by Mike Monson
“Would you like a beer?” Paige said. “Or a tequila shot?”
“How about both?”
“Okay, handsome, follow me.”
In the kitchen, Phil was taking marinated steaks out of a plastic container and placing them on a flat steel tray. He wore a blue flowered bathing suit. Jeff thought he looked old and ridiculous with his scrawny, hairless white body.
“Thanks for coming, man,” Phil said. “I’ll be right back.”
Neither Paige nor Jeff paid attention as Phil went out the door and downstairs to put the steaks on the grill by the pool.
Paige poured two shots of tequila and opened two cans of Phil’s Pabst Blue Ribbon. They each drank a shot. They touched their cans together and took a sip of beer.
“How the fuck can you stand that freak?” Jeff said.
Paige poured them each another shot. They drank.
“I thought he was your partner.”
“He is, and it’s a great partnership. The dude is a total professional and I make a fuckload of money with him. That doesn’t mean I like him. Jesus.”
Paige took a long pull off the beer. She stared at Jeff.
“Phil treats me very nice. Like a queen.”
“Of course he does. You think he’d want to lose a sexy bitch like you?”
Paige blushed.
“I thought it’d be different,” Paige said. She started to pour him another shot but he waved the bottle away.
“You thought it’d be exciting being married to a badass criminal?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Running in and out of banks, guns blazing, fast getaways, shit like that?”
“Yes.”
“After every score you’d jet off to Vegas and gamble and party for days?”
“Sure, maybe something like that.”
“Admit it.”
“Okay, yes.”
“Clearly, you married the wrong criminal.”
Jeff stepped closer to Paige.
“Tell the truth,” he said. “You’re bored as hell.”
“Well …”
“You’re a beautiful young woman, and you don’t want to sit around all day hanging out with some dull, middle-aged freak staring at the wall.”
Paige moved a little closer to Jeff. She glanced out the kitchen window and saw her new husband still struggling to light the barbeque.
“I’ve never been so bored in my life.”
“No shit. Meet me at The Unicorn at midnight. I don’t care how you work it out, just be there.”
He reached out and grabbed a fistful of her hair from behind her left ear. He twisted and pulled until she gasped in pain.
She stared at him, her knees buckling.
Jeff sensed her excitement. He knew her type. Completely. He pulled and twisted harder.
She whimpered. Her eyes shone.
“Did you hear me?”
He forced her down onto her knees. Paige gasped.
“I heard you.”
“You will be there.”
“I will.”
“Say it.”
“I will be at the Unicorn at Midnight.”
Jeff grabbed Paige’s head with both hands and pulled her up slowly so that their lips almost touched. Paige stared into his eyes. He knew she was ready to do anything to keep feeling what she felt right then.
“You’ll be there because you belong to me now.” His voice was low, direct, and firm. “Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Say it.”
“I belong to Jeff Sweet now.”
“He owns me.”
“He owns me,” she repeated.
Jeff let go just as Phil opened the front door.
“Look,” Jeff said, “I got to be going.”
“What about your steak?” Phil said.
“Yeah,” Paige said. “You just got here.”
“Sorry,” Jeff said. “I can’t really stay. Something came up just before I drove over here. I’ve got to meet somebody, like, five minutes ago. Anyway, Paige here is clearly a capable woman. I think we can work something out, don’t you Phil?”
“Sure, of course,” Phil said. “We’ll talk, okay?”
“You bet.”
7
“How’d you get away?”
Paige and Jeff sat at a table way in the back at the Unicorn, a bar on Tenth Street in downtown Modesto. Paige wore one of her all-black Frederick’s of Hollywood outfits. Short leather skirt, lacey bustier, fishnet stockings, and knee-high boots.
“Told him I was going out dancing.”
“Really? And that worked?”
“Uh-huh. Dude knows I like to go dancing most nights, but he won’t go because he’s so fucking old and dull. Says the noise hurts his head. He won’t even let me listen to music in the apartment. He’s so fucking weird. Says he prefers silence. Can you imagine? Who doesn’t like music?”
“Guys who’ve spent years locked up like him can get pretty goddamn odd, believe me.”
“Right, tell me about it.”
“He just lets you go out by yourself, looking like that?”
“I don’t think he has much choice.”
“God, that’s so pathetic.”
He leaned across the table and reached his hand down her top. He grabbed her left nipple and gave it a vicious twist.
“But don’t underestimate Phil Gaines. He’s one smart, tough motherfucker, believe me.”
“Then what’re we going to do about him?”
Jeff stared at Paige.
“We’re going to steal all his money and then we’re going to fucking kill him.”
“Awesome.”
“It’s time I got a new partner in crime. Don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes. Definitely.”
For the next two weeks, whenever Paige told Phil she was going out dancing, she actually met Jeff Sweet.
One night, Jeff drove Paige back to where she’d parked her car. At two in the morning they found themselves on Bangs Road, between McHenry and Tully. A quiet, two-lane blacktop with almond orchards on either side. Jeff spotted the red reflector on a bicycle ahead.
He pulled up alongside the bicyclist, a man in his mid-thirties, wearing shorts and no shirt. Jeff slowed down and kept pace with the bike. The man was extremely thin with hollow cheeks and missing half his teeth. The ones he did have were brown and black, and there were sores all over his face. He appeared to be singing to himself as he pedaled. Clearly a tweaker, a meth addict. People like him littered the streets of Modesto, day and night, on foot and on bikes, burning up their excess speed-fueled energy and looking for things to steal.
“Watch this.”
Jeff pulled ahead and over onto the side of the road, blocking the tweaker. The man stopped singing and skidded to a halt. Jeff got out of the car and approached him.
Paige watched as Jeff talked to the man for a moment or two before punching him in the face and stomach over and over. When the man went down, Paige saw Jeff kick him repeatedly in the face. She could feel her pussy moisten at the sight and began to rub her clit as she watched.
Jeff wrapped his hands around the scrawny man’s arms and pulled him up, dragging him over to the passenger side of the car.
“Open the door,” he told Paige.
Paige opened the door.
“Come out here.”
Paige got out of the car.
“This man disgusts me. Does he disgust you?”
“Yes. He’s fucking disgusting.”
The man trembled so much, if Jeff hadn’t been holding him he would’ve collapsed to the ground.
“He deserves to die. Don’t you think?”
Jeff gave Paige the evil smile she loved so much. The tweaker struggled to escape, but Jeff was too strong.
“Definitely,” she said. “Kill the fucker.”
Jeff grabbed the top of the man’s pants and held him as he took a knife from his pocket. He looked at Paige. “Now?”
“Yes
, now. Yes! Fuck.”
“You know there’s going to be a lot of blood, right?”
The man screamed. Jeff slapped him.
“Shut the fuck up, asshole.”
“I don’t mind blood. I fucking love it. You’ll see.”
“We’ll have to go back to my place and clean each other off in the shower.”
“Awesome, sounds hot. Do it. Go on.”
Jeff went to work. While holding him with his left hand, he stabbed the man three times in the stomach and then in the chest, the heart, and the neck. The last thrust of the knife caused a stream of blood to flow upwards. There was red everywhere.
Jeff let go. The man fell to the ground and onto his back.
Paige looked at the bleeding man, and then back to Jeff. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
Jeff lay on top of the dying man and reached out to Paige. He unzipped his pants. Paige raised her dress and pulled her panties aside and lowered herself onto his cock. She rode and rode and rode him as the tweaker slowly bled to death beneath.
They climaxed together as the man stopped breathing.
8
The night after Paige and Jeff betrayed him, Phil got no sleep at all.
He sat on the couch for hours, staring at the front door, his Colt in his hand. At first, his mind was dominated by images of Paige and Jeff together, and then by endless vivid scenarios of his eventual revenge for their theft and betrayal.
Particularly disturbing to Phil was that Jeff hadn’t killed him in the Vernalis parking lot before speeding away with Paige. That would have been the perfect time. Phil had no suspicions and was completely vulnerable at that moment. As he sat and thought, he realized he’d been spared because Jeff and Paige had other, more sinister, plans for his death. They wanted him to feel tortured as he wondered and worried about when and how they would come for him. He was well-aware of Jeff’s cruel imagination. He realized, too, that he had no idea what Paige was capable of, especially now that she had teamed up with Mr. Sweet.
Slowly, he began to let go and simply stay aware of his breath. By the middle of the night, he was calm, his mind open and ready for anything.
Just before dawn he put his pistol in a holster. Before he walked downstairs, he tucked it under a loose black t-shirt.
Included with every apartment at Tully Manor was a covered parking spot, with its own outdoor locked storage bin. Thankfully, Phil never gave Paige a key to their bin. He’d hidden the only one under a large planter nearby. He retrieved the key and unlocked the door to check on an emergency stash he’d hidden in the bottom of a tool box.
The small canvas bag was still there. It contained $990 in cash and two clips for the Colt .45. Also included was a .25 caliber back-up pistol. Barely five inches long, the gun weighed only ten ounces, and held nine rounds. He’d never talked about this gun with Jeff or showed it to Paige. Like the extra cash, having a secret gun made him feel safe.
He pulled out $200 and left the rest, along with the two clips and the small pistol, inside the bag. It felt good to stuff the bills into his pocket. Still, he’d need more money. Soon.
As Phil checked his emergency stash, Paige Gaines and Jeff Sweet fucked in a hotel room in Salinas, 113 miles from Modesto and Phil Gaines.
Jeff was naked. He straddled Paige on the bed, who lay on her back wearing a leather corset, fishnet stockings, and black leather boots. Her endless long hair fanned out around her like wings. He slapped her over and over with his right hand. Alternating open hand and back hand, open hand, back hand. Smack, smack, smack.
Jeff watched as Paige stared up at him. Saw the pleasure in her vivid green eyes. Glad he wasn’t yet inside her because he knew he’d come in a heartbeat from the look on her face.
“Are we going to kill him?” she asked.
“We’re going to kill him.”
Smack. Smack.
Paige moaned.
“After I beat him half to death.”
Smack.
“With your help.”
Smack.
Paige moaned.
“Then we’re both going to shoot him.”
Smack.
“Together?” she asked.
Smack.
“Together.”
Moan. Smack.
A leather collar was coiled around Paige’s neck. Jeff grabbed a long black leash. Attached it to the collar.
“Turn over.”
He tugged hard at the leash. Paige obeyed immediately. Jeff shoved his cock into her asshole. He commanded her not to speak, because sometimes just the sound of her voice made him come. He wanted this to last.
Soon, even her moans were too much. He stuffed a sock in her mouth, nearly gagging Paige. He knew she didn’t care; she only wanted to please and be possessed by Jeff. Nothing else mattered.
After he felt a bit raw, he removed the sock and his cock. With a tug at the leash, he turned Paige over and fingered her pussy.
“What’re we going to do?”
Paige smiled.
“We’re going to kill Phil. We’re going to fuck him up, and then kill him.”
Jeff straddled Paige again, quickly coming on her breasts and her face. He then pinched and squeezed and pulled at her nipples with his left hand and shoved three fingers of his right hand inside her, making her come hard and fast.
Afterwards, Jeff used leather restraints to secure Paige’s wrists and ankles, forcing her to lie in the large puddle she’d left on the bed.
After locking the storage bin, Phil walked back to his apartment, keeping his right hand near the holstered and hidden Colt. He scanned the parking area to see if he was being watched. As he approached the stairs, he pulled the Colt from its holster and carried the gun in his right hand; low and slightly behind his leg.
The sun was nearly up and the dawn’s light left everything flat and pale. He crept up the stairs. A man stood near his door. He recognized him immediately as Jeff’s friend, Dan Briggs.
Briggs was a local criminal who worked as a bartender part-time while also dabbling in meth, auto theft, armed robbery, and burglary. He belonged to a loose fraternity of local white outlaws who maintained a racial loyalty to one another in and out of prison. Phil knew that Briggs and Jeff often worked together stealing cars. Phil thought of him as just another local asshole. Plus, he rode a chopper and Phil could not stand the noise they made—both the bikes and their riders.
“Is there something I can help you find?”
Phil walked toward his front door and Briggs, raising the pistol and pointing it at the man’s head.
“Phil,” Briggs said, looking at the gun. “Is that really necessary?”
“That depends on why you’re here.”
“I’m here to help you, man.”
“Why the fuck would I need your help?’
“Dude, I know what happened yesterday, and I know you need money.”
Keeping the gun on Briggs, Phil unlocked his door and pointed him inside with the gun. He told Briggs to sit on the couch. Phil stood in front of him.
Phil pointed the Colt at Briggs’ face. He couldn’t stand the way the biker’s appearance just screamed criminal: shaved head, goatee, leather chaps. Obscene tats adorned both his arms, creeping up and out the top of his white wife-beater all along his neck. Obvious and overstated, everything Phil did his best to avoid. He hated that such a guy was in his home, and that anyone might have seen him lurking at his door.
Phil dressed subdued. Inconspicuous. If you saw him, you wouldn’t remember him a second later. When he wasn’t wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, his normal attire consisted of khaki pants, cheap polo shirts and work boots. A wardrobe designed to be dull and forgetful.
“What, exactly,” Phil said, “do you know about yesterday?”
“I know Jeff and Paige cleaned you out and split.”
“How do you know this?”
“Put down the gun and sit and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Phil sat and set the gun on the coffee table, barrel pointing right at Biggs.
“Hey, when Jeff told me he was going to run off with Paige, I wasn’t surprised, even though I knew it was a big mistake. But, I decided to stay out of it, you know, figured it was their business—and yours. But yesterday, when he called and told me that they’d also cleaned you out, I told him he was on his own, that I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Phil Gaines. That’s why I came to you right away, man. I didn’t want you to think I had anything to do with that shit.”
Phil picked up the gun.
“When did he call? And from where?”
“Oh jeez, Phil,” Briggs squirmed. “It was last night some time. I was in the middle of a card game. I tried to find out where he was at, but he wouldn’t tell me.”
Phil walked over. Pushed the pistol barrel hard against Dan Briggs’ throat and cocked the hammer.
“If you want to help me, the next time he calls, find out where they are.”
Phil eased the hammer down and sat back on the couch.
“Fuck, Phil.” Dan Briggs rubbed his throat. “That’s why I’m here, to offer my help with the Jeff and Paige situation, to be the inside man for you on that shit. What I don’t understand is what the fuck you and Jeff see in Paige. Sure, she’s hot and everything, but, Jesus, I hang at the Red Devil and everyone there knows she’s a total crazy freaky slut. I mean, she’s the worst. I could tell you some hairy fucking stories, man. Can you believe Sweet actually thinks he can do as well robbing banks with her as his partner instead of you? It’s insane.”
“Just tell me how you intend to help me.”
“I have some work for you. A way to make some quick money to get you back on your feet. Until you can find a new driver.”
Briggs said he had a lead on a large house in the ultra-expensive Del Rio section of Modesto. While Modesto had several high-end neighborhoods, both old and new, Del Rio was the most exclusive. The owner of the home, Carl Schmitz, ran several local pawnshops. Mr. Schmitz had a large family. Along with his wife, there were four children.
