there. Tears. She keep the gun up though Graves gargles blood to death in the snow.

  Helluva gunfight and me not even getting Smith out the holster.

  “You can put that pistol down now.”

  Tat keep it up like she’s thinking on whether to keep shooting.

  I bet that’s the first man she kill outta fifty she wanted. Need a minute get her brain back.

  “You don’t mind, I’s gonna get back to what we was occupied at ’fore we was interrupted.”

  I crawl the house, climb the wall for balance, let the left leg catch up the right. Standing, I set for the garage.

  I can open my hand and close it but the bullet in the top of my arm make it weak. Couldn’t pull the plug out a jug to save my life.

  “You get them Cadillac keys?”

  She lower the automatic.

  “Mebbe put the safety on that?”

  She bring it to me. I point to the switch. “Push that.”

  She do.

  “Point over there and pull the trigger again.”

  No fire. She nod.

  “You got the keys?”

  Tat pulls ’em from her pocket.

  She help me in the Cadillac, and I watch while she stick in the key and get her started. Mebbe learned something on the streets in L’ America. But not snow driving.

  Tat put the pistol barrel down the cup holder.

  I show her reverse, look out the window inside the garage and wonder how we get through the wall. Vehicle burps backward, and I go forward. Knock the noggin on the glove box. She hit the brake and slam me back in the seat. Now I recall that pesky bullet in my arm. Fucker hurts, then I don’t feel it at all. Tat’s head’s on fire with the orange, all aflame and bright.

  “Trouble,” she say. Pushes the shifter into first, then reverse, then park. She grab the gun, open the door, and vanish while I look at the radio just went out. Suspect my brain don’t work well as mebbe I need it to.

  Got bright lights in the eyes, through the side mirror. Now who drive up on us?

  And where the hell Tat go?

  Then I understand. The headlights lit her hair all bright like on fire.

  A car door slam. Still got the light in the mirror. Move my head and the light go. That’s how that work.

  Fuck it. Head back on the rest. Ain’t my fight, today. Not with my leg destroyed and a hole in my arm.

  But Tat come back for me and, shit, I’s conscious. Can’t lift the right arm too easy, so I reach over and unlatch the door with my other. Throw legs over the seat and try to land on the left, with no punji wound. Right leg sets about the torment, stirred up, spiteful.

  “Shush, ya prick.”

  Out front, twenty thirty yards off is a car with bright lamps on the high beams. Impolite like the city. I steady myself on the Escalade.

  Car door. Black figure.

  I reach for Smith and he ain’t there so I hook my thumb on the holster.

  A man come forward through the headlights and floating snowflakes. His right hand is longer than his left by mebbe six inches. Or he got a gun.

  He say, “Who are you?”

  “Baer ass Creighton. Who you?”

  “Finch Graves. Why are you here?”

  I know the voice from sitting in the tree. And I sure as hell pick up on the last name. This is Blond Dreadlocks.

  “Suspect you and yer daddy wasn’t on the same page, exactly. Mebbe. You had a tone with him. Mebbe I was hearing things. It was right after the girl run off with all my shit.”

  “No, I’m not part of that anymore. Where’s my father?”

  “Other side the Sinuzu, here.”

  “Isuzu.”

  “That one.”

  “You fucked up or something?”

  “Oh, I’s a touch more’n fucked up. Fucked down, fucked in, fucked out. Every way a feller can—without gettin’ laid.” Smile, that was good. I slip down on the Escalade hoping my ass’ll find purchase on the bumper, but it don’t and I drop. But the back my head find the bumper fine. About knock me out.

  “That blood?” say Finch Graves.

  “That blood.”

  “You say my father’s just the other side of the truck?”

  “Deader’n shit.”

  “Good.”

  “Whoa, now?”

  “I come to kill him.”

  A shadow cross behind Finch. No mystery this time; Tat figger it worked the first, mebbe she try it again. In two second she’s beside Finch, got the gun on his chest.

  He put up his arms.

  Tat’s hand shake and she make a mean face, wince like, and the gun thrust like she’s fake shooting. Then I ken it: she forgot the safe switch.

  “You forgot that safe switch, Tat.”

  “Stop, don’t do that,” Finch say. He turn to her. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m the one who gave the key to your boyfriend. I thought he would help all of you with the handcuffs, so you could escape. Not just him. And I planned on letting you loose at a gas station, so Cephus couldn’t could do anything to you.”

  Tat still got her mean face on. Gun shake in her hand.

  “He’s telling the truth,” I say. “He don’t got no red or juice comin’ off him. He ain’t lyin’. It’s this gift I got, see? I can tell —.”

  Finch step aside out the line of Tat’s gun. Go behind the truck to look his father. Tat still trying to squeeze the trigger. Got sparkles on her face but her hair is black again. She put the gun down. Look at me. Eyes swim in water and cheeks is shiny. She see me lookin’ and wipe her face with her arm.

  Finch come up by the garage from other side the truck. Got the grave look on his face.

  “Who killed him?”

  “I did,” Tat say.

  “Thank you. My mother?”

  “I did her,” I say. “Not I did her. I shot her, what I meant to say.”

  “Good. She was part of it from the beginning.”

  Finch Graves still got the pistol in his hand. He look around the house, the falling snow. Stick the gun down his pants in back. “You were about to get some help in the Escalade?”

  “Yeah. I got stuck on a punji stick. And shot.”

  “Well, I’d take you in the Impala, but I got a dead FBI agent in the trunk.”

  “No shit? I’d like to see that.”

  “I was trying to tell her about my dad, the whole operation. She was snitching on me the whole time. Years.”

  “See,” I say, “my experience, you shouldn’t even try to work with them federal police. Nor the local, come to think of it.”

  “Well, let me park the Impala so we can get the Escalade out. I’ll take you. Where were you going to go for help?”

  “Flag, over night. Then I don’t know what.”

  “I got an idea.”

  “I got one too.”

  He get in the Impala and move it other side. Tat help me in the seat again and climb in the back.

  Finch pops in the driver seat and throw his body ’round like he know where each device is at. Four-wheel drive. Reverse. Out we go. Turn around and head into the flying snow.

  Finch wanna go fast but I tell him we’s better off late than dead. Like Ma used to say. And we ain’t going the hospital, so what’s the rush?

  We mount the interstate and I see nobody bother to plow. Just the semi-trucks with they tires. Finch keep it going easy, and though it twenty-five-mile mebbe thirty, we arrive no worse the wear.

  Hardly recall the lay of town. And the dope gimme incentive to sleep. But I spot the right turn and point the Monte Vista where Ruth and Mae stay. We’ll visit Mae. Ruth’d
just wanta bounce off my nethers and I don’t think I could fetch a boner if she brought Racquel from the cave man poster.

  Finch run the Cadillac up on the sidewalk and gotta back up and pull forward to get back on the road and parallel.

  “You go upstairs first. Up on the second floor. The room is twenty-two. You tell the girl Baer needs her help on account I’s shot. Tell her to get the kids out the room. Put ’em with Ruth. Then come back for me. You got all that?”

  Finch leave the keys in and the heater running. Go inside.

  “Can we trust him?” Tat say.

  “I dunno. I jest know he didn’t lie ‘bout what he said back there. You saw. Did he give the key to your boyfriend?”

  I twist around and see her out the peripheral. She nod, got the tears going again.

  And I wonder, where the hell is Stinky Joe?

  CHAPTER FORTY

  They got the sofa clear but it don’t make sense a man dripping blood to sit on it, so Mae pull trash out the tin and she got a few spare bag underneath. She cover part the cushion and I switch from wood chair to soft sofa.

  Rap on the door. Mae open it: Ruth come in.

  “I left the kids with you,” says Mae.

  “I put Morgan in charge of Bree and Joseph. She’s a better mother than I ever was. Oh, shit! Baer! What’d you do now?”

  “Come on in,” I say. “Join the fracas.”

  Finch sit in the other wood chair by the kitchenette table, looking off at the wall. Tat come out the bathroom like she washed her face, and though the hair ain’t orange, it don’t do her no harm. Tat clean up nice. Put a prom dress on her, you got a regular girl. But Tat wasn’t born to crush the hearts of wall flowers. Mankiller got a different future.

  “Let me look at this.” Ruth wrestle me for my coat and wins. Then my shirt. I’s pert near nekkid ’cept—certain places—I got hair like an ape. She look at the gunshot hole in my arm and her manner ain’t like I seen before, not on the road trip west nor before, when we was thinking on saving the buried girl, and didn’t. Something got a hold Ruth, something distort her so she’s all action and take charge, but it’s like a thin coat of stain don’t convince the wood beneath. Ruth say, “You’re going to come through this just fine.” But she don’t believe her words, and that make me question something so far I ain’t.