“I’ll see you in a few days,” Vera promised.
An equal promise, at least in a way, seemed to highlight the otherwise dark voice. “I believe that wonderful things await us in this venture, and tremendous success. I’m looking very forward to working with you, Ms. Abbot.”
“Likewise.” Vera shook the stubby hand. She felt—what? She looked once more at Feldspar’s features: the broad face, the goatee, the ink-black hair pulled back in a short ponytail—an absolute clash to the fine clothes and jewelry. Twelve hours ago, he was merely a weird-looking squat stranger; now he was her boss. She felt she could even consider him a friend. “Thank you for giving me this chance, Mr. Feldspar. I won’t let you down.”
“I’m quite certain that you won’t. But before you go, might I make one very trifle suggestion?’’
“Sure.”
“Get some shoes. Soon.”
Feldspar actually laughed as she got out of the sleek car. Vera laughed too, waving as he pulled onto West Street and drove away. Yes, she’d have to get some shoes—she’d have to get a lot of things. But far more important was what she already had—or in fact had been given: a chance at something big.
She stood before The Emerald Room, looking out into the busy thoroughfare. Passersby paused to gape at her, this tousled woman standing in freezing weather with no shoes and mussed hair. The wind slipped around her, but now she felt warm.
A second chance, she mused. That’s what this was, really. She had a good job here but no longer a life to go with it. It hurt to think of Paul, and of love in general. Love was supposed to be ultimate emotion between two people, the ultimate truth. Where was her truth now? It was all gone, it was all a lie and always had been. How could she live with that?
I know.
Very slowly, her left hand raised in the cold. The big engagement ring gave a crisp glitter in the sun. She slipped the ring off her finger and threw it into the middle of West Street.
Eventually a mail truck ran it over.
Time to move on, she thought.
— | — | —
CHAPTER FIVE
“Hey, Jor! Split-tail at twelve o’clock!”
The Blazer slowed. It was one of those big four-runners, souped up, with Binno Mags, Bell Tech springs, and tires that looked about a yard high. All the rednecks drove them; it was status. Jorrie Slade’s eyes thinned at his friend’s announcement—or, to be more accurate, his eye thinned, since the left one was glass. He’d lost it one night when he and Mike-Man were rucking it up fierce with some Crick City fellas out behind Duffy’s Pool Hall. Didn’t matter all that much to Jorrie, though; the right eye worked just fine, and that backwoods peter-licker who’d poked out the left one had wound up losing a lot more than an eye. Try his ears, his lips, and his balls. Jorrie was good with a knife.
Mike-Man, Jorrie’s best rucking pal, swigged on his can of Jax. “I say, ya see that, Jor?”
“I see it, all right, Mike-Man, my man. Looks like we’se gonna have our dogs in some decent poon after all. Shee-it.”
The Blazer’s high headlights and floods glared forward. A van sat stalled on the opposite shoulder, and stooping over the opened hood was one buxom full-tilt brick-shithouse blonde the likes of which neither Jorrie nor Mike-Man had ever laid eyes on—or eye, in Jorrie’s particular case. Beautiful long blond hair swirled in the wind. Her tight, broad rump jutted as she bent over, diddling with wires.
“Now I say, a pair of gentlemanly types such as us could not never ignore such a woman in distress,” Jorrie pointed out to his friend. “I mean, on a wicked night like this? Goodness, the poor thang could catch her death of cold, now couldn’t she?”
“That she sure could,” Mike-Man replied in full agreement, “and it just wouldn’t be Christian-like for two strong young fellas such as ourselfs to allow sumpthin’ like that to happen.”
Jorrie and Mike-Man exchanged laughter. You could call these two boys unipolar sociopaths, or you could call them pure-ass crazy motherfuckers—it didn’t much matter which. And as for this here foxy blonde stranded at the shoulder? No harm, really—not that they could see anyway. Hell, they was just two red-blooded American fellas out for a thrill. It wasn’t like such things never happened out in these parts, what with them creekers up in the hills and all, and them damn white trash buggers north of the ridge. And it wasn’t like they was fixing to kill her. They was just gonna poke her up a tad, give those fine womanly parts a working over, that’s all. Probably be doing her a favor, they figured.
Mike-Man crossed the line and stopped on the shoulder. The Blazer rumbled, lighting up the front of the disabled van. That’s when the blonde straightened up and faced them.
“My-my, I say, my goodness!” Mike-Man articulated.
“Well shee-it my drawers and my mama’s to boot,” Jorrie commented.
Her coat hung open, revealing breasts large enough to threaten to pop the buttons on her flannel blouse. She looked as if she’d been poured into them there jeans of hers, you know, those city-type jeans with the funny labels, like from Italy an’ shit.
Jorrie slapped Mike-Man on the back. “Now thems there is what my daddy would call one dandy set of milkers, boy. Like that famous chick Dolly Carton on all them supermarket papers, you know?”
“Yes sir. And that kisser on her? Looks like Vanner White or sumpthin’, or one of them prissy gals on Cosmerpolitan. ”
Jorrie polished off the rest of his beer. He drank Red, White, & Blue, on account of he was classier than Mike-Man about what he drank. “Man, we’se lucked out better than a coupla egg-suck dogs throwed in the henhouse tonight, ain’t we?”
“Yeah boy, that’s some fine gandering that there, and I’ll bet she’s got herself a bush on her you could plant a fuckin’ garden in.”
“We’se gonna be plantin’ more than gardens in that sweet stuff, just you watch, Mike-Man, my man. Don’t look like one of them stinky creeker chicks like we bust up all the time, either, and she’s sure’s shit no road hog. Bet she’s got one of them nice clean ‘n purdy coozes on her, don’t ya think?”
“Yeah boy,” Mike-Man concurred, still staring excitedly at her in the Blazer’s highs. “An’ I’ll bet she wears herself a lot of that nice city perfume like ya can buy in them fancy stores like Garfunkel’s and Ward’s and all.”
Jorrie gave Mike-Man another comradly slap on the back. His glass eye glinted in the expectation. “Come on, buddy-bro. My dog’s a barkin’ already. Let’s you and me put a little spark into this here little lady’s girly works.”
They climbed out of the Blazer. They left both doors open; they always did. That way it was easier to get to work on them. Just slide ’em in right across that big bench seat. Mike-Man’d hold ’em down with the knife from one side while Jorrie’d get them starkers from the other. It was a dandy system. They had it down pat.
“Hey there, purdy lady!” Jorrie greeted, and stepped up in his fine pointed shitkicker boots. A good point on your boots was always the ticket when you was gonna go out on a romp. For shakin’ down guys for their green, just one good hard kick in their works would take the fight outa the biggest and gnarliest of fellas, yes sir, or you hop up on the hood real quick like and give ’em a good kick in the chin. Then there was that time Jorrie’d been rucking it up with this stinky creeker gal out by Croll’s field, and Jorrie, see, he wasn’t all too keen on putting his pride and joy into that dirty stuff, what with the AIDS and the herpes and all, ’specially after he’d gotten himself a look at it, so he thought he might like a little of what his daddy called “mouth-lovin’,” but this dog-stinky creeker chick, you know what she said? She said, “You gawd-damn mama-fuckin’ cracker piece of shit! You just try puttin’ that in my mouth an’ see if I don’t bite it right off!” a comment which Jorrie, of course, did not take too kindly to, so what he did, he just gave that creeker gal one good swift kick in the spine, and that quelled her threatening protestations just as fast as shit through a city pigeon. Heard she was gettin’ around in a chair these days, and he figured it served her just right for saying something so downright awful. A gal’d have to be plumb crazy! Biogenic amine imbalance and sociopathy aside, when a fella the likes of Jorrie Slade tells you to entreat his genitals of the mouth, well you just better bone up and do it, unless you wanna spend the rest of your days rollin’ around in a chair, too, yes sir.