The Girls Club (25 page)

She switched her sat nav on and punched in the details.  Following the arrow now became all that was important.  Her line of thought had narrowed down to a pinprick.  Everything could be won or lost in the next few hours.

Do you remember when excitement was smoking a cigarette whilst on your paper round?

Yeah.

The fear of getting caught, but how fine it made you feel, how grown up, made it worth the risk didn’t it?

Yes.  I guess it did.

There has never been a greater risk then this.

I know.

Almost an hour later and she was snooping along an expansive porch, trying to find a way into Sarah’s luxury home.  An inspection of the back showed her a broken door panel.  Someone had already been here.

Or might even still be here.

She took a gun out of her rucksack and pushed the door that was still off its catch.

It did feel like someone was there still.  Karen wondered if the passport couldn’t just be replaced with less aggravation. 

Whose to say the bloody passport inspectors aren’t on the Chain.

That was absolute paranoia to be sure.  Still.  The thought remained.

She held the gun at her side, her finger just outside the trigger guard, playing the unlikely action hero would be even fucking harder
sans
foot.

A switch was flicked in her head.  Clarity washed over her.  If someone was here, chances were she would have to kill them.  She’d come too far in this crazy escapade to have it fucked up now by some junkie robber.

Karen took something else from her rucksack and made her way through the kitchen, stepping lightly she strained to hear anything from the other person, a shuffle of feet, a barely contained cough.  The more she strained the more she heard the sound of her own blood beating in her head.  The items she brought in she placed casually on the back of the couch.  She then set about what she had to do next.

“
God save our gracious Queen, God save our noble Queen, God save the Queen…HAPPY AND GLORIOUS, LONG TO REIGN OVER US!” 
She was giving whoever was here the tone challenged chance to clear the fuck out before she found them.

Forgetting the words because really, it had been years since she had sang the national anthem she skipped straight into something more secular, “
Mr.Sandman, give me a dream, make her the cutest that I’ve ever seen, two lips like peaches and fucking clover…”

A crash from upstairs.  The place was in ruins, drawers pulled out, items pushed off sides and onto the floor.

“
OH MR SANDMAN! SIT ON MY BEAM! Wanna hear some lawyer jokes?”

Footsteps stopped when she did.  Directly above her head.  Whoever it was they weren’t coming to get their share of the fun.  She’d have to cruise upstairs and see just why they were so afraid of her.

“
OK THEN!”
still shouting, inside willing the person to take the chance, make a bolt for it. 

“
RIGHT! WHAT’S BLACK, AND BROWN…”
she was half way up the spiral staircase, “
AND LOOKS GOOD ON A LAWYER?”

She lifted the gun and trained it on the first door at the top of the stairs, then she pulled it closer to her face to see if the safety was off.

Steady as she goes.

“A DOBERMAN!” 
she laughed in spite of herself.  She heard something being pushed over and knew when she tested the door it wouldn’t be movable.

“Oh do behave” she rattled the handle, “I’m not gonna hurt you! Why would I do summat like that? Because you mad bitches like to torture each other, and cut each other, and KILL each other. I guess that’d be a good reason”

A shot rang out.  It came right through the middle of the door and hit Karen in the top of her left arm making her stagger.

“Lousy CUNT!” she shot three times back through the door and was almost thrown down the stairs by the recoil.  Each shot felt like a mule kick, still, she couldn’t steady herself with her other arm, wasn’t even sure it was still attached at this point.

“FAAACK!”

Some good fuckin’ plan.  What’s next? 

“Why don’t you come…out so we can talk” she pulled one of the sleeves off her dark green hoody with her teeth and wedged it between her shirt and the hoodie itself.  It would have to wait a moment.

“But, ba, ba, but, but,ba, but…YOU’LL KILL ME!”

Charlotte? 

“Come out Miss Toulouse and tell me one thing. Then you can go”

“Really?”

Her arm was throbbing.  Pulsing.  Raw.  She wasn’t going to promise the lawyer because it wasn’t in her blood to lie.

“Put the gun out first, just open the door, a little, and drop it.”

It went quiet.  Blood pumped out of the shot, it felt like more was leaking out the back, she grimaced.  It didn’t take a genius or reader of murder mags to know the hole round the back was more likely to be in an odd place, and three times fucking bigger.

“Right!” she jumped up from the top step, “I don’t have much fucking time for this, you leave me no choice!”

She cocked the gun.

Fucking empty the clip at her.  There’s plenty of shells in the bag.

But time.  Time was the problem, cops would be on their way and Rochelle’s protection was at a minimum as yet.  Things were getting away.

“What do lawyers and sperm have in common?” she asked as she piled up against the wall at the side of the door.  There was a smallish gap now and she needed to see the bitch.

What the fuck?

Crying?

“1 in 3,000,000 has a chance of becoming a human being” she whirled across the front of the door and shot twice right into the space.  Up against the wall on the other side she couldn’t hear the crying any more.

“All I wanted was Rochelle’s passport.” she slid the clip out the gun and saw there were five more in it and that would do just fine.

A scurry of feet and a flitter of pages and a passport came flying out through the splintered door. 

Nice. And. Easy.

Karen reached out with her foot and brought it back towards her so she could check it.

Tucking the gun into the waistband of her jeans she picked it up.  How was she going to drive now? 

Are you kidding?  You drive one handed when you text in a pinch.

And wasn’t she in a pinch now.  She opened the cover of the little book and saw a young and shiny face.  A face she had taken to heart.  Her angel.

“Why did it have to be the hard way?”

“Are you going now?”

Yeah, so you can warn them I’m coming?

She hadn’t thought of it before.

“Yeah. I’ll be going now. I guess I can trust you not to call those strapping ladies looking after my Rosh eh?”

“YEAH! YEAH!”

“See you around then” she ducked all the same past the splintered door middle and walked down the stairs.  Charlotte wasn’t going to leave her bolt hole until she had driven clean out of sight.  Might be on her cell right now calling the goon squad.

Tough times call for tough decisions.

Her eyes found the well stocked bar.

Two birds with one stone.

BUT IT’S MURDER!!

But Karen had heard the death of a lawyer wasn’t a mortal sin.  She took a dishcloth from the side in the kitchen, silence as expected from the little mousie upstairs.  She undid the screw top on a very large bottle of vodka, almost took a sip and remembered she was already going to have fight blood loss to keep conscious.  She corked the bottle with the rag and tipped it over until she felt the dampness on her hand. The top kitchen drawer had a rather grand kitchen lighter and she trudged upstairs.  Feeling suddenly very tired and very ill.  The makeshift wick caught quickly and she lobbed it through the gap in the door.  Charlotte screamed, fiery liquid tasted her flesh and sought about consummation.

Are you happy now?

What choice was there any more?

She set off back down the stairs two at a time,  she reached the back door just in time to see Charlotte, the amazing human fire lighter, plummet from the balcony.  She had fallen short of the pool that was there and was crawling desperately to get to the pool and the water to put herself out.

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

She could hear the wailing of sirens now, those men in blue who wouldn’t care about Rochelle or getting her out of LA.  No. 

But this is WRONG!

A sob escaped her, she ran over to burning woman and picked her up, “ARRRRRGGH!”, the arm that had been shot shivered, she took three running steps and chucked her into the pool.  Charlotte hit the water with a hiss, she broke the surface gasping.  She wasn’t done for after all.

Can we get the fuck out of here now? Or is having burning hair…BURNING HAIR???

She beat at her head.

Some fucking plan chief.  Some beau coup clever fucking plan.

But I’m not a gangster, I don’t do these types of things everyday, IT’S NOT FAIR!

Charlotte was on the steps that led out of the pool puffing and blowing.  Very much alive, but out of commission.  For now.

Karen snapped awake in an instant, self pity and recriminations were going to have to wait.  Grabbing the rucksack she’d left on the stoop, her bloodied arm flapping bonelessly about she made for her car.  Karen was crying.  For her arm, for Rochelle, for Charlottes now charcoal outlook on life.  She put her damaged left arm on the bottom of the wheel and keyed the ignition.  She could smell burnt hair and clothes.  It was like brimstone.

Next stop.  Holiday Inn. 

And what are we going to do for an encore?  Stick dynamite up our pisswar, light it, and stand in front of the door waiting for a goon to open it?

She headed back to the freeway.  She typed airport into the sat nav, if her memory served, the Holiday Inn would become apparent when she reached the periphery of the terminal. 

Her mobile chirruped.  Looking down at the idiot contraption she left the wheel to the grace of her bad hand and pecked the talk button and then jammed it to her good shoulder.  She didn’t spare a look for the name of the caller.

“What?”

“Where are you dear?”

Karen swerved viciously.

“Sarah?”

“None other sweetie. Where are you again?” she sounded pissed.  To the power of ten. 

“I’m taking a drive, where have you been?” Karen wondered just how much worse today was going to get before it finished.

“Oh Karen. I’ve been to hell. But since getting back, I’ve realised that some things are more important than others, I’ve decided to kill Rochelle, a
nd let you live
”

“NO!” the car fishtailed, at 80 miles an hour it was now more than a possibility Karen would end up splashing across three lanes.  The mobile was gripped so hard she could still hear Sarah laughing whilst she jockeyed the car for her life.  An 18 wheeler honked its disgust as she found the embankment and stopped just short of a tree.  The engine cut out.

Laughter, hearty and slightly out of joint still came from the mobile.

“Oh Karen. I only wish I could have seen your face just then.”

“You’re not right in the head are you?  You won’t kill her, you’d fuck her first”
“Maybe so. But she’d like it. She used to before she knew we were relatives.”

Karen’s stomach lurched.

“She was good too. The best I’ve ever had.” Sarah trailed off.  A sigh came then, “I know its wrong and I know we can’t be together in that way any more. It doesn’t mean I have to let her go though does it?”

Karen’s arms were shaking, cars and trucks flew by and dusted the side of her small car with grit, a tanker truck left a backwash that rocked the car on its springs.

“Well. I guess you have two choices looney Brit. Keep coming, and I promise you that as you open the door I’ll empty her fuckin’ brains on your shoes. Or keep going, follow the road until you run out,
and keep it that way!
”

Blood was pooling against the seat and she moved forward, the thought of becoming joined to the seat too painful to consider.

“Why Sarah, why can’t you let her be happy?” Karen was finding it hard to stay awake.

“She is. When she’s on her own. I tried so hard with you, I even let you get your bite early from my table and what thanks do I get, YOU FUCKED MY SISTER!”

Karen smiled against the steering wheel.

“She was good though. The best, and that little sound she makes if you hold her just right, one hand behind her head and one hand on her…”

“ENOUGH!” Sarah was beyond angry now.

“What did they do to you. Did it hurt? Did they cut anything? I bet they did, I really do. I wonder how else you stop a woman putting it about where she shouldn’t”

A miracle reserve of energy started to animate her movements again, she started the engine and prayed to God that she could keep the strength until she’d at least saved Rosh.