Микки Спиллейн - Last Stage to Hell Junction

Juanita was one of four (the second child, the first girl), but at fourteen Mama passed, trying to bear child number five, the baby stillborn. After that, Juanita had to run the household, and Papa started in to drinking. He also began bothering her at night, stumbling in where she slept and getting in with her, calling her by her mother’s name, and pawing at her. Before that went any further, Juanita lit out and the rest of the MacGregor brood were on their own.

Her voluptuous good looks — she blossomed early — led to jobs in cantinas in towns all over the Southwest, first serving food but later dancing, flouncing her skirt, and clicking castanets, traveling with several guitar players who had talented fingers. She married one such musician, a man whose name was Jacob and called himself José, but when she caught him diddling another dancer, she unleashed the invective in Spanish that she had picked up from her mother.

To this day, her limited Spanish consisted mostly of angry outbursts Mama had frequently unleashed on Papa.

Juanita had been dancing at a cantina in Tombstone when she met Blaine Hargrave, who took to her when first he saw her. He was appearing at the Bird Cage Theater, doing a Shakespeare recital. When they sat at a table in back, getting to know each other, and he found out her last name was MacGregor, he seemed greatly amused.

“Currently my best Shakespearean selections are from the Scottish play, my dear,” he said. “Could it be I have found my Lady Macbeth at last?”

She began traveling with him. They did so in style, on stagecoaches and trains. She loved his voice, the rich way those fancy words rolled up out of his lovely, masculine chest. It was nice finding a man who could drink hard and never get mean, and could make love while drunk as well as sober. Perhaps better.

When that heckler in an audience in Abilene had called her man “a spic-loving ham” from the audience, she was proud that he’d stepped down from the stage, taken the offender’s own gun from its holster, and shot him in the face, turning that ugliness into a mask of running red. No one ever stood up for her honor like that before.

Later she heard that the dead man had lost a bunch of money to Blaine the evening before, and was going around saying the actor was a cheat, which took nothing away from what he’d done to defend her honor.

That of course was when their life as outlaws began, and it had been an exciting one, and most profitable. Blaine was gathering money for their future (“The world’s mine oyster,” he would say) and assured her their life as desperados was only temporary. Another year or two. He would open his own theater somewhere he was wanted only for his “thespian gifts” and not for his “peccadilloes,” a word she loved the sound of and figured must mean “robberies.”

They fought frequently, but it almost always stopped at yelling. He only slapped her now and then, much less than she did him, and while he’d raised a fist to her from time to time, he never struck her a blow. Always the cause of the battles was his wandering ways. She felt certain he loved her, but she knew his appetites were keen and ever-present. Yet she also knew when the look in his eye, for some wench or another, was serious and when it meant mere flirtation.

Their fighting was not all bad. It seemed to excite them both, and if she swore at him in Spanish, things got heated, in a good way.

Right now, in their spacious if dingy room on the second floor of the Inn, she was in bed smoking a cigarette she’d rolled herself. Blaine was next to her, smoking a cheroot. Their smoke mingled. Pillows were propped behind them. A small table on his side of the bed was home to a bottle of tequila and two glasses.

He poured a glass for her and then himself. The covers — rather threadbare, as was common in this hotel, whose upkeep was not in step with its rates — were gathered at both their waists. She had full, nicely rounded breasts that still perked, and she liked to keep them exposed in private, to further remind him what she had. And what he had.

How she loved his chest, with its black hairy nest for her fingers to wind in. He was so refined, with his fancy talk and continental flair; but was most of all a man.

Smoke streamed from her nostrils. She sipped tequila. “You will keep your hands off that blonde one, cariño , or someone will die.”

He paused in his own drinking to turn toward her and give her a crinkly smile, as if his mustache were tickling him. “Someone? Would you murder her or me , my love?”

“She would die,” Juanita said, matter-of-factly, and her right hand drifted to his chest and her fingers entwined themselves in the curls, then yanked a little. “I might spare you .”

“That’s a relief to hear you say.”

Her hands drifted south and entwined themselves in other curls. “Of course, even spared, you might lose something precious to you.”

Half of his upper lip curled, making a smirk out of the smile. Or perhaps a sneer. “If you refer to your sweet self, my dear, that would be tragic indeed. I would never find another leading lady so gifted.”

She patted the part of him that had recently joined them. “Just keep your hands off la perra . Or your next performance will be in a tragedy.”

He stroked her cheek. “You concern yourself for no reason, my love. I merely wish to calm the woman. To make her easier to handle.”

“You better not handle her at all.”

He laughed, sipped tequila, then rested the glass back on the little bedside table. “We need to keep both those wenches at bay. When the ransom is paid, and Mr. Parker on his way back to his luxurious life, we’ll dispose of both females.”

She frowned, not following. “Dispose of in what way? Not set them free , you mean?”

One eyebrow arched. “Free them from their earthly woes. ‘So wise so young, they say do never live long.’ ”

Now she followed. “Kill them.”

“That’s the standard interpretation.”

Warmth flowed through her. Not passion — that was spent. Love. Sheer love for this man.

“A wise decision!” she said. “Dead witnesses are best.” She leaned close, their breaths on each other’s face. Quietly, but with some urgency, she said, “But why just the woman? Why not ‘dispose’ of the banker, too? Once we have the money...”

He kissed her. Sweetly. Tenderly.

Then, their faces still close, noses nearly touching, he said, “Turning Parker loose... keeping our part of the bargain... that paves the way for the deed to be done again. If we slay him, my querida , people will not be inclined in future to pay a ransom for the return of a hostage.”

She basked in this wisdom, then finished her tequila and passed him the glass, which he set next to his. She drew on her cigarette and exhaled smoke, which drifted wraith-like.

Nodding to herself, she said, “So you will wait till the banker has been delivered before killing esas brujas .”

His handsome face settled into thoughtfulness. “Perhaps. Perhaps killing them in front of him would serve a useful purpose.”

With no idea what that purpose might be, she said, “ Bueno idea. Fine idea.”

Seeming to sense her lack of understanding, he said, “It may prove helpful to let our male guest know of what we are capable. This may convince him to not come after us, or else face similar butchery.”

A knock at the door interrupted.

“ What? ” Blaine called out, irritably.

“I’m back,” came Reese’s voice. “With a doc.”

“Hmmm,” Blaine said, more to himself than her. “That took less time than I imagined.”

Her man got out of bed, wearing only long-john bottoms. He opened the door, and Reese stepped into the room. Annoyed, Juanita halfheartedly covered her breasts.