Sarah Cortez - Houston Noir

With gentleness, Cole set Pork Chop’s head on the ground. He took a quarter from his pocket, rubbed it vigorously between his palms, and offered a palm to Herta, saying, “Smells like blood.”

It did smell like blood, and something about this made her happy. The effort he made, she supposed. “You’re not the perfect boyfriend,” she said. “For instance, I know sooner or later you’ll decide to kill me.” She raised her hands to still his protest. “I’m not perfect either.”

The second car turned onto San Felipe and Cole said, “Lift.”

“We were going to, obviously ,” said Cole with a soft laugh, “but you were just too drunk. It didn’t feel right. Then we passed out.”

Madelyn, who’d wakened naked with her head on the Cole’s chest, said, “I don’t remember... Well, I do, of course I do, just not every detail.”

“You recall what you said to me?” His full smile was a chasm few heterosexual women could safely navigate.

“Oh god, was I crude?” Madelyn asked, delighted. “Sometimes I can be crude. Crude, crude, crude. Oh, my head, opening my mouth to talk is all I need to send a shuddering pain right through my temples. Here.” She touched a temple. “And here.” She touched the other temple. “It really hurts and my stomach ... ”

“Let me see your head.” Cole massaged her temples.

“Oh my,” she said of his touch. “Where was I? My stomach... ” She prattled on.

As it happened, her stomach impressed Cole. The plan called for her to vomit on his chest, putting her in his debt, but she managed to rouse herself and make it to the toilet. The hangers-on — they might still be on the cow-couch downstairs — got knockout drops, but Madelyn and Pork Chop were given extra doses to make them toss. Cole wondered about Herta, confident Pork Chop upchucked on her. She was good with a plan.

“Your hands are so yummy,” Madelyn said. “Where was I? Oh, yes... ” The blather renewed. So far, Madelyn’s stomach was the only thing about her he found impressive. “Okay then,” she said, monologue running down, “what’s this terribly clever thing I said?”

“You said, I covet you .”

“I said that ? I love it! I just adore it! And it worked, ’cause here you are.”

“Here I am.” His fingers worked her skull.

“I hate it when people are always worrying about money,” Madelyn said, brushing her hair, attired now in a peignoir that hazed her body like smog. “Money is overrated.”

The brush, he noted, was gold-plated.

He and Madelyn had sex the first time in the shower — a tiled stall the size of a car wash. Afterward, he massaged her back and butt and legs, her head and legs and soles. The second go was on the bed, and — for almost a minute — she lost herself in the act, he could tell. It was noon now, and Cole needed to see his partners. “Can I borrow your Volvo for an hour?”

“It’s not a Volvo ,” she said. “Do I look like a mother of snot-nosed toddlers? It’s an Audi RS 7 — not a TT or an S5, but an RS 7 — a car built for the autobahn. Have you ever driven the autobahn? Texas thinks it knows something about speed, but the autobahn, my god, would you believe I cruised at two hundred miles an hour? And it felt like fifty? Smooth as silk.”

He did not believe two hundred miles an hour, and smooth as silk was a cliché. “Smooth as thirty-year-old Scotch,” he appended, teething at her still.

“My dad has fifty -year-old Ardbeg, the peaty stuff, which is what he likes. If you like it smooth, we can go to Richard’s Liquors on Kirby... ”

“Dick’s Liqs?” began Cole, but she talked over him.

“... a two-minute commute, tops. I’ve timed it. Why don’t you wear a watch, anyway? As for car privileges—”

“I just want to get clean clothes,” he interrupted. “I’ll be right back.”

The driver’s seat of the Audi was softer than his bed, but what difference did a car make, really? Cole was not materialistic. He just liked money.

“How’s Miss Bend-n-Squat?” Herta asked before Cole shut the front door. “Off contorting at the gym? Paying to crook her expensive thighs?”

“You’re too sedentary,” said Cole. “You don’t like to think of people exercising.”

“Exercise is for people who don’t read,” she said. “They do nothing of consequence, so they lend meaning to planking . The term pretty much sums them up.”

“You’re formidably sedentary.”

“I’ve never seen you in a gym.”

“There’s no money in them,” said Cole.

“What you guys talking about?” Tariq entered from the kitchen, dressed for the afternoon shift at the Azure Lounge: white shirt, dark pants, thin black tie.

“Work,” Herta said. “Madelyn.”

“She performs in bed like a porn star,” said Cole. It was not a compliment. “Makes stupid faces, ridiculous sounds, speaks absurd banalities.”

“ Pound me down like ground round? ” Herta suggested.

“It was the boringest sex I can recall.”

“I hate when you say things like that,” Tariq said.

“At least she performed,” Herta said. “Pork Chop came in my hands. Not that I’m complaining.”

Cole produced a single, folded page, and they moved to the desk. Herta scanned the page. She had a talent for forging documents, imitating signatures, pickpocketing, disguising herself, adopting accents. Cole was just good at taking things — like the statement page from Madelyn’s bank account, which held $73,987. They would use its corporate logo and page layout in the letter they sent Madelyn, and include her account number, phone number, address, and Social Security number. The letter would announce a security breach. Do not change your password online. Do not access your account online at all until you have changed your password. Call the automated system to make the change. Speak clearly and follow the prompts. Calls must be made from the number associated with the account. Cole had already attached a recording device to the phone in question — the pink number in Madelyn’s room.

Her father’s study, Cole informed them, was locked. Neither he nor Herta knew how to pick locks. He made a mental note for Herta to learn. “When the old man gets back from Europe, he may be in the market for a trophy wife.”

“I can do trophy,” Herta said.

“We need money now, though,” Tariq said. “Didn’t you skim their wallets?”

“Those clowns track each penny like bloodhounds after a scent,” Cole said.

“Did you mean that to be funny?” Herta asked.

“We have to be patient,” Cole said. “See how much Madelyn’s good for, and the same with Pork Chop.”

“Even he’s calling himself Pork Chop now,” Herta said. “That’s how much he loves me.”

“I have needs,” Tariq said. “Like finding a boring sex partner of my own. And, you know, food .”

“There’s pastrami in the fridge,” Herta said. “Jerk off. Make do.”

“Anyone in this country motivated by anything but the accumulation of wealth is a chump,” Cole said. “Every piece of the culture makes the argument.”

“What about that movie we watched?” Herta said.

They’d streamed Love Actually . Her choice.

“The cinematography was adequate,” Cole said.

“It would’ve been better with more nudity,” Tariq chimed in.

“You didn’t see it,” Herta accused.

“It’s something you can say about any movie.”

“It was about love ,” Herta insisted, “not the preeminence of money.”

“Yet they all had thousand-dollar haircuts,” said Cole, “cute lofts, beautiful clothes. The real message: money matters.”