Fierce Bitches (Crime Factory Single Shot) (2 page)

    Her: How very middle class of you. It’s all just price in the end.

    You: Prize?

    Her: That too.

    She soaks the sponge and wets you both with giant drips that roll between her generous bosoms into your eyes and ears. As you drift off to sleep again, you think you hear her say: “It falls on the just and the unjust alike.”

*

It’s called Politoburg, this ramshackle camp in the middle of the desert. It’s so remote and desolate, it may as well be on the moon. There’s no agriculture or natural resource other than dust and lizard shit. The economy consists entirely of the goods sold from Ramon’s cantina and the services of the Marias. Ramon’s is stocked in weekly truckloads, and Ramon sends the contents of his safe back with the drivers.

    Sweet fuckin’ set up. Harlan Polito hires you for something. A job he needs a little distance from, doesn’t wanna use his regular guys. Says, “You’ll need to lay low a while. Get outta town. I’ve got a place in Mexico. You like Mexico? You’ll love it. Get laid. Get a tan.” And he pays well. There’s a reason everybody wants to work for him.

    So you do your job. You’ve already been paid half and thinking about the rest of it is driving you crazy. A truck meets you at the rendezvous and the driver tosses you a fat envelope that hefts like the first. As you get in, he says you should sleep ‘cause it’s going to be a long ride.

    For a week or so, you actually enjoy yourself. You’ve never had a proper vacation before. Maybe you’ll grow a beard. Maybe you’ll stay in Mexico, you kinda dig the vibe. Ramon’s got every kind of substance you’ve ever tried and a couple you’re curious about, and the Marias don’t care about your car or your education or whether you’re hung like mule or a ferret. It’s all sunshine and beans and rice.

    You get bored pretty quick.

    You begin to think about it, a bad idea. You realize you’re just shoving Polito’s money back at him as fast as you can eat it, fuck it or shoot it away. Starts to get to you. Don’t think about it. It’ll ruin your buzz.

    But, of course you do. Worse, you get yourself a little plowed one day and say something to this effect to Ramon and wonder further, just when will you be going back to civilization, air conditioning and escort services?

    Ramon smiles, grabs that short bat he keeps behind the bar and smashes your teeth in. He pats your kidneys while you grab your face and when you’ve stopped crying, he really puts you in your place.

    “The fuck you think you are,
pendejo?
Huh? The fuck you think this is? A vacation?” Then he laughs. A cruel and practiced laugh. He’s made this same speech dozens of times. It’s the part of his job that he enjoys.

    It begins to sink in, the horror, when you realize that you’re not a tourist. You’re a local. You belong here. You’re fucked.

*

The idea has kicked around in your head since Ramon had gone all Hank Aaron on you, but it takes Conrad getting his throat slashed for you to decide. Problem is, it will take two. And now your only choice is to use Metcalf, the only gringo left.

    At least he shouldn’t be hard to convince. Dick had been a stabilizing presence for him. Metcalf was going downhill fast.

   “So, how ‘bout it, man?”

    Bleary and sullen, he makes you wait.

    “Hey!” You slap him to get his attention. “Are you in? I need to know that I can count on you.”

    He rubs his cheek and his eyes clear a little. “Yeah, I’m in. Fuck this place, dude.

    Maria sits behind you on top of the table. She plays with the hair on the back of your neck. It’s beginning to curl. She’s singing softly under her breath. The tune is familiar, but the words you can’t follow.

    The three of you sit at the picnic table outside the cantina, which closed an hour ago. The wind is fierce tonight. Metcalf’s long stringy hair is whipped into impossible knots, but Maria wears hers in a loose braid. The desert is cold and you lean back into her for warmth.

    “Is she coming?” asks Metcalf.

    “No. She’d just slow us down. We’ll have to keep moving. Polito’s got reach.”

    Maria senses you’re talking about her. She stops singing and rests her chin on your shoulder, waiting for you to repeat what you said.

    Metcalf smiles dopily and says, “Yeah, but she speaks Spanish...”

    Shit. He has a point.

*

She’s no prize. Fat and dumb and can’t be a day over nineteen. She’s seen some heavy shit in her time. How, you wonder, in her young stupid life had she arrived in this shit-hole? How long could she survive here? She was tough, you had to give her that, and maybe that explained your reluctant affection for her.

    Fuck it, she’s coming.

    You watch her mending a blanket with an animal grace, which you’d catch every once in a while if you paid attention. When she was immersed in a task, cleaning or cooking or fucking, she was possessed of this. But it disappeared in anything less intimate than your company. She was awkward and slow in society and that translated through any language, but she was comfortable for some reason around you.

    “How did you wind up here?”

    She looks up from her work, her features spread across her broad face like craters on the moon. Not beautiful. Not to you. Not to a blind man.

   
“Como?”
The hoods of her eyes blink slowly as she waits for you to repeat the question.

    “Where is your family?”

    She squints, leaning in as if proximity and not language were the problem. You take her hands to hold her attention. “Do...you”–pointing–“want to leave”–your fingers walking–“with me?” –pointing again.

    You repeat the whole thing a couple of times, faster.

    Still no response.

    “Never mind.” You let go of her hands and lie down. A few moments later she lies down beside you. Her fingers reach around from behind you and find yours. You give them a squeeze.

*

Metcalf is worrying you. He seems determined to kill himself. Before the heist, he’s spending all his money. His reasoning is he’s going to steal it all back in a few days anyway.

    Tequila, coke and blowjobs all day, all night, all week. He’s out of control. Twice, Ramon’s had to throw him out of the cantina and beat his ass. He’s in no kind of shape, but what’re you going to do?

    You know what you’re going to do. It’s clear you have to. Doesn’t mean you like it. Doesn’t mean you won’t hate yourself a while. Doesn’t mean you’ll hesitate. At his best, he’s a liability. Now, he’s completely unhinged. What choice, really?

    You can’t sleep tonight. You’re up before sunrise. You leave Maria packing a few things. If it goes bad, you don’t want her implicated. That, and you want to spare her what happens to Metcalf. You find Metcalf passed out in the ditch beside the cantina. Let him have a little more sleep.

    When the dust cloud appears you wake him up. Takes some slapping, but he’s surprisingly sober and right-headed in less than a minute. You’re the one who feels sickly and when he smiles and claps your shoulder in anticipation, you vomit. His smile turns to alarm.

    “You okay, dude?”

    “Yeah. Just nerves. I’m fine.”

    The truck starts honking its horn a quarter mile out and Ramon is fumbling with the locks and shaking his head clear as it comes to a stop. Ramon and the driver begin bringing in the delivery, their arms full of boxes. Canned goods, sacks of flour, rice and potatoes, hygiene products, pornography and scandal rags, a few clothing items and a first aid kit for a laugh. The bulk of the shipment is liquor. You wait ‘till they’re behind the truck together, lifting a crate, then you slip into the cantina and take positions at the door.

    Ramon’s short bat for you and a bottle of Jack for Metcalf. Ramon comes through the door first, backing up. In the split second it takes for him to register surprise, Metcalf has broken his jaw with a wicked two handed swing. Following suit, you take out the driver, stepping into the doorway. The crate of liquor crashes to the floor, just missing your feet.

    Metcalf falls upon Ramon, straddling his chest and concussing him well beyond the point of necessity. You’ve never seen him alive like this, having his pathetic revenge. A wave of nausea washes over you and you wipe your palms on your shirt and get a good grip on the bat.

    Metcalf slows down, panting and happy. Still on top of his victim, he wipes his bloody hands on Ramon’s shirt then runs them over his face and through his hair.

    He lets out a whoop. “Yeeeaaahhh! How you like me now?”

    Laughing, he turns his face up to look at you. You lay the bat across the bridge of his nose. It smashes like a ripe plum. He’s dead before he falls.

    You stop in front of her hut and she scampers aboard like an excited puppy. That changes when she sees you. The hard look of violence still on your face, blood on your clothes and no Metcalf. The truck lurches forward and she’s thrown back against the seat. In the rearview, you spot a couple Marias running after you and others out staring, not understanding what’s happened. You mutter, “Kiss my ass, Politoburg.”

*

The cab of the truck is awash in emotions. Maria stares at you, waiting for an account of the blood and missing Metcalf. You smile at her, annoyed that you have to remind her to be glad to be gone. Timidly, she smiles, too, but the question doesn’t leave her eyes.

You feel a conversation coming on.

    You: Look... he’s not coming... We’ve got to take care of each other, now.

    Her: What happened?

    You: It was bloody. I told you it would be bloody. That’s why I made you wait for me in the hut.

    Her: What did you do?

    You: What I had to. What I’d do again.

    Her: Do you love me?

    You: Are you serious? Let’s not have this conversation. Ever.

    She sits there watching you have this conversation, all by yourself this time. She senses its conclusion and sets her eyes on the horizon, where they belong.

    You abandon the truck a couple miles outside the city and hike through the hills surrounding, looking for a spot to sleep. It’s a few hours before midnight and the lights look delicious. It’s hard not to go down and find a drink and a meal and spend some of your cash on a hotel, but you’ve got to play this smart.

    Maria sleeps with her head in your lap. The night is cold, but the exhilaration of freedom warms you, though you don’t join her in slumber. Tonight, you confess your sins to her. All of them.

    When lights begin coming on again, you wake her up and the two of you make your way down the hill, toward the harbor. Maria understands what you want when you put cash in her hand.

    You watch her work out passage for the two of you on a fishing boat for South America. She looks over her shoulder and smiles when she catches you staring, her tongue goes to the gap between her front teeth and you call the feeling in your gut devotion. You know it’s just a by-product of circumstance–two souls shrugging the weight of a common oppressor–but it’s there.

*

All day you sit on the deck, watching the sea.

    That night you rock to sleep in your cramped cabin that feels like a five star hotel. The ocean smell sears the dust from your lungs. Maria hums a lullaby and your dreams are filled with the future instead of the past for the first time in years.

*

It’s past midnight when they come for you. You wake up a second before they burst into the room, suddenly aware that you’re alone and it’s about to go bad. Four sailors haul you from your bed naked and kicking up to the deck.

    You scream her name every second, but you can’t locate Maria.

    On the deck the captain is waiting. She is at his side. “If you touch her I will fucking kill every last one of you!” you yell as they drag you to the rail. The stars provide the only illumination, but it’s bright enough to cause the blade to glint an instant before the pink mist and the hot rivulets rush down your chest.

    The world tilts and you hit the water with a smack you can’t even hear. The salt water fills your gasping mouth and when you break the surface you struggle to see the deck, wondering if she’s to join you in your grave.

    As your strength fails and your vision dims, she appears at boat’s edge, looking for you. She’s alone and unmolested. She’s wrapped in a blanket against the chill. She’s not screaming. She’s calm and she’s free for the first time in her life. She waves to you once and watches serenely and without malice as you go under for the last time.

    Good for you honey.

    Ramon’s head was engulfed in flames. The pain of his injuries–the swelling, his fractured bones–stoking a fever of unprecedented heights. The awful sunlight. His face running away from him in six different directions. And the shrieking of the whores resounded infinitely between his ears, building and intensifying into an ecstatic cacophony.