Beautiful, Naked and Dead mm-1 Page 10

  “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 o
n 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.”