Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah (47 page)

“She mouthed off to me the first time she met me. She asked me what I did. And when I told her my daddy bought my education, she scoffed and said how generous of him. I knew I had to have her then. She was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Naïve and cocky because her family was well known for their wild ways. She wasn’t wild though. She was the timid, beautiful one. And she had no idea who I was. She just happened to walk into the wrong spot at the right time. You just never know. One word to the wrong person and your entire life can change.”

Cray’s son, Woe, came striding into the room like he owned the place. When the door slammed shut, Hank watched with pleasure as Cray twitched again from the noise. Pompous prick taking pleasure from his pain—albeit a smooth one, but still. Cray didn’t know whether to hit him again or shake his hand.

Woe stood over Hank and laughed, sticking him the finger. Then he went and sat in his daddy’s chair, lifting his feet and propping them up on the desk. He took a cigar from the stash, lit up, and the pleasant sweet smell of it filled the room, calming Cray an iota.

Hank rocked back on his knees, finally having the strength to sit on his rear. When he did, he looked straight up into Cray’s eyes and extended a hand to him. Cray smiled and extended his hand. They shook for a long minute, sizing each other up by the squeeze of the shake.

“I knew you’d come around. Just takes a little persuasion is all. Just a little coercion and I knew you’d be mine.”

Hank kept shaking his hand. Cray, being a man of bigger statue, refused to move his first. When Hank stopped, he kept Cray’s hand in his, moving forward toward him, like he was going to whisper a secret in his ear. Who was it, who was it, Cray craved to know. Just before they met ear to mouth, Hank bent all Cray’s fingers back until the bones cracked. Cray let out a feral growl as he hit the floor in pain.

Hank had chipped his finest plate, broke it right there in front of him like a kid throwing a tantrum in a store. No longer was Cray able to say that everything on the outside was straight and perfect. His hand was shattered into a million pieces, tilting to the side, swelling, deformed looking.

Cray rose to his feet, putting a hand up to stop anyone from beating Hank. The first one to jump to his defense was the woman who had had Hank at gunpoint. She stepped back when he told her to. He snapped, she listened, obeyed every word. Cray hovered over Hank, staring him in the eye. It was about time that dog pissed its pants.

He’d underestimated Hank. Hank wasn’t a dog that rolled over or tucked his tail between his legs. He was showing his teeth, staring back, not cowering away. Cray beat him with both of his hands, broken bones and all. He kicked him repeatedly. Split his skin open with that razor-sharp ring. He was a wild demon foaming from the mouth; no pain, no gain. Cray beat Hank unmerciful while Barb and Curly closed their eyes tight and said hushed prayers.

It was too late. The cavalry would never come. Even if they did, blood would spill. And it wouldn’t be Cray’s. He was positive.

C
ray’s bank in Charlotte was his largest. It was all black and white marble, with beautiful ironwork detailing the stone counters, stretching straight up to the roof. The history in the building was undeniable; it had withstood mighty storms and the most acclaimed robbers. A testament to days long gone. A place where people felt privileged to put their money. It was place that could be deemed historical and museum like. It was beautiful, everything in pristine condition.

It was until the walls started to shake like an earthquake rumbled below. There were explosions and smoke and the smell of the building burning. The ceiling started to fall in on Cray’s all deep-brown leather and rich mahogany office. When a piece hit him upside his head, he stopped the cruel beating and looked up. They all did. They could feel the rumbling and hear the stirring of voices, the heeled footsteps running toward the office.

Before the door came open, Hank opened his eyes. Everything burned and hurt as he looked around. Everything was shaky and unstable. He looked at his friends beside him, and they were staring at him like he was a ghost that had just risen from the dead.

He nodded his head at them, slowly, gently, just to let them know he was all right. Then he quickly took stock of the room. Tommy was spot on when he said Cray was paranoid. There were only six men beside him, all dressed in white and black suits, with guns at their sides. His son, the pompous ignoramus sitting at the desk polluting the air with his cloying smoke, made seven. Not counting the head devil himself. Eight.

The masked woman who had taken him stared right at Hank. She watched him count. She watched every move he made. He could tell by the way her eyes were fixated on him, on every twitch of his mouth, every involuntary spasm of his muscles—she itched to kill.

The door burst open and four women rushed in, all dressed in the same outfits used in the previous robberies—form fitting paint suits and hats. They moved quickly, dragging Dylan, Jesse, and Stroke in with them. They threw them to the armed men and then formed a line in front of Cray’s desk. His flunkies moved Curly, Barb, Hank, and the three behind it.

“What are you doing?” Hank mouthed to Dylan.

Dylan punched his heart, pointed to Hank. “Posses always stick together,” he mouthed back.

Cray stood next to Hank, one hand on his collar. Hank looked up and saw two pistols tucked into the back of his pants. More explosions rocked the bank, more shaking and shattering. The burning smell was becoming more intense. God Almighty, someone was taking apart this bank piece by piece.

Cray’s hand twitched like a million jumping beans were stuffed inside of it. He held onto Hank’s collar with a vengeance. “Where is Winston?” he snapped to those women. His tongue belted them. One of the women pointed. Everyone seemed to look at once. A line had formed at the door of Cray’s office.

More masked faces were entering the throne room one by one. They were like beautiful swimmers, their bodies seemingly like one, but as they entered they separated. These women were dressed differently.

The masks were all wrong. Hank had never seen these disguises before. The faces that stared back at him were all women that he had never seen before—yes, they were all so different, but undeniably all feminine. Black, tight fitting dresses, like funeral attire, hugged each of their forms. You could tell one from another.

One had a deeper roll to her hips, another taller, another thinner; one had plumper breasts than the next. The heels were all different lengths and styles, except for those long strips of crimson-stained soles. A gun was secured to each of their thighs. Zoo Zoo and Wham Wham had her knife. Jellyfish had a rope.

Hank had never seen them dressed this way. But he knew them. Pistollette’s sisters formed a line in front of Cray’s desk, and Rotunda walked straight up the line, becoming the center of them all.

“Thank sweet Jesus!” Curly yelled.

The angels of mercy had arrived, on the hunt for the weak.

One of Cray’s men backhanded Curly in the mouth. A squirt of blood seemed to explode from Curly’s lip before a slow trickle ran down his mouth, and it began to swell to massive proportions.

“Enough,” Cray whispered—it was even, lethal, just like the flat line of a heart refusing to beat.

The women moved in an inch closer—just a tiny step forward.

His flunkies put their hands on their guns. Cray held up a hand. “She’s not here.” He laughed. “She’s not here! I’d know that body anywhere!” He laughed like a mad man. “This should be fun. Hold your fire, boys. Let’s just see how this plays out. She might not be here at this moment, but she will be…soon enough. And if we shoot them, I doubt Hank here will even hold water. Let’s let the girls sort this out for themselves, shall we? My girls, show these ladies what they don’t know.”

A line of hands went out, tap, tap, tapping, and then Pistollette’s girls started to move, like they were in that pool of cool water, synchronized and so very graceful. The two groups, good vs. evil, started fighting.

Hank tried to keep his eyes pasted on the door, just waiting for her to come through. He chewed on the side of his cheek tasting blood in his mouth.

The girls continued to fight. Hands, legs, knives, heels were being thrown in every direction. As Pistollette’s girls would subdue one of the evils Rotunda would pick up the other girl and set her in the corner. If she gave any trouble, Rotunda would knock her in the head.

It seemed like the whole place smoked and rumbled and fists were flying everywhere. And that’s when Hank saw her. She appeared out of a cloud of smoke just like a ghost, a wispy figure that wore a mask of Rosemary’s face. Hank opened and closed his eyes. She was thinner than Delilah, but those legs covered in black stockings were all hers.

She was thin, much too thin.

“Rosemary? Can’t be. She’s too thin.” Cray jerked out.

She had two guns pointed at him and she moved fast up the line. Hank screamed at her to stop. He could see the girls who were still left fighting staring at her, making eyes at the other girls. They didn’t know what she was doing either. She wasn’t shooting. She was getting closer and closer to him. She was going straight for his chest. The pistols in her hands were trembling.

She was…she was…going to… “God Almighty,” Hank whispered. “Delilah. Stop. Delilah. Stop.”

Hank saw Cray going for the guns in his pocket and he fought, screaming at her to stop the entire time. She wouldn’t. She kept walking with a vengeance, getting closer and closer to his chest. She wasn’t taking no for an answer, until Cray pulled the trigger to his gun and shot her. She stopped for just a brief moment and then fell to the floor.

Hank couldn’t breathe. Cray picked him up by the collar, dragging his limp form over to the still body.

“Go ahead! I can’t wait to see!” Cray foamed from the mouth.

Hank didn’t know where to touch her. His hands trembled over the body dying in front of him. He pulled her to him. She took his hand and kissed it.

His Delilah was dying.

Hank removed the mask and underneath it was a woman he had never seen before. Her face was badly scarred. Nothing on her face should have been where it was. Every piece of her flesh had a thin scar etched into skin.

The mysterious woman reached up and patted Hank’s face. She took his hand and tucked something deep inside of his palm, closing it. It was a soft, worn-out piece of paper.

“Here’s my ticket,” she whispered, faintly smiling. “I’m free.”

She had given Hank an old bus ticket. It matched the two Hank had found. The one by Wild Thang he had found in the leaves the day Judge Pilgrim and REO was killed. It was the same bus ticket that had drifted toward him after he ran behind Pistollette. Three tickets. None of them had ever been used.

Cray yanked Hank up by the collar, his hands and body seizing violently. He used Hank as a human shield. He whispered, “Who is she,
who is she?”
He prayed for salvation from the ghost. There was whistling and shaking, and that storm Cray had feared blew straight through his doors.

Pistollette, dressed in a tight-fitting black dress, the hem falling just below her thigh, was coming straight for them. Her body was curvy, expanding, just as Hank had thought he saw in the cotton fields. Those heels were high and those soles matched her sisters—crimson and deadly.

The mask on her face was REO. Beside her were two people, both masked, one woman, one man. The woman was wearing the mask of Rosemary’s face. Cray started screaming her name, delusional with fear and pills. The man had a dog’s face—Freud’s. Behind Pistollette was the man who wore the Joker’s face.

There’s my angel of mercy
, Hank thought. But he was also shaking with fear.

Pistollette had one pistol pointed toward the room, the other holding Cray’s son, Winston. His pants were pulled down below his knees. He had fiery red contusions on his rear. She yanked his skinny little body with her; sweat dripped down his face in rushing lines. Freud’s face grabbed Winston from Pistollette and she pulled the second pistol.

“Now would be a good time to start shooting!” Cray shouted through hysterical laughs.

All of Pistollette’s sisters hit the floor, and before the men could even take their weapons out, four of them had already gone down. Rosemary to the left took out another, but before she did, Winston had been hit by cross fire. One of Cray’s hired men shot him. Pistollette took the last. All six of them, nothing but flies smashed between a quick swatter and the concrete wall.

Cray pressed the guns to Hank’s temples, squeezing his head between the barrels of the guns. Hank knew she couldn’t make the shot. It was impossible, unless she killed him first. Woe had Barb and was using her to shield his own body. He moved next to his daddy and they stood side by side with their hostages.

“If you come any closer,” Cray roared and jiggled, “I’m going to blow his brains out. Get the dogs off! Get the dogs off!” The spittle from Cray’s demented mouth dribbled onto to Hank’s clothes, warm and red from the wine.

Pistollette stopped. Everyone stopped around her. Woe started laughing, sticking her the finger with his free hand. Big mistake. She shot his finger clean off, releasing Barb with a sudden and involuntary movement. Barb hit the ground with a solid thud. When he did, the woman in the Rosemary mask shot Woe. He cursed before he fell to the floor.