Nobody Move

by Philip Elliott

  “Not bad. Think she’s fucking someone else.”

  “Shame. I always liked her.”

  “Me too. This what you call discreet, Floyd?”

  “We fucked up here, I can see that.”

  “Drop the gun.”

  “Can’t do that till my friend is on his feet.”

  From her position behind the guards, Dakota gestured at Eddie to follow her.

  Eddie said, “Well, you all seem to have your hands full so I’ll get out of your hair.” He stepped out from the table.

  They all looked at him, no one moving a finger.

  Eddie reached Dakota and together they strode for the doors.

  They broke into a jog as they neared the exit. Eddie glanced behind and grinned. He’d never seen Floyd so pissed—as if he’d lost two million in cash.

  Dakota pushed the doors open and Eddie went after her. The sudden brightness blinded him. He shielded his eyes as they came to a halt in the parking lot.

  “Look at that, it’s not raining,” he said, shirt stuck to him. “Where to?”

  “Place I’m staying is ten minutes away in a cab,” Dakota said. She looked silly, almost nude in the parking lot.

  “You bring all the boys home with you this quick,” Eddie said, “or just the ones make you laugh?”

  Dakota looked at him curiously. “You’re something.”

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  4 | The Long Road to L.A.

  Rufus watched his cell phone ringing on the table. He should get rid of it; damn thing only ever went off when he wasn’t in the mood.

  He picked it up. “What?”

  “Am I speaking to Rufus Kane? Brother of Bill Kane?” said a man on the other end. Rufus gritted his teeth at the whiny West Coast accent.

  “Be odd if you called Rufus Kane and it weren’t Rufus Kane answered the phone, don’t you think.”

  “Well Rufus, my name’s Jerry. I’m a friend of your brother’s, from L.A. You might want to sit down.”

  “You might want to tell me why you called.”

  “Well …” The man exhaled sharply. “Bill was found dead last night. Buried in Angeles National Forest, along with a girl he liked to … have around.”

  Rufus felt the wind knocked out of him. He pulled a chair out from the table and dropped into it.

  “What you just say?” he said.

  The man hesitated. “Your brother, he was found dead—”

  “Dead? What the fuck you mean by ‘dead’? Dead don’t mean shit.”

  “Murdered,” the man said, no hesitation now. “Single bullet through his right eye.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Not sure but definitely L.A. boys. Looks like a hit.”

  “I’ll skin them alive,” Rufus snarled and slammed the phone on the table.

  He remained sitting there for a while, trying to accept this news as fact. Even called Bill’s cell in case the man had been bullshitting, hoping Bill would pick up. As adults they’d never been close, but, since Ma died, there had been … something between them, something beyond blood. A memory came to him of Bill and him as kids, running around the trailer park, this very trailer park he lived in now that he’d returned to after Ma died. Bill, being the older by a couple years, was making up the rules for the game as they went along. They were cowboys shooting Indians and Bill warned him there was Indians up in the trees and if they got spotted the Indians would shoot ’em dead with arrows. Little Rufus told little Bill that he didn’t want Bill to die and little Bill laughed, said he ain’t going nowhere, they would make it out of this one alive, together.

  Rufus clenched his fists and rose, made for the liquor cabinet. He grabbed the bottle of Jack, poured it into a glass, and tipped it down his neck. He did it again. The spicy fire of the whiskey ignited in his bones, his tongue wet and tingling. Like a telescope, his mind zoomed in on what he had to do.

  He marched through the little kitchen and into the bedroom. A portrait of Christ, bloody palms facing outward and His face utterly expressionless despite them, hung on the wall behind the bed, almost the length of the wall itself. Rufus dropped to one knee and slid a thick arm beneath the bed. Grunting, he pulled out a dusty wooden box, black with a scarlet border. He allowed the significance of this moment to imprint in his mind, and opened the box, which creaked softly. Two daggers gleamed on the velvet, blades the length of his forearm, hilts carved from ivory, each filigreed with an elegant “R” in solid gold.

  He picked up one of the daggers—slowly, gently, carefully—and savored the weight of it. He twirled the dagger in the sunlight pouring in from the window, the blade glistening like a river. He ran his finger along the tip and did not flinch when it cut him and dark blood traveled down the handle and dripped onto the floor. He nodded his approval, placed the dagger inside the box, and carried the box under one arm into the kitchen. With his free hand he poured a final drink and knocked it back. He grabbed his Stetson from the hook on the front door, placed it onto his head, and stepped out under the searing Texas sun.

  “Hey, Mr. Rufus,” said a young girl in a tattered and dusty pink dress, “where you goin’?”

  “Far away from here, Cinderella.”

  “My name is Cindy, not Cinderella,” she said, but smiled broadly, never tiring of this routine. “Can I come with you?”

  Rufus reached his car—an immaculate teal and cream 1966 Chevrolet Impala SS Convertible—and glanced back at her. “Not this time, sweetheart.” He had a fondness for the girl. He hoped she wouldn’t become a whore like her mother, but the odds were against her. Already, at eleven years old, she knew how to speak to the men who visited her mother. Rufus had seen more than one of them speaking with Cindy a little too long, beyond the minimum necessary to humor a child. But Cindy was not his daughter, and if he were to be honest with himself, which he’d been trying to be lately, he didn’t give much of a damn.

  Rufus popped the trunk of the Chevy and placed the dagger box inside. He got into the driver’s seat, switched on the local country music radio station he liked—the same dozen songs on repeat, but that was what he liked about it—and, with a quick wave to the girl, began the long drive to L.A.

  The cab took Eddie and Dakota to a motel off the highway, the kind of place where the devil makes deals.

  “You’re staying in a motel?” Eddie said, slapping twenty bucks into the driver’s hand.

  “I told you, I’m just in L.A. to find someone,” Dakota said.

  They exited the car.

  “Then why the strip club?” Eddie said.

  “It’s the only place I know she’s been.”

  Dakota paused outside the door to her room. “Shit, I left my key at the club.” She headed toward the reception and went inside. Eddie went in after her, greeted immediately by the unmistakable smell of cat shit. He found the source on his right: a pink litter box covered in droppings.

  Dakota hit the bell on the counter and a nerdy guy in a wheelchair rolled out of a doorway.

  “Yes, yes, coming,” he said, and approached them. “Oh.” He looked Dakota up and down, his gaze resting on her tits.

  “Hi,” Dakota said. “Unfortunately, I don’t have my key, but I need to get into my room right now.”

  The receptionist pushed up his glasses. “Oh. Well—” he glanced at Eddie—“conducting business in our rooms is strictly forbidden. But, if you were to pay for another room, I might overlook—”

  “Excuse me?” Dakota said. “What business is it that I am conducting, exactly?”

  The guy looked at the floor and fiddled with his glasses. “Well, I mean, you’re, you know, that is—”

  “Just give her the key, man,” Eddie said, suppressing a grin. “You don’t want to make an enemy of this one. Trust me.” He winked at Dakota.

  The receptionist hesitated, and disappeared below the counter. He surfaced and held a key out toward Dakota, avoiding her gaze as if looks could kill.

  “I’ll need this key back in the
morning or I’ll have to charge you for it,” he said.

  Dakota snatched the key and strode out the door.

  Eddie leaned on the counter. “Hey, it happens.” He shrugged. “What’s the rate for a room?”

  “For you just …” the guy said.

  “You see anyone else?”

  “Singles are forty bucks a night.”

  “I’ll take one. And, word of advice—you should clean up that shit over there. Smells like a bag of assholes in here.”

  Eddie knocked on Dakota’s door, feeling marginally refreshed by the shower but not so much the sweaty shirt and pants he’d had no choice but to wear again. The alcohol seeping from his system made his head hurt and limbs heavy. A couple beers would sort him out.

  After a minute Dakota opened the door. Eddie found it amusing to see her dressed in tight jeans and a vintage Pulp Fiction shirt, as if her wearing clothes was a novelty. Her hair, wet and shining, looked even darker—as black as her jeans.

  “You know, I never caught your name,” she said, drying her hair with a towel.

  “Name’s Eddie. Eddie Vegas. Nice to make your acquaintance.” He flashed his most handsome smile.

  “Well, Eddie Vegas, your name sure suits you.” She stepped to the side to let him in.

  The place smelled fragrant—a little sweet, a little spicy. Clothes lay in a heap on the floor beside a small suitcase, including the bra and panties she’d been wearing when they met. Seeing them discarded on the floor turned him on even more than when they’d been the only things covering her body.

  “I’m just gonna dry my hair,” she said, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Eddie sat on the edge of the bed. He wouldn’t mind lying in this bed with her. Wouldn’t mind that at all.

  A hair dryer started up in the bathroom.

  “I guess you can’t go back to wherever you live then, huh?” she yelled over it.

  “I’ll have to at some point. My clothes, passport and some cash are there.”

  “You flying somewhere?”

  “No.” He thought about it. “Maybe.”

  “Where to?”

  “I don’t care, just not here. I’m done with L.A.”

  “I read in a book once, ‘You’re not done with L.A. until L.A. is done with you.’”

  Eddie let that one go. “What about you?” he said. “When you find who you’re looking for, are you finished here?”

  The hair dryer stopped. She stepped out of the bathroom, her hair sleek and soft-looking.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what happens after that.”

  Eddie stood up. “You probably can’t go back to working at the club?”

  “Definitely not. I can consider myself fired before my first shift even ended.”

  “Shit, sorry about that.”

  “I didn’t want to work there anyway.”

  “That’s good, I guess. You hungry?”

  “I could eat.”

  “I know a place nearby got the best pizza you’ll ever taste.”

  “Lead the way, Eddie Vegas.”

  Eddie smiled, glad she was being a little playful. The day wasn’t turning out so bad after all.

  The bar was one of those dives that, though dark and full of assholes, had an inviting charisma about it once you’ve had a few. Photographs that could only mean something to the owner hung haphazardly on the walls, the same three guys as every other time Eddie had been here sat at the bar like fixtures, and a coin-operated jukebox in the corner cranked out the Thin Lizzy he’d queued up minutes before.

  “You’re really going through those,” Dakota said, referring to the cocktail Eddie had tipped down his neck.

  “My mom always told me to never half-do anything,” he said, Dakota’s perfect face swimming in front of him like a memory.

  “You didn’t half-do that pizza either. I’ve never seen anyone eat so much.”

  “Best pizza in the world; was I right or was I right?”

  “The first one.”

  Eddie went to pick up the cocktail, forgetting he’d just emptied it. He withdrew his hand.

  “So who is it you’re looking for in L.A.?” he said.

  “Someone I haven’t seen in a very long time.”

  “You said she was at the club. She work there? Maybe I know her.”

  “You might have seen her. She was a dancer up until a few months ago. No one there knows where she went after, or where she lives.”

  “Why you looking for her?”

  Dakota looked away. “That’s … complicated.”

  Eddie took the hint. “Hey, you like Thin Lizzy?”

  “Can’t say I know what that is.”

  “What? That is just … a travesty is what that is. Thin Lizzy are the greatest rock ’n’ roll band to ever walk the earth.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “Oh man, it is. Listen.” He pointed to his ear as the next track, “Cowboy Song,” began.

  “Not bad,” Dakota said after a few seconds, a faint smile on her lips.

  “You just wait.”

  The drums made their entry over the finger-picked bass intro, pounding sixteenth beats building to a crescendo and exploding into a jagged guitar riff behind swooning vocals.

  Eddie bobbed his head.

  “I like it,” Dakota said, swaying her shoulders.

  “So good, right? Come dance with me.”

  Surprise widened her eyes. “Dance? Right now?”

  “Right now,” Eddie said and got up off the stool. He moved his hips, Dakota giggling at him with a hand over her mouth.

  “Come on,” he said. “I look like an idiot unless you dance with me.”

  He reached out a hand to take one of Dakota’s and she let him. He pulled her out of her chair, gently, and brought her to the middle of the bar. She swayed her shoulders, still giggling at him. Her hips followed suit, and soon she was dancing like a pro, Eddie trying to keep up with her while the men at the bar leered at her like primates.

  By the time the guitar solo erupted into being, Dakota had her eyes closed, her hips swaying like the breeze and Eddie lost inside a bubble with her. There was something about her all right, and it wasn’t the cocktails telling him that, either.

  The song faded to a close and Dakota opened her eyes. “That was fun,” she said, smiling up at him. The bar behind her looked like an oil painting.

  “You can really move,” Eddie said.

  He stumbled as he returned to his seat, brushing against one of the men at the bar.

  “Watch where you’re going, faggot,” the guy said, a big bald head squashed onto his neck.

  “Sorry, Humpty Dumpty,” Eddie said. “Wouldn’t want you to fall and smash that gargantuan fuckin’ head.”

  “Mouth like that’ll get you beat,” Humpty Dumpty said. “You looking to get beat?”

  Eddie glanced at Dakota. She was watching, it seemed to him, with great interest.

  “Tell me, Humpty,” Eddie said, “how many times you sat on a wall and had a great fall?”

  Humpty shot out of his stool so fast it toppled to the floor. Eddie saw a fist like a slab of ham coming at him, then the oil painting swirled and the colors melted together and it all looked like a drag queen crying under a street lamp.

  Floyd found a bag of frozen peas in the freezer and pressed it against his eye, wincing at the pressure on the bruise forming beneath. He dragged a chair from under the kitchen table into the living room and sat opposite Sawyer passed out on the sofa, empty pizza boxes and beer bottles scattered around him. The place smelled like the morning after a house party, except there’d been no party and only one person lived here.

  After a few minutes Floyd got bored and filled a glass with water from the tap. He stood over Sawyer and poured the cold liquid onto his face.

  Sawyer spluttered to life.

  “What the …” Sawyer said, groggy, and sat up, looking around. “This my apartment.”

  “You one clever motherfu
cker. Should be on the cover of Time magazine.”

  Sawyer touched his neck. “What happened?”

  “What happened? Shit, wouldn’t you like to know.”

  “That’s right, Floyd, I would.”

  Floyd lowered the peas. “Those gorilla motherfuckers was busy giving me this while you had a nice sleep on the floor. That’s what happened.”

  “What you saying?”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Sawyer frowned. “One of them jumped me …”

  “You got jumped all right,” Floyd said. “After your outburst, pushing that bitch away.”

  “I barely touched her. She was rubbin’ me so fast my balls would’ve gone up in flames.”

  “Another man would have been glad to have a pretty li’l thing giving them attention like that.”

  “I ain’t that kinda man.”

  They met each other’s gaze and held them.

  “Well, you goin’ tell me what happened or what?” Sawyer said.

  Floyd pressed the peas against his face. “After that asshole jumped you, I had a shotgun pointed at the back my head. Had no choice but to give up my gun. Soon as I did, that other nigga gave me this—” Floyd pointed at his eye—“so I hit him back. I don’t care if a twelve-gauge pointed at my head, someone hits me they getting hit back. I got him in the gut, knocked him back a step. Next thing I know feels like a sledgehammer smashing into my ribs. Surprised they ain’t broken. It was the other big fucker, not choking you out anymore. I don’t know at what point you passed out but when I looked at you then you was sleeping like a baby, the most peaceful fuckin’ sleep I ever seen, while I got my ass beat by a couple juiceheads. That fucking bartender smirking, enjoying himself. I always knew Mark was a sly motherfucker but we got along. I even did him a favor once. He gonna pay for that.

  “Anyway, the dancers got uncomfortable so they stopped beating me, told me to get out. I had to carry yo’ ass to the S.U.V. You a lot heavier than you look. Brought you here ’cause my wife at home right now. I come in the door with a swollen eye and you knocked out she’d leave my ass before I could say a word explaining myself.”

  “You carried me home?” Sawyer said, a different expression on his face now, looking at Floyd in that way.