Josh Stallings - Beautiful, Naked and Dead

“I don’t know where she is.”

“So you said. I’ll see you around McGuire.” As he walked out he stopped at the counter, leaned over and said something to Gregor, then left without looking back.

“What’d he say to you?” I asked Gregor as we were driving back to the hotel.

“Said I should leave town before we both wound up in a box.”

“So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“Leaving town.”

“And miss all this fun?” The corners of his mouth almost curled into a smile.

“Tonight’s going to get ugly, a lot of bad craziness is going to have to go down before it’s over. Are you sure you’re up for the ride? You’ve been paid, there’s no honor lost if you want to walk.” He looked at me and then out the window. We climbed a steep hill lined with gingerbread Victorians, it was hard to believe anything bad could happen in this city.

“Yeah, I’m in,” he said. “Will you drop me off at that church?” He pointed to the spires of a Catholic Church looming ahead of us.

“What?”

“The church. I’ll meet you at the hotel in an hour.” I pulled to the curb without asking any more questions. He slipped his 9 mm under the seat and walked up the stone steps, his great coat flapping behind him like huge black wings.

Parking the Crown Vic at the Best Western I checked for messages. Nothing. I took the elevator to the parking lot and slipped out the side door. I headed towards my hotel, the flashing neon of the Barbary Coast called to me, beckoning with its cool gin and willing girls. One drink wouldn’t kill me. I was standing at the mouth of an alley next to my hotel, about to cross the street when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun around swinging out a left haymaker that would have taken Cass’ head off if she had been six inches taller, instead the blow sailed over her head grazing her hair.

“I’m glad to see you too, Moses.” She smiled up at me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I didn’t know if I wanted to hit Cass or lift her into my arms.

“I was losing my mind waiting, wondering if you were dead. I’m your girl.” She moved in close placing those soft full lips on mine. One kiss and I was lost. Linking her arm in mine we went up to the room.

“I’m taking down Sabatini tonight,” I told her as we sat on the bed holding hands.

“Then I’m going with you.”

“No, you are not. Look, I don’t care about much in this life. I don’t think I could stand to see you die.”

“Then you know how I feel. Mo, these scum bags killed my only sister, I am going to be there when they go down.” I looked at her set jaw and knew she spoke the truth. Pulling her hand up to my mouth, I nodded and kissed her. Our bargain was struck, there was no turning back now. Pulling her face to mine, I kissed her, her lips parted letting my tongue dart in. There was a hungry look in her eyes, we kissed and ripped at each other’s clothes with no regard for buttons or zippers. She hiked up her skirt and I made love to her standing up with my pants down around my ankles. I could taste blood on my lip from where she bit me but I didn’t care. We were tossed in a passion driven storm. The dresser I pushed her against fell with a crash but we kept our rhythm, moving to the closet door I slammed her against the mirror. Grabbing her ass in my big hand I looked into the mirror. There on her ass cheek was a fairy sprinkling pixie dust. The room spun out of focus for a moment, but my lust was boiling so I pushed away the meaning of her tattoo. She was screaming wild war cries as we collapsed onto the floor.

In a post-coital lump we lay tangled on the floor. I gently traced the fairy tattooed on her backside. It was the same mark as the girl in the porn video. I never had the pleasure of seeing Kelly’s ass but I now doubted she was tattooed.

“Did Kell have any tattoos?” I said as casually as I could.

“Why do you want to talk about Kelly? Do you wish you had just fucked her?”

“No, I was…”

“I’m not Kelly, hell, Kelly wasn’t even Kelly. I’m here, I’m alive and I’m the best you’re ever going to get.” To prove it she started kissing my neck and moved slowly down my belly. My desire to question her dissolved when she took me into her mouth.

We woke to the sound of a knock at the door. I pulled my pants up and righted the dresser. Cass gave me a wink and slid into the bathroom. Gregor came in, looked around the room but asked no questions. Cass came out of the bathroom looking fresh as a new picked flower. “She’ll be riding with us tonight,” I told Gregor.

“It’s your party boss.”

“Then let’s roll.”

As a kid, my grandmother Therkleson told me about the Valkyrie, beautiful bare-chested winged warriors who dropped down onto the Viking battlefields and picked the bravest of the fallen dead to take to live in the halls of Valhalla, where they could drink and fight and fuck until the end of time. In a hard world a good death was sometimes the best a man could hope for. That, and a big breasted chick with wings to swoop out of the sky.

Soaring down 280, I watched San Francisco disappear into the rear view like a glittering dream calling me back to bed. The highway was smooth and nicely banked, built for speed, I fought the urge to pin the needle and kept at a safe eighty miles an hour. The CHP might frown on rolling arsenals crowding up their highways.

I dropped in Give ‘em Enough Rope, by far the Clash’s best album. London Calling was for posers and Johnny come late to the party wanna’ be punk college kids. Melancholic Island influenced punk, with enough melody not to drive my traveling comrades screaming from the car and enough overdriven guitars to keep me from blowing my brains out. Mick Jones, that pussy, was telling me to step lightly and stay free when we hit Palo Alto. Taking the Sand Hill exit we headed up into the mountains. The streetlights disappeared and there were damn few homes as we snaked our way into the country. A warm blanket of black fell around us, pierced by our headlight beams. The stars filled the sky above, silhouetting old oak trees on the rolling hills.

“When this is over, I was thinking about going down to Mexico,” I said to Cass, she was resting her head on my shoulder. “I was thinking you might want to go with me.”

“What’s in Mexico?”

“Warm beaches, good food.”

“Ok.” We slipped back into silence. Gregor sat in the back with his fedora down over his eyes. Old La Honda Road twisted its way up the dark mountain, redwoods speared up into a forest above the road, cliffs dropped off to the right, so that one wrong turn would take you into the next life in a wailing plunge. A flash of white spread out in the headlights as a barn owl crossed our path. Tommy Cavasos told me that if you saw an owl in flight you should look away because it was a brujo, who could make you sick or cast a dark spell on you. Tommy swore by that border magic. I watched the owl fly up and disappear into the dark forest. What was it going to do to me I hadn’t already done to myself? Luck was for suckers, and magic was what that freak in the top hat did down on Hollywood Boulevard for turista quarters. I was done gambling in games where others set the rules, and all odds went to the house. From here on out I only wanted to play when I chose the deck and dealt the cards.

Twenty minutes later we hit Skylonda, a small mountain town consisting of a general store, two restaurants and a two pump gas station, they all were dark and silent at this early hour. I pulled in and used a payphone to call Sanders.

“You want Sabatini, get your ass up to his ranch.”

“What are you talking about, McGuire?” he mumbled into the phone.