Макс Коллинз - Spree

And she just stood there, not caring a whit about her nudity, jiggling, bouncing as she grinned and looked at the cover of the Nodes album, front and back.

“I remember some of these songs,” she said, “from hearing you play!”

“Maybe you better get dressed,” he said.

She stood there with her weight on one hip, a hand on one hip, holding the album in her other hand like it was a tray and she was an amused but bored carhop at a topless drive-in.

“Or maybe not,” he said, and took her in his arms and kissed her; she immediately began taking his coat off, even as she was putting her darting tongue in his mouth, and the coat dropped to the floor like the dead weight it was, the gun-in-pocket clunking. Her hands worked on his zipper and she went down on her knees in front of him.

Jon stood there, shaking his head, wondering how he lost control of the situation so fast, and he was in her mouth, but only for a second when he pulled away and said, “No.”

Still on her knees she looked up at him with utter confusion. “No?” she repeated, as if she didn’t understand the meaning of the word.

Certainly in this context, the word seemed out of place, but Jon forced himself back in his pants and said to her, “Get dressed. We got to talk, and I can’t talk to you when you’re like that.”

She smirked humorlessly and got up and picked up her towel and dried herself off a little, and he watched her, every cell of his body aching with regret, as a beautiful naked teenage female, as yet a stranger to cellulite, put on panties and jeans and a loose-fitting red sweater with a scoop neck that showed just enough cleavage to make him simultaneously wish he were dead and could live forever.

She stood there, weight on one hip again, both hands on her hips this time, smirking, but good-naturedly now, challenging him to find something to talk about that was more important than her giving him the best goddamned blowjob the state of Missouri had to offer, in Iowa yet.

He put his coat back on, put his hand on the .38 grip within the pocket, and looked around the room. The signs of Cole Comfort living here were few; his clothes were apparently either in the dresser and closet or still in suitcases. There was a half-empty bottle of Old Grand-Dad on the dresser. Her clothes were also put away, and her personal items must have been in the bathroom, because there was no particular sign of Cindy Lou, either, except her denim jacket slung over a chair, and on a table a Hit Parader magazine with heavy-metal groups on the cover, a publication he didn’t figure was on Cole Comfort’s subscription list.

The side wall of the room was orange-vinyl-curtained sliding doors, leading out to the pool area. Jon reached behind there and unlocked one of the sliding doors; the swimming pool (like Nolan’s) was covered with plastic and a fresh layer of white powder, shimmering in the daylight like a vast coke-covered mirror.

“Sit down,” he told her, pointing to the nearest bed.

She did. He sat next to her.

“Can I trust you?” he asked.

“To do what?”

“To keep a confidence.”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“It’s not going to be that easy. Last night you talked a lot about you and your father not getting along. You talked around it some, but that’s the general drift.”

She sighed heavily; the dark circles under her eyes weren’t the whole story — she seemed weary, troubled.

“It isn’t that simple,” she said.

“He’s hitting on you, isn’t he?”

She said nothing for a moment; looked at the floor. Nodded.

“Was it worse last night?”

She nodded. She shook her head. Pointed toward the bathroom. “I spent four hours locked in that goddamn toilet. He started pounding on the door. He was crying, after while...”

Jon couldn’t quite picture Cole Comfort crying.

“Was he sorry?” Jon asked.

“He said he was. He said he had... demons. He begged me to forgive him. I forgave him — but through the door. He wanted to fuck me. I know he did.”

Jon looked at her with awe. Her frankness was startling, and he wondered how, after a nightmare night hiding behind a locked bathroom door from a father who probably wanted to rape her, she could so easily go down on her knees and take a casual lover like him in her mouth.

She smiled a little, reading his mind, or anyway his eyes. She touched his leg. “I like lovin’. Daddy ain’t gonna spoil that for me. It’s not that I don’t want to have sex again — it’s just that I don’t want to have it with Daddy.”

“That’s not a bad policy.”

She looked at the orange vinyl curtains. “I’m thinking about leaving. I called my friend out in California — Ginger — she’s got a job and everything. Not hustling, either. She says she can get me on at the Taco Bell, too. It’s a better future than I got at home.”

“I think leaving is a good idea.”

“It is. I just can’t take it. This... it’s getting... I can’t take it.”

“There’s more, isn’t there? Than your daddy pawing after you.”

She seemed to almost wince. Another sigh. Another nod.

“Your father’s a thief, isn’t he?”

She looked at him sharply, pulled away. “What are you?” Her voice turned as harsh as a heavy-metal guitar solo. “Are you some fuckin’ narc or something?”

He laughed a little. Very little. “No. I’m not a narc or any kind of cop.”

“Then... what?”

“I’m another thief. I’m in on this mall heist with your father.”

She looked at him like they looked at Columbus when he said the world was round. “What? You are?”

“Yes. And if he knew I’d made contact with you, he wouldn’t like it.”

“Is that what you call it? Contact? I thought you fucked me. And, brother, he’d kill you, for that.”

“I know he would. I know he would.”

She looked at him, taking him seriously; something in his voice had brought her around.

“See, I’m not really a thief, anymore,” he said. “I used to be. When I was a kid, and wild. I was in on a couple of bank robberies, a few other things. But I went straight. Started playing with the Nodes, working on my comic books — like I told you about last night. But now, after I thought that the whole world was behind me, your father pulls me in on this fucking thing.”

“Why? How?”

“I’m going to tell you the whole story, Cindy Lou. And believe me, I’m putting my life in your hands...”

And he told her. He pulled no punches. He even told her about his part in the deaths of certain of her “kin.” Most of all he told her about Sherry. About how Sherry had been kidnaped to force Nolan and Jon to help heist the Brady Eighty mall.

She was silent throughout, listening raptly; but he couldn’t read her.

Finally he said, “I think you already know about Sherry, and the trouble she’s in. I think you were forced to stand guard on her last night, while your brother and father met with the rest of us, for our final planning session.”

She winced again. Looked at the floor.

“I don’t know what crimes in the past your father has involved you in,” he said, “but this time it’s kidnaping. You’re an accessory. You’re implicated in the mall heist, as well; you’re a conspirator.”

She looked at him, her big blue eyes wet.

“The girl’s all right,” she said. “She hasn’t been hurt or anything. Lyle hasn’t touched her.”

Thank God.

“Good. But your father wants revenge against my friend and me. I think he plans to kill Sherry, eventually. And me. And my friend.”

She thought about that. Then shook her head violently.

“No!” she said. “No, I don’t think he’d go that far. Daddy’s not a bad man, not really...”