Doom Fox (23 page)

'I done trapped her and killed her a hundred times in nightmares, Panther, like so real I gotta scoot outta the bedroom when I wake up. I'm so happy I bawl 'cause I ain't really harmed her and don't wanta wake her up and upset her. Panther, I ain't 'shamed to say I love Reeb's dirty drawers! That's why I'm gonna bring all this shit to a head before I think I done woke up from wasting her in my sleep some night and get hipped I ain't been asleep. That's the long big pain I gotta spare the kids and me. You dig? I owe that preacher the worst!'

Panther gravely shakes his head. 'Joe, I agree with you, he deserves the worst. But I'd grieve to see you up in the State joint doing it all 'cause of temper. And don't forget the punk is a black belt. He might press you in a hum-bug and you might accidentally ice him to keep him from icing you.'

Joe explodes. 'I'll tear his wings out at the sockets if he flaps any of that Karate jive in my face!'

'Joe, I know you and you'll ice that punk in a hassle. Please, don't blow every ...'

Joe cuts him off. 'Hush up Panther! I'm a sucker, but I ain't a star natal sucker. I ain't gonna do nothing 'cept make him look like that hump back in the tower ... uh, you know, Queezy Moto. Shit! Reeb's gonna think I'm pretty. And she's gonna see lotsa me 'stead of being his flunky 'ho secretary every other minute of the day and night. I'd bet a "C" note 'ginst a lead nickel alla her precious so-called friends vote to throw her ass outta that church after I do my thang.'

Joe opens the door, steps out. 'So long Panther. I'll call you after I ...'

Panther says, 'All right buddy. But I hope you change your mind and do what I been begging you to do for a long time before you blow your cool and do something bad to Reba.'

Joe's face hardens as he shakes his head. 'Naw Panther, I ain't never gonna cut Reeb loose and hope she never cuts me loose. She's my forever woman. I ain't never gonna harm her. Otherwise, long time ago I'da tore off her head and dribbled it to the police station, as much hurt and shit as she's done put on me. And 'sides, my poor mama loves Reeb in her grave.'

As Joe turns away Panther says, 'That snake housekeeper broad that snitched on Reba worries me. Maybe she's in cahoots some way to cross you and Reba so she and somebody will have a shot at all that bread.'

Joe turns back, chuckles. 'Panther, the old lady ain't no snitch. She called to tell me Reeb had forgot her big ring of keys so Reeb wouldn't be upset 'bout 'em when she got home. She said she was airmailing them to L.A. tomorrow morning.'

Panther exclaims, 'Ain't that a bitch of a cold break for Reba?'

Joe grins stingily. 'Ain't it!? But sweet for me. Pops was dead right, what goes 'round comes 'round.'

He turns, walks away several paces before he turns back to the car. He looks into Panther's eyes as he says solemnly, 'Panther, ain't no use for me to jive myself that you ain't been like my papa since Pops passed away ... ain't that right?'

Panther nearly whispers, 'Yeah Lil Joe, that's right. And got feelin's for you like you my son.'

Joe shifts his feet uneasily, sheepishly averts his eyes for an instant before he stammers, 'Well, I ... uh ... I been doing lotsa heavy thinkin' lately 'bout my bed work with Reeb ... she laid a sex book on me a long time ago ... wrote by a doctor. I ain't never read it good 'til lately ... he's gotta be a freakish mother hisself 'cause he swears a stud ain't nothin' but a amateur in bed if he ... uh ... don't suck his lady's poony! You older than spit and maybe done had more pussy than them Hollywood humpers, Gable and Flynn put together, quiet as it's kept.'

They laugh.

'Well, uh ... I gotta real kinda personal question to ask you that maybe I ain't s'posed to ask. But if you get salty, I'll under ...'

Panther cuts him off. 'Lil Joe, that doc's book is on the pussy money. Up front, I gotta confess, I been thrilling the girls goofy with my jib for sixty years, since I was fifteen in fact. So ask me anything, son.'

Joe gnaws his bottom lip before he blurts out. 'You puke your guts out the first time Panther?'

Panther grins. 'That first time I was like a hog at the slop trough, that broad's pussy was so clean and sweet. Delicious! 'Course, later I run into a few pukey butts that I throwed outta my bed. You been nixing something great son, 'cause scarfing a sweet one is good for your health, maybe gotta lotta vitamins even.'

They bust belly laughs.

'A wise scarfer once said, "Show me a chump that ain't scarfing his woman's snatch and I'll show you a chump I can steal his woman from." So Lil Joe, let ya conscience be ya ...'

The noisy arrival of the twins, at Joe's side, cuts off Panther.

'I wanta thank you Panther! You sure done helped me make up my mind 'bout somethin' important.' Joe chortles as he slaps palms with Panther.

He scoops the Popsicle wielding twins into his arms, and turns away.

'Bye Uncle Panther!' the twins exclaim and wave over Joe's shoulders as he carries them across the yard. Panther waves, watches until they disappear through the open front door. He backs the Buick into the street to go to his apartment above his Freeway Fish Market.

At twilight, Joe, swathed in warm black woollen slacks and a Zenobia knitted sweater, sits chain smoking on a battered milk crate. He is concealed in the midst of thick bushes in the alley behind Felix's church grounds. He stares intently at the front door of the parsonage, a three story mansion unconnected to the white stone church. A spirited confection of choir practice voices drips into the grape hued haze through half opened stained glass windows. Felix's new gold El Dorado coruscates outside the parsonage door parked beside his formal limousine firing black rockets of light from its highly simonized hull.

Joe's car is parked two blocks away down the alley. Certain the lovers would bed in the parsonage as usual, he'd decided not to tail Felix if he made the airport trip to pick up Reba for fear that one of them might discover his tail driving a now rarely seen collector's item La Salle.

Shortly, the choir members spill into the parking lot, chatting as they go to their cars. They drive away, leaving only the church's elderly caretaker's scabrous blue Pontiac on the lot. Joe upends a pint of vodka. His throat locks when a gang of teenagers pound past his bush blinds pursued, a moment later, by a hurtling police car that strafes the bushes with alley grit.

A moment later, Joe tenses as a cab pulls into the church lot, pulls to a stop near the parsonage door. He relaxes, amused to see bottle curvaceous Ruta, Reba's hated much younger rival, alight tipsily from the cab. Blue fox encased, she wiggles and staggers her curves up stone steps to the parsonage door as the cabby drives past Joe down the alley. Joe watches her impatiently jab the doorbell for a long moment before robed Felix opens it with an expression of utter consternation on his face, frothed with shaving cream.

They stand glaring at each other before Felix grabs her hand and yanks her inside, bangs the door shut. 'You're breaking the rules, Ruta. A - you're drunk and B - I told you I wasn't receiving your calls or your company until tomorrow. You can't stay!' he exclaims harshly as he hurries away across the lavish pink and beige motifed sunken living room for the first floor bathroom.

Mean faced, she pauses in the entrance hall, eye-sweeps the half dozen bouquets of pink orchids reposing elegantly in crystal vases about the living room. She stomps to the bathroom doorway, evil-eyes his face reflected in the cabinet mirror as he straps his straight razor. She shapes a crooked little smile of defiance as she lets her fox coat slip to the carpet.

'I'm staying!' she slurs as she kicks off her rhinestoned blue velvet pumps, whirls her nude curves away down the hallway leading to the kitchen.

Joe's curiosity lures him from cover. As he creeps around outside the house, he is attracted by a flash of light in the kitchen. He goes to peer through a partially opened window. He sees Ruta open the refrigerator door, stand glaring into it.

'Ah ha! I knew it!' Joe hears her exclaim as she snatches out a silver tray of caviar canapes and dumps it on the floor.

Several minutes later, Felix razors off the last patch of stubble, hears the pop of a champagne cork. He races for the kitchen clutching the razor strap. He stands at the kitchen door quivering with a mixture of outrage and irritating excitement as he glares at her rear-end. She squats at the open refrigerator door above the open neck of a Jeroboam of Mumms intended to celebrate Reba's return. He watches, rooted in the doorway, as she dribbles droplets of tinkle into the bottle and onto the floor.

'You filthy tramp! I'm going to punish you!' he rages as he charges her with the razor strap twirling and whistling above his head.

Outside at the lace curtained window, Joe is spellbound as he eavesdrops and ogles the raw tableau. He aches for a camera to document it all for Reba's eyes.

Ruta spins away from the strap, loses her balance, falls on her back as Felix reaches her. He welts her thighs with a violent slash of the strap. She rolls, evades a rain of strap licks that pop against the floor.

'Why!?' he pants as he pauses to catch his breath when she escapes to a refuge under a bolted down breakfast nook table.

'I hate your old square ass main bitch!' she shouts from beneath the table.

He stoops to drag her out by the heels. She kicks savagely at his face to force him away. He stands for a moment in glowering frustration before he goes to the sink. She peeps at him with a sly face as he turns on the hot water tap until steam billows from the sink.

As he fills a large pot, she says icily, 'Miss Swinger, you'll be sorry if you're filling that pot for me.'

He stiffens, glances at his wristwatch, grits his teeth. He falters as he turns toward her brandishing the pot. He stoops at eye level with her. 'You've got ten seconds to crawl out and get out!' he warns as he monitors his watch with a draconic face.

'Douse me and I'll snitch you out of your pulpit' she warns.

He sloshes water from the kettle as he jerks rigid on his knees, glares at her, sneers, 'Hah! Your credibility is zero minus ... you've forgotten, Miss Nympho Klepto, that your folks dumped you out here on your late grandmother after that last of a dozen busts in Harlem. I'd swear my only interest in you has been paternal, to rehabilitate you in my church since you were sixteen. You couldn't sell any scam on me. You've got two seconds!'

She throws her head back, laughs, 'My suicide letter will explain how you corrupted me to try death. That will give me a hundred plus credibility. Get it Miss Preacher Bitch! ... Then after I scribble the letter, I'll drop a few reds and dial an operator. I'll mumble what I've done and my address before I let the phone crash in her ears. What the hell, I wouldn't mind my stomach pumped to get you smeared. Then wanta bet everybody wouldn't believe the truth about our threesomes with Hollywood lesbians and jocks. Do you want it known that you like dick? You double-sexed bastard! Huh?'

He ashens, his fingers curl into Karate claws as he glares mayhem.

'Be cool, Tiger. I'm coming out' she says.

He leans aside to let her crawl out and stand with legs akimbo. Her body twangs soot black triumph above him frozen on his knees.

'You know I'm mad about you Cutie ... it's your old square ass bitch that makes me evil. You don't need her. Cut her loose!' she whispers sweetly as she grinds her crotch against his cheek.

He recoils. 'I won't!' he exclaims as he pulls himself to his feet.

She shrugs. 'All right, I'll give you another out. I won't put us in the papers if you will treat us equally from now on. Well!?'

Stricken speechless, he nods, quivers with rage as he stares into her frosty eyes.

'I'm not riding any more cabs. This week I want a new 1963 arctic white Thunderbird, with all the extras she's got on her car' she intones fiercely.

He studies her obdurate face for several beats before he says, 'You got it. Get out!'

She shakes her head. 'Not before you do me ... let her have the garbage after me for a change.'

She leaps atop the breakfast nook table, jackknifes her thighs against her chest. He darts an alarmed glance at his wristwatch. He sighs resignation as he pulls up a chair, drops into it. He stares petulantly at her sex nest before she roughly seizes his ears. He moans as she yanks his head into her fat lipped valley floor.

Nauseated, Joe hurries back to the cover of his bushes. A half hour later, Joe sees the couple get into the El Dorado and leave with Ruta behind the wheel.

Forty minutes after dropping Ruta at her apartment Felix leaves his car in an airlines parking complex to wait near the disembarkation point of Reba's flight. Several minutes later Reba, chic and voluptuous in a ginger Saks dress, shows with sky cap and bags. They yelp rut as they fly into each other's arms. Six feet of wiry power, Felix carries her heavy luggage almost effortlessly to the El Dorado.

'Darling, how did everything wind up down there?' he asks as they enter the car.

'Splendidly, except for the sadness ... I buried Mama with her husband in his crypt.'

They pet and kiss torridly until an airlines security officer braces them courteously, but firmly, 'Pardon me folks, but will you please consider the facilities of a hotel down the road. Now!'

They grin coming out of steamy trance. Felix guns the El Dorado away for the parsonage. He slows at a hotel driveway turn off down the road. But he decides to pass up its sterile accommodations for the orchid strewn warmth of the parsonage.

'Oh baby! I'll never again stay away from you' Reba croons as her hand caresses his organ swelling against his trouser gold silk.

Felix stops at a liquor store for champagne. Moments later they arrive at the church grounds.

An instant after Felix parks in front of the parsonage, the elderly church janitor, his duties performed, walks to his Pontiac heap. He gets in, grinds the starter. He gets out and raises the hood to tinker underneath.

Joe watches the pair start to get out then freeze for an instant before they relax on the car seat. Joe watches their silhouettes merge, red hot and starved for each other. He sobs and snots like an infant. He screams silently, his teeth ache and chatter. He leaps from cover, streaks his two hundred and fifty pounds of assassin rage toward them with teeth bared. He is phosphorescent, a doom poster animated in the 'black light' of ultraviolet stars. He brakes, peers into the car's posh murk. He growls in his throat as he stares at Reba.