by Edward Lee
“I say, hey.” Jorrie smiled his great big chumly warm-hearted smile as he approached this ravishing, brick-shithouse-with-tits-like-ta-knock-your-socks-off blonde. “Me and my buddy here, we’se seen ya pulled over an’ all so we thought we’d stop and give you a hand.”
“Oh, you’re a godsend,” the blonde said, a relieved hand to her chest. “The engine just stopped cold on me. I don’t know what to do.”
Mike-Man played the game, scratching his head as he peered into the little hood. “Lemme see what I can do here, yes sir…”
“I really appreciate this,” she continued to gush. “It’s so cold out tonight. I’d be in a hell of a spot if you two boys hadn’t come by.”
“Now just you don’t worry yourself about that, sweetheart. Mike-Man here, he’s an expert on these kind of problems.”
“And you know what, Jor? I think I done found the problem already.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” the blonde exclaimed.
“Well, not really, at least not for you.” Jorrie chuckled. “The problem, see, is we don’t give a flyin’ feed-bag full of Berkshire hogshit about your busted van, don’t ya know.”
The blonde turned to him. “What do you m—”
“See, the problem is you’re probably the hottest-lookin’ piece of angel food cake to ever cross these here parts, and me an’ Mike-Man here, we’se each got ourselfs a rock-hard dog that I think it would be a real good idea for you to take care of. That, sweetcakes, is the problem.”
The blonde screamed high and hard as Mike-Man got his big meaty arm around her neck and was dragging her back. “Don’t help none to scream,” Jorrie pointed out. “Ain’t no one around to hear ya. So just you go ahead and scream all ya like.”
It wasn’t more than a couple of seconds before Mike-Man had the blonde in the Blazer kicking up a storm across the big bench seat. “Ya hold still now,” he thoughtfully advised. “I’d sure hate to have to kill ya, as fine a set of hooters as you got.’’ She gagged, trying to scratch him, but went rigid when Mike-Man placed the blade of his pearl-handled Buck against that soft, smooth throat of hers.
“There now that’s better, ain’t it, sweetcakes?” Jorrie queried. “Let’s see what we’se can do about gettin’ you out of these here constrictin’ garments, hmm?” He yanked her sassy fancy-labeled jeans right on off and tossed them in the road.
“Check out them purdy panties!” Mike-Man enthused. They were frilly and pink. “Bet she bought ’em at Garfunkel’s!”
“Or maybe even Ward’s,” Jorrie ventured. He peeled them off likewise. Suddenly the cold moonlight reverted his ruddy face to a primordial mask. His glass eye stared. “And a shaved snatch, lookit that, Mike-Man! Don’t that beat all?”
“Sure’s hail does,” Mike-Man was quick to agree. “That’s damn sure the purdiest slab of pie I ever did see.”
The blonde lay shivering. Terror pried her eyes open. Those big firm breasts of hers quivered like turgid Jell-O when Jorrie busted open that nice flannel blouse. “Best pair I’ve seen in quite a spell,” he was cordial enough to compliment, and he didn’t waste no time getting his hands on them. His erotomanic one-eyed gaze reveled in their shape: big as they were they didn’t have no sag to ’em at all, not like a lot of these gals who sport an ample rack and wind up havin’ ’em swinging to their bellybuttons once they get out of the bra. No sir, these didn’t have no flop to ’em whatsoever, and Jorrie really took a fancy to that, just as he took a fancy to that pretty shaved box. He gave her breasts a good, thoughtful kneading, then began to fiddle with her lower. “Ain’t it cute?” he observed. “Bet if I squeeze it, it squeaks!”
Mike-Man chortled his companion on. “Yeah boy! Bet it squeaks like one of them rubber dog toys!”
“Please don’t please don’t please don’t,” the blonde whimpered over and over through gleaming, perfectly straight white teeth.
Jorrie made to unbuckle his pants. “Down boy! Down!” he joked, alluding to his current state of libidinal animation. “First I think I’ll treat this purdy shaved pie to a good ole in and out, then I’ll have me a good creaming on this dandy knockers, huh?”
“Yeah boy!” Mike-Man celebrated, keeping the knife in place.
Jorrie’s good eye roved up and down the blonde’s tremoring flesh. He jacked his trousers down his hips. His glass eye felt cold in his hot skull, and he was tremoring himself quite a bit now, so close to this hot dish. He climbed up between those long, lean, silky legs, but when he looked up again—
“What the—Hey!”
Mike-Man was gone.
Jorrie craned forward, straining his monocular vision past the open driver’s door.
“Where the fuck’s you gone!”
Then he heard a quick, slick, ever faint crunch!
And a groan from way down low in the gut.
Within the block of darkness beyond, Mike-Man fumbled back up into view, teetering and cross-eyed. Jorrie stared.
“Yeah boy,” Mike-Man managed to croak. His eye—, balls seemed to revolve. “I think, I say, I think we done picked the wrong gal to pull a romping on tonight…”
But what was wrong? Mike-Man’s voice sounded really low and shaky like when you’re sure-fire drunk and can’t even say the words proper. Jorrie couldn’t figure it until he took a closer look and realized the cause of his friend’s newfound speech impediment.
“Holy Sheeeee-it!” Jorrie screamed.
Mike-Man’s eyes rolled up, and he sidled over dead in the footwell. A long, shiny knitting needle had been stuck clear through his ears.
The blonde smiled up at him in the moonlight; she began to laugh. A shakedown! Jorrie realized. He flailed to crawl out over the blonde, but a hand reached in and snatched onto his hair. He was dragged out of the Blazer, spun around, and slammed back. “Howdy,” a youthful voice greeted him. Jorrie’s visions swirled—it was some young dude trying to take him down! Where’d he come from? The van! he realized. We done been set up! Jorrie maneuvered to defend himself. His fine, hard-pointed boots had never failed him in the past; he’d taken out a good many fellas a lot bigger than this dude. He reeled back, then lashed out to kick this fucker a good one right in the nut sack.
And missed.
The blonde was still laughing, leaning up on the bench seat to watch. Jorrie’s throat was grabbed, and the back of his skull was slammed once, twice, three times good and hard against the inside edge of the door. On the fourth whack! his glass eye popped out of its socket and shattered on the road.
He collapsed as if crushed.
“Hey, Zy. I’ll bet you thought I’d never get out here. ”
The blonde stepped over Jorrie, retrieved her designer jeans, and stepped back into them. “Actually I wish you would’ve waited a little longer. These two were a riot.”
Jorrie’s right eye dimmed; he could still see in blurred pieces. The dude was dragging Mike-Man toward the van, grabbing either side of the knitting needle as though it were a convenient carrying handle. The blonde was grinning down at Jorrie, buttoning up her jacket.
“Thanks for stopping to lend a hand. It was very charitable of you.”
Jorrie couldn’t move.
“Hey!” the dude said. “I like those boots.”
The blonde shrugged. “Help yourself. It’s not like this hayseed’s going to be needing them anytime soon.”
Jorrie felt his fine hard leather shitkicker boots pulled off his feet. The dude stepped into them. “Nice fit, fella. Thanks.”
The blonde departed to start the van. The dude, whistling “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses,” dragged Jorrie to the vehicle and threw him into the back.
His consciousness seemed adrift in a sea of dull pain. He felt heaped atop things. The van doors slammed shut. Jorrie’s one eye moved against its nerves. Mike-Man’s body lay limp upon several more bodies. One fella’s head had been crushed. Another fella lacked a head altogether. On the other side, though, Jorrie felt movement. His eye darted. More bodies lay atop one a
nother, only these were alive. Three of them at least, all girls who’d been tied up and gagged. They squirmed together in shared terror.
The dude climbed into the passenger side. “Not a bad night,” he commented, taking a glance into the back.
‘Sure.” The blonde pulled onto the road. “But you’re going to have to be more thorough in the future, Lemi. He’s still alive.”
“Huh?”
“The guy with the boots. He’s still alive.”
“Oh. Well I’ll fix that splickety-lit.”
“That’s lickety-split, Lemi. Jesus.”
“Whatever.” This Lemi dude climbed into the back, ducking his head. He was still whistling. Jorrie gave a crushed grunt when he took the first kick in the middle of the spine. Suddenly his legs felt like dead meat. Next, the fine hard point of the boot rammed into his neckbone, quite effectively fracturing the #2 and 3 cervicular vertebrae, hence transecting the spinal column. Jorrie Slade’s brain went out like a light.
Candles flickered behind him from sconces set into rock. The Factotum stepped forward to the nave. It was damp down here, and strangely warm. Seepage trickled. The stone floor bore the vaguest shapes: blood, no doubt, decades old. The blood of all the people who’d been murdered here. Did their ghosts linger as well?
Ghosts, the Factotum pondered. He could have laughed.
He wore a garment akin to a priest’s black cassock, but the Factotum was no priest. He might be called a priest of sorts, yet only in the darkest connotation. The back of his bald head reflected the wavering candlelight—tongues of gentle flame squirming over skin. Beneath the cassock, his naked body felt purged, revitalized. He felt strong again. He felt good.
He breathed in the nave’s damp vapor. Untainted, fresh. When he closed his eyes, a smile touched his lips, for he saw things—the most wonderful things. Things like exaltation, glory, reward. In the onyx-black shapes behind his eyes, he saw tenacity and the sheer, crystal promise of infinity.
Such a blessing, he thought. His heart felt afire.
Such a blessing to serve.
— | — | —
CHAPTER SIX
“Carriage House, here we come!” Dan B. rejoiced.
“Hey, Vera?” Lee asked. “You think this Feldspar guy’ll let me have beer on the house?”
“I can’t wait to see this place!” Donna excitedly joined in. “I’ve seen pictures of it. It’s like a big Gothic mansion!”
Vera smiled.
Dan B. drove—the big Plymouth wagon he and Donna owned—and Lee rode next to him, tracing the upstate maps. Vera sat in the back with Donna. They were all the essentials Vera would need right off; secondary help she could hire from Waynesville. A large move-it! truck, which Vera had contracted for them, followed the wagon up the narrow winding roads of the northernmost edge of the county.
None of them had hesitated at Vera’s offer; Feldspar’s perks, cash supplements, increased salaries, and guaranteed employment contracts were irresistible. “Why not?” Dan B. had remarked. “This city’s getting old anyway. Besides, it’d be selfish for a chef of my extraordinary skills to deprive the rest of the world of his delights.” “Free room and board in a renovated suite!” Donna had exclaimed. “I’m there already!” And Lee: “Did I hear you right, Vera? You’re asking me if I’ll wash dishes for twelve bucks an hour instead of six? What do you think?”
The four of them quitting The Emerald Room without notice did not exactly elate the general manager, but there was no love lost there. He was an uncouth slob who frequently harassed the younger waitresses and had a propensity for leaving boogers on his office wall. Good riddance to him. The next day Vera had rented the truck and hired the movers. “What about your stuff?” Dan B. had asked when they were finished loading up. Vera hadn’t answered; she wasn’t ready to even talk about it much less actually return to the apartment and face Paul. He probably wouldn’t care anyway, she suspected. He’ll probably be happy when he finds out I’m gone. Instead, she’d bought some clothes and sundries with some of the money Feldspar had given her for coming on. She’d get her things from the apartment some other time, if at all. What did she really need, anyway? Her room would be furnished; the company was providing a car. Everything else she needed she could buy. Not ever seeing Paul again was fine with her; the few appliances they’d bought mutually he could have. And the old Tercel could sit in the Mr. Donut parking lot forever as far as Vera was concerned.
Talk about starting with a clean slate, she reflected.
The countryside was beautiful, plush, even in the grip of winter. Its openness seemed unreal, like a long-forgotten dream. The northern ridge rose as an endless expanse of pines, oaks, and firs. South, for miles and miles along State Route 154, farmland denuded of its fall harvest stretched on to an equal degree of endlessness. City life had smothered her; its smog and rush hour and asphalt and cement had veiled her memory of the countryside’s spacious beauty and peace. R.M. at The Emerald Room had been a good job but, she realized now, it had entombed her. There is life after the city, she amused herself with the thought. A better life.
“Come on, man, get with the map,” Dan B. complained at the wheel. “We almost there yet or what?”
“How about eating my shorts?” Lee returned, his lap full of a clutter of maps. “This thing says—”
“We’re about an hour away, Dan B.,” Vera verified. “It’s pretty much a straight shot up the route. Would you relax?”
“I’m excited, I can’t help it. I can’t wait to see the place.”
Neither can I, Vera wondered. If Feldspar was exaggerating, she’d know soon enough. A complete renovation of Wroxton Hall would cost millions. If Feldspar’s company had that kind of money to pump into refurbishments, she couldn’t imagine what kind of money he’d be able to sink into advertising and promotion.
“I don’t quite understand it all,” Dan B. queried. “This place is going to be like—”
”A country-styled bed and breakfast type of place,” Vera answered. “With a separate restaurant to cater to locals. Feldspar wants to target upper-market businessmen and rich people—a weekend get-away-from-it-all sort of thing. But he also wants a full-time restaurant to cater to the better-off people in the area. That’s where we come in. Feldspar says it’s cost-no-object; we’ll get to do pretty much what we want. He’s more concerned with the hotel operations himself. He’s entrusting the entire restaurant to me, or to us, I should say. The whole thing sounds really great, but what we have to remember is the only reason he’s paying us all this money is because he doesn’t want the headache. What he wants is a state-of-the-art dining room without having to worry about it himself.’’
“So if we fuck up,” Lee remarked, “our shit’s in the wind.”
“I’d put it a little more eloquently than that, but yeah. Feldspar seems like a real nice guy, but you can bet he didn’t get to where he is today by passing out second chances. If we don’t turn The Carriage House into something that meets all of his expectations, he won’t think twice about giving us our walking papers and finding someone else.”
“What are we all worried about?” Donna proposed. “We did it at The Emerald Room. We’ll do it here.”
“Damn right,” Vera said. “The Carriage House is going to blow Feldspar right out of his Guccis. I figure we’ll run with a menu close to what we had at The Emerald, but with a lot more exotic specials—”
“Just show me the kitchen,” Dan B. said.
“Feldspar’s talking anything and everything good. He doesn’t even care what the food invoices are. He just wants excellent food every night.”
“I’ll give him that,” Dan B. promised. “I’ll show him.”
“And excellent service.”
“I’ll give him that,” Donna said.
“And clean dishes, right?” Lee mocked.
“That’s right, Lee. Clean dishes. And I don’t want to see you sneaking carafes of beer into the back. This isn’t going to be like The Emerald
Room—it’s going to be better. So I don’t want any fooling around back there. And no drinking during your shift, okay?”
Lee shrugged, smirking. “For twelve bucks an hour, I can even do that.”
Yeah, Vera thought. She felt proud. They were a team on their way to something new. This just might work.
She lounged back. Donna was reading. Dan B. and Lee continued to bicker back and forth over directions and exchange less than complimentary regards for one another, which was normal for a chef and a dishwasher. Vera took some time to just look around, let the vast countryside speed past her eyes. It was almost tranquilizing, the long open road, the encroaching ridge, and the fact that they hadn’t passed another car for miles. She felt free now, released from the cement confines of the city and from a relationship that had been false for God knew how long.
“Only one thing bothers me,” Donna suddenly said.
“What’s that?” Lee inquired. “Dan B.’s crane won’t rise anymore?”
“It rose just fine last night when I was at your mother’s house,” Dan B. informed him.
“Yeah, but what about your sister?”
“Would you two idiots shut up,” Vera snapped. She couldn’t imagine how Donna could put up with Dan B.’s profane sense of humor. “What were you saying, Donna?”
