“Yes… I won’t…” I said, feeling the bile back up in my throat.
“Next time we meet, you die.” He accented his words with another strike to my gut. Puke of rotten whiskey and green gut slime flowed past my teeth and down my chin. From the ground, I watched the boots walk away. I heard the truck start, then they drove past my crumpled form and the world went dark. I lay there covered by a blanket of stars. I hurt all over, I couldn’t imagine standing up. My brain had betrayed me when I most needed it, it had left me to flop like a landed fish under his blows. I was that little kid cowering under an adult’s power. Defenseless and stupid.
My old pal anger reached down and pulled me to my knees. Fuck that corny cowboy bastard. Fuck him and his axe handle. Tomorrow was my day, and if I could stand up, his ass was mine.
On my hands and knees I crawled over to the Crown Vic. I found my.38 and pulled myself into the driver’s seat. Small cubes of glass were scattered everywhere. In the mirror I found my cheek was purple and cut but it wasn’t deep. The blood had already stopped flowing. Peeling off my shirt, my belly was mottled red and swelling but my ribs had been spared. All things considered the old guy had gone light on me. Not that that made me feel any better about him. Driving with my lights off I turned down the dirt road and parked hidden behind the pines and scrub brush. I lay in the back seat, forcing the pain down until I finally drifted into a nightmare filled sleep.
CHAPTER 8
I awoke in the grey predawn light and although it was cold in the car I was covered in sweat. Unfolding from a sitting position my body screamed in protest, my muscles had all turned into bruised and painful lead overnight. Pulling on a pair of shorts I dropped my ripped and stained suit into the trunk. Lacing up an old pair of hi-tops I assessed the damage reflected in the car window. My cheek had a new puffy lump and large purple bruises patterned my shoulders, neck and gut. All in all I looked like shit, not that I’d ever been a beauty queen but I sure wasn’t getting prettier since I’d left LA.
Stretching was painful, but necessary. Gripping a sturdy tree limb I let my body weight pull down on my arms and shoulders, then breathed deeply through my nose and hung until the stiff muscles gave up the fight and relaxed. Slowly I pulled myself into a chin-up and thanked my Viking ancestors for strong bones. Jogging slowly at first I moved through the pines, down a small animal path. Building in speed I started to run full out. I could feel the toxins flowing out of my pores. Slowly my body started to loosen up. After a mile I turned back. Fifty push-ups and a hundred painful stomach crunches later I was ready for the day.
Pulling on a clean pair of jeans and a black tee-shirt I drove down the highway and found a small diner. In the bathroom I removed most of the crusted blood and evil smelling sweat with a whore’s bath. It made me feel almost human. Powering my way through a plate of steak and eggs and a mug of strong coffee, I planned my next move. I didn’t know what Cass looked like or even what stage name she was using. What I had were bruises and a fist full of nothing. I ordered two ham sandwiches to go and filled up a thermos with coffee. It was late afternoon when I returned to my perch. Around eight, the red Chevy pickup pulled into the parking lot. My good friend, the cowboy from the night before, got out and went into the house.
Slipping my.45 into my belt, I put on my leather jacket and moved off on foot. It took forty minutes of scrabbling down the steep incline, but finally I hit the fence that surrounded the house. Moving in the shadows I made it to the parking lot without detection. Crouched down in front of the red Chevy pickup I waited.
Men came and went. Some laughing, some nervously looking around. They reminded me of the men who came into the club. All looking to make a connection, all willing to believe a whore’s promise, that contrary to every shred of evidence, the girl really liked you for more than the cash in your pocket. Some left the Eagle’s Nest with heads down, telling themselves that this was the last time. The last time until night fell, and loneliness settled down on them. The reason men fall in love with strippers and whores is simple, they are the perfect date. They laugh at all your jokes, if you feel fat they tell you that you have big bones, and that they like big men. They make their living making men feel special. If you fall for the trick then no real woman can ever fulfill you. Outside of the clubs and whorehouses you were just you, another slob trying to make it through the day, but for a few hours you could be anything you wanted. I’d heard of men who saved girls from their lives as prostitutes, set them up in apartments, paid all their bills. The girls would bleed them dry, and once the mark was bankrupt, they would return to the whorehouse and look for their next sugar daddy. Life is simpler once you realize all relationships are commerce. Jen, my ex-wife, had fallen in love with my outlaw ways, and for six painful years she tried to change me. I got my one and only straight job, working for a roofing company with a group of Samoan ex-cons. Every night I’d come home stinking of tar and try to be her version of a husband. I may have been in love with her, but the toll was too high.
What is the price of love?
Ask her lawyer, he had an exact figure and I’m still paying it off.
It was just past midnight when the weathered cowboy came out. I waited until he had his keys out and was unlocking the truck’s door. Pulling my.45 I bolted up, he turned at the sound but I was on him, shoving the pistol’s barrel into his ribs. “Remember me?” I said in a soft even voice. He nodded slightly. “Let’s do this nice and easy, cowboy, my nerves are frayed, this thing may go off all by itself.” I got in the truck and slid across to the passenger seat. “Get in, slow and calm.” He drove us out of the parking lot, and down the road. I had him pull off on a dirt road. “Kill it,” I told him. The Chevy dieseled twice then was silent. I leaned against the passenger door, aiming at him. “Keep your hands on the wheel.”
“Boy, if you’re going to kill me, let’s get to it,” he said, looking over at me with steely gray eyes. I placed him at maybe fifty, with leathery skin and the strong muscles that only hard work brought.
“I may. First we talk, unless you’re in a hurry to die.”
“Nope, but I ain’t afraid of it, neither.”
“Cut the John Wayne bullshit.” Slapping the.45 against his knee, I snapped the thumb safety off.
“Whoa, ease up a bit, son. This don’t have to get stupid.”
“Not afraid to die, but you don’t want to be crippled, that it?” I tapped his kneecap with the pistol barrel. “What’s your deal? If you were a bouncer I’d be dead or in jail.”
“I just help out from time to time. Look after the girls.” His eyes stayed on the pistol. “You want to point that cannon elsewhere?”
“Nope. What about Cass?”
“Now she’s something special.” His eyes went soft when he spoke of her. “If I was a younger man, and she’d have me, I’d probably marry her.”
“Sweet, you’re making me go all misty,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Why did you think I was connected?”
“Cass told me you mob boys were looking for her. You all may own Vegas and Reno, but this is my country out here. So maybe you best shoot me or move it on down the highway before you wind up dead.”
“I’m not with the mob, you dumb hick. Do I look like any mob guy you ever saw?”
He looked me over slowly, “Well, you’re uglier than most, bigger than many, but yeah, you look like a criminal.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t a criminal, but I’m not with any mob, they’ve got a dress code. Or haven’t you seen the Sopranos?”
“Don’t think I know them, they some of your Vegas friends?”
“If I was with the mob, you and your pal from last night would both be in a shallow grave. And Cass, she’d be following you by daybreak.”