Craig Smith - Cold Rain

‘Jeez, that’s real friendly.’

I fired into his windshield, and Roger jumped away from his car in stark terror.

‘Next one’s for you, fat boy,’ I said, keeping the gun trained on him. ‘Now get out. I’m not going to ask you again.’

‘I’ve got something you might want to look at. I just want to give it to you and then I’ll take off.’

‘Try the mail.’

Roger was holding a DVD in his gloved hand and stooped down gingerly to leave it on the ground for us. ‘How about I put it here. You’re going to want to see this.’ He looked at Molly. ‘Both of you.’

‘What is it?’ Molly asked.

‘Just look at it. I’ll call you tomorrow about what it’s going to cost you to keep it off the internet.’

With that he backed away and got in his car. I kept my gun trained on him as he circled us and drove away.

Molly went for the DVD case, swearing hotly as she picked it up. ‘What do you think it is?’ she asked.

‘Let’s go find out.’

Inside the house, we took our coats off and headed for the living room. Neither of us spoke. I still had the shotgun in my hand, but I wasn’t looking for Buddy Elder when he stepped out of the den.

Buddy jacked a shell into the chamber of my four-ten and brought it to his shoulder. I had the better weapon, but Buddy was pointing his at Molly’s head.

His eyes blackened, his nose broken, Buddy hardly looked like the congenial grad student I had met at Caleb’s eight months earlier. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to put the gun down, Dave.’

I set the gun on the floor gently, hoping Buddy would point his weapon in my direction. In fact, he stepped closer to Molly just in case I wanted to try him.

Once I had let go of the gun and stood up again, he relaxed slightly, though he didn’t take the gun off Molly. ‘Hope you all don’t mind,’ he told us with his southern drawl, ‘but I let myself in by the side door with a key.’

Molly started toward him. A single step. Buddy brought the four-ten around until it was aimed at my crotch. ‘You want to see Dave without his balls?’

‘Buddy, please!’

‘Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to get hurt as long as you both cooperate.’ He nodded toward the DVD case Molly still held and gave her a smile. ‘You figure out what you’ve got there, hon?’

The blood left her face.

‘Dave, you’re going to love this,‘ he told me.

I didn’t answer. At the moment, I couldn’t.

‘What I want you to do, Molly, is go into the living room there and turn the lights on and then off three times.’ When she had done this he told her, ‘Now turn the lights on and let’s watch a movie.’

Molly turned the television on and inserted the disk into the DVD player. Meanwhile, Buddy gestured with the shotgun for me to have a seat. He had Molly sit in the chair beside mine, and then he hit the remote.

For a moment we waited in silence. Then Buddy told us, ‘You know, I could just shoot myself for not bringing the popcorn.’

There was no sound on the recording. The scene began with Buddy’s face pulling back from the camera lens. He turned and walked away from the camera and sat down on a couch in a darkened living room, the same one I had wrecked a couple nights before. A single lamp illuminated him. For nearly a minute nothing happened. Then Molly appeared. She was absolutely naked and carried two drinks.

Molly swore. Buddy tipped his weapon into my crotch. ‘You don’t move,’ Buddy told her. ‘You come out of that chair and Dave here is going to hurt.’

On the video Molly handed Buddy his drink and set her own on the coffee table. Then she slid down between his legs and began pulling at his belt, laughing and telling him something.

I heard Roger’s Volvo coming up the hill again.

In the video Buddy made no effort to help Molly undress him. He actually seemed to enjoy watching her struggle with his jeans. When she had freed his erection, Buddy said to me, ‘This here is my favourite part, Dave.’

Molly took his sex into her mouth, and Buddy pushed her hair away so the camera caught her face in profile.

We watched this for a minute or so before Buddy broke the silence. ‘It’s just like I’ve always said, Dave.

You can take the girl off the street, but you just can’t get the street off the girl.’

Our front hallway clicked open and closed quietly.

Roger Beery appeared and immediately went for the twelve-gauge on the floor in the hallway. ‘Hey! You started without me!’

Buddy grinned. ‘Dave couldn’t wait.’

Roger walked behind Buddy and stepped up in front of Molly. ‘You like that, don’t you? You like giving head?’

Molly swore at him, but Roger grinned and put the tip of his gun in front of Molly’s mouth, ‘I want you to kiss this and make it wet for me.’

Molly spat on the gun, then she spat at Roger.

Buddy walked behind her chair, positioning himself carefully between Molly and me. He was facing Roger.

‘We need to set some ground rules here, Molly,’ he said. ‘First off, this is just payback for the other night.

Nobody needs to get killed. All we’re going to do is give Dave here a little sex show. Nothing you haven’t done before. If you don’t want to cooperate,’ Buddy pushed the gun toward my ear, ‘then we go to plan B.

Up to you really.’

At just that moment someone knocked at the back door.

Buddy swore. Roger looked frightened.

‘I’ll see who it is,’ Buddy said, and walked out of our living room. Then he stopped. ‘And if either of them starts to move, shoot Dave’s nuts off.’

Roger smiled. ‘It’ll be a pleasure.’

I said softly so that Molly could hear, ‘Wade.’

That was when she cried.

I saw my old man work some amazing deals, but the only time he ever worked pure magic was one night at the fairgrounds.

We’d taken the cars down to this field with all the other dealers, and people had a chance to look at everything all in the same place. We’d been working the thing for three days, and I’d taken a Z in trade from a girl named Debbie, Connie Q. in Jinx. The Q. was for Quick. Debbie was my first, which made me one of a large fraternity.

In a small town like DeKalb it doesn’t take much to get a reputation, of course, but Deb was way past that. Deb was a legend. There wasn’t a man in the greater metro area under forty, maybe a straight man breathing, who didn’t know her car on sight. It had been a nice car once, but like Deb it was beginning to show some wear.

I had a little trouble closing her on a new Mustang because she was buying with cash and she didn’t have enough. It looked like I was going to lose the deal when Milt took the T.O. I’m not sure, but I think Milt might be the only manager in history of the cars to pull a customer out of the closing booth and insist on a second demo drive when the only issue was price.

They came back a couple of hours later, the purchase order signed, and Milt gave me a full commission, instead of splitting it. He slapped me on the back and told me that was the kind of guy he was. When his people needed help, he was there for them.

The next day I saw some kid looking at that Z, and walked over and started talking to him. The way he was looking at that car you would have thought it was Deb herself. Milt had jacked the price up a couple thousand above the recommended retail on a mint condition piece, because, he said, it was the most famous car in DeKalb. Truth was he needed to get back everything he’d given away on the Mustang. We’d had lookers all day, but when they heard the price they started looking elsewhere. I figured this kid was there like the rest of them, a bit of nostalgia and then he would move on. But he was just a little different. I noticed it the minute he looked up at me with a gullible smile and said, ‘I got my first blow job in a car like this!’