Homemade Sin (18 page)

“If you don't get away from my door, I'm going to make your dick shrivel up to the size of a cocktail weenie. Not that it's much bigger anyway!” Hussey aimed the bird claw at Cutter's crotch and started muttering strange words in what sounded like a bastardization of French.

Cutter's hands instantly covered his crotch as he backed away, then he turned and ran full tilt for the parking lot.

As Cutter brushed by, Roland followed him. “Hey, not so fast, I want to talk to you.”

“What do you want?” Cutter yelled at Roland over his shoulder as he slowed his pace.

“What happened back there? What was all the bird foot waving about?”

“None of your damned business!” Cutter was clearly shamed at running away from Hussey's threats.

“I think you'd better leave Hussey alone in the future,” Roland said.

Cutter shuffled wordlessly down to the parking lot toward his van. He climbed into his van, started it up and drove off.

Roland leaned on the rail and watched Cutter pull out of the parking lot, the smile returning to his lips. It just might work, he thought to himself as he descended the stairs back to the bar. He unlocked the lounge, strode over to the bar, and retrieved the dusty bottle of wine from under the counter. Then, taking two glasses from the rack overhanging the bar, he headed for Hussey's room.

“Dammit Cutter, I told you to get lost!” Hussey screamed through the door as Roland tapped softly. “I'm serious, I'll turn your balls into peanuts, and you know I can do it!”

“It's Roland, I thought you could use a drink,” he said.

Hussey opened the door a crack and peeked out. Roland held up the bottle of wine and the glasses and smiled his most ingratiating smile.

“OK, fine, you win,” said Hussey. “One drink, that's it.”

Dee Dee was walking toward the casino when she saw Cutter's van approaching. The van pulled into the marina's parking lot about fifty yards from the Fugu Lounge and parked. Dee Dee watched Cutter leave the van, and start walking back to the Santeria Hotel. This could be interesting, she thought, and followed him. When Cutter reached the Santeria parking lot he found a spot in the shadow of a Humvee, out of sight from the hotel rooms, and sat down, staring at Hussey's door, letting the shadow swallow him.

He's cute enough and he might be useful, Dee Dee thought, as she approached him.

“Want to take a walk?” she said. “The moon over the gulf is amazing tonight.”

Cutter looked up at Dee Dee, startled.

“Well, I was kind of watching something,” he said.

“You mean watching someone,” Dee Dee said. “You know there's a law against stalking?”

“I'm not stalking, I'm more like lurking. And lurking isn't really lurking if you don't know you're lurking. It's just sitting, right?”

“Let's go sit somewhere else before Hussey calls the cops on you. Come on, we'll take a walk on the beach.”

Cutter followed Dee Dee around the hotel to the beach. The light of the full moon danced on the water like shimmering mercury.

“What do you want to do with your life?” Dee Dee said after a long silence.

“I was going to be a casino dealer but I'm not sure I have the talent for it.” Cutter sounded resigned.

“I remember taking your money,” Dee Dee said, “you ain't exactly a world class poker player. So what's your new plan?”

“I was thinking of maybe going to medical school, like Hussey, and then when I become a doctor I could convert my van to a rolling vasectomy clinic. I've already picked out a name for the practice. I could to call it the ‘Drive-by Snip and Tie'. The slogan will be ‘Thanks for Shooting Blanks'. I'd do vasectomies in poor neighborhoods where the folks there are financially indignant.”

“You mean indigent?” Dee Dee said.

“That too.”

“Hussey was right,” Dee Dee suppressed a giggle. “You
are
almost retarded.”

“I just want to help people,” Cutter said, bristling. “Those folks have lots of unwanted pregnancies, and I want to help with that.”

“How much money do you expect to make with your drive-by vasectomy business?”

“Probably not much. The folks in those neighborhoods are very poor, so I'll take whatever they give me.”

“But don't you owe Hussey a whole lot of money? Money you lost to me playing poker?”

“Yeah, and I have no idea how I'm going to pay her back.”

“I have the makings of a plan to make us both some money.” Dee Dee smiled.

“What kind of plan?” Cutter said.

“You dated Hussey for quite a while,” Dee Dee broached the subject, “do you know anything about this Mambo powder zombie business?”

“I know a little. She sometimes told me what she was learning from Mama Wati. Not a lot though. She usually kept that stuff secret.”

“I could use someone with practical experience and I could use a partner in what I have planned. Do you remember the dog she saved? Moreover, the greyhound?”

“Yeah, I was there when she did voodoo on him, even after she told me that she wouldn't ever use zombie powder again. I won some money betting on that dog today. I've seen what she can do for animals so I figured he would win.”     

“And the dog won the race. He hadn't won anything before, and bingo … he's a winner.”

“So?” Cutter said.

“So, if we can do that to people, athletes in particular, we could make some serious money on bets. Hussey said the dog wasn't winning because he had some psychological problems. We need to find competitors who have some psychological problems. Then we use Mambo powder on them. The dog got that way by eating fugu fish first, so we'll have to lure them into the restaurant and feed them some poison fugu, then give them Mambo powder. Then we make our bets and clean up.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Do you know where she keeps this Mambo powder?” Dee Dee said.

“Yeah, she keeps it in her doctor bag,” Cutter replied.

“Do you think you can get your hands on in?”

“I'd have to sneak into her room to get it.”

“No problem,” Dee Dee said. “I can get you the master key from the front desk and I'll keep her distracted while you get the powder. My strategy is still in the planning stage, but if it works, you and I can make lots of money.”

“I sure could use some money. I could pay Hussey back what I lost and maybe she would talk to me again.”

“Sure, you want Hussey back,” Dee Dee said. “And I can help you get the money to do it, so it's helping her out too. What do you say? Are you in?”

“OK,” Cutter said. “I guess I'm in.”

“What am I doing?” Hussey said aloud. “Two days ago I arrived here to get an apartment and go to medical school, now I'm broke, living in a flea bag hotel and sleeping with the bartender. My life has gone to shit.” She had her head nestled in Roland's neck, one arm draped across his chest. They were both bathed in moonlight and afterglow.

“Is being with me all that bad?” Roland said.

“It's not you.” Hussey sighed. “It's everything. My father nicknamed me Hussey when I was born. He just looked into the crib and said to my mom, ‘she looks like your sister, that damned hussy.' And according to my father, the holier than all of thou, Reverend Paine,” said Hussey into Roland's neck, “I'm a pagan voodoo witch who is going straight to hell. I don't even need a hand basket.”

“I have always found religion to be a poor substitute for spirituality.”

“And now my stupid ex-boyfriend lost all of my tuition money playing poker, so I can't afford to go to school. And he's probably lurking in the parking lot at this very minute.”

“Speaking of Cutter,” Roland said, “what was the bird foot supposed to do?”

“Vulture foot,” Hussey corrected him, “and it's part of an emasculation spell.” Hussey smiled in the dark. “The opposite of Viagra.”

“And if it doesn't keep him away?”

“Then I guess I'll borrow your runcible spoon.” Hussey laughed at the notion.

Ex? The little two-letter word sank in and Roland brightened. “You aren't gonna take him back?”

“No, he's an idiot. I guess I've known it all along but losing all of our money was the last straw. I was probably attracted to him because of the good looking bad boy thing. I need to be hanging out with an adult, or at least a better class of idiot.”

“I'm a better class of idiot.” Roland grinned in the dark.

“Then why are you unattached at … what … thirty-five?”

“I've had a few girlfriends,” Roland said.

“Tell me about them.”

“OK, let's see.” Roland settled into the bed and stared at the ceiling, recalling. “I had a high school sweetheart, Debbie. We had plans to go to college together, get married, the whole thing, but we had a fight in our senior year. Something stupid, I think it was over which graduation party we were going to on a Friday night. So being eighteen and stupid I figured ‘I'll show her' and went down to the army recruiting station on Saturday and signed up. This was at the height of Desert Storm in ninety-two. Anyway, we'd made up by Sunday night so I went down to the recruiting office on Monday to ‘straighten everything out'. Two months later I was in Kuwait.”

“And Debbie?”

“She went on to college and we wrote back and forth. Finally, when my hitch was up, I caught a plane home and called her from the airport, ready to pick up where we left off. She answered her cell phone and told me she was in the middle of her wedding reception.”

“Ouch, that sucks.” Hussey cringed in sympathy. “What did you do?”

“I reenlisted.” Roland chuckled. “I was still young and stupid. And when my second hitch was up the last thing I ever wanted to see was a desert. So a buddy in my platoon offered to go in on buying a bar at the beach. We bought this place together with money we had saved. He took off six months later; said he wanted to go back to college. My name was on the lease so I was stuck with the bar, and here I am.”

“And I'm sure you've had other girlfriends since you've run the bar?” Hussey said.

“Let's see … there was the ‘Country Curtains' girl. She wanted to redo the bar in country kitsch, put in checkered tablecloths, shelves of knick knacks around the bar. Her long term goal was a little house in the suburbs, picket fence, two point five kids. Not actually a lifestyle I was interested in. Then there was the ‘Black Ring.'”

“Black Ring?”

“Yeah,” Roland said. “You know the black ring in your toilet? No matter how many times you scrub it out it always comes back? I also called her ‘Lojack' – no matter where I hid, she could find me. She was like that, a total psycho stalker. I'd break up with her and a couple of days later she was back. Finally, I had to get a restraining order.”

“I know the type,” Hussey said.

“And then there was “Mustang Sally.” My old waitress named her that because her name was Sally and she said she looked like she'd been ‘rode hard and put away wet.'”

“And Dee Dee?”

“Is it that obvious?” Roland said.

“You could cut the tension between you two with a runcible spoon,” Hussey said.

“That's all over, she's crazy. I think I'll call her ‘Deranged Dee Dee.'”

“Why is it when a couple breaks up the girl can always pinpoint the reason for the split. He was too clingy, too noncommittal, too immature … we always know the reason. Guys say; ‘everything was fine and then she just suddenly went crazy.'”

Roland opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it.

“It's funny how you gave secret nicknames to all the girls in your past,” Hussey said. “My girlfriends and I did the same thing.”

“Like what?”

Now it was Hussey's turn to lay back on the pillow and reflect. “Cutter was my high school boyfriend and we went off to college together, but he was kicked out after the first semester because he was such an idiot; I stayed on to get my degree. We agreed to date other people while we were apart so I dated a few guys in college.”