by Jane Brooke
Being the blood sucking Vampire that she is, one more hope full last inventory drools through her mind.
The place, she knows now, is a Disney Land facade. Nothing is what it seems, of course she being their delusional Queen. Lots of money, tucked away, floating around, more coming, how can she get her hands on it?
Time is burning off, Bobby, buddy Dim Dim, are not stupid, could be arriving at any time, let’s see. Just go, some body’s got to have something with wheels that works here. Kidnap the genius in the barn, can’t figure that out, grab the slag, Angel and just somehow get the fuck out.
Concentration broken, squeaky corral gate, walking to the edge, she peeks around and watches the rider gallop on his black stallion into the desert.
Rubbing her pretty jaw, time to get serious, prepare and get into the writers head. Where did that thought come from. I
It’s time, to winch it all up.
Use her vast knowledge of explosives, tickers, bangers, boomers. Plan intact, be ready, arm up, get fucking smart; don’t want to wake, seeing Bobby Ugo grinning at you, that would be bad.
Inhaling, she turns, walks into her room, where now she will arm herself for the death war of struggle she knows is coming.
Armed And Dangerous
ONCE INSIDE, ideas firmly intact. She moves to her valise, finds hammer, nails, brackets, screw drivers, wire strippers, cutters, rolls of wire, lots of other stuff girls need when building stuff. Off comes the bomber jacket, shoulder holster and 44, under the pillow that goes.
Angel curious, whizzes in, circles her twice, sits in front of her, extends a paw, pant, pant, pant, yelp, yelp, yelp. Mandal smiles, takes her paw, says.
“What girl? You, want to help?”
In to her arms she jumps, licks on the face, lots of rough housing, lots of giggles shared by the two girl runaways.
“Go on now, I know, I love you to...Go on.”
On the floor, one more circle around, ZIP, back to her pillow as Mandal wonders just how smart her dog is.
Before to long she wil find out.
Those sweet feeling soon dissolve. She remembers that unwanted visitors may be arriving at any moment. Standing, she moves to the drawer, four tan TNT sticks, blasting caps, her new stolen 38 in her hand, back to ther heating vents, Phillipes head, she unscrews the four screws, opens the vent.
Out comes the can’s of gun powder, the seven hundred K, everything, tools and weapons, toys, spread neatly for inventory on the floor. She stands, hands on her hips, smiles, whispers. “Cool.”
Gathering lots of wires, tools and stuff around the bed, she lays down on her back, slides under the bottom mattress, on the floor, she looks around, grabs some tools and begings to go to work.
AFTER AN hour of dilligence, she crawls out, looks around, stands, squint’s her good eye looking at her work from different angles. Scratching her head, she is not entirely satisfied with her skullduggery.
She reaches out, places a pillow near a bed leg, steps back, better. Looking around, most of everything is now gone, 38, TNT stick’s, caps, gun powder, only the tools are left lying around.
She hears something outside, her heart misses a beat. Stepping to the door, she cracks the door, peeks out and nothing.
Why isn’t she armed?
Grabbing her 44, shoulder holster, she slips it on, pats her 38 in her boot, knife too, she feels better.
Something she’s missing, she is positive.
Oh yeah, couple of thousand, she counted it, dollars she stole from the Meth Lab. In the drawer, she grabs it, crawls under the bed. After a minute she stands, no money in her hands, nods her head.
“Perfect.”
Back to her hands and knees, she crawls to her stacks of cash, rubs her jaw, nods, crawls to her valise, grabs a plastic Hefty bag, pours the cash into it, stuffs it back in the heat duct.
With her Phillips head, she screws the four screws tight, gathers up her tools, and deposits them back into the valise. Instead of walking to the road and hailing a bus, valise, Angel on a leash, she figures the chance of the boys in New Jersey tracking her down in such an out of the way place, are between slim and rare.
Again, thinking things out to their conclusion has never been her strong point.
Again, wanting one thing and only one thing now, she dons some leather gloves, makes sure Angels water bowl is filled, pats her 44, don’s her bomber, moves across the room and out the door.
Down the porch, peek-a-boo around, coast clear, she moves directly to the corral gate. One horse, the other missing, raised eyebrows; she knows he’s out riding, perfect.
Stallion recognizes her, lopes over, lots of snorts, head bobbing, tail swishing. She shushes him, looks everywhere, kisses him on his great nose, more snorts, she takes a moment to roughing him up.
Walking through the gate, she begins her sneak forgetting one valuable lesson of survivial.
If you’re going to survive the visit from the bad guys, it certainly helps if you’re not fucking insane.
Bobby Is Cranky
ON THE outskirts of Houston, in a Holiday Inn parking lot, Bobby and his crew, with Dim Dim sitting in the passenger’s seat whistlin’ Dixie peruse a USA road map spread out on the hood of Bobby’s Lincoln Town Car.
1 AM, Bobby is tired, agitated, cranky, not good traits for a homicidal maniac.
He decides that Houston is just a waste of time. He is positive she is on a straigt line for California, unless the soon to be dead whore has an Aunt Girdey In Houston no ones ever heard of.
Can it, everyone is exhausted, stay at the god forsaken Holiday Inn. Wake refreshed, reconnect with Atlantic City, take the ring road around Houston in the moring and, then in a couple of lines spead across the desert, move in a straight line west.
“Okay check in. We go in the morning.” He groans to his crew.
He sees the two crews of line backers standing around in their idiot jackets, smoking, looking like the Rugby Scrum front line for the New Zealand All Blacks.
Bobby, rubs his eyes, is feeling a little depressed. Getting no help from Atlantic City is making his usual dire mood grow darker. Every time he talks to The Fat Man, he sounds more like a high school punk who is pining for his cheerleader girl friend who just ran with the football Captain.
Bobby wants her dead, end of story.
Boss, wants her untouched, has the Gulf Stream IV fueled, ready to whiz out of NJ, which makes sense to Bobby if they do catch the slag. He’s furious, just can’t see a three day cross country road trip, Tony, the Chippy, sharing a bottle of Cianti in a Lincoln all the way back to the East Coast.
Not for the first time, for he’s an Italian, a predator of rules, his plan begins to formulate a little bit further.
“Why Not.” He whispers.
They do it in Corporate America all the time. A Hostile Takeover, for Tony has shown he is weak, vulnerable and no longer able to make hard decisions to run a crime syndicate that any good Capo would be proud of.
His respect is diminishing, as his hatred grows, and just maybe, with Dim Dim’s help, he might become Made a Capo, for he knows he is respected, considered a valuable property.
Thus if he choose to make a move that was natural in his busiiess, certainly no one could stop him, and most likely he would Be Made for his initative and boldness.
He doesn’t have a Wharton MBA in business, but he’s got Dim Dim and in his biz that falls for more than all the brains in the world.
He is not there yet, he stills owes Tony and still Tony may step to the plate yet, allowing him to chop her lips off her face and, then her tits and, then her feet and hands.
See if the wise acre bitch can chat it up in French then.
He giggles, feels the power of the moon, a lonely planet, much like the bitch, possessing a gravitational force; a p
ower that can rotate the earth, move ocean currents as well as the dreams of men.
He may detest her, hate her, but he respects her intelligence, go figure.
“Why not?” He whispers, as he moves into the drivers seat, closes the door.
“Ya Okay, Dim?”
“Hungry Bobby.”
“Sure, sure ya are Dim. Come on, let’s get ya fed.”
Placing the Lincoln into gear, he moves to the front of the hotel, parks, and whispers.
“Why not kill Tony, indeed.”
Visiting Hours
POETS, artists, geniuses are basically crazed, other wise why would anyone take such risk with their life within the moment of creation. Most live in onscurity, as they struggle to survive, forever wondering if they are doing anything remarkable at all.
Jason Cox, of course was the poster boy for such mad pathos and insanity.
Dismounting his horse, he slips the Indian-blanket off, coughs several times into his black leather gloves, breathing a rasp, as then, with a coarse metal brush he wipes his stallion down.
He limps over to a huge tin oval water trough, turns on the spigot, water flows as both horses whinnie and dipped their snouts, begins to drink. He smiles, slaps them both on their sides, moves through the corral door, moves inside the barn, limps down the stall corridor towards his room.
Inside, hood on, cowl covering his face, breath rasping, long hair sneaking from the cape, room illuminated by his green monitor. Enticed by it, the black print on it, he sits, seems to gaze inside of it and begins to type.
“Did you have a nice ride?”
“WHAT.”
His body jerks, he twists around, throws his hands out, falls and, then like a scurrying animal, he pushes himself back on his butt until his back is pressed against the wall leering through tangled hair, at her.
In the sparce immulination, shadows, semi darkness, he sees her sitting some twenty-five feet from him, like him, on her butt, knees pressed against her chest. As before, her white hair seems to be lit by some internal fire she possesses. Her blue eyes seem to be back lit also from some secret light; they glow luminous, almost eerily, as a cat’s does at night.
“What kind of person are you? You have to leave. Have you no manners?” He snarls and, then wheezes, coughs from the exertion, though clearly now he is angry.
“None.” She whispers.
A flame from a match ignites. Her face becomes white, in the glow, mixed with shadows and smoke. She is ghostly looking. To his mind she is spirit beautiful. He is entranced by her.
Suddenly, a pack of cigarettes hits him in the chest, followed by a book of matches that crawl up to his work boots. His eyes tick. He looks at her beat up face. He wonders if his mind is playing tricks on him.
“Go on. Take one. Let’s get it over. Let’s kill each other. Go on, hell, lung cancer is as good as any way to go.” She whispers, giggles.
He is stunned. She is not the same woman, in the bar. Her voice is low, thick like fog, a serious tone to it. He cannot take his eyes off of her lips, as she drags from her cigarette.
She smokes and has decided not to coddle him, any longer.
She is taking control, exhibiting her will, after all everything else has failed, why not. She truly believes he is her, that she must some how rescue him as she saves herself. It would make no sense to anyone who is not mentaly imbalanced, a genius, an artist, yet this is how she thinks.
He stares, takes a cigarette, places it bewteen his lips, allows it to dangle there, as he thinks.
Almost thirty years, isolation from the touch of women, no human connections, besides the Indians, yet who would ever touch his skin, he is a monster. Yet, she is this creature as he feels his will bending, slowly, as if being annealed by some kind of Medieval Necromancer, which through magic, fire, bellows, turn iron into gold.
Hunched in his corner, knees prressed against his chest, protected with in the caliginous protection of his hood, he suddenly feels no fear from her.
A match ignite’s, his cigarette tip glows red, his face illuminates partially through the rusted chains of his long hair. Mandal gasps, for his skin appears as if it is an artist’s abstract portrait, painted of brush strokes of yellow, purple, greens, mixed of an odd and mottled skin.
“Who are you, really?” He ask’s, coughs.
His words are hard, sawed off and travelling across the room, ferried by the cigarette smoke.
His voice has changed also now and she recognizes that, but what of the question.
Who are you?
She thinks further of the impossible question. How does she answer such an impossible equation and should she tell the truth.
Lies have always worked, why not now?”
“Huh! I guess a lot of things, nothing really worth mentioning. Not worth anything, really. Not like you. I’m nothing.”
Dragging on her cigarette, she recaps in her mind what she was, is, how her life busted and none of it, sitting before this man, seems relevant now.
“I’ve been reading all day and now for the past hours your stuff. I once thought of myself as a writer. “Nothing is more important to me. But, not now, not after reading your work.”
She sighs, exhales a plume of smoke.
“Nothing I’ve ever read compares to it. I’m pretty confused, actually blown away. I’d like, no, I have to know, why are you here?” Why are....”
“Do you always answer questions with questions? I asked. Who ARE you?”
Very direct, no nonsense now, he is a soldier after all.
Con artist, in her, shaken, a little, not used to having her intelect challenged by an equal intellect.
Simple words, simple question, complicated answer.
“Who am I?”
“Yes you, not the liar inside you.” He snaps off the words, hard, direct, two can play now.
Her blues blink, blink, blink.
He sees it, her mind grinding and spinning; he is in no mood to fuck around. He watches the smoke blend along her alabastor face.
Lie first, do something later, her motto.
It’s always worked before.
The new force in his voice, men don’t talk like that to her, ever; it turns her on as she becomes light, into the grift now.
“Just a girl from the East Coast moving West. I’m a bit stranded.” Girlish giggle, “Until your brother gets my car fixed. I’m an actress...I’m...
“WHO ARE YOU?” Stone, gravel, grave words burn her ears.
Blink, Blink, brows crinkles, what is happening? Why isn’t the usual bull shit not working, let’s try this.
Giggles. “Betty, remember, I told you befo....”
“What’s your real name? Do you lie to everyone like your lying to me? If you can’t be real, stop wasting my time? Why don’t you just GET OUT?”
The severity of his voice wounds her.
Never before has a man talked to her like this, called her out.
How does he know that this is how she roll’s. Men swoon, say anything, put up with her outrageous crap, just to taste that silver cunt of hers; can’t he see how beautiful she is?
She is a coward, first time, busted, she wants to stand, run from the room. She can’t.
Be careful what you wish for.
Let’s try this, she thinks. Hopefully a little ego massaging will do the trick. It has always worked before.
“Listen, I don’t want to talk about me.” Lifting up some papers on her lap, she decides to work the room, she smiles, “This, your work, well, it’s brilliant...Why aren’t you...”
“Does this usually work, this con of yours? Is this is how you speak too people? Have you no dignity? I know who I am. I know what I can do. Now, either you get real, very real, or get the fuck out. You choose.”
He was not a leader of an elite band of killers for nothing.
Her face lowers to her chest, thinking, mind cindering, tears beginning to well, shamed, as slowly that door in her mind, locked forever begins to unlock and, then opening, her face lifts, through tears she whispers.
“Mandal, that is my name, my real name.” Her lips quiver, she swallows, wants to push the tip of her burning cigarette into her face, clairity, pain, honesty.
Yes, she must be honest now.
“I’m a liar, a cheat, a thief, grifter, ex prostitute. I killed a man once. I’m on the run.”
Big sigh, smoke curling from her nose, tears falling, the dam breaking, finally.
“I guess from myself, as well, well from a violent man. I took his money. I’m a horrible human being that until now has never told the truth to anyone, including myself. Basically, I’m a piece of garbage. I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m just wasting your time. You really don’t want anything to do with someone like me. I’ll leave you alone.”
A white egret, graceful, lifting to the sky, she begins to stand, her pearl wings pronating to her side, feeling more pain than any other time in her life.
“Sit, go on, sit down. We can talk now.” His voice, as a rasp cutting metal, says.
Stunned, she gazes at his silouette back lit from the glowing green monitor. She plops down, knees against her breasts, feeling so ashamed of what she is. Tears fall down her bruises, mingle with her cut lips, hands shaking, trying to smoke, she does.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it now?”
Kindness now, compassion, allowing her ro re-capture-her dignity as her face lifts, lips trembling, she gazes at him. Nothing in her mind has ever been so beautiful.
“Mandal, a pretty name, odd. Listen Mandal, we all do things, horrible, unspeakable things on this journey we take. It is a confusing world, or perhaps in our case, impossible. We are forced into this one time travel we are given and often given no tools to survive it. You seem like a remarkable woman.”
Coughs, chuckles, “You’re not a little girl any longer, no more fibs Mandal. You’re a...woman now.”
