Run For the Money (3 page)

“Oldsmobile.”

“Pass. You?” He gestured to Trudy before he slipped the t-shirt over his head. In the split second Slick went blind with cotton over his eyes, Jesus inched forward putting his belly against the counter between Trudy and Roy.

“I got a . . . a . . .”

“What, you don’t remember?”

“You’re making me kinda nervous, mister.”

“Aww, am I?” Slick slung the flannel over his shoulder and stepped forward bringing the shotgun up to eye level aimed directly at Trudy. She started sobbing, feet frozen in place. “I’m so sorry darlin’.” He brought the barrel of the shotgun to rest on the bridge of her nose. The room suddenly smelled like urine.

The long barrel and stock of the gun kept Slick a few feet away still, out of Jesus’ reach with the knife.

Slick spoke with a gentle lilt. “Does this help jog your memory?”

All he got in response were choking sobs.

Slick was in his element. Since he was a kid no one ever treated him kindly, and that was before the scar. Boys in school called him the ape man. He grew faster, uglier and dumber than any of his classmates. It didn’t take long to make the fear in people’s eyes a commodity.

He put up a poster of King Kong on his bedroom wall and saw the advantage in being able to intimidate. It made him happy. It was the only thing that did. Won’t let me play in your reindeer games? Fuck you, I’ll crack your head with an axe handle. Won’t go with me to the prom? Fuck you, I’ll grab your tits anyway and threaten to cut them off if you tell anyone.

“You got to use what the Lord gives you,” his mom used to say. On his sixteenth birthday he punched his mom in the jaw, knocked out three of her teeth and left home for good.

“Aw, fuck it. Who’s next?” Trudy still hadn’t answered.

As Slick pulled back the shotgun barrel from Trudy’s face Jesus lunged, hauling his body half over the counter, and slashed down with the long bladed knife like a Mexican Norman Bates. The knife cut the air and nothing else. It pounded into the red Formica of the counter and impaled a white paper napkin.

Everyone froze. Slick looked at the blade and pieced together a puzzle of what happened. His eyes rose from the knife to Jesus’ eyes. The butt of the gun swung out fast and hard catching Jesus across the jaw with Slick’s long reach.

Bone snapped and teeth chipped and the two old guys both groaned like spectators at the Friday night fights. Jesus went down, the blue bandana sliding off his head as he went. Behind the counter, out of view, the room could hear more bones snap when he hit face first.

“You think I’m fuckin’ playing?” Slick asked the room. Heads shook. “Okay, now you—” he spoke to the nearly naked guy. “What do you drive?”

“Pickup. A Ford.”

“Done. Gimme the keys.”

“Uh . . .,” the man hesitated. Slick stepped forward, gunstock raised and ready to dish out another jawbreaker. “You have ‘em. In my pocket!” the man rushed to get out the words before Slick could swing. Slick balked, reached down and felt for the keys and smiled.

“So I do, my man. Now,” he walked down the counter reconnoitering the plates of food and turning his nose up at a patty melt, half-drunk coffee and crumbs of some pie. He reached the booth where the old timers had been seated and stopped. He reached down and took a barely touched hamburger off the plate and started eating.

He walked back to the front and raised the shotgun in one hand toward Roy. With a mouthful of burger he said, “I haven’t forgotten you, fat boy.”

Roy ran a hand across his head the way he did when he got nervous. Flakes of skin peeled off. Not snowy dandruff but big, quarter-sized pieces of dead flesh floated down around his feet.

“Open ‘er up and let’s see how we did,” said Slick.

Roy paused almost imperceptibly, contemplating a seriously stupid move, then decided to play ball and poked a chubby finger down on the No Sale button. The till slid open. Slick peeked over.

A twenty, two tens, one five and six ones. A handful of change. Slick swallowed hard and scrunched his face, already a twisted mess, into a disappointed scowl. Trudy continued to sob.

“Can someone shut her up?” Slick asked, eyes still on the till. With the shotgun he gestured to Roy to hand over the money. The nearly naked guy was closest to Trudy, but he stayed put. The other solo diner reached over the counter to put a hand on her shoulder, but couldn’t reach. He whispered, “It’s gonna be okay. It’s almost over.”

Slick pocketed the fifty-one dollars. Roy kept the change. Slick spun and the shotgun barrel almost clipped nearly naked guy on the nose, but then landed like the marker on a roulette wheel pointing at the man trying to comfort Trudy.

“How the fuck do you know it’s almost over?”

“I was . . . I was just trying to get her to relax.”

“So, you have no idea. What if my next move was to blast all of y’all in the heads and pile you up like Lincoln Logs?”

The man sputtered with nothing to say.

Slick took another bite of hamburger, turned to the old men, “Jesus Christ, pops. You couldn’t go the extra fifty cents for cheese on this motherfucker?” He was met with silence. He chewed some more and muscled down the bite sooner than he should have, took a second to recover. “Look, I’m not gonna kill all of you. I didn’t even kill the Mex and he took a swipe at me. So relax. I’m taking the Brawny Man’s truck here and thanks for the burger. I’ll be on my way.”

Slick scooped a rain-wet coat off the back of the helpful man’s stool and lay it in the crook of the arm that held the hamburger. He backed toward the door scanning the faces for signs of a hero. He stopped, thought of one more thing he needed to do.

“One thing before I go.” The smell of bacon burning in the kitchen overtook the piss smell. Slick focused on Trudy. “Show me your tits.”

The shock stopped her crying. Her mouth opened to say something but nothing came out. She was an attractive woman. Past her prime, but worthy of flirting by the redneck truck drivers who frequented the diner. She wasn’t one to make a habit of flashing her breasts in public, though.

“Real simple . . .” he squinted his eyes to read her name tag. “. . . Trudy. Show me your tits and I’ll be on my way.”

She looked to Roy for help, but he gave her nothing but a hard stare back. She would get no signals to steal home from him.

“Come on, lift that shirt and show me those titties. I been in jail, man. You know how long the trial was? Three weeks! I need to see me some tits and I need to see them now.”

Trudy scanned to faces of the other patrons. Nearly Naked Man stared at the ground.

Slick huffed an exhale. “I don’t give a shit if anyone else looks or not. You better get them fun bags out here though or I’m gonna lose my patience.”

Roy and the helpful man looked away. The two old timers didn’t.

Trudy, still too stunned to cry, unbuttoned her uniform and opened it, leaving it loose on her shoulders. She reached up under the shirt behind her and undid her bra clasp. Slick nearly salivated and it wasn’t the burnt bacon doing it.

The bra fell away and her breasts sagged a tiny bit, but met with a grunt of approval from Slick. One of the old men nodded.

“Those, my dear, are the nicest tits I’ve seen in a long while. Yes, sir. Very nice. Firm. Big too. Whoo. Gets a man to thinking.”

The tightness of his stolen jeans betrayed his growing erection. Trudy stared beyond him not focusing on anything, her mouth agape in shock.

Slick inhaled deep like he was Hoovering up a line of coke. “Damn girl! Thanks for whipping ‘em out. I gotta go. I got a girl with a nicer pair than that if you can believe it. Trudy, you get second prize though. Ought to be a ribbon or something.”

Slick pushed in the last bite of the burger, turned with a whoop and crashed back through the door while reaching into his pocket for the keys to his new truck.

As soon as the intruder left, Roy moved like he’d been jolted by a frayed wire. Trudy slapped her hands over her chest when Roy turned, but he didn’t see her. He reached under the counter by the cash register and got his own arsenal – a sawed off double barrel boom stick of his own.

Slick ran across the muddy lot trying not to get wet all over again. He tossed the shotgun ahead of him onto the passenger seat and slammed the door behind him. It was a working man’s truck. Bare bones. Dirty cloth seats. Paperwork from construction jobs on the floor. A three-day-old coffee cup in the cup holder. But the engine cranked and he could taste his money again as clear as the hamburger when he belched.

He dropped it into drive and at first he thought it backfired. He noticed the back right of the truck sink a tiny bit and then another big boom sounded. Thunder? Another boom and a rattle against the side of the truck as hundreds of tiny buckshot pellets pierced the door. Slick spun his head and there was Roy at the top step of his diner, suddenly grown a spine and two balls and firing a sawed-off.

Slick slammed a muddy foot down on the pedal. It slipped off for a second and the engine dipped then revved to life again when he reset his foot. Another blast sounded behind him and the bed of the truck took a scattering of pellets.

When the truck cleared the mud of the parking lot it became clear he was down one tire. He pressed on. It took a few hundred yards to locate the wiper switch, but he did and he continued down the road toward Emma, scraping a rim along the rain-slick road to a stolen fortune.

––––––––

B
o reached the two-lane road after ten minutes of climbing up and then sliding down the ridge; so slick it may as well have been lubed up for some anal.

The rain was relentless. Fallen branches like whips fell from the trees. His jumpsuit was heavy, making him walk like an extra in
Night of the Living Dead.

Headlights ahead, making the curve. Step out into the lane, wave your arms, try not to look like a zombie.

The car saw Bo and braked hard, front wheel locking and the back end fishtailing out. Bo ran backwards toward the safety of the tree line as the car slid past him as if on waterskis. The rear swung to the left then back right before slowing to a stop. The red brake lights reflected off the blacktop and the exhaust puffed tiny white clouds.

Bo stepped slowly from the trees and approached the window. It spun down on an electric motor.

“Sorry about that. I thought you saw me earlier,” said Bo.

The boy behind the wheel was young. His eyes were still saucers and his fingers still clung to the wheel for dear life. He said nothing.

“Listen, I was wondering if you could give ma ride into town. Not really the best night for a walk.”

The boy turned to his right and Bo saw the girl seated next to him, equally young. Equally scared. A bottle of vodka, the cheap stuff, sat between her legs like she had given birth to it. A cigarette burned in her hand, but she held it in the telltale way of an amateur.

The boy turned back to Bo. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“But, it’s raining like a mother out here, man.”

“I know it’s . . . this is my dad’s car and . . .”

Bo scanned the car up and down. BMW 3 series. Young kid. Nervous. Joyriding. Trying to impress the girl and hoping to get laid. Bo hated to cock block but . . .

“Listen, kid, I’m not really asking. I’m telling.”

“I really can’t. My dad would kill—”

Bo ripped open the door. The boy flinched, the cold rain shocking him as much as the suddenly open door. Bo grabbed him by the sweater vest and pulled. The seatbelt caught and held him in. Bo snarled and leaned over him to undo the belt. The girl started screeching.

“What the fuck, dude! Stop it! Cut it out! Brian! Oh my God!”

The kid, Brian, was helpless. Bo pulled him from the car. With no weapon, all he had was intimidation.

“I need your car, Brian. I’m sorry, but it has to be done. I need your clothes too.”

Bo unzipped his jumpsuit. Brian’s muscles froze, confused by the rain, the strange man and his commands.

“Now, Brian.” Bo lifted the sweater vest up over Brian’s head. It jogged Brian into helping. He started to strip.

The new clothes were soon equally as wet as his old jumpsuit, but at least they didn’t say County Property on them. Brian stood on the middle white line in his boxer shorts, not how he intended to get to that state of undress tonight. Bo fit easily into Brian’s clothes. He’d always been skinny, average height. He was generic like a mannequin. His once-pretty face now used to scare a couple of kids on a dark highway at night.

“What’s her name?” Bo asked Brian.

“Valerie.”

Bo leaned in the driver’s door. “Valerie. You need to get out. I don’t want to take—” A tiny flame. A wet spray. Bo’s face suddenly wet.

Valerie had spit a mouthful of vodka in his face. Her lighter was in her hand. Bo staggered back and stood straight, wiping alcohol from his eyes. Her plan hadn’t worked; to spit alcohol and light it – Gene Simmons style – into a blowtorch right in his face.

Bo moved to lean back in the car blinking away the alcohol burn. Valerie screamed and unbuckled her belt, hopped the center console, knocking the automatic shifter with her vagina and sat in the driver’s seat. Bo reached for her but she stomped the gas and the tires spun on the wet pavement a moment before German anti-lock engineering took over and the car gripped and shot forward.

Bo fell back and almost lost his footing as the six cylinders revved hot above the noise of the storm. The door slammed shut with the lurching forward momentum of the car, but she had no control. The engine continued to rev hotter as she drove a hundred yards straight, ignoring the curve of the road, and slammed into a tree.

Unlike the tree that brought the van down, this one held firm.

Louder than thunder, the BMW sprayed glass and debris into the woods. The engine died. Airbags deployed, but the tree split the car down the center until it was planted in the backseat where a baby would sit. The front of the car forked out like a snake’s tongue. Steam rose into the air.

Bo turned to see Brian running into the woods the opposite way. He ran in the direction Bo had come from and apparently didn’t see the drop off. Brian left the highway and plunged down the ravine to the train tacks below, disappearing from Bo’s sight faster than a lightning flash. The rain drowned out any sound of him reaching the bottom.