by Jane Brooke
The room is illuminated by hanging red like Sub dull lights. Bottom rung, boots to the floor, she turns around and, then gasps at the sight of the pro player drug lab. Hard Drive brain, acute eyes, viles, bowls, mixers, drug making MO, lots a cool high tech stuff.
Several plastic wrapped kilos of white powder, on a table, about thirty smaller packets of white powder, cool she thinks. She’s wondering when Arvan will get back with the truck, so she can load up the drugs.
NAW, money is her thing; she is an ethical twist after all. She’s not a user, but knows fortune when she sees it. Some whores have all the luck, so far, but even she won’t deal drugs, so far that is.
Looking into the red haze, ramp at the back, loading dock, she nods her head, rubs her jaw, the boys have quite a going concern here. Eyes acclimating, she looks around, decides it looks like one of those Hollywood movie submarines.
“Pretty impressive.” She murmurs.
360 peruse, she giggles, sees the periscope, bends, flops the arms down, it rises. Her blue’s peer into scope, sweep across the compound, focus on the cafe, she starts to giggle, as she says.
“Load Proton Torpedo’s, bays number one and two, Scotty.”
“Torpedo’s ready, Captain Betty.” She hears in her demented head.
“Fire, One...Fire Two.” She giggles, forgetting where she is and how much risk she is in.
“Pakereeesh...Parkereeesh.”
She mimics dull explosions, giggling again watching the entire Cox compound as it erupts into balls of rolling flames
“DIVE...DIVE.” She laughs.
Straightening, she salutes no one, giggles again, lowers the scope, arms, shrugs her shoulders and, then turns around.
“Neat.” She chortles.
Suddenly, reality sluices back in as she slumps against the wall, remembers her life, her neck on the guillotine.
She feels a shudder as she whispers. “Fuck, what’s wrong with you?”
She bites her cut lip, drawing blood into her mouth, that’s better. “Get it together, girl.”
Nosing around stuff that does not belong to her is one of her specialties. Opening this drawer, that drawer, she smiles. Hesitating, she smiles, really smiles looking down at several red sticks of dynamite, as well as a half dozen blasting caps.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about.”
Her fingers, like petting a cat, graze along the tan cylindrical sticks. Loving everything that goes bang, boom, or Kaboom, explosives are her thing.
Tempting fate, Zippo still in her hands, she ignites it to flame and, then runs the body of one dynamite stick through the flame.
“Boom.” She whispers.
Her eyes go stark, blink, once, blink, twice, her eyes clear, she comes back, none to happy where she has just been.
Let’s see.
She grabs four sticks of dynamite, blasting caps, into her pocket they go. Everything going swell, new gifts, girl like presents, even fire sticks that go Kaboom.
Another drawer, small 38, HUH, chamber open, six copper caps, click, she sweeps it across the red haze of the room, aims it at a plastic bag of Crank.
“POW, yer dead.”
She blows imaginary smoke from the barrel, Giggles, in the pocket that goes.
Zero redeemable qualities, except for saving puppies, she opens another drawer, about a thousand buckaroos, takes that, thinks it can’t be this easy, can it, and figures the clan is so stupid, no one will miss anything. For some geniuses, success begets more success, feeding upon it’s self, until something like burning reality comes, spoiling everything.
Her blood freezes, for now the back iron accordion door, at the loading dock is creaking up into its carriage. Panic now, super cat burglar shaking as she wonders how she is going to lie and cheat, steal her way out of this one.
“Geeze Betty. What ya doin’ with all that dynamite in yer pocket, and ain’t that Ma’s 38, and ya done got all our petty cash too. How’s bout a kiss?”
Those words would not come, but she knows a gang rape and a bullet probably would.
Blinking, as the door grinds further up, she knows it won’t go down nice, for no lies, promises of smoochin’, fuckin’, nothing like that will work this time for collateral damage, her own is real, very fucking real.
Frantically she looks everywhere. She twists around, stark eyes, rabid pulse pounding a Samba in her neck as she sees a corner underneath and behind the rungs of the ladder. It is solid black; good, sneaks like that. She turns, stumbles, catches her self on a rung and, then to her horror she drops her lighter from her hand.
A little sorry now for the last torpedo mission, eyes in terror, pressed back into the darkness, she squints, gawking at the floor, looking for her lighter and about to fall to her knees, she prays to the Zippo God as men’s voices wreck that plan.
Frightened out of her wits, mesmerized by her fear, she presses her back against the wall and watches as a flat bed truck, driven by a huge biker, slides down the concrete ramp.
Billy, Arvan appear from the open door. Billy turns, smacks a button and, then lingers near the entrance, as three of Billy’s men appear, ignite a fork lift and begin unloading fifty gallon drums.
Trapped.
Mandal, thinks, as she swallows some bile gathering in her mouth.
Billy, carrying a grey metal case, with Arvan, turns and walks directly towards her. Barely breathing, she watches Billy slap the case onto a table, click it open. Her eyes sparkle seeing all the cash. She wonders if she can steal that to.
Arvan walks up, grins, and says. “Geeze big brother, we done lit Speedo up like a candle. We done killed him real good.” Slaps on Billy back, “Richer fer it too.”
“Yeah.” Billy replies.
He turns, looks at a table where the plastic wrapped cylinders of crank are ready to go.
“Bidness, little bro, jest bidness.”
He reaches to his left, grabs a back pack and tosses it to Arvan.
“Load it all up, Bro. We gotta geet. We gotta be at the meetin’ in Corpus by morning.”
Actually able to smell the body odor of the two brothers, disquiets her. Standing rigid, hoping for invisibility, she listens, banking any information that will save her lying, thieving ass later.
“We gonna be rich, right Billy?”
Billy, rubbing his jaw, thinks about Betty, just as his brother was just doing any chance he got. She’s like a deadly tumor, eating, is embedded into their brains, mostly their dicks. Mandals like acid eroding away any kinda reason they had left inside their basic heads.
“Yeah baby brother, after tamarraw, we gonna have it all.”
Filing that information for future thievery, almost suspended in disbelief as to where her life has taken her, she wants to scream out of the place.
Arvan, forgetting for the moment that his ultimate plan is to murder his brother, grins, feels all brotherly like. Billy turns towards the ladder, stops as his cowboy boot kicks Mandal lighter, sending it clinking, right near her boots into the recess of the dark corner.
“What the fuck, was that?” Billy snarls.
He looks angrily at a puzzled Arvan and, then looks directly at her, opaque, hidden and pressed into the blackness of the alcove.
“Don’t knowed?”
Mandals heart is pounding in her mouth.
She feels vomit in it, the one that will probably be beaten to a pulp if they find her stacked with all their goodies in her pockets.
“Come here.” Billy says, looking directly at her.
Mandal swallows, feeling blood in her temples, wondering about the multiple rape and beatings she will suffer if the boys find her. For a beat, she thinks he is talking to her, as her hand moves towards the 38 in her pocket.
“Arvan, fuck wad, come here.”
>
Her breath shutters as she swallows, daring not to move a tendon in her body.
Arvan walks up to him grinning.
Billy’s mood swings as he smacks him across the back of his head. Arvan spins, centers, glares at his brother with pure venom.
“Tol ya. How many times da I have ta tell ya. Keep the fucking place clean. Now get. We gotta geet on to Corpus.”
Billy turns and looks again where his boot hit the lighter, groans, moves up the iron rungs, lifts the hatch and, then climbs out. Arvan, fury in his eyes, Mandal can see that clearly, hears him whisper.
“Arvan gonna kill ya, Billy. Real bad. Real soon”
Great information, Mandal thinks, into the date base it goes.
Arvan gets a yell, from the men in the back. He turns, gets a wave, the biker’s wave again, walk up the ramp, move through the door, as Mandal watches the door clank back down and slot behind them.
Slowly, Arvan turns, seem to go trance like, staring into the darkness behind the rungs of the ladder. She can see he is thinking and, then staring in her direction, he whispers. “Betty.”
She thinks he sees her.
Like a slow drop from a morphine drip, her hand slips into her bomber pocket, wraps around her new 38, eyes blazed on Arvan. Arvans eyes are soft and, then they go hard, as he seethes. “You wait, Billy boy, Arvan is comin’. Yer dead, ya jest don knowed it yet.”
Her hand relaxes on the trigger.
He’s talking to himself, dreaming about her, their future, the death of his brother. She begins to glow inside, for this is fortuitous information. Pit them against each other, which in reality with her seduction she has been building all around them to begin with.
Their poignant moment together terminates as she breaths. He turns, loads the pack, shoulders it, moves with in feet of her and, then clamors up the ladder, out the opening he goes.
A gust of air explodes out of her lungs, a she squeals in angst. “Chreeist.”
Hyperventilating, she bends, presses her palms to her knees and sucks in air, trying to calm herself.
Moments pass, she straightens, turns, downs the periscope handle thingies, watches through the cross hairs out at the compound. The boys are at the garage, talking. Billy turns, vanishes inside the bar. Arvan, looks out at their hidden place, she swallows, he turns, walks across the compound, makes a turn, is gone from her site.
“Now or never.” She whispers.
Climbing the ladder, she opens the lid, slinks out and carefully lowers it with out a clank.
Heart pounding, like a Ninja, she goes into a monkey crouch, weaves her way through the maze of wrecked cars, retraces her trip around the back of the huts, bar, finds her motel spy perch, exhales, leans against the wall, digs out a smoke, pushes her hand into her pocket, goes stark with fear.
“Fuck.”
She forgot one little thing. It’s one little thing that might put a bullet in her heart. She forgot her her lighter.
Her hands shake, her brain spins and she feels ridiculous, for she is way smarter than that. Once again she has been to smart for her own good.
For a moment, she thinks of slithering back, see if she can find it, before one of the nitwits does, wrecking everything. That plan goes gizmo, as Arvan appears back at the Quonset, fiddling with his truck engine.
Back into her room, to her valise, a book of matches; it takes her six strikes to ignite the match her fingers are trembling so hard.
Angel, at her feet, on her lap, Mandal smiles, calms her, pets her, lifts her, lays her back down. “Go on girl, not now, in the corner.”
The fluff golden zipper winds around, scampers to her pillow, curls into a ball, moist, smart eyes watching the woman that saved her life. Smart girl, smart dog, one dies, so does the other. Angel seems to understand that, wants to be good.
“OOOP’s.” She says, as she feels the TNT sticks in her pocket.
Nodding her head, plans swirl. Nods again, whispers to her self, an open drawer, 38, money, blasts caps, tan sticks of TNT go inside the drawer.
Back to her self absorbed wants. She stands, back to her strategic crow’s nest. Where did she leave her cigarette?
Out from her pack, between her lips, in the dark, she ignites another match, smokes and, then extinguishes the flame between her forefinger and thump tip. The pain feels welcomed, helps her focus as she scrutinizes the compound.
Obviously business is good for the Cox.
Money seems to be falling from the sky, maybe good for her, Mava’s floor safe in her mind also. Have to get out, eyes glance at Billy’s chopped Harley, maybe a last resort.
Angel on the gas tank, goggles on her wet nose, slag in Billy’s saddle bags. She’s never drove a bike before, how fucking hard can that be?
No control, no reason, almost raped and murdered ten minutes ago. No thought of that as she thinks of one thing, the poet and the bareback horse rider in the barn.
She wants, what she wants, when she wants it.
Spoiled girlfriend, gangsters whore, she smiles, thinks that more lunatic in the barn sounds like a nice thing to do, make another visit to the barns.
Dropping her smoke to the planks, she crushes it out with her work boot heel. She peeks at green luminescent numbers of her military watch.
Fuck, more time has vanished, have to watch that.
Little past Mid-night, blink, blink, a shake of her head as bevies of minutes evaporate from her life. Blink, she looks again, a quarter to one, blink.
Where did that time go?
“Creak.”
The corrals gate opens. She presses back, there he is, limping, cape, hood, carrying that goddamn mop and bucket again.
Anger rips her up. Having that talent-clean the filth of cretins that have just been walking upright for a short time would be like having Monet paint you’re fucking house.
Sulking, angry, she watches him move into the bar. Grinding her molars, she turns, moves into the room, grabs his manuscript, reverses out the door and presses herself against the wall, steam coming out of her ears.
Her hatred for life is complete, including herself and she is pissed. No doubt she will do something about this miscarriage of poetic justice abused, misused.
“Clean that fucking bar. Not while I’m fucking alive. She seethes
Irate, basically in love, not knowing it yet and perhaps feeling it she steps off the porch and begins to move, on a mission.
Who cares if they all end up dead, that’s who she is.
Nothing mattrers or has ever mattered to except for her to get what she wants.
What she wants now is to kidnap Jason, and live happy ever after with him in peace.
What she forgot is that peace comes in many forms.
One of those forms of peace can be, and often is a stainless steel coffin.
The Mission
COAST CLEAR, she moves to the bars back door, looks this way, that way, cracks it, slices her thin frame through it. On tip toes, she dissolves into her secret dark place, settles, allowing her eyes to acclimate. A single dull light bulb throws an eerie pallor over the bar.
Lurking in the pitch, she again watches as the poet, on hands and knees, scrubs away the refuse from the previous night. Taking a cautious step, she moves near the bar, lays the manuscript on the bar, grazing a glass with her wrist.
“Clink.”
As if the devil herself has arrived, Jason Cox’s head jerks up, cowl on his head, long hair streaming down his face, sweat mingling with it.
“Who’s there?” He throws his hands in front of his face like some kind of wraith, “Who is it?” His gravel voice asks.
“Mand...ahh...Betty...Please...I mean no harm...I read your novel...It’s amazing.”
Heavy, coarse breathing, hands lowered, cowl snugged, o
n his knees, in the shadows, he whispers. “Go away.”
Stepping under the dull light bulb, her white hair becomes translucent, hand resting on the manuscript, man kneeling before her, she thinks cowering even.
“I really need to talk with you...Please...Just friends...Ahhh...”
She takes a step, stops from his sand voice.
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE.”
Impatient, as always, her eyes peek at the light bulb. Inwardly she smiles, as she moves so her face is illuminated. Lets show the maniac what he gets if he plays nice, forgetting that after Sue she looks like she just went ten rounds with Oscar De La Hoya.
Staring at her, he gasps, her blond hair seems almost phosphorescent, it is so white.
Crinkling his brow, he sees the bruises, the swollen eye, cuts stitched along perhaps the most beautiful face he has ever seen in his life. He has no eyebrows, so he cannot raise them, but he is a man, open to the foibles of her beauty, her seduction.
Staring at her lean, elongated, formless height, her soaring cheek bones, small nose, pointed chin, in his mind she appears to be a willowy alien with those big brains that in flicks are always walking from some type of space machine.
Yet he is the monster, which reminds him to crush his cowl closer to his face, as streaks of hair cover the rest of it.
“Go. Just leave me alone, please. How...” Cough, cough...”How many times do I have to ask you?”
Completely oblivious to the poor guy’s obvious grief, she taps the manuscript with her fingers. She smiles, which brings a groan from him. Her teeth are as white as the paper she as has those amazing fingers tapping on his life blood.
“Brought your novel back. What a ya think? It was brilliant. Can I read another?”
Of course he is captivated by her.
Obviously stunning, even with his talent it would be impossible to describe her. Clearly super intelligent, he has been watching her, knows something is not quite right about her, yet few men can resist her. If it was say, Momma Cass standing there, then, well, maybe, but she is not, as he groans and stares through strands of aloe hair at her spirit like presence.
