Run With the Hunted (47 page)

We had a 3:30
PM
flight out of Los Angeles that Saturday. At 2
PM
I went up and knocked on Tammie's door. She wasn't there. I went back to my place and sat down. The phone rang. It was Tammie. “Look,” I said, “we have to think about leaving. I have people meeting me at Kennedy airport. Where are you?”

“I'm six dollars short on a prescription. I'm getting some Quaaludes.”

“Where are you?”

“I'm just below Santa Monica Boulevard and Western, about a block. It's an Owl drugstore. You can't miss it.”

I hung up, got into the Volks and drove over. I parked a block below Santa Monica and Western, got out and looked around. There was no pharmacy.

I got back in the Volks and drove along looking for her red Camaro. Then I saw it, five blocks further down. I parked and walked in. Tammie was sitting in a chair. Dancy ran up and made a face at me.

“We can't take the kid.”

“I know. We'll drop her off over at my mother's.”

“Tour mother's? That's three miles the other way.”

“It's on the way to the airport.”

“No, it's in the other direction.”

“Do you have the six bucks?”

I gave Tammie the six.

“I'll see you back at your place. You packed?”

“Yes, I'm ready.”

I drove back and waited. Then I heard them.

“Mommy!” Dancy said, “I want a Ding-Dong!”

They went up the stairs. I waited for them to come down. They didn't come down. I went up. Tammie was packed, but she was down on her knees zipping and unzipping her baggage.

“Look,” I said, “I'll carry your other stuff down to the car.”

She had two large paper shopping bags, stuffed, and three dresses on hangers. All this besides her luggage.

I took the shopping bags and the dresses down to the Volks. When I came back she was still zipping and unzipping her luggage.

“Tammie, let's go.”

“Wait a minute.”

She knelt there running the zipper back and forth, up and down. She didn't look into the baggage. She just ran the zipper up and down.

“Mommy,” said Dancy, “I want a Ding-Dong.”

“Come on, Tammie, let's go.”

“Oh, all right.”

I picked up the zipper bag and they followed me out.

I followed her battered red Camaro to her mother's place. We went in. Tammie stood at her mother's dresser and started pulling drawers out, in and out. Each time she pulled a drawer out she reached in and mixed everything up. Then she'd slam the drawer and go to the next. Same thing.

“Tammie, the plane is ready to take off.”

“Oh no, we've got plenty of time. I
hate
hanging around airports.”

“What are you going to do about Dancy?”

“I'm going to leave her here until Mother gets home from work.”

Dancy let out a wail. Finally she knew, and she wailed, and the tears ran, and then she stopped, balled her fists and screamed, “I WANT A DING-DONG!”

“Listen, Tammie, I'll be waiting in the car.”

I went out and waited. I waited five minutes then went back in. Tammie was still sliding the drawers in and out.

“Please, Tammie, let's leave!”

“All right.”

She turned to Dancy. “Look, you stay here until Grandma gets home. Keep the door locked and don't let
anybody
in but Grandma!”

Dancy wailed again. Then she screamed, “I HATE YOU!”

Tammie followed me and we got into the Volks. I started the engine. She opened the door and was gone. “I HAVE TO GET SOMETHING OUT OF MY CAR!”

Tammie ran over to the Camaro. “Oh shit, I locked it and I don't have the key for the door! Do you have a coat hanger?”

“No,” I screamed, “I
don't
have a coat hanger!”

“Be
right
back!”

Tammie ran back to her mother's apartment. I heard the door open. Dancy wailed and shouted. Then I heard the door slam and Tammie returned with a coat hanger. She went to the Camaro and jimmied the door.

I walked over to her car. Tammie had climbed into the back seat and was going through that incredible mess—clothing, paper bags, paper cups, newspapers, beer bottles, empty cartons—piled in there. Then she found it: her camera, the Polaroid I had given her for her birthday.

As I drove along, racing the Volks like I was out to win the 500, Tammie leaned over.

“You really love me, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“When we get to New York I'm going to fuck you like you've
never
been fucked before!”

“You mean it?”

“Yes.”

She grabbed my cock and leaned against me.

My first and only redhead. I was lucky....

We ran up the long ramp. I was carrying her dresses and the shopping bags.

At the escalator Tammie saw the flight insurance machine.

“Please,” I said, “we only have five minutes until take-off.”

“I want Dancy to have the money.”

“All right.”

“Do you have two quarters?”

I gave her two quarters. She inserted them and a card jumped out of the machine.

“You got a pen?”

Tammie filled out the card and then there was an envelope. She put the card in the envelope. Then she tried to insert it in the slot in the machine.

“This thing won't go in!”

“We're going to miss the plane.”

She kept trying to jam the envelope in the slot. She couldn't get it in.

She stood there and kept jamming the envelope at the slot. Now the envelope was completely bent in half and all the edges were bent.

“I'm going mad,” I told her. “I can't
stand
it.”

She jammed a few more times. It wouldn't go. She looked at me. “O.K., let's go.”

We went up the escalator with her dresses and shopping bags.

We found the boarding gate. We got two seats near the back. We strapped in. “You see,” she said, “I told you we had plenty of time.”

I looked at my watch. The plane started to roll....

We were in the air 20 minutes when she took a mirror out of her purse and began to make up her face, mostly the eyes. She worked at her eyes with a small brush, concentrating on the eyelashes. While she was doing this she opened her eyes very wide and she held her mouth open. I watched her and began to get a hard-on.

Her mouth was so very full and round and open and she kept working on her eyelashes. I ordered two drinks.

Tammie stopped to drink, then she continued.

A young fellow in the seat to the right of us began playing with himself. Tammie kept looking at her face in the mirror, holding her mouth open. It looked like she could really suck with that mouth.

She continued for an hour. Then she put the mirror and the brush away, leaned against me and went to sleep.

There was a woman in the seat to our left. She was in her mid-forties. Tammie was sleeping next to me.

The woman looked at me.

“How old is she?” she asked me.

It was suddenly very quiet on that jet. Everyone nearby was listening.

“23.”

“She looks 17.”

“She's 23.”

“She spends two hours making up her face and then goes to sleep.”

“It was about an hour.”

“Are you going to New York?” the lady asked me.

“Yes.”

“Is she your daughter?”

“No, I'm not her father
or
her grandfather. I'm not related to her in any way. She's my girlfriend and we're going to New York.” I could see the headline in her eyes:

MONSTER FROM EAST HOLLYWOOD DRUGS 17-YEAR-OLD GIRL, TAKES HER TO NEW YORK CITY WHERE HE SEXUALLY ARUSES HER, THEN SELLS HER BODY TO NUMEROUS BUMS

The lady questioner gave up. She stretched back in her seat and closed her eyes. Her head slipped down toward me. It was almost in my lap, it seemed. Holding Tammie, I watched that head. I wondered if she would mind if I crushed her lips with a crazy lass. I got another hard-on.

We were ready to land. Tammie seemed very limp. It worried me. I strapped her in.

“Tammie, it's
New York City!
We're getting ready to
land!
Tammie,
wake up!
”

No response.

An o.d.?

I felt her pulse. I couldn't feel anything.

I looked at her enormous breasts. I watched for some sign of breathing. They didn't move. I got up and found a stewardess.

“Please take your seat, sir. We are preparing to land.”

“Look, I'm worried. My girlfriend won't wake up.”

“Do you think she's dead?” she whispered.

“I don't know,” I whispered back.

“All right, sir. As soon as we land I'll come back there.”

The plane was starting to drop. I went into the crapper and wet some paper towels. I came back, sat next to Tammie and rubbed them over her face. All that makeup, wasted. Tammie didn't respond.

“You whore, wake up!”

I ran the towels down between her breasts. Nothing. No movement. I gave up.

I'd have to ship her body back somehow. I'd have to explain to her mother. Her mother would hate me.

We landed. The people got up and stood in line, waiting to get out. I sat there. I shook Tammie and pinched her. “It's New York City, Red. The rotten apple. Come around. Cut out the shit.”

The stewardess came back and shook Tammie.

“Honey, what's the matter?”

Tammie started responding. She moved. Then her eyes opened. It was only the matter of a
new
voice. Nobody listened to an old voice anymore. Old voices became a part of one's self, like a fingernail.

Tammie got out her mirror and started combing her hair. The stewardess was patting her shoulder. I got up and got the dresses out of the overhead compartment. The shopping bags were up there too. Tammie continued to look into the mirror and comb her hair.

“Tammie, we're in New York. Let's get off.”

She moved quickly. I had the two shopping bags and the dresses. She went through the exit wiggling the cheeks of her ass. I followed her.

—
W
OMEN

she was sitting in the window

of room 1010 at the Chelsea

in New York,

Janis Jophn's old room.

it was 104 degrees

and she was on speed

and had one leg over

the sill,

and she leaned out and said,

“God, this is great!”

and then she slipped

and almost went out,

just catching herself.

it was very close.

she pulled herself in

walked over and stretched

on the bed.

I've lost a lot of women

in a lot of different ways

but that would have been

the first time

that way.

then she rolled off the bed

landed on her back

and when I walked over

she was asleep.

all day she had been wanting

to see the Statue of Liberty.

now she wouldn't worry me about that

for a while.

by God, I don't know what to

do.

they're so nice to have around.

they have a way of playing with

the balls

and looking at the cock very

seriously

turning it

tweeking it

examining each part

as their long hair falls on

your belly.

it's not the fucking and sucking

alone that reaches into a man

and softens him, it's the extras,

it's all the extras.

now it's raining tonight

and there's nobody

they are elsewhere

examining things

in new bedrooms

in new moods

or maybe in old

bedrooms.