“You make this sound like a drug deal,” I said.
There was a pause.
“Listen,” she said. “I have outfits you’re going to enjoy. Plus, I just had my implants replaced a few months back to make them bigger. You can do whatever you want to me as long as you can keep your trap shut about it.”
I took a deep breath and the rain began to sprinkle the windshield.
“It’s rainin’,” I said.
“It rains every afternoon in Florida, remember?”
“I mean it might delay me a bit. But I’ll be there, and I’ll tick a lock. Discretion’s only fair.”
“I’ll give you enough time,” she said. “I’ll see you soon, cowboy. I’m gonna fuckingbreatheyou.”
She hung up.
I looked around the parkin’ lot as a string of loose carts drifted in the wind of the oncomin’ storm.
She’d gotten me turned on — a welcome distraction.
* * * * *
The motel was more like a river shack, although it wasn’t near anythin’ but a canal filled with redneck rubbish: a hubcap, part of a washin’ machine, some floatin’ cans of Icehouse and plenty of cigarette butts.
I’d driven up the state roads through the showers. I preferred ’em to 95 because you could ride ’longside the beach ’n’ rivers instead of just seein’ concrete ’n’ cattle. The stink was just as bad either way, so I figured I might as well get a nicer view for as long as I could.
I was glad we were meetin’ in the town of Christmas. It got me outta Melbourne for a while and gave me somethin’ new to look at, even if it wasn’t any prettier. I was also glad that Whitney didn’t expect me to drive to Holopaw. It was closer, but it was a bad place, much like what Melbourne was when I was growin’ up there, when it was dirt roads ’n’ fruit stands and people shot up stores in fits of mania. Holopaw had recently made news because it was the home of a group called the American Front, a buncha Nazi-skinhead assholes who the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force investigated for tryin’ to start some kind of half-assed race war — serious Charles Manson shit.
Better to be in Christmas and accept my shameful early present from Santa there — my busty new toy wrapped in lingerie and nipple rings.
I walked in and a fat man in overalls looked at me with one eye as the other wandered in his skull like a lost rat. He didn’t say nothin’, just stared and chewed his Redman. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t speak, I thought.
“I’m here for Scarlet Red,” I said.
He spat into a mason jar that was half-full of his personal swill. He turned around and grabbed a key off of a corkboard and placed it on the counter.
“You’re in 13,” he said.
I reached for my wallet —Mama raised a gentleman.
“Already paid for, sir,” the fat man said.
The lamp flickered even though the storm was over.
“You go back outside and take a right,” he said. “You’re the last one on the left. Very private.”
“Yeah.Discreet,” I said and nodded, lookin’ at the floor to avoid his evil eye.
He knew, and I knew he knew — and fat, redneck piece of spittin’ shit or not, I felt ashamed in front of him, much like I imagine a man must feel being caught by a cop posin’ as a hooker.
“You enjoy your stay, sir.”
As I turned around to walk out, I noticed the velvet paintin’ on the wall near the door. It was of an 18-wheeler rollin’ smoothly down the highway with a Dixie flag burned into its grille. Above it, hoverin’ like the Holy Ghost he is, was our savior. The artist’s depiction was strikin’. But this was not the sufferin’, dark Christ of my pseudo-Catholic upbringin’. This was the softer, happier Jesus, offerin’ warmth and guidance, like Saint Christopher would have before he done got disbarred or whatever.
Below the paintin’ was a wooden sign that was engraved with a phrase: Happy trails to you. Y’all come back now, ya’ hear?
* * * * *
There was an old TV on a dresser in front of the queen-size bed. The room was small, but big enough for what we intended to do. It had a clean toilet and a stand-in shower. No tub. The lamp by the bedside had a shade that was cracked, but the room looked clean, too. The linens smelled of fabric softener, which reminded me of Mom.
I thought of her when she was still nice and plump, before the disease had withered her, hangin’ the big stuff out to dry on the line in the backyard of the house the bank took from us when Dad had died. I thought about how when she hung those sheets out there, she’d sing Billy Joe Shaver songs — her favorite country star, and the man she named me after. She always said she liked to sing for Rebel, our first dog, who was buried out there near the fence. At least he lived to be 13, unlike my poor sister.
Thirteen. That was the room I was in.
The angel on my shoulder got louder, tellin’ me all signs pointed tono. To shut him up, I turned on the television. It was mostly garbage. Always is, and that was why I didn’t have cable myself. Eventually I settled on one of those movie channels and waited to see if somethin’ decent came on. It was an older movie channel that you don’t pay extra for, so it had commercials. I watched an ad for a cheap tool that helped remove dents from cars. Then some Western flick came on, but I was too scatterbrained to enjoy it like I normally would.
I got a piss out of the way and then looked into the mirror in the bathroom. I hadn’t shaved since yesterday and my eyes were dark from lack of sleep. I tended to sweat a lot, so I took off my shirt and jeans and gave myself a quick whore’s bath with the sink and the fresh soaps.
I redressed and then sat on the bed, staring at actors playin’ wild men trippin’ horses and shootin’ the life outta Indians. I figured almost everyone on the screen I was lookin’ at must actually be dead by now. When the knock at the door came, I left the TV on as light, but I muted the sound. I said nothin’ and looked through the peephole. It was dark out by now, but the glow from the bug zappers revealed her, reflectin’ off of her red hair.
Forgive me, Father, for I am bout to sin like the motherfucker I am.
I let my lover in.
* * * * *
She was on top of me, backward — just how I like it. Reverse cowgirl. Her silicone breasts heaved as she breathed heavier and heavier, and the heels of her alligator boots dug into my sides, givin’ me a little pain with my pleasure, which I never mind. When the deed was done ’n’ she’d finished shudderin’, she rolled over and just lay there for a moment, knees bent, nude except for the garter belt and boots. The light of the TV made her body piercings shine like lil’ diamonds.
A diamond bullet, straight into my forehead, Colonel Kurtz was sayin’ on the TV’s repeated ad forApocalypse Now, a movie that always made me bitterly think of Dad. I wondered then, randomly, how many women the old man had bedded in sleazy rooms like the one I was in now, before meetin’ a straight-up gal like Mama to set him as right as anyone could get the man. I recalled then how I had once asked him somethin’ about his homecomin’.
“Hey Pop,” I’d said as we’d sat on the porch, drinkin’ PBR with Rebel curled around my feet. I reckon I was about 14 by then. “When you came back from’Nam, what was the first thing you wanted to do now that you were back in the good old U.S.A.?”
He’d taken a long pull on his cigar and replied: “I just wanted to fuck a round-eye for a change.”
Whitney rolled over, and I wondered how she could possibly not be gettin’ enough attention from her hubby. You’d have to be some kinda fag not to be going after a piece like that, ’specially if you had it tethered at home. I wondered if the poor sap Whitney had at home knew just how bored she was with him. But thinkin’ about that made me remember how bad I should be feelin’, so I just shut that outta my skull and slid to the edge of the mattress.
“Something wrong, baby?” she asked.
I got off the bed, and so did she. She got on her knees and began to stroke me while she drank the Jack Daniel’s straight from the bottle.
<
br /> “I have business attire I can put on if you want,” she said. “Same stuff we ladies wear to church on Sunday: skin-tight dresses that cover the chest, but you put on high heels so your ass pops. Gotta make sure that even Jesus would want to take you to bed.”
“Jesus befriended the whores as well as the cripples,” I told her.
“I know. He loves us all. Even dirty boys and girls like us.”
Before I knew it, I was on top of her again, and after a time I felt all of my feelin’s of stress and anxiety and fear and hatred and despair all surge through my muscles in a vascular wave, burnin’ into one single discharge that I was about to fire into the body of this woman I barely knew. She never broke motion when it hit. My legs shook and I rolled off of her. She ran her hands ’long my legs and rested her head in my lap, kissin’ on it and such, gigglin’ like a little girl who’d just farted in class.
I fell backward, happily exhausted, relief warmly mistin’ me like powder in a barbershop. Whitney excused herself to the bathroom, and so I stared at the television, watchin’ Lee Van Cleef ride off into the sunset.
* * * * *
I was handcuffed when I awoke.
She stood over me in a red vinyl corset that could barely contain her implants. She was all in crimson: thigh-high boots, gloves, and a choke collar, all matchin’. I didn’t like the cuffs, but I liked what I saw.
“Scarlet Red,” I said and smiled.
My smile faded when she revealed the pistol from behind her back. It was a silenced Glock. From the look of it, I figured it held about 10 to 13 .45 auto rounds per magazine.
“This ain’t a game I enjoy, girl,” I said. I made sure my voice was hard and firm. This wasnotsexy to me. Might be fine for some of those perverts and kinky types she was tryin’ to sell them pinups to, but that kinda violent threat don’t fly with a man like me.
“What’s wrong? Big cowboy scared of guns?”
“They just ain’t toys, and certainly not sex toys.”
“Not for some.”
“I’m serious, now, Whitney, I don’t like this …”
She smacked me across the face, hard.
“The name is Scarlet Red!”
“Take these cuffs off of me right now,” I said.
She ran the barrel of the silencer across my cheek.
“What is the point of all this?” I asked.
She got down on her knees and straddled me. She wore no panties. She began to glide back and forth, making me feel like I was under a swingin’ guillotine. There was no trust here, and where there is no trust I revert to my animal instincts. When you’ve gone to prison, or even just when you’ve been a fighter, that never leaves you.
“Can you feel it?” she asked.
“What?”
“You’re getting kind of hard again, despite the fear.”
“Of course I am, it’s a physical reaction.”
She took me in her hand, and then we were havin’ sex again. She ran the Glock up and down my ribcage gently. That’s when I said somethin’ I never thought I would ever say to a woman.
“Stop fuckin’ me!”
She just giggled like a kid again and kept ridin’.
“I’m gonna bring you to the edge,” she said. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it yet?”
I struggled against the cuffs. I could tell they were cheap.
“Sex. Murder. Art,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You’re a religious boy. You know what a succubus is, don’t ya?”
I grit my teeth, refusing to feed her sick delusions.
“Well,” she said, “in case all that boxing has made you punchy, I’ll tell you: A succubus is a female demon that drains the souls of men with sex.”
“You’re out of your gourd, girl,” I told her, pullin’ at the cuffs. “You’re human, you lunatic!”
She noticed me tryin’ to break outta them and she sneered, slippin’ her free hand behin’ her back. She pulled out a medieval-lookin’ dagger that’s handle was designed to look like some kinda demon’s face with bat wings.
Oh bury me not, on the lone prairie.
She was too quick and totally on target. The blade penetrated me where the shoulder meets the chest. It was all muscle, though, at least. She hadn’t penetrated nothin’ important.
“I’m gonna take your soul tonight,” Scarlet said, ridin’ me harder now. “The others I got off of web pages. Sex Date and Ashley and all those hookup sites. They were mostly lonely, pathetic men. No one even seemed to miss them much once they were gone. I wanted someone big and strong — a no-bullshit cowboy, like the old days. I want a good kill to be proud of.”
I tried to shake her off of me, and she slowly slid the dagger across my belly, just enough to make me bleed. She ran her fingers into the wound and then brought them to her mouth, lappin’ at my blood like a goddamned, starvin’ pooch.
She looked at me then, smilin’ with my blood on her teeth. I went to move again, and she put the barrel of the gun in my face, tryin’ to force it into my mouth. I turned my head away.
I’ll be with you soon, Pop and little sis, provided the good Lord’ll let me walk those streets of glory after all I’ve done.
“I remember when I heard about you going to jail,” she said. “That scumbag raped your little sister and you hunted him down and pummeled him like the coward he was. You’re a real man, and you’re going to make for one fine trophy.”
“Just another notch on your bedpost ’n’ Glock?” I asked with a snarl. “Well let me tell you somethin’ …”
I thrust, feelin’ our pelvic bones pound harshly. I wanted it to hurt, and I felt her tighten as her body began to shake.
“I shouldn’t have killed that som’bitch that raped her,” I said in a fury, tears brewin’ in my eyes. “It was the biggest mistake of my life. In killin’ him, I lost years to prison. My sister felt nothin’ but guilt ’n’ shame, and she done killed herself. I wasn’t ’round to stop that. It broke my parents’ hearts — tainted us as kin forever.”
She knelt over me now and leaned on the headboard so not to lose her balance, but still she held the gun in one hand and the dagger in t’other. She seemed to be in ecstasy, the sick bitch.
“When you climax,” Scarlet said in a moan, “I’m going to kill you at the exact same time. Then I will breathe in your dyin’ breath, and eat your soul.”
“You listen to me, you psychopath,” I replied, “ain’t no grave can hold my body down.”
She slipped the blade up under my ribs, piercin’ my flesh once again. She wasn’t strong enough to drive it through bone, but I was strong enough to snap those cheap handcuffs apart.
With my hands freed and my wrists bloody, I took a wild swing and punched her in the face with everythin’ I had. I felt that pretty jaw give way and she flew backward, tumblin’ across the tussled sheets and hittin’ the floor with a thud. I felt a tooth juttin’ out of my fist. The gun went off with a blip, hittin’ the television and messin’ it up in a way that filled the room with loud, blindin’ static.
I pounced like the animal I know I’d reverted to.
Her face was a mess — a second tooth was blood-splatter-stuck against her cheek. She drunkenly tried to raise the gun, and I stomped down on her arm, hard, like it was a cockroach. The gun went off again, the bullet vanishin’ off somewhere safely away. I yanked the pistol outta her hand and pointed it at her as she wiggled out from under me.
But that wasn’t going to be enough for the likes of Scarlet Red.
What I saw on that floor was another wild animal. Whitney wasn’t there ’t’all. There was only Scarlet Red: a self-declared demon. And she wouldn’t goddamn stop.
She lunged at me with the dagger, and for the first time both the angel and the devil on my shoulders sang in unison. I fired, shootin’ her right in the face. A hot spray exited the back of her little skull, and then her body crumpled like a discarded doll in an attic.
She lay there, dead by my hand.
Someone
’s wife and mother.
I ran to the bathroom, vomited, and began to wash up.
* * * * *
Once I was cleaned up and dressed, I looked ’round the motel room. Panic was settin’ in and makin’ me all scatterbrained. No ’mount of pills ’r booze could fix it now. The fear ’n’ pain was all too fresh. But I had to be careful with details, now more’n ever. I poured whiskey on my wounds. Then I made a sort of bandage usin’ the bath towel and one of Whitney’s leggin’s as a rope to tighten it to my bleedin’ chest. I dressed and then used a smaller towel to wipe down everythin’ I thought I’d touched. I then pulled all the sheets off of the bed, ’n’ the pillowcases too — anythin’ with my DNA. I rolled it up into a ball, usin’ another leggin’ as a tightenin’ rope to hold the ball together.
I stepped over to the front door and cracked it just such.
It was late and the lot was empty.
I saw the Malibu, an old Ford, a beaten Hyundai and Whitney’s Harley. It was a long hog, immaculate, and all white.
And I saw and behold, a white horse, and she that rode thereon had a dagger and a Glock; and there was a mask given to her, and she went forth conquering, until now.
I walked to the Malibu with the dirty linens and put them in the trunk. I pulled out my phone to look up a number, but then walked to the payphone to make the call. I had to call someone from the bad old days. A number I had hoped to never have to call upon — one that I could not call from a number that could be linked to me. I recognized his voice, even though it had been a lot of years. It filled my mind with flashbacks of our time in those cells or liftin’ weights in the yard.
“It’s Bill,” I said.
The line was silent for a moment before he spoke again.
“Hello, Bill. What’s the situation?”
“Remember that favor you owe me, Duane?”
“Every day that I’m breathin’. I know that’s why you’re callin’. That’s why I got right to the point now, and I repeat: What’s the situation?”
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