Love.
That stupid broad had fallen in love. With a man he was going to own nonetheless. What a sweet, sappy story for all; a real-life Romeo and Juliet with a twister of an ending. Juliet would die, because she was ignorant. Romeo would live on and work for him. It wasn’t so sad after all.
Yes, Cray wanted Hank Rivers. He wanted him for many reasons. He had Booty watch him carefully over the years. Booty was paranoid about what those boys saw. Cray went along, not caring one way or the other, until Hank went to law school.
Hank impressed Cray with his buzz. Plenty of hungry bees flying around that sticky honey. His honey. Hank was going to be someone one day. He was smart, spot on, had this feeling they all spoke so fondly of. He had an extra sense, and extra sense to Cray was like millions of dollars funneling straight into his pockets. And as fate can be very kind to even the cruelest of souls, Hank turned out to be one good-looking son of a bitch.
He didn’t need the custom suits, or the expensive cologne, or the polished shoes. He dressed up anything he ever wore with just a genuine smile and a limp eye. Something about that eye intrigued Cray, and he wasn’t a man intrigued by much, except for money and power.
That spellbinding eye gave him a mystique, something people never forgot. It was the fodder for conversation, a showstopper. Cray admired that eye. He wished he had one just like it. That’s why he instructed his people when they went to grab Hank that under no circumstances were they to touch his face. He was perfection. Cray knew perfection in a screwed up world was valued. It was worth more than money because it was the moneymaker. You take away the seed and you have nothing but gravel.
As Cray sat behind his mahogany desk, his exquisite butt cheeks planted firmly in deep leather, he contemplated Hank Rivers. He downed two of the anxiety pills the Doc had given him with a glass of red wine. He was having trouble sleeping lately. He was always looking over his shoulder. Fearing the unknown. Was there something in the bushes staring at him? Was that car trailing too closely? Were those footsteps he heard while sleeping in his bed? Or was the house just creaking? Was the ceiling moving? Or was it just a bird on the roof?
It all started with a bunch of rumors. Who could this fast-shooting Pistol woman be? Rumors, rumors, rumors. In the business of the fools, rumors can run rampant. Cray never fed into rumors. Had no use for them. He had to see it to believe it because he owned everything. And if he wanted you to tap dance while he beat you with shoes, you would.
At first this wasn’t about how quick she was. This was about respect! She had no respect for him. He owned her! It didn’t matter the cost. But the rumors grew greater and greater, until he could no longer ignore them. She was a force to be reckoned with. Booty had seen the ghost in the flesh. She was more than anyone of them could handle, he had said. She had to be destroyed, along with Hank Rivers. All of them.
He groaned and swallowed. He hated those pills. He couldn’t stand the feeling of losing control. And those damn pills controlled him. Made him feel lopsided and feathery. His anger against the pills only added to the anxiety, and he was angrier than usual when he took them.
Cray didn’t need them, he always told himself. It was his choice to take them. His paranoia flared even with the downers. He felt the fires of some unknown voodoo making its way toward him. The edge needed to be dulled a bit.
He lit his cigar, moving forward through the cloud of smoke he just exhaled. He stared at Hank, passed out cold in his office. He couldn’t understand why he would fall in love with a woman more than half his age. He was running behind a dinosaur. One who was maybe as ugly as a pterodactyl and thick boned to boot. A size fourteen nightmare. He would have to cover that mug with a paper bag.
Damn that woman was frightening. No wonder she never smiled—what could she possibly smile about? The mirror flinched when she walked into the room.
So much beauty wasted! What that boy could do with his genes if he only put them to good use. But all that didn’t matter much now. Cray had Hank right where he wanted him. Hank was his insurance policy. He knew those damn women were coming for him sooner or later, and before Hank the moneymaker, he was halfway in the grave. Moneymaker Hank was also a shovel.
Now he had all the power he needed. He had ears on every side of this southern planet, and he knew she was in love with Hank. She didn’t kill him when he ran behind her. Instead, she took him along for the ride. She damn near almost killed Booty for him. Cray had everything he ever needed, right here in his office. He could toss out the few guys he trusted and be just fine. Just fine. Two guns and that boy’s head and she’d surrender.
He was going to enjoy removing that mask immensely, whispering all those secrets, and then dumping her body with the rest. Oh, how those women deep below the ground make the prettiest cotton flowers. They were still working for him.
Cray smirked at the thought. He wiped around his mouth and took a sip of red wine, and relaxed behind his big mahogany desk. He snapped his fingers and one of his guys slapped Hank in the head. Right where he’d been hit.
Hank moaned. His head swayed from left to right before one of his eyes cracked open. Hank’s eyes were glossy, but when they met Cray’s, they turned to stone. Then his head slumped a bit.
Cray rose from his mighty throne, lowered down to Hank’s level. He snapped his fingers. Hank responded by looking at him again.
“Tell me, who’s the woman you’re running behind. Is it Rosemary?” Cray was sure it was the beast of a woman, but uncertainty never boded well with Cray. He hated it just as much as he hated the unclean and minimal amount of choices.
Hank’s head swayed, like soft moving ripples in the tide. Those eyes were still hard, though, and Cray knew it would only take a minimal amount of taunting to get them soft. Or at least, accepting.
Cray snapped his fingers again. Hank smiled. Hank smiled and Cray wanted that smile in his pocket. It was naturally crooked! That smile alone could get him so damn much.
“You have no idea who she is, do you?” Hank’s voice was as flighty as his head. The boy could have been loaded on whiskey with the way he drunkenly slurred his words.
“I know it’s her, Rosemary. The one they call Little Sister. You will admit it to me.”
Hank laughed. “I don’t know Rosemary.”
“You don’t know who she is, do you?” Cray said, enjoying this conversation. He despised the bitch, Hank loved her, and neither one truly knew who she was.
“Oh,” Hank smiled. “I know who she is all right. But I’ll be damned if I tell you. You’ll have to kill me first.”
The door to Cray’s office slammed shut. Cray’s muscles twitched. His eye started to jump. Hank stared at him like he was a rope burning slowly. Cray thought it looked like pride on the punk’s face.
Hank smirked. He used his pointer finger to call Cray closer. “Look at you, quivering in your designer suit. She has you just a-runnin’ scared, like a little ole mama’s boy. And you better, because she’s going to kill you. I promise you, she’s going to rid this earth of you. And when she does, I’ll be right beside her, right here on your floor, singing church songs, thanking God that the devil is dead.”
Cray stood, a mountain towering over a river. He used his fingers to wipe around his mouth. “Say her name.”
Hank looked up to the sky. He started singing church hymnals. He started singing them as though he was getting paid to do it. Cray signaled to two other mountain men and they stood closer to Barb and Curly, who were on either side of Hank on the floor.
Cray took a step back, turned his body just a fraction, and then stabbed his polished shoe into Hank’s stomach. Hank stopped singing; he stopped breathing for a moment. Cray did it five more times. Hank fell over onto the floor, wheezing and gasping for air. Barb and Curly tried to fight, but Cray’s flunkies stopped them. Curly was crying, pulling at his hair.
“Tell him, Hank!” Curly screamed. “Tell them who you think she is! Please, Hank! She’ll kill them. You know she will. Sto
p beating my brother! Tell them, Hank!”
Cray went to kick Hank again, but Curly screamed so loud, his foot stopped mid-strike. Hank held a shaking hand up to stop Curly, but Curly went on anyway, rambling like a frightened five year old.
“He thinks she’s Delilah Turner!” Curly screeched in horror. “He believes Pistollette is Delilah!”
Cray looked at the two flunkies and started to laugh. He laughed so hard that he started to sound like Hank on the floor, still trying to reach the air to breathe. Cray guffawed like a big buffoon and then kicked Hank in the mouth. He was just so damn tickled by Curly’s little joke.
Cray’s entire body shook, until suddenly it became as still as ice in a frozen over pond. He was deathly still, while he stared down at Hank.
“I hate jokes.” Cray said, wiping at his mouth. “And that’s all that is. A lousy joke from a pathetic louse with no coglioni between his legs. I know you know my sweet little Delilah. Somehow you got tangled with her too. They’re just one, big, happy family, aren’t they? They’re as close as coons trying to steal crackers together. Delilah Law.” He laughed and sighed.
“That little chicken shit couldn’t hurt a fly. I couldn’t find her for years and years, and you Hank, you brought me to my dear darlin’ daughter once again. I didn’t touch her because I knew that woman was around protecting her. But now that you’re here, I can do whatever the hell I want! That house she has over there in Magnolia Springs, it’s getting burned to the ground as we sit here and chat. Someone burnt mine down. It was only fair I return the favor.
“Delilah Law. Let me tell you something about that dirty little bitch. Let me tell you, Hank, all the things I did to her. I broke every one of her little fingers because she tried to stab with me a rose. I broke her fingers and then beat her until her eyes bled, because she couldn’t do her work with those same dirty little broken fingers. I stripped her of her clothes, her and her Mama, and paraded them around in front of my help, just because I damn well could. They used to do it to snitches back during war times, why couldn’t I with my own women…” Cray continued his horrid recounts, as Hank had no choice but to listen.
“Delilah Law couldn’t hurt a fly. Her and all her lil’ torn-up ragdoll sisters. Ragdolls that happen to have porcelain faces. Ah, I do make some pretty girls, don’t I? Too bad they’re good for nothin’.” He spat. “Delilah Law. She’s nothing but a scared little muted bitch who can’t stop trembling in her own underwear. And I did that! You see, you just have to cut those thorny ones down with sharp scissors. No, I have nothing to worry about with Delilah Law. Now that other one, Rosemary, she could be a problem. Could’ve been, but now that you’re here, no problem at all. Not an ounce of worry at all.” Rosemary almost killed him once. But her gun locked up and he was able to get a shot on her and get away.
“You killed Rosemary.” Hank voice was hoarse, barely audible.
“No, I killed Lilly Beth. Delilah’s gorgeous mother. I beat her until her face looked like pulp. I left her twitching—” Cray smirked and made his body jump “—and drooling blood. I have her ID right in my safe. I have all their IDS. I always do. Hmm, she was a hot little piece of tail, that Lilly Beth. Fate is so kind sometimes. I swear it.
“She mouthed off to me the first time she met me. She asked me what I did. And when I told her my daddy bought my education, she scoffed and said how generous of him. I knew I had to have her then. She was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Naïve and cocky because her family was well known for their wild ways. She wasn’t wild though. She was the timid, beautiful one. And she had no idea who I was. She just happened to walk into the wrong spot at the right time. You just never know. One word to the wrong person and your entire life can change.”
Cray’s son, Woe, came striding into the room like he owned the place. When the door slammed shut, Hank watched with pleasure as Cray twitched again from the noise. Pompous prick taking pleasure from his pain—albeit a smooth one, but still. Cray didn’t know whether to hit him again or shake his hand.
Woe stood over Hank and laughed, sticking him the finger. Then he went and sat in his daddy’s chair, lifting his feet and propping them up on the desk. He took a cigar from the stash, lit up, and the pleasant sweet smell of it filled the room, calming Cray an iota.
Hank rocked back on his knees, finally having the strength to sit on his rear. When he did, he looked straight up into Cray’s eyes and extended a hand to him. Cray smiled and extended his hand. They shook for a long minute, sizing each other up by the squeeze of the shake.
“I knew you’d come around. Just takes a little persuasion is all. Just a little coercion and I knew you’d be mine.”
Hank kept shaking his hand. Cray, being a man of bigger statue, refused to move his first. When Hank stopped, he kept Cray’s hand in his, moving forward toward him, like he was going to whisper a secret in his ear. Who was it, who was it, Cray craved to know. Just before they met ear to mouth, Hank bent all Cray’s fingers back until the bones cracked. Cray let out a feral growl as he hit the floor in pain.
Hank had chipped his finest plate, broke it right there in front of him like a kid throwing a tantrum in a store. No longer was Cray able to say that everything on the outside was straight and perfect. His hand was shattered into a million pieces, tilting to the side, swelling, deformed looking.
Cray rose to his feet, putting a hand up to stop anyone from beating Hank. The first one to jump to his defense was the woman who had had Hank at gunpoint. She stepped back when he told her to. He snapped, she listened, obeyed every word. Cray hovered over Hank, staring him in the eye. It was about time that dog pissed its pants.
He’d underestimated Hank. Hank wasn’t a dog that rolled over or tucked his tail between his legs. He was showing his teeth, staring back, not cowering away. Cray beat him with both of his hands, broken bones and all. He kicked him repeatedly. Split his skin open with that razor-sharp ring. He was a wild demon foaming from the mouth; no pain, no gain. Cray beat Hank unmerciful while Barb and Curly closed their eyes tight and said hushed prayers.
It was too late. The cavalry would never come. Even if they did, blood would spill. And it wouldn’t be Cray’s. He was positive.
Cray’s bank in Charlotte was his largest. It was all black and white marble, with beautiful ironwork detailing the stone counters, stretching straight up to the roof. The history in the building was undeniable; it had withstood mighty storms and the most acclaimed robbers. A testament to days long gone. A place where people felt privileged to put their money. It was place that could be deemed historical and museum like. It was beautiful, everything in pristine condition.
It was until the walls started to shake like an earthquake rumbled below. There were explosions and smoke and the smell of the building burning. The ceiling started to fall in on Cray’s all deep-brown leather and rich mahogany office. When a piece hit him upside his head, he stopped the cruel beating and looked up. They all did. They could feel the rumbling and hear the stirring of voices, the heeled footsteps running toward the office.
Before the door came open, Hank opened his eyes. Everything burned and hurt as he looked around. Everything was shaky and unstable. He looked at his friends beside him, and they were staring at him like he was a ghost that had just risen from the dead.
He nodded his head at them, slowly, gently, just to let them know he was all right. Then he quickly took stock of the room. Tommy was spot on when he said Cray was paranoid. There were only six men beside him, all dressed in white and black suits, with guns at their sides. His son, the pompous ignoramus sitting at the desk polluting the air with his cloying smoke, made seven. Not counting the head devil himself. Eight.
The masked woman who had taken him stared right at Hank. She watched him count. She watched every move he made. He could tell by the way her eyes were fixated on him, on every twitch of his mouth, every involuntary spasm of his muscles—she itched to kill.
The door burst open and four women rus
hed in, all dressed in the same outfits used in the previous robberies—form fitting paint suits and hats. They moved quickly, dragging Dylan, Jesse, and Stroke in with them. They threw them to the armed men and then formed a line in front of Cray’s desk. His flunkies moved Curly, Barb, Hank, and the three behind it.
“What are you doing?” Hank mouthed to Dylan.
Dylan punched his heart, pointed to Hank. “Posses always stick together,” he mouthed back.
Cray stood next to Hank, one hand on his collar. Hank looked up and saw two pistols tucked into the back of his pants. More explosions rocked the bank, more shaking and shattering. The burning smell was becoming more intense. God Almighty, someone was taking apart this bank piece by piece.
Cray’s hand twitched like a million jumping beans were stuffed inside of it. He held onto Hank’s collar with a vengeance. “Where is Winston?” he snapped to those women. His tongue belted them. One of the women pointed. Everyone seemed to look at once. A line had formed at the door of Cray’s office.
More masked faces were entering the throne room one by one. They were like beautiful swimmers, their bodies seemingly like one, but as they entered they separated. These women were dressed differently.
The masks were all wrong. Hank had never seen these disguises before. The faces that stared back at him were all women that he had never seen before—yes, they were all so different, but undeniably all feminine. Black, tight fitting dresses, like funeral attire, hugged each of their forms. You could tell one from another.
One had a deeper roll to her hips, another taller, another thinner; one had plumper breasts than the next. The heels were all different lengths and styles, except for those long strips of crimson-stained soles. A gun was secured to each of their thighs. Zoo Zoo and Wham Wham had her knife. Jellyfish had a rope.
Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah Page 34
