No More Birthdays (Carol Ann Baker Crime)

by Pelzer,Lissa

‘I said, you are a very attractive young lady.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What, you can’t take a compliment?’

  ‘I said thank you.’ And she laughed it off, still holding the glass like he’d given her a rose.

  He leaned in. ‘What you’re meant to say is, you’re a very attractive gentlemen.’

  ‘So I’ll know for next time.’

  ‘You could do with some schooling…’

  Lilly turned away, looked at the few spots of light that went past the darkened windows. She saw the bus station, the lights of a gas station forecourt, the cashier inside in his trucker cap, hunched over the counter. She wondered how far away they were.

  Heavy Eyes leaned in. ‘Don’t forget I’m here…’

  ‘I was just wondering if you were at this movie earlier?’

  The man opened his mouth wide. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  She didn’t. She just wanted to make conversation. ‘Only I had a ticket but forgot my ID…’

  ‘Sure you did…’

  ‘I did.’ She nodded. ‘You know who Gary Madison is?’

  ‘You know, you looked prettier before you started talking… That’s just a piece of information you may want to use for next time’.

  ‘…Thank you.’

  ‘Why don’t you stop being such a cold bitch and go over there? My friend wants to take your photo? He’s very fond of taking photos.’

  ‘Oh don’t.’ She held her hand up in front of her face and played dumb ‘You know I’m not looking my best tonight.’

  ‘You said it not me.’ Heavy Eyes murmured into his glass. ‘And he doesn’t want to take a picture of your face…’

  ‘You can take my picture,’ Moon Face piped up.

  ‘Yeah. You can take our picture,’ Bleach Job said and the little weasel character lifted his phone. A light came on and stayed on.

  ‘Okay,’ he said and Lilly waited for it to go off, but it didn’t. ‘I’m filming. Do something hot.’

  Moon Face’s eyes widened, her shoulders went up, but she was smiling. ‘Like what? Ha-ha-ha.’

  ‘Like this?’ Bleach Job grabbed her face and turned her cheek away. He began to lick and nuzzle her neck and she was still laughing about it.

  Lilly would have said something, made sure Moon Face was okay with it, but if she wasn’t, what were they going to do, get out?

  Bleach Job was moving down now, slobbering over her chest. If it were her, she would have to push him off, but Moon Face didn’t seem to mind. Fine, just a guy fooling around. It wasn’t such a big deal. Once they got to this party, Lilly was sure there would be plenty of other people to distract them.

  The guy with the phone got down on his knees, got closer to the action. ‘Keep going,’ he said as his friend pulled away.

  ‘Okay. How about…’ Bleach Job grabbed one of Moon Face’s breasts, gave it a squeeze and pulled it out over the top of her dress and Lilly clenched her jaw but didn’t move. Two seconds had already passed, too long to react. If they were in a bar or a club Lilly could have just grabbed her hand, dragged her off to the bathroom to check she was okay, but that wasn’t an option here either.

  The guy started up her leg again, started kissing her mouth as it hung open. Moon Face’s tongue got involved, kissing him back. Heavy Eyes was just looking over like it was nothing of interest and besides, nothing was going to happen. Lilly saw it now, the driveway coming up, the big stone house with trees around the entrance and people all around the gate. She took a deep breath and looked the other way. She had to get her head together, think about what she would say to Bobby when she saw him, but the window went down between them and the driver. Heavy Eyes pushed forward.

  ‘Go round the block one time,’ he said and the window went back up, grinding like the motor was faulty and the car sped up.

  Moon Face noticed it. Lilly saw her chin follow the entrance to the house out of sight and if they’d been alone, Lilly might have pulled her on it, asked her if that’s what she had expected, because that’s what she should have expected, behaving like she was. And she was almost as pissed at her as she was at the fat lump of a man sitting next to her, but things moved quick and she forgot what she was thinking about. Bleach Job got his hand up Moon Face’s dress and she wasn’t expecting it. She had her legs together, pressing them together, crossing her knees until the only thing he could do was try to pull her panties down from the side.

  ‘You’re so wriggly,’ he said. ‘Stop wriggling. I bet if you gave me one wriggle free minute. I’d have them off.’

  And the guy filming was getting turned on. Lilly saw him wriggle too.

  ‘Okay. Come on,’ Lilly said, trying to sound casual, ‘Get a room, if you’re going to go any further. Can’t you see, you’re embarrassing the poor girl?’

  Moon Face was still laughing, but pulling down on her dress. The guy let go.

  ‘Aw! You spoilt sport.’

  They were driving on up the hill, but it didn’t seem like there was a block to go round, just houses vaguely visible behind walls and gardens, a rich area, where people kept to themselves and didn’t look down at what was going on at the end of their driveways. Not that it mattered, the limo wasn’t stopping anywhere.

  ‘Okay,’ the guy filming said. ‘Are you going to do something or should I turn this off?’

  Heavy Eyes coughed and there was the smell of Listerine in the car.

  ‘Hang on.’ Bleach Job turned to Moon Face, took a strand of her hair between his fingers. ‘Honey. Are you over eighteen?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  And he said. ‘Do you have any ID?’

  ‘Sure, I do!’ She began to fumble in her purse and Lilly leaned over.

  ‘Here let me.’

  And like a little sister, Moon Face handed her the purse.

  It was full of trash, a stick of gum and a scribbled-on business card and her ID between a folded twenty. Lilly palmed it and kept searching. ‘It’s not in here,’ she said. ‘You must have left it at home.’

  Moon Face blinked. ‘No way. It’s in there.’

  ‘It’s really not….’

  Moon Face took it back. ‘I don’t get it.’

  And Lilly nodded. That was the right answer. Moon Face didn’t know it, but they couldn’t film themselves fucking her if she didn’t have her ID. Statutory Rape is one thing, but add pornography to that and the years go up. No one was ever allowed to take pictures of them. Bobby was very clear about that.

  Heavy Eyes nudged the guy on the floor with his foot. ‘No filming’, he said, and Bleach Job froze. The guy on the floor froze, the phone went down and the guy got up. Lilly let the steam out of her mouth. Moon Face looked around like she didn’t get what had happened, why the car had suddenly gone silent.

  ‘That kind of puts a dampener on things,’ Bleach Job said. He dragged his hand through his hair and Lilly saw how his fingers got stuck in the product or whatever else he’s got on there.

  ‘How about you?’ Heavy Eyes asked. ‘Are you over eighteen? You look eighteen.’

  ‘I am, but I don’t have my ID either.’

  ‘So you girls better hope they’re not asking for it at the door.’

  ‘But if they are, you can get us in, right? You guys have connections, right?’

  ‘If you really want to go to the party…’

  ‘I want to go,’ Moon Face said. ‘So does C.A and she’ll warm up in a minute.’

  Sometime in the last few seconds the limo had slowed to a stop. They were next to some sort of statue or memorial on a road in the middle of the forest, not a house in sight.

  ‘Here’s the deal,’ Heavy Eyes said. ‘Martin told us he’d found us some entertainment yesterday.’

  Lilly blinked.

  ‘I’m Martin,’ Bleach Job said shyly.

  ‘So, two pretty ordinary girls like you, someone is going to have to do something spectacular if they want to go to this party and meet all the famous folk. We need to see if you’re g
oing to be worth smuggling in. Any suggestions?’

  Lilly had a suggestion. She wanted to suggest that he fuck-right-off, but she knew she needed to take control like she should have with Gary Madison. Be the object, not the subject.

  While she was thinking about it, Bleach Job leaned in on Moon Face. His hand went right up her skirt and Moon Face gritted her teeth, watching her crotch like her body wasn’t her own.

  ‘So what? She might be underage, but it’s okay to treat her like a hand puppet?’ Lilly hissed. ‘As long as it’s not on film?’

  Heavy Eyes looked at her. ‘That’s about the total of it.’

  ‘If you’re into that kind of thing,’ she said, and the whole limo except Moon Face roared into laugher.

  ‘Who’s not?’ the guy filming asked.

  ‘You lady,’ Heavy Eyes said. ‘We have a strict rule against cock blocking in this limo.’

  ‘I’m not cock-blocking.’

  ‘Do you want out?’ He leaned forward. ‘Hey, Driver!’

  ‘How about you and me, hey?’

  Heavy Eyes turned. ‘Me and you, what?’

  ‘Get your cock out and I’ll show you.’

  Bleach Job froze. His hand came out of Moon Face’s pants like something had bitten him.

  ‘Why don’t you leave the kid alone and see what a real woman can do?’’

  Heavy Eyes shifted in his seat. There was a light on behind those dull orbs, but it wasn’t excitement. He was afraid of her, like if he got it out, she might bite it off. And she might.

  Now Bleach Job spoke up. ‘It’s okay, Johnny. She’s just being protective. Girls got to look out for each other. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘It’s okay…C.A.’ Moon Face gave her a look like she was the little sister like she was the one who needed protection. ‘It really is. I’m fine with this. You don’t need to be like that.’ And for a moment, Lilly hated her. Because they had to get in this party and Moon Face thought she was making it happen and all she was doing was making sure they got what they wanted before they even got through the gates.

  ‘Well. I’m fine with it, too,’ she said, unable to shut herself up. ‘But what’s the point starting something in a limo with an odd number of people, three guys and two girls, right? I don’t know what you guys are into, maybe you like crossing swords, but when you don’t have to when there’s a whole party around the corner…’

  No one said anything.

  ‘It’s just a bit high school, right, looking at some other guy’s junk while you’re putting it in…’ She held up her hand and counted on her fingers. ‘Because there’s one guy watching all the time. Looking at you doing your thing with his dick pointing at you.’

  Bleach Job had let go of Moon Face.

  ‘No one gets good head out of a spit roast. The angle is all-wrong. Everyone knows it’s just for show…’

  There was a hush in the limo. The kind that told her, even the driver was listening in. She’d fucked it up again, couldn’t ever get the balance right. Slutty, too slutty, not slutty enough.

  And then Heavy Eyes laughed. He lifted his belly up off his jeans as he came forward, pressed the window down again. ‘We’re ready to go.’ He said to the driver as he watched her and she felt his hot, exhaled breath against her bare arm. ‘We’ve got a live one here.’

  Heavy Eyes had his hand up high on her thigh now, working it up and down and Lilly was just counting the seconds until they could get out of the limo. They were stopped at the gate and were waved in. A few young faces, kids in black, smoking and pretending not to be interested stood around. They couldn’t see in the car, but Moon Face glanced their way, her eyebrows arched and her lips pulled together. Lilly just sat there, her shoulders up and her knees together.

  At the door, no one stopped them. No one asked for IDs. Lilly pulled on Moon Face’s arm as they passed inside.

  ‘Listen.’ She slipped the ID back into her bag and hoped to God, she didn’t offer to pull it out again. ‘I have stuff to do here. I can’t keep an eye on you all night. Are you going to be okay?’

  ‘Hey. I’ve got my own thing going on.’ Moon Face pulled her arm free. ‘I got you in here, remember? Don’t worry about me, you just worry about you.’

  ‘If anything happens…’

  ‘Like what? Don’t sweat it, okay. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘She knows what she’s doing,’ Bleach Job echoed, guiding her off into the house.

  That was just dandy. She really didn’t want to be anyone’s babysitter. Lilly felt a hand on her shoulder, looked back and saw Heavy Eyes gazing down on her.

  ‘I’ve got to go use the bathroom,’ she said.

  ‘Marvelous. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I can find my own way.’ She took his hand, lifted it from her shoulder and let it drop. She turned away and waited for him to claw her back, thought at any moment he would fix her by the shoulder or the hair and pull, but he didn’t. And when she turned around at the corner, he was already talking to someone else.

  Chapter 13

  It was a big house, open plan, but not the kind of place you’d expect a Hollywood producer to be having a party. Several large, leather couches and shaded lamps cluttered up this room and the next, but no one was sitting, everyone was here to stand, see and be seen.

  One thing was for sure, it wasn’t exactly Bobby’s usual customers, but if he was just here to show guys pretty pictures, no one would care about his cowboy boots, his tight jeans and his funny way of talking. No one would question who he was, why this big Southerner couldn’t bear to step foot in an airport for fear of the uniforms, the mace and the guns. He could work this room and be here all night, but she could go around this whole house ten times and just miss him at every corner.

  Lilly pushed through. She needed a vantage point. She got up between the bodies that lined the stairs, got to the banister and looked down and there he was – in the far room, next to the unlit fireplace. Bobby had his arm around some skinny man’s shoulder, wrapping him up tight like he was about to eat him and Lilly was off before she knew what she was doing. She knew what she was going to do. Mr. Thin was about to get hijacked. And Bobby was about to get a lesson in who he was dealing with.

  She was already on the stairs when she saw Gary coming up, his arm on the back of Terence McCoy and everyone circling around them. Terence McCoy opened up his arms like he was Moses about to part the Red Sea. She took a step back up and tripped over her heels. She hadn’t given him a moment of thought since she left that theater, but Gary would know she had sold the ticket. He’d have met Thad sitting next to him in the theater and might have given him a hard time.

  What would he do if he saw her, get her kicked out? Someone behind her had their elbows out to manage their personal space. And now the producer was talking and no one was moving. She couldn’t see Bobby anymore either and if she didn’t get down there right now, he’d be gone by the time she made it.

  ‘We’ve got a thousand people in here tonight,’ the producer said and someone, several someones cheered. ‘That’s a lot of glasses of champagne… That’s a lot of miniature gourmet hamburgers.’

  Lilly looked back over her shoulder, tried to get the girl standing there to see her and let her through, but it was no good, it wasn’t happening.

  ‘I look about this room and I can’t help thinking, all this life, all this vitality, will all be gone in a blink of the eye. When you think of the duration of human existence, in eighty years, every single one of us will be gone. In eighty years, there will have been a thousand illnesses, accidents or…life taking decisions, there will have been a thousand funerals, a thousand individual days after our funerals and the monotony of life going on without us…’ He paused.

  ‘Excuse me. I need to get past,’ Lilly said and heard her voice, as the only sound in the room.

  ‘None of us are going to get past this, I’m afraid…’

  People were laughing. People were looking at her and laughin
g and Lilly dropped down and pushed back and now they let her go.

  She got out into a clearing, tripped on the last step and grabbed onto someone’s arm.

  ‘Easy!’ the guy snarled.

  She couldn’t get down the stairs they were coming up, but there was probably a backstairs. Lilly made to go down the corridor and stopped in a heartbeat when she saw Bobby coming towards her. He was with the same thin guy.

  This wasn’t perfect, but she had the common sense to stand up straight and get ready to be seen.

  ‘I’ll be up in a minute. I just need to drain the snake.’ His jaw looked sore from all the smiling he’d been doing. ‘Sure. You go on upstairs, I’ll be right there.’ And then he turned and went the other way.

  She watched Bobby head to the bathroom and Mr. Thin go the other way, over towards another set of stairs. That was perfect, to know where he would be, where she could find him. Even better, she was going to be talking to Mr. Thin when Bobby got back. It would be him coming to her for a change.

  And she was right on his heels, going towards the stairs. As soon as he turned around he was getting it, the full-on charm offensive. He was within touching distance when a hand went out and blocked her path.

  ‘You need permission to go up there, honey,’ the Big Guy said.

  And she could have kicked the wall. She knew him from The Colorado Palace, from the shit with her and Davis and from the expression on his face, he knew her too.

  ‘Oh yeah. What’s so special up there?’

  ‘If you have to ask, you don’t have permission.’

  ‘The VIP area, huh?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Lilly turned away but didn’t go.

  ‘And don’t be standing here like I’m going to let you in. It’s not going to happen. Go stand somewhere else. Go talk to some kids your own age.’ He moved her away as a man with a girl her age came along and Lilly looked them over. The guy wasn’t her boyfriend, wasn’t anyone she liked or knew that well.

  ‘Fuck it.’

  Why complicate matters? She pushed down the hallway and saw Bobby a few feet ahead just as he held the door for another guy to come out. She could have rushed, but it wouldn’t look great. She waited, cool and collected. Let her mind get prepared.