I awoke in the grey predawn light and although it was cold in the car I was covered in sweat. Unfolding from a sitting position my body screamed in protest, my muscles had all turned into bruised and painful lead overnight. Pulling on a pair of shorts I dropped my ripped and stained suit into the trunk. Lacing up an old pair of hi-tops I assessed the damage reflected in the car window. My cheek had a new puffy lump and large purple bruises patterned my shoulders, neck and gut. All in all I looked like shit, not that I’d ever been a beauty queen but I sure wasn’t getting prettier since I’d left LA.
Stretching was painful, but necessary. Gripping a sturdy tree limb I let my body weight pull down on my arms and shoulders, then breathed deeply through my nose and hung until the stiff muscles gave up the fight and relaxed. Slowly I pulled myself into a chin-up and thanked my Viking ancestors for strong bones. Jogging slowly at first I moved through the pines, down a small animal path. Building in speed I started to run full out. I could feel the toxins flowing out of my pores. Slowly my body started to loosen up. After a mile I turned back. Fifty push-ups and a hundred painful stomach crunches later I was ready for the day.
Pulling on a clean pair of jeans and a black tee-shirt I drove down the highway and found a small diner. In the bathroom I removed most of the crusted blood and evil smelling sweat with a whore’s bath. It made me feel almost human. Powering my way through a plate of steak and eggs and a mug of strong coffee, I planned my next move. I didn’t know what Cass looked like or even what stage name she was using. What I had were bruises and a fist full of nothing. I ordered two ham sandwiches to go and filled up a thermos with coffee. It was late afternoon when I returned to my perch. Around eight, the red Chevy pickup pulled into the parking lot. My good friend, the cowboy from the night before, got out and went into the house.
Slipping my.45 into my belt, I put on my leather jacket and moved off on foot. It took forty minutes of scrabbling down the steep incline, but finally I hit the fence that surrounded the house. Moving in the shadows I made it to the parking lot without detection. Crouched down in front of the red Chevy pickup I waited.
Men came and went. Some laughing, some nervously looking around. They reminded me of the men who came into the club. All looking to make a connection, all willing to believe a whore’s promise, that contrary to every shred of evidence, the girl really liked you for more than the cash in your pocket. Some left the Eagle’s Nest with heads down, telling themselves that this was the last time. The last time until night fell, and loneliness settled down on them. The reason men fall in love with strippers and whores is simple, they are the perfect date. They laugh at all your jokes, if you feel fat they tell you that you have big bones, and that they like big men. They make their living making men feel special. If you fall for the trick then no real woman can ever fulfill you. Outside of the clubs and whorehouses you were just you, another slob trying to make it through the day, but for a few hours you could be anything you wanted. I’d heard of men who saved girls from their lives as prostitutes, set them up in apartments, paid all their bills. The girls would bleed them dry, and once the mark was bankrupt, they would return to the whorehouse and look for their next sugar daddy. Life is simpler once you realize all relationships are commerce. Jen, my ex-wife, had fallen in love with my outlaw ways, and for six painful years she tried to change me. I got my one and only straight job, working for a roofing company with a group of Samoan ex-cons. Every night I’d come home stinking of tar and try to be her version of a husband. I may have been in love with her, but the toll was too high.
What is the price of love?
Ask her lawyer, he had an exact figure and I’m still paying it off.
It was just past midnight when the weathered cowboy came out. I waited until he had his keys out and was unlocking the truck’s door. Pulling my.45 I bolted up, he turned at the sound but I was on him, shoving the pistol’s barrel into his ribs. “Remember me?” I said in a soft even voice. He nodded slightly. “Let’s do this nice and easy, cowboy, my nerves are frayed, this thing may go off all by itself.” I got in the truck and slid across to the passenger seat. “Get in, slow and calm.” He drove us out of the parking lot, and down the road. I had him pull off on a dirt road. “Kill it,” I told him. The Chevy dieseled twice then was silent. I leaned against the passenger door, aiming at him. “Keep your hands on the wheel.”
“Boy, if you’re going to kill me, let’s get to it,” he said, looking over at me with steely gray eyes. I placed him at maybe fifty, with leathery skin and the strong muscles that only hard work brought.
“I may. First we talk, unless you’re in a hurry to die.”
“Nope, but I ain’t afraid of it, neither.”
“Cut the John Wayne bullshit.” Slapping the.45 against his knee, I snapped the thumb safety off.
“Whoa, ease up a bit, son. This don’t have to get stupid.”
“Not afraid to die, but you don’t want to be crippled, that it?” I tapped his kneecap with the pistol barrel. “What’s your deal? If you were a bouncer I’d be dead or in jail.”
“I just help out from time to time. Look after the girls.” His eyes stayed on the pistol. “You want to point that cannon elsewhere?”
“Nope. What about Cass?”
“Now she’s something special.” His eyes went soft when he spoke of her. “If I was a younger man, and she’d have me, I’d probably marry her.”
“Sweet, you’re making me go all misty,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Why did you think I was connected?”
“Cass told me you mob boys were looking for her. You all may own Vegas and Reno, but this is my country out here. So maybe you best shoot me or move it on down the highway before you wind up dead.”
“I’m not with the mob, you dumb hick. Do I look like any mob guy you ever saw?”
He looked me over slowly, “Well, you’re uglier than most, bigger than many, but yeah, you look like a criminal.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t a criminal, but I’m not with any mob, they’ve got a dress code. Or haven’t you seen the Sopranos?”
“Don’t think I know them, they some of your Vegas friends?”
“If I was with the mob, you and your pal from last night would both be in a shallow grave. And Cass, she’d be following you by daybreak.”
“If you say so.” His stoicism was starting to really piss me off.
“Do I have to shoot you to convince you I’m not a mobster?”
“Possibly. You decide to pull that trigger, just let me know.” Slouching back in the seat he lowered the brim of his straw Stetson down over his eyes.
“Do you really think you can keep her safe?” Lowering the gun, I clicked the safety on and stuffed it into my belt. “Cards face up time. Some greaseballs took down Cass’ sister. If they’re coming for her you won’t stop them. Right now, I’m that little girl’s only chance.” Slowly he tilted back his hat and looked at me, searching for the truth. “You owe her the choice.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “You’re either one hell of a liar, or I made a mistake last night.” Taking out a bag of Bull Durham he rolled a cigarette. Striking a kitchen match on the dash he let out a long plume of blue smoke. Looking me over one more time, he smoked for a long moment. “You got any proof of what you say?”
“Give Cass this.” I handed him the charm bracelet I’d taken from Kelly’s apartment. “If she doesn’t want to see me after that, I’ll blow on down the road.”
“Son, you hurt that little girl, you better say your prayers and get ready to meet the devil, ‘cause I’ll be sending you to hell.” His tone was quiet and firm, as if it wasn’t a threat just a fact. He dropped me off at the Crown Vic and drove back down the dirt road. I can’t say I liked the son of a bitch but I had to respect his willingness to die for a whore. I thought I was the only man stupid enough to ride that train wreck.
I parked in the Eagle’s Nest parking lot, and put all my firepower in the trunk. I had agreed to come in clean and I meant to keep my word. If it was a trap, they could have me. I was tired of chasing my tail and ready for whatever came my way. Fifteen minutes later the old cowboy came out of the gate. “The lady said she’d see you. That trinket’s got her all shook up,” he said and led me around the back of the farmhouse. We entered a large kitchen where a rotund gray-haired woman was stirring beans. She didn’t look up as we passed through and climbed a small back stairway. The narrow hall on the second floor was lined with doors, each one numbered in flowing red paint. The cowboy tapped twice fast, then three times slow on lucky 13, then opened the door and sent my world spinning sideways.
As the door swung slowly open it revealed… Kelly very much alive, sitting in a sea of crimson satin on the big brass bed, dressed in a black satin and lace merry widow, her dark curls falling down over pale sunken shoulders. She fingered the charm bracelet in her small hands, almost as if it were a rosary. One tear rolled down her cheek. I had to grab onto the door jamb to keep from falling over. She blinked, wiped the tear away, and looked up at me. As she straightened her shoulders and backbone, all sign of regret vanished, her face hardening with a strength I had never seen in Kelly. Reason flooded into my confused mind. Cass was not just Kelly’s sister, she was her twin. Except for a small crescent-shaped scar by her right eye and a firmness in her jaw line she was an exact replica of Kelly, punched from the same flesh mold.
“You gonna be alright, darlin’?” The cowboy clearly loved this girl, it was tearing him up that he wasn’t the man to save her.
“I’ll be fine Ned, thank you.” She blinked her eyes slowly and the cowboy closed the door leaving us alone. I was sure he stayed in the hall just to be certain she was safe.
“You’re Moses, aren’t you?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Yeah. Kelly wrote you about me?” My voice sounded hollow and strange. I dropped into a chair by the bed. I wanted to reach out and touch her, she looked so much like her sister.
“She said you were a good man, a rare thing in this world. I told her I thought you probably just wanted to get in her shorts. Was I right?” She was talking about anything but her sister’s fate. If she needed time I would give it to her. So we chatted, almost like it was about the weather, but the weather hadn’t killed this girl’s sister and the weather wasn’t out there hunting her right now.
“We were friends. That’s all.”
“You were in love with her. Otherwise, why are you here?”
“I owe her… or maybe I just had nothing better to do with my Friday night than traipse across two states. Either way, I’m here now, so maybe you can tell me what you girls got yourselves into.”
She let out a sad laugh as she looked me over. “Are you my knight in shining armor? Proving God really does have a sense of humor?”
“I can’t slay your dragons unless you tell me what they look like. Baby girl, what’s going on? What’d you two do?” Her smile faded. Her eyes dared me to try and drag the truth out of her. Then she broke contact to look down at the charm bracelet wrapped around her delicate fingers.
“Was it painful?” she asked.
“Death is always painful. You really want the details?” It came out harder than I intended.
“Yes,” she said, still not looking up. She set her jaw, preparing for the punch to come. She looked like a girl who had taken her share of hits and would take a few more before her run was done.
“They made her suck on the barrel and blew her brains out.” She nodded slightly, her breath coming in shallow gulps. Her eyes were focused away from the room seeing the scene in her head no doubt. “Cigar burns, pliers, rape, they did a full bore lock down number on your sister and I suspect they did it to get to you. But I doubt she talked. The way you’re running, my bet is she took a ride that was meant for you. I also think you know who did it.” I wanted to hold her and tell her it was all going to be ok. I wanted to slap her for what she did to Kelly. I wanted her to be Kelly and this to be a bad dream. Before she could speak a knock came on the door. The cowboy leaned in.
“Cass, two boys in suits are downstairs looking for you, they don’t look like they’re going to take no for an answer,” he said. Out her window, I could see a Cadillac in the parking lot with a mobbed up thug leaning on the fender.
Cass’ face went cold and firm. “You want answers, get me out of here, now.”
“Let’s jet,” I said. When she got up from the bed, I noticed she was five foot nothing. Just like her sister, these girls would always stand taller in your memory. She grabbed a small suitcase and filled it quickly with her meager belongings. From a drawer she pulled a picture, her and Kelly laughing in a wheat field. They looked to be about sixteen in the picture and full of all the hope and life teenage girls are meant to have. She stepped into a pair of six-inch spikes and pulled on a long red velvet cape, then slid the hood up over her head. For a moment I thought of Little Red Riding Hood and wondered if I was the wolf or the woodcutter? Then we were running down the hall. The cowboy went down the front stairs to try and slow the mob boys down. We went out the back. I knew we had thirty feet of open space between the house and the gate. I cursed myself for leaving my gun in the car. I hooked Cass’ arm around mine and told her to follow my lead. Moving out of the shadows, I let out a loud drunken laugh. I stumbled toward the gate. I could see the thug on the Cadillac watching us. Hitting the gate I pulled her into a kiss, or at least that’s what it would look like, past her I could see the house. No one was coming out the door. Pushing open the gate we swayed toward the Cadillac. I let go of Cass and rolled up on the thug.
“Hey buddy, I’m getting hitched! What do you think about that?” I slurred. Cass let her cape float casually open, suddenly his attention was on her creamy flesh. Swinging a powerful right cross I dropped him, sending his sunglasses skidding across the gravel. As he fell I kicked him in the head and he flopped over on his back, his eyes fluttered once and he was out. If the girl was sickened or scared by my sudden burst of violence she sure didn’t show it. Taking her arm I lead her to the Crown Vic.
“This is your car? What are you, a cop?” Cass asked.
“It runs. Now get in.”
From the trunk I pulled my guns, slipping the.45 automatic into my waistband and dropping the riot gun into the back seat. Cass looked from the shotgun up to me.
“Get your head down, this may get messy,” I said in the voice I reserve for drunks and new girls at the club. It did the job, she stared at me defiantly for a moment then ducked down. I fired up all eight cylinders of Detroit magic and jammed the Crown into reverse. Spinning around I heard a car horn. The punk had been playing possum. The Cadillac had been moved and now it sat between us and the exit. Hitting the emergency brake I spun the Crown Vic in a 180 sending up a fantail wake of gravel. We stopped facing the Cadillac. Out of the side window I spotted two cats in dark suits running from the house. Both had ugly little automatics in their hands. The thug at the Cadillac pulled a shotgun out of the driver’s side window, aiming it at my windshield. I pushed Cass down onto the floorboards and stomped on the gas. The blast tore a hole in my windshield and I felt a sharp pain in my neck as the buckshot and safety-glass sailed past my face. I watched in syrupy slow motion as bits and pieces floated around the car, the thug’s face distorted as his mind locked in on the fact that I wasn’t going to stop. He had given his best and it wasn’t enough. With a blur and a rush the thug rolled over the hood of my car as I careened into the side of the Cadillac. Sparks flew and my side view mirror went sailing into the air. Straightening out the Crown Vic, I leaned hard on the steering wheel, fishtailing out of the parking lot. I heard two small pops and the thud of lead hitting the trunk. Then, only the comforting purr of the beast.
I redlined the engine, slid around the curves. Cass clambered up into the seat, gripping the door to keep from landing in my lap. As we rounded the mountain I caught a brief glimpse of headlights behind us, coming on fast. The road was flattening out to a long sloping straightaway. Punching it up to a hundred and twenty, the scrub brush beside the road blurred by. The headlights rounded another bend behind us. Soon they would wind down onto the straightaway and then it would be an all out run for cover. No way we would make the highway in time to lose them. If we got pulled over by troopers, there would be way too much to explain. On the left a rutted ranch road intersected the pavement, locking the brakes I killed the headlights and spun the wheel. The car slid sideways down the road, the rear tires fighting for traction. When we hit the dirt road I was driving blind. A tall pine appeared in front of me, wrenching the wheel I fishtailed past it, the rear end smacking into the trunk. Next we hit a bump that sent Cass tumbling back onto the floor. I hit my skull on the roof hard enough to leave a dent, and my head ringing. I eased on the brakes, pulled to a stop and killed the engine.
“Now that was fun…” Cass said without a hint of a smile. I motioned for silence. In the distance I could hear the deep roar of the Cadillac coming on steady and strong. They were almost past us when I heard their brakes, they must have seen the dust trail.
“Hold on,” I told Cass, revving the Crown Vic to life. The road was a tore-up nasty piece of turf, full of dips and dives that would destroy the strongest suspension. Their headlights bounced wildly in my rearview mirror now. There was a pop as someone leaned out trying to fire, but with all the bumping and jostling I didn’t have much fear they would hit anything. We flew over a hill and suddenly the road fell away from below us, airborne we sailed for fifteen feet, landing with a splash in a wide riverbed. The rear tires spun but couldn’t gain purchase. We were stuck in the gravel. “Hit the brush!” I yelled at Cass as I rolled out of the door. Kneeling in the icy water, I leaned against my car, aiming the.45 back up the road. First headlights came over the hill then the grill of the Cadillac. I sighted in between the headlights and fired four quick shots into the engine block. As jacked rounds ripped metal it seized and the car lurched to a stop, steam jetting from its radiator. Staring into the headlights fucked my night vision for the moment, so I emptied the clip into the body of the car without much hope of hitting anything. Grabbing the Mossberg I ran for the bank of the river. Jacking a shell into the shotgun I crawled toward the Cadillac. Through the brush I saw the driver stepping out. I jumped up and pulled the trigger, the blast hit him in the middle of the chest with a load of double ought buck. He flopped back against the car and went down. From over the car the other two boys let fly. I dove and rolled away, the dirt around me exploded with their bullets. Crawling behind a pine tree I leaned out firing. They ducked and fired back, blowing chunks of bark out of my only protection. I was pinned down.
“Yo Bubba, why don’t you give us the girl and we all part friends?” one of them yelled.
“Why don’t you pencil dick grease-balls come get me?” Cass yelled from the brush behind them. As they turned I jumped out from behind the tree, zigzagging across the rough terrain. They spun and fired at me, sending powder burning into the night and shots whizzing past my head. The muzzle flash of a gun sparked behind them. Cass had joined the party and apparently she brought an automatic friend. Trapped, they ran from the cover of the car. I caught the first in the gut, he spun to fire but I hit him again in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground. Leveling my shotgun at the last punk, I pulled the trigger only to hear a quiet click as the firing pin fell on an empty chamber. He leveled his automatic on me smiling, enjoying the turn of events. Without warning the side of his face erupted in a spray of blood. Cass stood like some comic book geek’s wet dream in her merry widow, cape flowing behind her. She held a 9 mm in a classic pistolero single-hand stance, her left hand outstretched behind her for balance. She emptied the clip into the last punk as he crumpled, twisted and rolled with the impacts. It was over as quickly as it had started and silence fell over us. My ears were ringing from the gunfire and the acrid burn of spent powder stung my lungs. Checking the thugs I confirmed what I already knew, they were all dead. Looking at their useless corpses I felt a sick pride. The fuck-heads had tried to take me down and I showed their asses.
Cass walked up to me, the shiny little pocket 9 mm still in her hand. Her face was alive, electric with the rush. “Did you see that punk?” Cass was running on a full tilt motor mouth adrenalin high “Bam! Our old man was a cop, taught us to shoot rats at the dump. He used to say you had to practice until it became automatic. That was the one true thing he told us. Bam! That’s one scuz who’ll never fuck with me again. Did you see that?” Was her pride real, or covering for fear?
I don’t know. Whichever way, it scared me. I had seen something like it in the Root, newbies first kill, all glory and pride. That soaring moment before the ghosts start knocking at your door. Then, there were those who never sweated the death they brought. Freaks who saw only a target, not the living flesh beyond it.
“What’s wrong?” She searched my face, seeking out my mood and how she should respond to it.
“Everything’s copacetic, baby girl.” I could feel her eyes on me as I walked away, rather than explain all I knew about life-taking. In the trunk of the Cadillac I found a shovel and a bag of lye, intended, no doubt, for Cass. The sweaty hard work of digging their grave made me feel good, human. I was built for hard work and had spent too many days on my ass. Dragging their bodies over it sunk in. This wasn’t a game. These men were dead, whatever else they were going to be wasn’t going to happen. No more Christmas dinner with their families. No more shooting the shit around a pool table. No more anything. Perhaps the sickest thing about battle is how good it feels when you’re in the middle of it. I had helped send three young men into the silky blackness from which they would never return. Then again, it’s not like these rat fucks were worth getting all misty over. Me or them, that’s the game. These young fucks came to put the old man down and were found wanting. I win — they lose. I am the king of this bend in the river. Thus it has been since the dawn of time thus it shall ever be, sooner or later the talking stops, the bullshit walks and the Viking puts the hammer down on these motherless bastards. Them or me.
Patting the earth smooth over them, I walked back to the Cadillac. Their pockets had produced two driver’s licenses, one from California with a SF address, and the other a Nevada with a North Vegas address. I had little hope that the addresses were much more than mail drops, these boys clearly weren’t living the straight life. I also came up with one Rolex (good for 5k cash anywhere in the world), six hundred and fifty dollars in greenbacks and an LA phone number. The Cadillac was registered to a corporation in Vegas. I was fairly sure the VIN numbers didn’t match any records on this planet so I put a match to the registration card, grinding the ashes out with my boots. I clicked the Cadillac into neutral and stepping out I let it roll over the edge, crashing through the brush, burying its nose in the river. With any luck it would rust away undetected. Even if they found it, I was sure I could trust the folks at The Eagle’s Nest to keep their mouths shut.
Cass sat up out of the water on the trunk of the Crown Vic, her body was vibrating but her eyes locked solid on me. In the dirt I set out a clean handkerchief and field stripped my.45. Wiping the barrel clean of any prints I tossed it and the firing pin out into the water. From my gun bag I got a spare barrel and firing pin and re-assembled the gun. It was a clean gun duly registered to Johnny Stahl, ballistics can trace a barrel but not the gun. So now I had a clean piece again. A blind ex-hitman had taught me that trick in the joint, amazing what you learn if you’re willing to shut your yap hole and listen once in a while.
“This registered to you?” I said, taking Cass’ 9 mm. She looked at me like I must be joking. I stripped it and wiped it clean and then scattered the parts into the flowing water.
“Hey, that was mine. Are you nuts?” she called.
“Just keeping you out of jail. You mind?”
“No, but you owe me a pistol,” she said with a cute smile that let me know she forgave me. In the beam of a flashlight I policed up the spent shells and after wiping them, they too went into the drink. There was nothing left to tie us to the crime scene. That was a joke, there is always something, you just do the best you can and hope for some O.J. style, a sloppy cop fucked up the key evidence type of luck. Cass kept watching me, she looked half afraid of what I might do next, half excited. Popping the trunk on the Crown Vic I pulled out an army surplus GI jungle machete.
“You planning to kill me with that?” Cass said.
“Not unless you really piss me off. Or you lie to me, that’s probably a killing offense at this point.”
I turned toward the bank and found a small tree with limbs about two inches around. Hacking away I soon had wood chips in my hair, and stuck to the stubble covering my face. At my feet was a small stack of five foot long staffs. The river water was icy cold, my legs and hands started to sting then go numb as I dug the front end of the Crown Vic out of the river bed. Giving it a more or less level launching pad I moved to the rear tires. In the fight for traction they had buried themselves in deep sandy grooves. Kneeling in the cold, bone chilling goddamn water, I worked the tree limbs down under the tires, one by one building a ramp up out of the grooves. The hope was to get enough speed by the end of the limb ramp that we wouldn’t get bogged down, otherwise I was back in the water laying logs.
“Ease the gas down, one fluid motion all the way to the floor and keep the wheel dead straight. Ok?” I said to Cass as she slid in behind the wheel.
“No sweat, chief,” she said, realizing I’m sure that if she screwed up it wasn’t her going back under the car in the icy river. Placing myself at the center of the trunk, I hunkered down, my shoulder against the steel, one hand on either side. Knees bent I started to push, applying tension before she hit the gas, wanting to be sure of my footing. “Now,” I yelled. The engine roared as the RPM’s climbed the scale. The rear tires started to spin, then caught traction and the Crown Vic shot up out of her hole like a rocket set free. With no car to push against I fell face down into the river. In a spray of water and sand the Crown Vic bounced across the river. It must have been doing forty when it hit the other bank, with one powerful leap it was up and out of sight. Pulling my soggy ass up the embankment it occurred to me that I was taking it on faith that Cass would be there waiting for me. It wasn’t like I’d really been her good luck charm so far or anything. And the truth was, push come to shove most people split. Apparently push hadn’t come to shove yet or she still figured she needed me because when I cleared the rim of the river bank there was Cass, leaning against the Crown Vic with a shit eating grin on her face.
“That was fun, daddy, can we do it again, can we huh? Can we?” she said.
“Get in the goddamn car.”
“What crawled up your ass?” she said, her smile gone to stone.
“Who the fuck were those suits I just put in a ditch?”
“I don’t know, they came with you, so maybe you could tell me.” Her eyes had gone hard, her armor in place.
“If that’s how you wanna play it, then get in the goddamn car. Or walk out of here, I really don’t give a rat’s ass anymore.” Climbing behind the wheel I powered up the beast and fought the shivers that were hitting hard. Cass slid into the passenger seat, pointedly looking out the window away from me. She was a piece of work, but at this point I was too battle fatigued to even begin to try and figure her out. Survival was what mattered now. Run and gun and make sure we don’t get caught, stumble you die or wind up back in the joint which is worse. It wasn’t pretty but at least it was a game I was raised to play and I knew rule one, learned it at birth…Trust no one.
With a sliver of a moon and stars above, we drove out into the rock-strewn landscape. Wind whistled through the hole in the windshield, in the distance a lonely train wailed out into the night, but we were silent, each alone in our own private battlements. Working my way through a series of dirt roads, I finally rejoined Highway 80 as the sun splashed golden light out over the land. An hour later we were in Reno. I got us a room in Sugar’s Motor Lodge. It was a small court of quaint bungalows on the outskirts of town. I paid cash and the rummy clerk didn’t ask any questions when I signed in as Shane MacGowan. He spent more time checking the twenties for counterfeits than looking at my face.
The room was last decorated in the fifties in hunting lodge style, the dark wood paneling held decades of grime. Prints of grizzlies and mountain men hung on the walls. A wagon wheel lamp lit the room, dimly, which was a good thing, the cleaning crew appeared to have lost interest in their jobs sometime around when LBJ left office. In the maroon and white checkerboard tiled bathroom, I assessed the damage. I stripped off my shirt, my trip into the river had washed me clean of dirt and blood, making it easy to spot several new bruises from rolling around in the brush. The shotgun blast through the windshield ripped my neck up pretty good, embedding chunks of safety glass under the skin. They hurt like hell and when I tried to dig at them with my fingers, a little blood oozed out of the holes. I pulled the buck knife out of my pocket, as I snapped the lock open I heard Cass laughing. Tilting the mirror I found her watching me leaning in the bathroom door jam, one hip cocked out.
“You planning to slit your throat?” she said.
“Seems like it would save a lot of people the trouble of killing me.”
“Yeah, but a knife to the neck? Real messy. Then I got to clean it, and to speak the truth, I am bone tired, so why don’t you let me fix you up?”
“Go to it little girl,” I said, handing her the buck knife. She cocked an eyebrow and took a pair of tweezers out of her bag. She reached up on her tiptoes to get to my neck.
“Ok, we have established you’re a real tall guy, now sit down so I can fix your goddamn neck and get some sleep,” she said. I sat on the tub and she started to dig the tweezers into my wounds. My jaw locked as the pain burned up to my head. Hiding the pain I looked stone faced up at her eyes. She showed no more emotion than if she was carving a steak. She noticed the fresh tattoo image of her sister on my shoulder, tracing a finger over the healing skin without comment. Her eyes followed the scars running up into my scalp and down to the ragged bullet scar in my chest. “This ain’t your first time at the rodeo,” she said with a little admiration, and went back to digging. To keep my mind away from the pain I let my eyes roam, down her neck, down to the lace and satin, and creamy soft skin spilling over it. What is it about cleavage that makes me lose my mind? Makes me want to get lost in those soft curves and never return to my life. One, two, three, she popped the chunks of glass out of my flesh. Noticing where I had been looking, she didn’t chastise me or feign modesty, she just gave me a slight smile. She dabbed a washcloth in vodka from a flask in her purse and cleaned the wounds. Man she knew how to travel, never leave home without a flask, an automatic, and a medical-grade pair of tweezers. She was my kind of girl.
“You’ll need to get some bandages, but I don’t think you’ll die, not from this at least,” she said, taking a short snort off the flask. I left her with the shotgun and instructions not to open the door. After a quick stop at a small drug store for bandages and extra strength aspirin, I went searching for a junkyard. Bullet holes tend to attract attention from the law dogs. At Trading Post Bob’s Junkyard, I found an old Crown Vic, it was rusted and dented, the engine was gone, but the glass was in useable condition. It also had a pitted but serviceable side-view mirror. Taking my toolbox out of the trunk I worked to remove the windshield and side window. With sun came heat. I took off my shirt, enjoying the sweat as it ran down my back. It was simple work, no moral judgments to make, no instant life changing decisions. Removing the chrome trim, I used a screwdriver to pop the rubber gasket surrounding the glass. Sixty-seven dollars and several hours later I was back on the road. At Pep Boys I bought a small tin of bondo and some black spray paint. I filled the bullet holes in the parking lot, and painted them over. Scanning the Crown Vic, it looked as if nothing had happened. Our trouble in the mountains was a whisper of a memory. Just one more nightmare waiting to wake me up.
I pawned the Rolex for half its value, with no questions asked and no I.D. shown. Driving back the flashing lights cut though the sunshine. “Off Track Betting!” “Best Odds In Town!” “Be A Winner!” I had a fat roll in my pocket and no reason I could think of not to double it. Looking down I saw my knuckles white on the wheel. Things are fine when you want them, it’s when you need them you better look out. Marilyn pouted from the face of the cookie jar on the floor. I knew there would be no happy gambling today.
I let myself quietly into the motel room. Cass was asleep, the covers pulled back exposing her long muscular leg. Brown curly ringlets haloed her face. Asleep she looked even more like Kelly. Sitting in a comfortable chair I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Her heart shaped face with those full lips, lips built for kissing. Cass’ eyes fluttered then opened, she looked for a moment at me, then spoke. “What the hell are you staring at?” she asked without a smile.
“You…I was staring at you. Just wondering how the fuck I got in this mess,” I said hardening. “You wanna tell me who those punks I buried were?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Not good enough.”
“It’s the truth.” Climbing off the bed she moved to me, her face forming a sultry smile. “I do know you saved my life, if there is any way I can repay you, let me know.” Her hand went up, resting on my shoulder. Every cell in my body screamed for me to take her to bed, forget my troubles and get lost in her flesh. Standing up I looked straight into her deep brown eyes.
“Listen little girl, I’m not a John. The pouting coquette bullshit doesn’t do squat for me, got it?” I lied. “My dick don’t even get hard when I’m on the run. Now, I just killed some men, I don’t give a fuck about them. What I do care about is who sent them. If I’m going to be looking over my shoulder I need to know who I’m looking for.” Her smile faded, and she sat back down on the bed.
“I need some coffee.”
“And I need some answers.”
“Then go get me some coffee, cream no sugar.”
“And let you slip out the back door? I don’t think so.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Maybe, maybe not. You’re good at running, why don’t we see how you are at sticking.” After a long pause she finally got I wasn’t budging an inch. She sank back into the bed.
“A few years ago Kelly and I moved to San Francisco…” she said, speaking to the ceiling. “We had nothing but the clothes on our backs and a few dollars we’d stolen from the old bastard when we split Indiana. Kelly always dreamed of San Francisco, she called it the Emerald City by the Bay. But if the all-powerful Oz lived there, we never found him. We got jobs dancing at the Barbary Coast. I didn’t want to at first, but my wild sister said it would be fun. What the hell else could we do that would bring in instant cash? She was a natural, from the minute she hit that stage she seemed to know all the moves. They’d pay extra if we danced together, something about naked twins made the dollars come flying. It wasn’t so bad. We’d smoke a little boo, cover each other in whipped cream and have a pajama party, and they would throw money at us. We had plenty of offers to sleep with the customers, seems most men fantasize about doing twins. We could have gotten rich if I had been willing to cross that line.” Confusion rained down on me. The Kelly I had known was too shy to ever strip, but I didn’t say anything, afraid if I did Cass might clam up again. “Kelly told me it was just like what we’d already had done to us, but this time we’d get paid. But I couldn’t do it. Kind of funny considering where I wound up. Anyway, Kelly started dating some old guy she met at the club. She said she wasn’t fucking him but I could tell she was lying. That innocent hick act of hers didn’t play with me. He would shower her with expensive jewelry, which we hocked for cash. It was a sweet deal, and if she didn’t want to call it prostitution, who was I to judge her. One night, she came home late from a date with the guy. She was in a panic, she had blood on her shirt. She said she had seen a bad thing, the less I knew the better. She said we had to leave town, fast. That we should split up, twins would be too easy to track. We had to change our names. From that day forward we were Cass and Kelly. She said when I got settled to send a letter to the LA post office general delivery under the name Lotta Love. The last time I saw her was in the SF airport. She hugged me and promised we’d be back together soon, then I headed out to Vegas. When I heard two mob boys were looking for me at the Cock’s Roost I took off…” Rolling onto her side she looked at me, “That’s the truth Moses, every sad part of it.” I nodded my head slowly, then stood up and walked out. I had to get away from her story. If it was true, then everything I’d known about Kelly was false.
I walked down to a corner liquor store. On the street cars cruised happily by, the sun was shining and all was right in their world. My world on the other hand was crumbling. Kelly had played me for a chump, here I thought she was the one pure thing in my life and I was just another squid to be played. Had any of it been true? Were we even friends? I bought a fifth of Seagram’s and a bottle of ginger ale. I sat in the Crown Vic and poured myself a stiff one. I picked up Marilyn hoping to find some answers in the ashes. So what if Kelly had been less than honest, maybe she wasn’t the angel I had made her out to be. I had loved her, that was true. Maybe loving someone meant you accepted who they were. She had accepted me with all my dark crap, or was she using me as a shield, a dark knight to protect her? If so, she’d chosen the wrong man. Maybe I should have put the key in and driven away, left Cass behind me and never looked back. But I had given my word. With Marilyn and whiskey in hand I went back to the motel.
Confronted with the ashes of her dead sister, Cass lost it. Tears rolled freely down her cheeks. Now it was concrete, Kelly wasn’t going to pop out of the bathroom and say it was all a big joke. I wanted to comfort her, give her a shoulder to cry on. Instead I sat in the chair and poured a fresh drink. I placed the bottle on the nightstand. If she wanted a drink she could get one. She curled up, holding Marilyn to her chest murmuring quietly to it. Grief was a solo act, we all did it in our own private way. I was sullenly working on my third drink when she got up and took a shower. She left the door open a crack so I could catch glimpses of her through the pebbled glass. I turned my back on her. Someone had done a real job on these girls, someone convinced them that sex was the most they had to offer men. It was hard-wired into their systems, a default setting that had to have been placed there at a young age. It played on like a ghost in the machine, overriding grief, fear and even love. Maybe the bastard I should be hunting was farther back in their past. The dead end street Kelly was traveling on started way before I met her. But the punk who pulled the trigger was going down, he ended any chance for her to ever recover.
“They have to die,” Cass said, drying her hair. It was as if she’d been reading my mind. Her tears were gone now, replaced by a set jaw and cold hard eyes.
“Yes they do, but we have to find them first, what’s his name?”
“Whose?”
“The rich cat Kelly was fucking.” I said with more edge than I intended.
“Gino T, Ter-something. He was old school Italian, diamond pinky ring, gold chains, hairy chest and the manners of a pig. He looked at us girls like he was judging a piece of beef. Torelli! Yeah, that was his name, Gino Torelli.”
“Then he’s where we start.” Images of a fat Guinea sweating on top of Kelly flooded my brain. The whiskey and lack of sleep washed over me like a warm rain. It all suddenly felt too big to handle. I wanted to climb into bed and pull the covers over my head. I wanted to be back at the dog park watching Angel play. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Crunching down six whites I gulped the rest of my drink. Locking the bathroom door I took a long cold shower. It felt like needles on my skin but I could feel my blood rushing to warm me. The speed and cold water evaporated my sluggishness. Putting on a clean pair of jeans and fresh tee-shirt I was ready for action.
“Let’s roll,” I told Cass.
“To where?” she asked.
“San Francisco, I want to get clear of Nevada in case they find those graves.”
Driving out of Reno I winked goodbye to the glittering gambling dens, free from their draw for the moment. I could hear them laughing, they knew I’d be back sooner or later. Cass told me she thought the blood on Kelly was sugar daddy Gino’s, and that he was probably dead. It wasn’t much to go on, a name and a city, but it was all we had.
In Walmart she bought some hair bleach and a pair of scissors. At a truck stop she went into the ladies room, twenty minutes later she came out as a different girl. Her curls were now cut to shoulder length and honey blonde. I was stunned by the transformation, she looked like Marilyn’s twin sister.
“What, you don’t like?” she said pouting her lips.
“No, you did fine, nobody will recognize you,” I said turning for the car. She caught my shoulder turning me to look at her.
“Do you like it?” she said, a twinkle in her eye.
“I said you did fine, now let’s roll.” After that we drove for a while in silence. She was still putting on the pout. We purred down Highway 80, through the Sierras. We crossed the state line without any problems, no we didn’t have any fruit or vegetables, did I forget to mention we left some corpses in Nevada? Well they didn’t ask, so I didn’t tell.
“Were you one of her lovers?” Cass asked, breaking the silence as we pasted Truckee.
“No, I thought I was her friend.” I kept my eyes on the road. But she saw through me anyway.
“You were in love with her. You still are, I’ve seen the way you look at me. But trust me, I’m not her. She always had the way with men, it was like she could sense who they wanted her to be and that’s who she’d become. In high school she could have had any boy she wanted, but she wound up screwing the gym teacher. He was a burly bear. Yeah, you were her type,” she said with a wry smile. “Big, strong, a bit too old and a lot too dangerous. I’m just surprised you weren’t lovers. Maybe she saw you needed a friend more than sex.” I flinched, forcing my face into neutral. “That’s it, isn’t it?” I didn’t answer. I couldn’t believe Kelly had played me like that. Was I that transparent? As I thought about it I realized I was kin to these sisters. We were all children of the battle zone. Growing up in violence you learned to duck and weave, you learned how to read the signs and become whoever you needed to be to keep from getting whacked. At Donner Pass I pulled into a rest area to make a fresh drink; Cass arched an eyebrow, but I didn’t care. I needed the whiskey to take the edge off the speed I was popping like Altoids, and I needed the speed because it had been too many days without sleep. Crunching a few whites I sipped the drink.
“Boy you have more bad habits than a convent.” She said with a grin.
Pulling out onto the highway I noticed a stone pillar commemorating the Donner Party. They were a true testament to the American spirit, push forward at all costs and eat the dead when necessary. Wasn’t that the American dream in a nutshell.