A Bad Day for Pretty

by Sophie Littlefield

  A faint pink blush ticked the back of Wil’s neck. Yeah, Stella thought, I guess I’d be embarrassed to be such a dumb-ass, too.

  “He did” was all Wil said.

  “And then he waited until the concrete was all hardened up to tell Wil about the prints,” Brandy continued, clearly indignant, “so’s he wouldn’t get the idea to go fessing up any time.”

  “That rat bastard,” Stella said sarcastically.

  Brandy glanced at her suspiciously, but Stella flashed her a reassuring smile.

  So that was the story, and now they were fast closing on the final chapter. Wil unbuckled his seat belt and leaned back to unfasten Stella’s. She considered lurching forward, maybe knocking Wil out with a forehead butt to his nose, but that still left Brandy holding a gun on her.

  “What-all are you going to make my mom do, anyway?” Noelle asked.

  “Well, she’s going to make the doc confess, what do you think?” Brandy said. “Wil got us a nice digital camcorder and one a those tripods? You know, where you set it up so you can talk into it and record a movie?”

  “Wonder which Cozy Closet customer’s missing that,” Stella said—but she was vastly relieved the plan wasn’t turning out to be a murder-for-hire after all. She glanced at Noelle, hoping fervently that Brandy would keep her mouth shut about the rest. All Noelle knew about her mother’s leisure-time activities was that Stella seemed to have a lot of friends who were going through tough times that required lots of listening. She was pretty sure that her daughter, if she had her suspicions, preferred not to know exactly how far her mother’s compassion went.

  Brandy glared at her. “Ain’t nobody as needs it worse than we do, anyway,” she said.

  “You oughtta thank us,” Wil said. “We ain’t askin’ you to kill him. You won’t have that on your conscience. All’s you got to do is get him to make the tape.”

  “Why don’t y’all just do it yourselves?” Noelle asked, disgusted.

  Brandy sucked in a breath, looking amazed. “Noelle, don’t you know what they say about your mama? She can make a man do anything. Why, if Wil and me tried to get the doc to talk, he might clam up and we could end up knocking him unconscious or something before he got the movie done. Your mama, though, she’s like the best there is.”

  Noelle gave her mother a thoughtful look. To Stella’s surprise, it was about 99 percent crafty curiosity, with not a trace of judgment. The thought that her daughter might actually approve of her avocation buoyed Stella’s spirits considerably.

  “So here’s how this is gonna go,” Wil said. “Brandy’s gonna stay here with Noelle. That’s like insurance, Stella. See, I know you don’t want nothing bad to happen to your girl there, so’s you’re more likely to cooperate.”

  Stella gave Brandy her most withering stare. “Brandy, if you so much as look at Noelle cross-eyed, I’m gonna kick your ass all the way to Saint Louis.”

  Brandy turned away and stared out the van’s passenger window at a bank of hostas lining the walk.

  “I’d be more worried about the next hour if I was you, Stella,” Wil said. He was aiming for a hard-ass tone, Stella knew, but he was making a miscalculation. She’d been around enough amateur bullies that he didn’t scare her much. He wasn’t one of the real ones, the mean ones. As stupid and naïve as Brandy was, there was a corner of Stella’s heart that was grateful for Wil’s basic makeup, which was plenty flawed, but with the wishy-washy sorts of failings that were unlikely to ever get taken out on his woman.

  The two of them deserved each other. Neither one was likely to get nominated to sainthood in this lifetime, but neither was likely to upset the balance of the universe either. Their sins were relatively minor, and along the way they probably provided enough amusement and even occasional comfort to their fellow humans that they erased their cosmic debt.

  Stella remembered the way Wil’s neighbor had talked about him, admiringly, even affectionately. And Goat’s bemusement when he shared his checkered history with Brandy—if even he couldn’t manage to maintain a grudge against the gal, then how could she?

  If she wanted, Stella was confident that she and Noelle could climb out of the van—which would be a little tricky, given the plastic restraints still on their wrists—and then walk down the street whistling and Brandy and Wil, for all their blustering and threatening and laying out of evil promises, would do no more than jump up and down in frustration. If Stella had had her doubts about Wil’s innocence in Laura’s death, they were laid to rest now.

  But hell. She was here, and there was a true bad guy—a woman-killing, smug, unrepentant bastard not fifty feet away. And it wasn’t like she had anything better to do today. And, for that matter, she hadn’t had a single client since getting shot over the summer.

  Her return to the job couldn’t wait forever. Maybe it was time to dive back into the pool.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. But I don’t have my stuff.”

  “What stuff?” Wil demanded impatiently.

  “You know—my gear. My restraints, my tools. I mean I know I look tough, but you can’t expect me to go in there and tackle a six-foot-two guy and take him down on my own.”

  “Course not—that’s why I’ll be there.”

  Stella sighed. “No offense, but I’d really be more comfortable—”

  “Quit stalling. Let’s go.”

  He got out of the car and a second later the sliding door was yanked open and he extended a hand. Stella pointedly ignored it and jumped down carefully, taking the impact in her bum hip and barely staying on her feet. She held out her wrists expectantly.

  Wil stared. “Oh. Um…”

  Stella rolled her eyes. “Get my purse. There’s scissors in there.”

  Wil snapped his mouth shut and got her purse. He rooted around for a few minutes until he came up with the little pink quilted case.

  “This?” he demanded.

  “They’re sharper than they look,” Stella sighed. “Can we get on with this? I like to be home in time for dinner on days I beat the shit out of someone. It’s kind of a tradition.”

  Wil fumbled with the embroidery scissors, finally getting them out of the case. They were a lot sharper than they looked—an expensive pair of Ginghers with curved blades—and they sliced right through the restraints.

  Stella rubbed at her wrists, massaging the tender spots where the plastic had cut into her flesh. Wil tossed the scissors back in the purse and handed it through the window to Brandy, then put his hand to Stella’s back and gave her a little shove.

  “So you’re letting Brandy keep the gun, instead of bringing it with us?” Stella asked, nodding in the direction of the van as Wil marched her down the street. “Think that’s smart?”

  “I was a wrestler in high school,” Wil said. “I really don’t think I’ll have much trouble with a sixty-five-year-old man who takes blood pressure pills.”

  “How do you know what he’s—?”

  “Oh, the doc told me. It’s, like, professional interest. Folks on Clonidine get a little extra kick from nembies and purple hearts—you know, downers. It’s a nice little growth area for me.”

  Stella started to respond, then thought better of it. She wasn’t about win a debate about the ethics of pushing prescription drugs today.

  “Look,” Stella said when they got to the front door. “Can I at least give you a little bit of advice? We might want to try to get in without drawing attention to ourselves.”

  “Come on, Stella,” Wil said confidently. “As soon as we have the confession recorded, ain’t nobody going to care about anything else. And when we’re done, we just leave him here. That’s the beauty of it—I can turn the tape in tomorrow or the next day, maybe mail it, give me and Brandy a little head start getting out of town, not that anyone’s gonna come looking for us once they got the doc for it.”

  “I still think—”

  “Man, you just have to run the show, don’t you, Stella?” Wil shook his head and gave her a pi
tying look. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings here, but you ought to take a page out of Brandy’s book, you know what I mean?”

  Stella felt her hackles rising. “No, I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

  “Well, you know, being feminine? It’s an art. There’s more to it than just dressing classy and all. You got to let the man drive, see what I’m saying? A man wants to feel like he’s in charge. That’s where your real power is, you women, is if you let the man take the lead. Just a little something to think about, maybe get you a date one of these days.”

  Stella fumed silently as they approached the front door. “I’ll think about it,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

  “Atta girl,” Wil said.

  An interesting thing happened after Wil pressed the buzzer. Stella glanced at him and noticed he was preening, building himself up for the encounter, and it occurred to her that she was witnessing the donning of the charm that Wil must go through for every call on a new customer, for every encounter with a neighbor. Here was the source of his charm. Here was the secret of his eluding the law. He stood a little taller, tugged his collar into place, and flashed his features through a quick calisthenic routine that included a grimace and a grin before it settled into pure, complacent confidence.

  Another interesting thing happened when the door opened a fraction of an inch and Dr. Herman peered at them through the opening: a hand holding a gun snaked out and shot Wil Vines right in his handsome kisser.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Maybe it was age, maybe it was nerves, maybe it was the burden of having already sent one fellow human being to an early death, but Dr. Herman was a terrible shot.

  The bullet hit Wil in the cheek and traveled a path that, as far as Stella could tell at first glance, took a chunk out of his ear and possibly chipped his skull and most certainly dented his slick hairdo. He didn’t fall down or anything, though. To Stella’s shocked amusement, he actually said “Ow” and brought up a hand to his face, like he’d been bit by a mosquito, say, or run into a low-hanging branch.

  Stella glanced back at the doctor in time to see that he’d opened the door a bit wider and now had the cheap little handgun trained on her. Perhaps it was a more stable stance, or the increased maneuverability he had with the door open, but he seemed more certain of his second shot, the gun pointed in the general direction of Stella’s throat.

  The thought that went through her head as she slammed her shoulder into the door with all her weight, as the door caught the doctor’s chest and sent him staggering back into the room, was that she was so fucking not about to get herself shot again after the scars from the last round were still shiny and raw and she was painstakingly busting open a vitamin E capsule every damn night like Noelle told her, rubbing that shit on the tender tissue of her stomach and shoulder in hopes of getting the scars to fade enough so she could maybe someday wear a bathing suit again or even a tank top without scaring kids.

  She was not about to let this old asshole shoot her. The last man who’d tried might have been out of shape, but he was at least roughly her age and had the advantage of years of building up his skills committing all kinds of crimes. The doctor, on the other hand, was a slack-necked white-collar-wearing soft-palmed nancy, and if Stella couldn’t take him, then she didn’t deserve to live.

  Only, she didn’t count on Wil.

  As she threw herself at Dr. Herman, making a grunting kind of sound deep in her throat, Wil staggered forward and got in her way. He was waving one hand around in the air while with the other he tried to stop the blood pouring out of his face, and into his eyes. He somehow got one foot in front of Stella and the two of them went down together, Stella’s elbow slamming hard against the tile floor of the doctor’s entrance hall as she tried to disentangle from Wil.

  The more she scrambled, the more she seemed to end up pinioned. When she finally worked one arm free and pushed herself up to a sitting position, there was the stupid doctor, squatting in front of her and waving his gun back and forth between them.

  Wil, lying on his side with a blood-slicked hand on his face, moaned. “How the fuck did you know we were coming?” he demanded.

  “Careful preparation,” Dr. Herman said, his voice smug. “Got a call a couple of nights ago from the folks in Fayette, wanting me to send over Neb’s medical records. Now that got me to thinking—what’s my old friend Wil going to do when his hard work gets unearthed, so to speak? I figured you’d probably be a little nervous. Frankly, I thought you would have called me by now.”

  “Why, so you could have you a last laugh, you cocksucker?”

  “No, I figured you’d want me to bail you out. Or maybe hit me up for more cash, so you could run off to Mexico or wherever low-life scum like you go when the shit hits the fan.”

  Wil stopped pushing blood around on his face to blink, slack-jawed, at the doc. Even Stella worked up a little indignation on his behalf.

  “Who’s bailing who out?” he demanded. “Who covered up your sloppy-assed mistake? Who, I gotta ask you, was blubberin’ like a girl when I got here and you’d done killed your girlfriend?”

  “I was not—I was not—that was a state of shock, of emotional trauma,” Dr. Herman protested. “Besides, I paid you handsomely.”

  “You paid me chickenshit!” Wil started to scramble to his feet, waving his hand around, still trying to get the blood wiped off his face, as Dr. Herman jerked the gun back and forth between him and Stella. “Twelve thousand bucks? It weren’t worth it for the trouble. That ain’t even enough to buy a ugly-ass used truck. That’s not but a couple good weekends in Vegas. You busted up my relationship, you fucker—”

  Stella sighed, a huge, impatient, world-weary sigh, the sigh of a kindergarden teacher breaking up yet another scuffle in the sandbox. Goddamn Y chromosome. Here they were at what any sane human being might consider an impasse, a time to quit shootin’ and threatenin’ and blamin’ and start working toward a creative solution—and these two still couldn’t stop slinging the shit.

  “Just shut the fuck uuuuup!” she screamed, putting her fingers to her ears and lurching to her feet. She braced for the shot, but when it didn’t come in the first seconds, she swung her bad leg back and then brought it forward with every last bit of momentum she could muster in a roundhouse kick to Dr. Herman’s unprotected groin.

  The twin sounds that filled the moment that followed—the second crack of the gun and Dr. Herman’s high-pitched scream—echoed around in Stella’s head as she got the hell out of the way, reckoning that if the two damn fools were bent on killing each other, she might as well let them do it without her.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Stella couldn’t quite decide if she was disappointed that Dr. Herman’s second shot lodged itself in the fleshy part of Wil’s arm. The man was certainly carrying on like a stuck pig, but she could tell that not only would he live to tell the tale but that he’d also get out with nothing more than a few dollars’ worth of gauze and bandages. Although if Dr. Herman’s brethren had their say, it would probably cost a few thousand bucks, but that was the health care system for you.

  Dr. Herman, on the other hand, might have inspired a little more sympathy if she wasn’t just so disgusted with him. The shrill cry he let loose when her foot connected had diminished to a series of keening sobs, but he didn’t even seem to notice when Stella carefully plucked his gun from his twitching hand.

  Stella leaned back against a sofa and stared at the two of them for a minute, shaking her head and sighing. Worthless. God help a world that handed over the keys to every important organization—the United Nations, NASA, professional sports—and in effect said, “Here, boys, go on ahead and drive.” When would women wake up and start running things?

  “So, Doc,” she said conversationally. “You ever think about the fact if you’d just kept your dick in your pants, none a this would have happened? Huh?”

  The doc huffed a few shallow breaths before he rolled his head to the side and glared at h
er. “Fu … fu … fuck you.”

  Stella shook her head. Typical. A man can’t come up with an answer to a perfectly legitimate question, he goes right on the attack. “And selling drugs out of your office, I mean, isn’t there some kind of provision in that Hippocratic oath about that? And how much money could you have made, anyway? Was it really worth it?”

  If it was possible for Dr. Herman’s expression to turn any more bitter, that last comment did the trick. “Everyone screws over doctors,” he panted. “Malpractice and the damn insurance companies—”

  “And all those ex-wives, oh, yeah, blah blah blah,” Stella cut in. “My heart bleeds for you, buddy, it really does. I just got to ask you, though. That shit you told me in your office, that Kurtzoy syndrome—none of that was true, was it.”

  Dr. Herman managed to lift his head up off the floor an inch or two so he could look at her. She was astonished to see his face twist itself up into that self-important sneer he’d had when he was sitting behind his big desk with all those diplomas up on the wall behind his head.

  “There is a Kurtzoy syndrome,” he said, his voice assured and arrogant as hell. “It has to do with spinal stenosis complicated by tortuosity of the nerve roots. I’m afraid it’s probably a little too complicated to explain to a lay person like yourself.”

  Un-fucking-believable. There he was, a murderer, lying on the floor, felled by his own stupidity as much as by her determination, and he still felt like he could talk down to her just because he had a title in front of his name.

  Stella gave the doctor one final disgusted kick in the testicles, just enough to keep him occupied for a few more minutes, and grabbed a tissue from a box before picking up his phone. Ignoring the renewed whimpering from the floor, she dialed her own cell phone number.

  After a few rings, it was picked up.

  “Wil—that you?”

  “No, Brandy,” Stella sighed. “It’s not your lame-ass idiot boyfriend. Seriously, woman, you wake up to Wil every day and really think he’s a better deal than you had with Goat?”