Day thirty-four

Chapter Twenty-Seven continued

After the dinner at Mom’s, Cindy forgot all about the medicine chest she’d stolen.  But she discovered it in the back seat when she went thru the carwash before going to kill Mom.  She put it next to her on the front seat, and worked it open while her car went thru the suds.  There were bottles of penicillin from the ‘80s – Mom had been breeding antibiotic resistance for years by only taking half the pills and stashing the rest.  There were 50 year old bottles of paregoric, tranquilizers, amphetamines.  A drug store in a box.  There was even some morphine, and a syringe.  All horribly out of date, but this stuff didn’t lose its punch, most of it.  Cindy’s mouth watered.  Which should she take first?  Valium?  Haldol?  Phenobarbital?  Benzedrine?  She wanted to try them all.

It’s no wonder that she fell asleep on the way to Mom’s, and Xynthde drove the rest of the way.  Standing on the grass in bare feet, wobbling with the breeze, Cindy and Xynthde weaved in and out of each other.  Gradually Cindy understood that the dragon master, the wicked witch herself, was inside the fortress.  Gradually Xynthde understood that Mom was the wicked witch herself.  They both agreed that the wicked witch needed desperately to be killed, and that it would take the two of them working together.

They could hear dragon breath.  It sounded like wind rustling the bushes, except it was regular.  They looked around.  The bushes rustled.  Something was hiding behind them.  They drew their weapons and crept forward, stalking the dragon.

Drug interactions produce strange side effects.  A couple of hours ago, Cindy took a fistful of Xanax, which calmed her down remarkably.  Helped her to achieve a few minutes of sleep, in fact.  One of her favorite daily drugs, and one she habitually doubled or tripled the dosage of, because it was so good at making everything okay.

But the trouble with Xanax is that it makes you evil once it wears off.

Xynthde rummaged thru the satchel they’d brought.  The stickiness intrigued her.  Ah, the magic box.  This time containing the sacred bonbon of life.  It would make them invincible in battle.  Xynthde loved chocolate.  They shared it, for luck, then licked their fingers and moved into position.

The dragon stirred.  Cindy felt the rage build up inside her.  The dragon – might as well say Mom out loud – was the enemy she’d been fighting all her life.  Any shred of independence was hers only because she’d hacked and cut her way thru.  The way she lived, the things she owned, were only hers because she snatched them out of the hands of that greedy bitch, who sucked the life out of her.

She felt the power of her rage.  All the side effects of her many medications gathered together and took a vote.  It was a close race, and they held a runoff.  Cindy was dizzy.  She was weak.  She was agitated.  She was confused.  She was excitable.  She was exhausted.  Her heart raced.  Her breathing slowed.  Her kidneys got gummy and stopped up.  Her liver exhaled toxic waste.  Her blood pressure dropped.  She grew cold and hot at the same time.  Her vision grayed out.  She struggled to stay conscious.  She struggled to remember her mission.

The dragon was breathing on the intrepid warriors.  Its noxious gases corroded their skin.  The smell of burning hair was overpowering, but the smell of burning flesh was strangely appetizing.  Cindy could feel blood lust creeping over her, and looked in Xynthde’s eyes to see it boiling there, too.  An unspoken strategy passed between them.  They readied themselves for the charge.  Cindy checked her Glock; Xynthde wielded her battle scythe.

“One, two three, whee!” Cindy wailed, the very thing her parents said when they lifted and swung her between them as a toddler.  Xynthde gave it to her as her personal battle cry, because of the good vibes the sounds contained.

Together, Cindy and Xynthde burst out of the bushes and exploded across the moat, crossing it in a single leap.  The portcullis was dropping fast, the sharp spikes were twisted and corroded.  Cindy wished she’d had a tetanus shot the last time she was at the doctor’s.

They fought thru the guards and into the central courtyard.  Spying the last of the ladder being drawn into the keep, they bounded over the heads of the guards and with a mighty leap, thrust their weapons thru the last rung, nailing the door open.

The dragon’s stench was strong in the keep.  There was her famous evil chariot over in the corner, and stolen loot piled against the walls.  The dragon had probably just been thru there, and was at this moment in some deep lair inside the keep.  The stink of ages rushed out around the brave warriors, but Xynthde had a potion against poison gas, and the girls shared three deep snorts and prepared for the long battle to the room at the top, where the dragon lived, and the wicked witch worked her evil.  Or could the wicked witch be in her laboratory?

They split up.  Xynthde ventured down to the dungeon, where she freed many prisoners and slayed all the guards, but the dragon and its evil master weren’t there.

Cindy creeped up the spiral staircase to the room at the top, thankful the stairs were made of stone.  The wicked witch could always hear her sneaking around when the stairs were wooden.  The smell became more pungent, rotting flesh and shit, heat and stale air.  Cindy’s nostrils wrinkled and her lip curled involuntarily.  She approached the heavy door.  She released the safety on her weapon.  She paused to listen.

In the tiny room at the top of the stairs, open to the air and the rain, rotting animal carcasses piled in the corner, the witch and her evil dragon crouched, holding their breath, smelling like fear.  Cindy wasn’t fooled.  She was waiting for Xynthde to catch up to her, and then they were going to finally kill the wicked witch.

The fumes made her sick.  She puked quietly, careful to project it into the middle of the stairwell, hoping to keep the slimy juices away from the steps.  Where was Xynthde?

Cindy grew weak.  The wicked witch was sapping her strength, sucking the life out of her even thru the heavy door.  But here was her friend and companion, and suddenly Cindy felt renewed.  They retreated half a circle and checked each other’s armor.  Xynthde shared some speed, and they shot morphine into the small veins under their tongue.

The dragon sniffed at the bottom of the door, identifying them.  They could hear scratching and snuffling and the blood curdling voice of the wicked witch, wanting to know who was there.  The time was now.  They stood together on the landing, gave each other a last embrace, and burst thru the door like Butch and Sundance.

* * *

Continue chapter 27

Day thirty-three

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Laurie and Gordon got home as the streetlights were going off.  The rain chose that time to puke all over them, and they had to wade to the trailer.  It had been a rough night, and all Gordon wanted to do was go to sleep, but Laurie was turned on by all the shooting and wanted him to make love to her while twisting q-tips into the place where she was shot.

Sometime after they fell asleep, Sindee and Cindy left a magic chocolate for Gordon, whom they had discovered secretly raising dragons in the crawl space under his trailer.  Cindy put it in a box that Judy had given her some useless craft thing in.  Sindee drove over to his trailer, and they left it perched on his windshield wiper.

He got up out of bed late in the day, and went outside to check his car for any GPS devices Sam and Dave might have installed.  There he found the box left by his sister.  The box was ruined and flattened by the rain, but the chocolate inside was moist and delectable.  He ate it on up, schnapps dripping off his chin in the rain, and then went back inside for that box of chocolates he’d rescued from the club.  There was a hole in the box, and a spent bullet knocked around inside.  Gordon lifted off the cover, laughed out loud, and ran off to wake Laurie and show her.

Food porn.  The tip of the bullet just parted a perfect bonbon, stuck in a crevice it had created with the last of its momentum.  A little bit of pink juice was leaking out around the tip.  Allen would never believe it.  A bullet, breaking the chocolate’s cherry.  It was poetic.  He should save it.  But Gordon loved chocolate.  He should take a picture with his phone.  But he didn’t know where his phone was.  Oh well, Allen would have to take Laurie’s word as backup.  She would back him up – she watched him eat it.

Laurie got up, got a drink, got high, and put on Natural Born Killers.  So I blame it all on Woody Harrelson.  Gordon sat and tried to watch the movie thru a blue haze of smoke.  Laurie started in on him about Mom.  Going off about how evil Mom was, pointing out all of Gordon’s faults and tracing each one back to Mom.  It was crystal clear that he was totally dependent on Mom, because if there was anything she knew in all its guises, it was addiction.  Gordon was strung out on Mom’s money.  Duh.  More importantly, he was at grave risk of being just like Mom.  Just as crazy, just as controlling, just as self-centered.

Them’s fighting words, but Gordon was a peaceful man.  Laurie’s incessant droning ate into his brain, her relentless criticism ate at his tender heart, her repoisoned chocolates ate at his insides.

He decided, amid snorts of coke and joints the size of his dick, that the best way to stop Laurie’s carping was to eliminate the object of her carping.  It seemed the simplest solution.  Without Mom, Laurie would be happy.  His job was to make Laurie happy.  It was simple, every way he looked at it.

He made his mind up abruptly.  It unfolded before his eyes.  He and Laurie rode in like Mickey and Mallory, trading hip soundbites as they blasted everyone away, having sex over their dead bodies.  Right.  All his inner senses told him this was doable.  And not only doable, but his obligation, and his alone.  An artistic statement.  He was willing to rearrange the bodies if need be, in order to work with his scenario.

He told Laurie his idea between hits off the meth pipe.  “Hey, babe, let’s go do something really fun.  Let’s go fuck up someone you really hate.”  Laurie squealed with delight.  “Where’s that shotgun?”

* * *

Cindy was in agony.  Burned and scabby, her wounds throbbed and itched under the dressings.  She screamed for pain pills, and got the doctors to write her nice prescriptions for OxyContin and Darvocet.  She took double the recommended dose of each the moment she left the pharmacy, waited twenty minutes for them to kick in, then took four more in her driveway.  Then it was time for a nap.  But first, she hunted around and took a little cocktail of antidepressants and beta blockers with an amphetamine high-note and a vodka chaser.

Xynthde got up an hour later in a bad mood.  The magic box was empty, but she took it with her.  When she opened it later, it was a little cake that said “Eat Me,” so she took a bite.  She felt curious all over.  Xynthde ate half, then decided that she needed to see Alice, take her the rest of the delicious little cake, which conferred invisibility.  This showed Xynthde’s true heroism, sharing the gift of the gods.  Xynthde drove her chariot to Alice’s fairy castle in the sky, but there were dragons guarding it.  She’d seen them fly in from the west, where the wicked witch’s fortress threatened all peace in the land.  But suddenly there was the solution.  How simple.  She must follow the dragons back to their lair and kill them all.

Cindy woke up behind the wheel of her car.  It was pulled over, halfway on the grass, around the corner from her mom’s house.  The wheels sat in deep ruts, her foot still on the gas.  She was disoriented, and dizzy as she got out of the car.  She wasn’t really sure where she was, and had no idea how she got there.  She grabbed her purse, on the passenger seat, and didn’t look inside.  If she had she would have found a box with half a chocolate leaking all over the bottom of her bag, a 9mm gun, three full clips, a taser, four or five empty prescription bottles, her wallet, cellphone and a pair of handcuffs.

* * *

continue reading chapter 27

Day thirty-two

Chapter Twenty-Six

The next day was cold and rainy.  It rained all day long.  The cold seeped into everything, slowed and dragged at everything.  Mechanical devices froze up, doors stuck, wheels and bearings turned reluctantly.  Fingers and toes were stiff and painful, backs ached, sinuses clogged.  Anything that rusts up in wet weather was swollen and hurting.

Everyone was affected by the rain.  Traffic snarled, lines grew longer, people got grumpy.  Everything took twice as long, and lots of things just didn’t get done because it was too difficult to get around.  Not that it was any more inclement than usual.  It’s just that this was a Class A depressive rain, strong enough to make birds and mammals suicidal, magnetic enough to give computers headaches, complicating everything enough to make it not worth doing.

It was a full moon.  Usually a high energy time, when lots of people do impulsive things.  But the rain had dampened the energy, sedated the natural exuberance of the full moon, like it was on Prozac.  So everyone gave their impulses precedence, but the consequences worked themselves out in slow motion.

Overnight, a flock of John Does came into the ER.  Several with acute lead poisoning, without IDs.  Several Jane Does impersonating zombies and giving only aliases.  Toward dawn those that could talk became a little more forthcoming.  Half a dozen walking wounded all claimed to be going down the street minding their own business, but were pretty fuzzy about which street.  And one poor asshole beaten all to hell who croaked on the table, whispering Roxy with tears in his eyes.  All in all, it was a banner night in the ER.  They’d planned for it, of course:  they came out of the woodwork on a full moon.

Nobody ever mentioned the full moon on the morning news.  People at the network noticed the uptick in strangeness, they even had a disaster betting pool every full moon, but it went without saying that astrology wasn’t newsworthy, so it was never mentioned.  Judy was the only one of the siblings who would have noticed this, or cared.  She would have sat there and lectured the TV screen for twenty minutes on why the full moon was a big deal.  But she wasn’t watching television right then.  She was having her own full moon crisis.

Just a couple of hours before the sun would have come up, if the sun were not depressed and lethargic and hadn’t taken a valium and gone back to sleep, Judy decided that she was going crazy, and drove herself down to the hospital.  There was a line, even at four in the morning.  Noodling in her head about how wrong it was to make crazy people wait patiently in beige waiting rooms, she went off to the bathroom to roll a joint, and snuck out to smoke it in the hedges between the parking lot and the ambulance entrance.

The rain had slackened a little, but fat drops splattered on her from the bushes.  She took a couple of tokes and started to relax.  Maybe she wasn’t really crazy.  The next ambulance came over the hill, whining and blinking.  She watched it come as the rain picked up again, wondering what kind of human tragedy it carried.

They had Rick in the back of the ambulance.  She was positive.  She stuck her head right into the gap between bushes and peered at him while they got the wheels down.  He was horribly hurt, and very bloody, but it was her brother.  She took another hit while the rain rolled down her hair, then carefully put the joint out, wrapped it in a stickie, and hid it in her pocket for later.

By the time she got inside he had already died.  They were doing painful things with electricity in another room, and she was in a beige waiting room at the bottom of a long sign-in list.  She sat under the television, ignoring the blather, thinking.  She was crazy.  And her brother was a goner, the EMTs had said he was running to the light as they wheeled him in.

Well, she never liked him anyway.  But still.  Her brother.  Her oldest younger brother.  She remembered how it was, being kids together, pulling each other’s hair, ganging up on the other two together.

Somewhere he became a caricature of what their parents and the times had taught him.  She had too.  She was a campy old hippie, he was a cruel, driven tycoon.  Not really themselves, but outfits they wore.  The innocent kids, that was the real them.  Or maybe not.  Maybe the innocents had been switched out long ago for the conniving, scheming, self-centered, vindictive people they were now.

If they were still kids inside, then they could be forgiven.  If they were responsible for the nasty pieces of work they’d become, then they were all fucked.

By the time the list worked its way down to Judy, she had decided she probably wasn’t crazy, and went home to get a little sleep.

* * *

During the night, Cindy met Sindee.  They went walking in magic rain cloaks that kept them dry.  On a dragon hunt, they were wounded by the swipe of a claw.  It itched horribly, and swelled and burned.  Sindee showed Cindy how to cauterize her arm in the campfire.  A dragon scratch is poisonous.  Sindee explained many things to Cindy.  They became very close.

That morning, Cindy woke up to find her arm bloody and scabby, the skin weepy raw and angry looking.  The itch of her poison ivy was gone, but nothing stopped the pain of the wound in its place.  She clutched her elbow and ran to the bathroom cabinet, where she downed two Oxycodone, furious she didn’t have any more.

She screamed at Bill when she found him sleeping on the couch.  How could he just lay there and let someone set fire to her in her own bed?  Bill didn’t answer.  He was tied to the couch, covered in paint and other liquids from the garage.  He promised not to tell a soul what happened, a horrified expression on his face.

Distracted from the pain, she untied him and let him go.  He ran off as if expecting to be shot in the back.  She thought to call the cops and report another attempted murder, but Bill wouldn’t be there to back her up, and she didn’t feel like being laughed at again.  She was too stressed to be nice to sarcastic cops right now.

* * *

When Judy woke, it was as dark as when she got home, and raining heavily.  She wondered if she’d slept an hour, or was it that evening?  Or tomorrow morning?  The confusion continued until she was fully awake.  Which took many cups of coffee and whisky, and the few roaches set aside – for when she ran out of pot.  Which she had done.

You could argue that it was Judy’s desire for weed that led to her doom.

Frank’s sudden death sent her into a tailspin.  She stopped cleaning and organizing, stopped taking care of the house, the yard, the trash.  She stopped washing her hair.  She stopped bathing and changing her clothes.  She smelled like rotting skin.

She went around in filthy socks, soiled pajamas and a ratty housecoat, the pockets overflowing with stickies.  Why they hadn’t seen to her right away when she’d gone to the hospital like that, she couldn’t say.  A reasonable person would have wanted Judy put away the moment he saw her.

It was early in the day.  Having contacted Allen for an emergency supply, and agreeing to meet him at the liquor store, the one-stop idea being a prudent measure when she was a little impaired, she shed her bathrobe and staggered to her car.

She weaved and dodged and drove ten miles under the speed limit all the way home.  Arriving safely, she noticed a car in front of her house.  It was a representative of the county, waiting in the rain to talk to her.  He was there to inspect a report of hoarding made by those seemingly nice EMTs, and to take appropriate action.

She walked him thru the house, pointing out the progress she’d been making.  But all he saw was the devastation of her grief.  He made her sign papers condemning her house as unsafe.  He gave her a card and told her to call for more information, and warned her that the process could take some time.  He gave her a moment to collect a few necessities, and suggested she go to a shelter for the night, or a hotel, or maybe she had family nearby she could stay with.

She spat into a puddle, got in her car, and left.  Circling back, she returned to the house once he’d gone.  There were new locks slapped on all her doors.  Rain dripped inside her clothes and down her body.  Her socks and shoes were sodden.

* * *

Go to chapter twenty-seven

author’s note

just in case you think i’ve forgotten, i’m still embroiled in dealing with my ex’s broken neck.  they’ve still got him in hospital after 5 days, and now that it’s monday they’re going to have a look at his heart because he’s showing v-tach, whatever that is.  so i’m still waiting until he gets out of the hospital.

and then i’m going to move him up here and nurse him back to health.  not necessarily because i want to, either.  but that’s another story.  i guess i’ll have more to say about that at my cancer blog, where we talk about life and death things.

i wrote a total of two hours yesterday, after coming home early from the hospital.  but i made progress.  there’s just so much to do.  the only things in this next chapter i haven’t touched are the core things – the deaths of gordon, cindy and laurie.

but i’ll get there.

author’s note

well, this time i’m not publishing  anything because i’ve got this family crisis.

every time the moon is full, there’s been a crisis lately.  every time the moon is new, there’s a like crisis.  both basically the same tension.

this time my ex, greg (the model for one of my characters), fell down the stairs and broke a hard object and some fragile ones, and is in the hospital.  i’ll give him your best wishes.  so i’ve been sitting in the hospital all day.

got my first taste of xanax, however.  how’s that for research?

so while i’m currently working on my story, i’m only beginning the process, which means shuffling the existing notes and adding new things that have to happen.  i’m filling out things as i go along, and eventually i’ll end up with a bunch of one-liners expanded out into multiple paragraphs and dialogs, and then i’ll post it.  these days it seems to be taking a day for each stage,  5-6 hour days.  i’m anticipating that since this little tiny section in my notes is much bigger than that, because i have to kill off gordon, and cindy, and laurie too, and that’s a lot for a day’s work.

i’m off to the hospital now.

author’s note

2600 words today

80,000 words total.

and now rick’s dead.

tomorrow gordon, cindy and laurie have to die, and i don’t know how i’m going to kill off laurie.

obviously it’ll take more than one day to do all this…

Day thirty-one

Chapter Twenty-Five

There was some noise at the back door, and in walked a bunch of the guys Gordon had seen on the security camera.  He was reading over the deed of sale, and thought to go out and tell them they should go around to the front door like regular customers, but three of them waltzed into the office and blocked his way before he could rise.

They were holding automatic weapons.  Gordon slipped the bag of coke into the desk drawer and closed it gently.  Addict’s rule number one:  Always guard your stash.

He tried a friendly Hey There, but the men looked angry.  They were military.  Or police.  Special Ops.  Something.  One of the three said something into his phone.  More guys came in the back way.  Gordon could see a small crowd on the parking lot monitors.  Someone muscled his way thru the office door and stood in front of him.  Everything was happening too fast for him to think about it.

“Where’s the owner?” the guy asked him.  He was gray-haired and wiry, the shortest guy in the room.  He had a blue tattoo on his neck, and a gold front tooth.

Gordon wondered at this.  Gang leader?  “I don’t know,” he answered.  “I thought maybe he was in the john.  Who are you?”

The man ignored him and spoke to the guy with the phone, who then made a call.  He gestured to the group behind him, and they started off toward the public area of the club.  The guy made another phone call.

“Where are they going?” Gordon asked.

Still no answer.  The men were all wearing black fatigues and vests, with shit-stompers, and all sorts of things bulged from pockets and dangled from belts and rings.  They all had short haircuts.  They were all big and burly.  They could pass for bouncers at the club, except they didn’t seem to have a sense of humor.  Cops, maybe.

“Maybe you want to talk to me,” Gordon spoke up.  “I’m the new owner.”

The leader was interested.  “Oh, really?  Where’s the old guy?”

“Like I said.  I don’t know.  He signed the place over to me and gave me the keys.  His car is still in the lot, maybe he’s having a nap.”

The men stepped closer.  “Well,” said the little one, “perhaps we need to have a little talk about some business facts you may not be aware of.”  He looked suddenly menacing.  Gordon began to sweat.  “Where’s the money?” he asked softly.

“Hey, what money?  I’m only new,” Gordon protested.  The chief frowned, and one of the burly guys came up and mashed Gordon’s face in a bit.

“Let’s try it this way.  Where’s the safe?”

Gordon led them to the safe, and used the combination that was written on his cheat sheet, and was impressed to find the safe more like a vault.  And flabbergasted to find it completely empty.

The chief wasn’t, however.  He barked something to the guy with the phone, who disappeared around the corner and had a few more quick conversations.  Then he was back to whisper in the chief’s ear.

They all heard a shot and screams out in the lounge, from way back in the office.  His guards weren’t very curious.  Their leader was trying to figure out how to break the news to the virgin, while they stood around wishing they could be out front with their buddies, teaching the sheep a lesson.

Gordon was a little alarmed.  His bouncers were out there spoiling for a fight.  There were guys in the lounge and in front of the building, waiting for a signal.  Maybe someone was trigger happy.  He would have liked to go see, but the goons weren’t going to let him.  He looked at the monitors with the side of his eyes.

A bunch of couches were turned over near the bar, and Jake and Dan worked the trenches.  The DJ was commanding a couple of girls and customers in the booth.  Allen’s head peeked around the bathroom door.  The stage and floor were empty, the lights flashing on dusty black walls, the music pounding at a bunch of empty and overturned seats.

There was a small gathering of black uniforms near the door to the corridor.  They were posturing menacingly and using violent gestures, pointing a lot with intimidating weapons.  Then one fired off a shot as a bouncer dived behind a palm.

There was an awful lot of return fire.

Ben recorded the scene with his cellphone for posterity.

The uniforms in the office looked a little nervous.  Gordon wondered at that.  They weren’t expecting any opposition.  The chief gestured, and his guy made another call.  Suddenly the sound of gunfire was cut in half, and Gordon heard soldiers running back down the hall.  In step.

“I’m going to want to talk to you,” the chief said as he turned to go.  “Next time.  Here’s my calling card.”  And he drew his weapon and shot Gordon in the foot.

The soldiers left thru the back door as bouncers, dancers and customers came rushing down the corridor shouting and spraying bullets.  People crowded into the office to see Gordon rolling around on the floor, his foot all bloody, with raw bits sticking out of what remained of his runners.

He looked up with a bright smile on his face, despite the pain.  “Is there a doctor in the house?” he asked.  Three customers stepped forward.  “I’ve always wanted to say that.  Hurry, fellas, it’s killing me.”

The docs fixed him up in return for free drinks for a month.  By the time they were finished, he was joking about being robbed his first day on the job.  The steep price he paid to buy the joint.  No arm and no leg jokes.

He waited until they were gone before prescribing himself a liberal dose of cocaine, a renowned analgesic.  He promised himself he would sprinkle some on the wound when he changed the bandages later.

Then he hobbled out to inspect the damage to his club, leaning on Allen’s shoulder.  He was shocked.  There were several dead bodies, several writhing moaning figures, and several walking wounded.  The place smelled like cordite.  There was broken glass and broken furniture everywhere.  And everyone was looking at him for decisions.

What would the owner do?  Give the problem to the bouncers.  He called Jake over and started telling him to deal with it in the usual way.  Problem was that the usual way involved taking customers out to the parking lot and beating them up, then leaving them to sleep it off behind the dumpster, or handcuffing them and calling the cops on them for being drunk and disorderly.  But these were bullet wounds.

Okay.  Put the dead ones in the dumpster.  No.  That would lead back to the club.  Put them in a taxi and take them to the airport.  The driver would notice when they didn’t pay the fare.  Load them into the back of a pickup and drop them off at the hospital.  Crude, but it might could work.  Large thank you gifts for everyone involved.

The bouncers rounded up the dead and dying, the girls straightened the place up, Dan reopened the bar and the DJ put on some gangsta rap.  Gordon called for a round for everyone, on the house.

He sat at his table, working the bullet-scratched surface with a fingernail.  Sam and Dave came up to him and stood there silently.  He looked up at them in a mental fog.  It was the pain.  His consciousness was shrunk to the size of a walnut because of the pain.  He hated pain.  He ordered another drink.

“You two never got to play the heavies, did you?” he asked them.  “Things sure happened differently than I’d planned.”  Then he remembered he was supposed to turn over the owner.  “Sorry, boys,” he said heavily, “he gave us the slip right before the badguys showed up.  He’s gone.”

Sam and Dave shared wide-eyed, panicky looks.  Dave whipped his phone out and started punching buttons.  He looked at Gordon with doubt in his eyes.  “His car’s out back.”

“Yes it is,” he replied.  How did he know that?

Sam said, “GPS.”

Gordon nodded.  Gadgets.  They had a GPS on the owner’s car?  Did they have one on his car?

“Do we even know his name?” Dave asked.

Gordon fished out the deed of sale.  “I think he’s going to the airport.  There was this taxi driver with a big bag.  It was before the shooting.  I was suspicious.  They’re probably there by now.”

“Too big to fit in the overhead?” Sam asked.

“Twice the size.  Must have been full of cash.  Maybe half a million.”

Dave spelled the owner’s name into the phone.  He discussed the luggage issue.  Then he hung up.  Sam shook Gordon’s hand and muttered how great about the club.  Dave hit him up for a bag of marching powder.  They left in a hurry.  Got to get to those reports.

Gordon sat back and examined the past few hours.  He was now the proud owner of a strip club.  His men had beaten off an army.  He was King Gordon and this was the first night of his new life as a player.  Mom would be proud.  Like he could tell her about it.

Allen sat down next to him.  Gordon called for another round on the house.  They cheered him.

“I guess we won’t rob the place, then,” Allen wondered.

“Right, Allen.  We can’t rob it.  The owner robbed it on his way out of here.”

“That bastard.”  Allen looked at Gordon’s foot.  The bandage was beginning to seep.  “I was kinda looking forward to robbing the place,” he moped.

“We’ll rob it tomorrow,” Gordon soothed.  “We’ll rob it every night.”  The Vicodin was kicking in on top of a couple of stiff post-trauma drinks.  He was not caring much about anything at the moment.  “We’ll make it a show.  Wild West Night.  Come get robbed, and not just by the girls.  All nude badguys.  Wait, no.”

That’s when he opened the bar.  He and Allen paid a customer for a table dance.  The girls sat around drinking, stuffing dollars into the garters of hairy, naked men.  The DJ got a blow job while he was queuing up songs.  There was heavy betting on it.

Gordon hobbled off to the back to spend some time in his new office.  He sat and looked thru the desk drawers.  He looked thru the files.  He looked thru the computer hard drive.  He looked a good part of the way thru the big bag of coke.

He wondered about the attack on the club.  Who were those guys?  Why were they there?  What did they want?  He didn’t bother wondering if they’d be back.  He never for a moment thought he could be in above his head.  He never noticed the circling shadows beneath him.

He had a lot of ideas.  Ways of improving the club.  New decor.  New theme.  What if they were to start a retail line?  Videos.  Clothing.  Condoms.  Ah, energy drinks.  A few secret ingredients (cocaine and speed) and they’d be a real hit.  Or some concoction of prescription drugs and cocaine he could call marching powder, in honor of Sam and Dave.

He wanted to liven up the routine in the club.  It was always naked girls dancing and rushing the customers for money.  What if they had theme nights?  Slumber party, and all the girls could wear baby doll costumes.  Halloween.  How about a beauty pageant?  Miss Nude Girl.  Why not mud wrestling?

King Gordon the Great.

He was in the middle of unwrapping his foot to use a line of coke as a topical anesthetic.  He glanced at the security monitors.  There were lots of them.  On rotation, nine at a time tiling the screen.  Finally he noticed the camera that was focused on the dumpster in the parking lot.  Rick was out there, fiddling with something.  He called Jake, who sent Thumper the bouncer out to see what was going on.  Thumper reported that Rick was fucked up, and that he’d been escorted to his car.

Gordon was hobbling down the long corridor to the front of the building, halfway decided to warn Ben so he could save Alice, when he heard another shot.  The army was back.

But there was no second shot until Gordon came busting thru the door and Rick took aim at him.

Rick had eaten the chocolate he snatched from Alice earlier.  He was unsteady, he couldn’t see straight, sweat was pouring into his eyes.  He was shooting with his left hand.  He’d been sleeping it off in the car but woke up and decided to come back in and get even with Roxy for mangling his fingers.

Laurie was sitting on the edge of the stage, her shoes dangling.  She was rubbing her shoulder where Rick’s first shot had grazed her.  Dan the bartender handed up a drink and she took it gratefully.

The bouncers surrounded Rick and disarmed him.  Gordon had a few things to say about the reputation the club was going to develop if they let this kind of thing continue.  They dragged Rick outside to teach him a lesson.

Rick staggered in a circle under the security lights, surrounded by grinning bouncers.  They’d never liked him.  He was a lousy tipper.  And so superior.  Only the fact that he was Gordon’s brother had kept them from giving him a whipping months before.  And since he’d just shot at his loving brother, they figured all bets were off.

Rick was defiant.  He slurred his words, announcing in a whiny yell that he’d been recording everything that went on at the club, for months.  He had the shit on everyone of them.  He knew what each one was up to, and had enough evidence to close the club down and put them all in prison.  He postured, he threatened, he insulted them.  He was still trying to come out on top, even surrounded by a pack of snarling bouncers.  He still wanted to bully a big bribe out of someone to keep quiet about it.

The bouncers circled closer.  It started out as a standard ass-whipping.  But then he slipped and went down, and they moved in.

Gordon appeared at the back door, hobbling over to have a look.  Rick was curled up.  He was dirty, his clothes were torn, he was scraped and scratched, and blood leaked out of the side of his mouth.

“You okay, big brother?” Gordon asked, bending down to look into Rick’s eyes.  Rick began to cough and spit, and started trying to get to his hands and knees.

But Gordon kicked him viciously in the head, and Rick went down again.

Gordon fainted right on top of him.  He’d kicked his brother with his wounded foot and the pain shut him right down.  The bouncers pulled Gordon off of Rick and propped him up on the side of the dumpster.  He came around a few moments later, and looked over at his brother.

Rick was lying in blood and vomit and piss, left for dead by the bouncers.  Gordon decided the club needed a different policy for undesirable customers.  He struggled to his feet with difficulty, kicked his brother once more in the head for old time’s sake, with his other foot, and stepped over him on his way back inside.

* * *

Go to chapter twenty-six

author’s note

day thirty.  on the 14th of december.  a month and a half to get thirty days worth of work.

4000 words in this multi-day chapter, with the hardest part of what was going to be this chapter, but will now be the next chapter, to come.

i’ve got 77,863 words at the moment.  more tomorrow.

Day thirty

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cindy awoke to the sound of the blaring television.  A bright and chipper woman bellowing in her kitchen.  “Top of the local news this morning,” she squawked.  “Three convenience store employees are in critical condition after being apparently poisoned by an unknown customer.”

She got to the TV to turn it off, and saw footage of a blurry woman on security cameras, weaving and bobbing to the cash register with her arms full of junk food.  “The assailant evidently traded what she called ‘magic chocolates’ for $28.59 worth of merchandise and walked away.  Employees ate the chocolates, which were later found to be heavily adulterated with barbiturates.  The three are suffering from organ failure and respiratory depression, one is in a coma.”  A closeup filled the screen.  Someone with a wig on backwards, and red lipstick used for eye liner and blusher as well as the lips.  Certainly nobody Cindy would recognize.  “Police are looking for a middle aged white woman, about five foot five, last seen dressed in a bloody bathrobe and high heels.”

* * *

Judy sat at the kitchen table all morning and paid no attention to her TV.  She worked her way thru a fifth of whisky and a quarter ounce of weed.  She slept all afternoon.  She didn’t have many thoughts, but she wrote them all down on sticky notes.

* * *

Overnight, Sindi had driven over and left a chocolate in the mailbox for Alice.  Rick noticed the flag was up, and checked it to find a black plastic convenience store bag with three boxes of animal crackers (for the kids) and a beautiful little handmade chocolate bonbon wrapped in a note.

Alice protested with growing hysteria that she didn’t know anything about it.  But the note had red lipstick hearts and arrows, and an indecipherable scrawl of a signature.  It must be Cindy.

Alice continued playing dumb.  He saw an animal fear in her eyes that drove him crazy.  He emptied the bag on the table, shouting at them all.  The children wanted the cookies, but he put the boxes in the disposal and turned it on, lecturing as they cried about manners and being greedy.

Alice went to snatch the chocolate, but he whacked her hand aside.  She stood nursing her fingers, her eyes welling with tears.  Looking pitiful.  Bitch.  Fornicator.  Lesbian.  He licked his fingers, sticky with cinnamon syrup.  She turned to see about the children.

Alice turned her back on Rick.

He wasn’t about to take that kind of disrespect.  He pushed her, hard, up against the door.  Everyone heard the crunch as her face hit the door jam.  She crumpled to the floor, sobbing and bleeding.  Rick couldn’t take the Camille act, and walked out, taking the chocolate with him.  He put it into one of the kids’ fruit cup containers, and took it along for a treat.  He liked chocolate.

* * *

Allen met Ben after work in the same row of gravestones where they’d met before.  Allen really enjoyed the place.  Judy was supposed to meet them there, but never showed.  They took care of business.  Allen tried to interest Ben in an upgrade this time – the dealer he got his pot from wanted to test the waters for some hydroponic shit.  He produced a dime bag stuffed full of fuzzy looking pot.  White widow.  The good stuff.

“Wow,” Ben said, holding the pouch in his palm.  “Looks great.”  He rubbed the seal open and smelled.  “Wow, I’m getting high just on the smell of the bud.”  He looked at Allen.  “How much is it?”  Then he took another deep sniff, resealed the ziplock, handed it back with a sad smile, and took the usual.  Allen wasn’t going to make a lot of converts to $500 an ounce weed among his clientele.  His customers wanted the cheapest weed possible.

They watched the sun go down.  They watched the moon come up.  “Yeah, I guess when the moon’s full, you’d have the moon on one side and the sun on the other.  I never thought about it before.”  They were stoned, and things like full moons and coincidences meant a lot to them, so they talked while it got dark around them.

“What did you give Sam and Dave the other night?” Allen asked.  “They weren’t too happy.”

Ben shrugged.  “A joke.  A montage of various cameras on off nights.”

“Why?”

Ben looked at him like he was a child.  “Because they’re cops, Allen.  They came around undercover with Rick one day, and asked me a bunch of cop questions.”

Allen laughed “Hey, no, man, we thought they was cops when they first started hanging at the club.  But they’re foreign.  From Russia or somewhere.  Organized crime, just like here.”

“But they seem like cops to me.”

“Yeah, they’re good.  Gordon’s planning to get them to act like cops when we take the place down.”  That should have been an oops-too-much-information moment for Allen.  But he liked a good story.

Ben didn’t object to spilling his secrets, either.  “Rick’s been putting cameras and microphones around the club for awhile.”

This was news to Allen.  “But he’s not in on Gordon’s plan, so I don’t know why.”

“He must have a plan of his own,” Ben mused.  “Wonder what?”

It got cold.  It got kind of creepy.  Allen talked Ben into talking to Sam and Dave again, so they both went on to the club.  But Ben still regretted the cover charge.  This time Sam and Dave asked questions, and Ben gave them lots of vital information, lots of footage, lots of recorded phone calls, lots of emails, lots of memory sticks.  Everything that would make an airtight case against Rick.

Jake came in to work late, looking like death.  He’d been sick as a dog all night, and nearly didn’t get to work at all.  He still felt sluggish, even tho he’d overslept the alarm by a couple of hours.  Stomach flu.  He nursed a V8 until after midnight.

Gordon followed him in, feeling a little ill himself.  But nothing out of the ordinary, nothing a couple of energy drinks and some blow wouldn’t cure.  It was probably nerves.  Because tonight was the night.  He looked around, noted who was there, who met his eye and who didn’t.  Everything was ready.

It was a crowded night, there was plenty of money coming in.  Plenty of money had been coming in for the past three days, not just the daily take from the club, but outside money, coming in and being secreted away.  Money from the owner’s shadow businesses.  Bunches of money piling up in the safe, waiting to be snuck out in the trash and picked up offsite.

But his plan and all its contingencies had the dumpster full of trash only.  Well, maybe the owner and his henchmen, too.  But the money – several hundred thousand – was going home with him.

King Gordon.

There was just a little tiny conflict.  Gordon was supposed to take over as manager in a matter of days.  The little angel on his shoulder said that he was going to be running the joint soon, so his plan to rob the club had to be cancelled.  But the little devil on his other shoulder said that robbing the club now would make the owner look bad, and since Gordon hadn’t started working there yet, it would make him look good.

Gordon was working on a revised version of his plan, a version where they would get to rob the club every few months, starting tonight.  He stared into the distance.  The pounding beat of the music soothed the tension in his neck.  Some more snow would be nice.

Laurie was on stage, looking a little tired.  She’d been sleeping more.  She was never in a good mood lately, either.  And she was getting a little thick about the middle.  With a girl that skinny, an ounce showed up.  She wasn’t going to be dancing for much longer.  He was going to have to support her, and the baby.  And he wasn’t sure it was his kid.  But what the fuck, what else were they going to do, break up?  They were just too comfortable, crazy as that sounded.

Rick was down in front of Laurie, his elbows hanging on the stage.  Usually he sat at a table in the middle of the floor, but this time he was lolling around like he was drunk, right under her feet.  But Rick didn’t drink.  Rick looked down his nose at intoxication of any kind.  Rick was holier than everyone in the room.

But Rick was drooling.  Rick was staring.  Rick was moving slowly.  Rick was sweeping the stage with outstretched arms, reaching for his Roxy.

Laurie brought a stiletto heel down on Rick’s fingers and ground the point in with a hip roll.  He yowled in pain and sat back in his seat, stuffing his fingers in his mouth and rocking.  He moaned Roxy over and over.  Rocking.  Roxy.

Gordon watched Laurie ruin his brother’s writing hand.  Poor bastard.  He hadn’t seen Rick rocking like that since Mom threw out his play carpenter bench.

Chloe brought him a drink, and plopped a presentation box onto his table.  “The house mom found these in the back,” she said.  “Chocolate.  I thought you’d want one.”

He thanked her, and tipped her extra, and went back to brooding about his plan.  He liked chocolates.  The taste of the one he had the night before had left him wanting more.  So he had another one.  He watched Rick stumble out of the club, and almost got up to go see if he was okay.  He licked his fingers instead.

A few people ate chocolate at the club that night.  The cinnamon centers were just yummy.  Some of the girls got a little sticky.

Allen came up to Gordon’s table with Ben in tow.  “Hey, meet my friend Ben.  He works for old Rick the Prick there.  Poor bastard.  Told her he was broke.  Did you see his hand?”

Gordon looked Ben over.  “You picked a good night to show up.”

“It’s a full moon,” Ben said.  Gordon nodded at a chair.  Allen brought over another for himself.

“Allen was telling me you’ve got plans for this place,” Ben said.  “Nothing specific, of course.”

“I’ll fill you in,” Gordon said.  “Work for Rick, eh?  Let me guess.  Security.”

“Told you he was good,” Allen crowed.  But to keep it even, he announced, “Ben’s been giving information to the Russians.”

Gordon said, “Hmmm.  Like what?”

“Well,” Ben said, not quite meeting Gordon’s eye, “they’re looking for anything they can get on my boss.  I’ve got evidence of illegal stock trades, wire fraud, embezzlement, bribery, extortion.  That I know of.  There are wire taps, video footage, computer files.  I’m not exactly sure what he’s up to here in the club,” he said, looking Gordon in the eye,  “but since he broke Alice’s nose this morning, I feel obliged to step in and remove him from the family environment.”

Gordon regarded him evenly.  “Because of Alice?  Not because of how he treats you as an employee or anything?  Didn’t give you a raise?”

Ben colored.  “Alice.”

Gordon frowned.  “That’s my brother you’re turning in to the Feds, you know.”

Ben felt really sorry.  “She’s so helpless…”

“I see.”  Love.  Why did it always come down to a girl?  “Well, good luck with that.”  He could fix it himself.

Allen and Ben exchanged glances.

“I told you they were cops,” Ben said.

“They’re not.” Allen said.

“They are,” Gordon stopped the argument.  “I’ve just figured it out.  They’ve been here all along, gathering information.  This is all some kind of sting operation.  And we’re caught up in it.  They want the owner, don’t you see?  Not Rick.  Not us.”  Certainly not, they agreed.  “Maybe they don’t know they want the owner,” he mused.  He looked at Ben.  “Can you handle a gun?”

Gordon ordered a round of drinks sent to Sam and Dave, and joined them at their table in time to pay Chloe.  “I understand you boys are closing in on the kill,” he said.  Sam pretended not to understand.  “Professionally,” Gordon continued, indicating Sam’s badge pocket.  Then he grinned and slapped them on the shoulders.  “Come on, boys, I’ve  known all along you were official.”  Dave choked on his ice.

Gordon propped his chair on its back legs and stretched out between them.  “I’ve got to hand it to you, it’s a really slick operation.  First rate.  It’s been a long haul, and you’ve worked real hard to get your man.”

Sam looked proud.  Dave smiled shyly.  It was nice to have some respect.

“Yep,” Gordon continued.  “Selling state secrets.  That’s impressive.  Say, did you know that Rick is my brother?”

“Well, kind of,” Dave said, and trailed off.

Gordon brought his chair down and leaned into the table.  “What if I told you that there was someone even bigger, that Rick is only small time compared to?”  They didn’t get it.  “Someone who’s dealing arms?  And running hundreds of pounds of cocaine?”  He mentioned white slavery and money laundering and their faces grew serious.  Someone who actually fit the MO they got at their briefing all those months ago.

“Well,” Sam said, “Rick is what we’ve got.”  Even tho most of it was cut from the whole cloth.

“That’s not happening.  He’s my brother.  What if I could get you proof of this other guy’s operations?” Gordon offered.

“What kind of proof?”

He thought fast.  “Oh, how about bank accounts, records?”  He saw them pausing.  “Security tapes?  Witnesses?”  He looked around, panicking.  “And of course I’ll deliver him to you for hassle free removal.  Tied up with garlic slivers if you want.”

Dave looked at Sam.  “I don’t know.  We’ve got backup waiting to dive in and pick up Rick with a minimum loss of life.  Ten minutes.”

Gordon envisioned a gun battle in the club that night.  “Oh, let’s not be hasty.  You want to be very careful about the timing.”  He was doing a lot of high speed thinking tonight, and his brain was getting tired.  “I’ve got delicate operations just about to hit the skillet and you might mess everything up.”

“What’s going on, then?” Sam asked, peering at him over bifocals he hadn’t worn before.

Gordon told them about his plan.  The dumpster was going to be picked up at four in the morning.  He and most of the bouncers and some of the customers were going to interrupt things at three, sequester everyone into the office, pull all the packages out of the dumpster, and run away.  Sam and Dave were welcomed to join them, for an equal share.  There would be plenty of time to deal with Rick tomorrow.  And by tomorrow, there would be a super premium replacement suspect, and everything would turn out fine.

Sam and Dave looked a little reluctant.  “Action?” Sam mused, “I don’t know…”

With a little persuasion, they warmed to the idea of an improv heist.  They would be the heavies, if need be.  Step in and control things, get them all lined up against the wall and quiet.  If it came to that.

“A little money tonight, maybe a better suspect tomorrow.  It’s not good enough,” Sam growled.  “We’re getting a lot of pressure from above.”  His voice sounded a lot different than it had when he was Russian.  Higher.

Dave was grim.  “If we don’t have something soon, we’re going to have to go with option one.”

Jake appeared at the table, looking haggard.  “The owner wants to see you,” he rasped.

“Fine.”  He handed his vial of cocaine to Dave.  “Go powder your noses,” he said, getting up.  “I’ll be back in a flash with something you’ll be happy to trade for.”  It was like Monopoly, trading the orange for the purple.  How fitting, him rescuing his shark brother.  Gordon the great.

The owner was in his office, pacing nervously, a cigarette dangling from his lips.  Sweat marked his armpits.  Usually he was so suave.  He was so smooth that Gordon just assumed he was part of the regular Italian Mafia.  The American Mafia.  The Real Mafia ™.  He always kind of looked up to the owner.  Now, tho, he seemed a little ratlike.

“Here, kid,” he said, forcing a bright, salesman’s face.  “I forgot to get you to sign another form.”  He laughed.  “Always another form, eh?  But for the lawyers…”  He pulled a folder out of his desk and flipped from the title page to the signature lines.  “Sign here.”

Gordon had caught a glimpse of several words.

DEED OF SALE

That was one.  Deed of what?  Something important was trying to stick in his brain.  The owner’s name.  Some weirdass name he couldn’t pronounce.  No wonder everyone referred to him by his title.

(hereinafter called the “Seller”)

The owner was going on in a droning voice, reassuring, a narcotic voice.  Sign here and here and here and here.

A moment later, Gordon wondered what that name was again.  There was another line that featured his very own name, written in as Purchaser.  His head began to spin.

“Bareass Entertainment dba The Scarlet Pimpernel,” Gordon read wonderingly.

sum of one (1) dollar.

Twenties were the smallest bills he was carrying at the moment.  He patted his pockets and tried to focus.  The document blurred in front of his eyes.

Possession and occupation. Have and hold. Sole.

“Sign here at the big yellow X,” the owner said, wrapping Gordon’s fingers around a pen.  The signature was almost legible.  It didn’t seem to matter.

SIGNED  That’s today’s date already written in, he noticed.
AS WITNESSES:  1. He thought it might be Jake’s scrawl.  2. And DJ’s scribble.

“Keep up the good work, kid,” the owner said, putting the pen back in his pocket.  He handed Gordon a sheet of computer codes and the combination to the safe.  “Sorry to be so hasty, but I’ve got to go out of town for a little while.  You’re in charge until I get back, and then I’ll show you the ropes.  Until then, you’ve got lots of latitude.  Run it however you want.”  He tossed him a ring of keys.  “Enjoy,” the owner said, and escorted him out of the office.

Gordon skipped thru the corridor back to the lounge.  Emperor Gordon.  Time to celebrate.  Then, damn – Sam and Dave had his vial.  He skipped faster.  Ben would watch him on the replay later and think how childlike he seemed.

Sam and Dave weren’t at their table, so Gordon sat down and waited.  He signaled Chloe for another round.

Sam and Dave were in the bathroom, making Allen turn his pockets inside out.  They relieved him of his cash, and a nice little bag of high-grade marijuana.  Protection money, plus a tip.  Dave thanked him for the weed, they washed their hands, and left.  Allen was only a little beat up.  He was very confused.  Were they Feds or Mafia?

Gordon was busy wowing Sam and Dave when Allen came out of the john.  He was in a rare mood.  They were drooling as he described what he had on the owner.  Gordon was getting a little antsy even as he was working the Feds.  Sam and Dave still had his coke vial, and he was tempted to run out to the car for his stash, but he had this deal to negotiate.

He was going to make their careers.  Sam could retire, Dave could move up.  They had all this stuff on Rick – corporate spy, high tech pirate, selling high tech to enemies, securities fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy murder – they could take all that, and add it to all the stuff they were going to get on the owner.  All they hade to do was to write Rick completely out of the reports, exonerate him from all charges.  And Gordon would give them their hearts’ desires.

Gordon darted off to the door to take care of something.  Sam and Dave whispered between themselves.  It was possible.  They could say their informant had changed his story, and it altered a bunch of known history on the players.

Gordon went to intercept a taxi driver.  He’d come thru the restricted area and was heading for the front door, trundling a large suitcase.  Gordon blocked his way and held the door.  “Where did you get that?” he asked.

The driver shrugged.  “Passenger luggage.  Airport.”  He held out his hand for his club kickback.

“Fuck off,” Gordon said, and opened the door.  “You don’t get paid when you take them back.”  He continued out to his car to fetch his stash.

“I am call strike,” the driver shouted as he got in his cab.  Gordon shrugged.  After tonight, things would be different.

Back inside, Sam and Dave worked out the problem.  Their existing reports actually conflicted with what they’d just gotten on the owner, so they needed another patsy to blame all their made-up reports on.  It only took them a few moments to pick Bill.  Dave began to grumble.  Such a huge waste of effort – keeping records, making up records, fabricating witnesses, coming up with entire plots, dialog.  All that work.  And then just toss it out in the street when something better came along.

But it was a good deal, because a lot of what they had against Rick wouldn’t hold water.  They weren’t going to pass it up because of a little work.  Dave called and told backup to be ready for new orders, and when Gordon came back to the table, Sam hit him up for more marching powder.  Something to help get all those reports rewritten asap.

Gordon walked back over to his table and ordered a drink.  He was tired.  Suddenly Laurie came up, looking for a fight.  She weaved thru the tables, muttering to herself and batting off assistance.  She was heading for Gordon.  She was going to kill him.  It was the last thing he needed that night.  She screamed a collection of obscenities and attacked him with tooth and nail, leaving blood.  Screaming.  He drew back and slapped her in the face.  She kicked at him with her long, stilleto heeled foot.  He lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder and spanked her.  In front of God and everyone.  She screamed for the bouncers to throw him out.  The house applauded.  Gordon the World Champion.

Gordon looked around him and did a quick count of people on his side.  He was fairly sure of his numbers.  He’d been recruiting heavily, and they were mostly all on his side at this point.  Fuck the owner.  Because they were going to get away with it.  Now that it was his club, he controlled the security cameras.  They were all going to be blank when the cops had a look tomorrow.

But they didn’t need Laurie making a scene right before they busted the safe.  He got closer to Laurie, wanting to enfold her and calm her down, the Stripper Whisperer, but she spat at him, and hissed, and arched her back, so he asked Jake and Weasel to escort her to the house mom for a rest.  Give her a Valium,” he suggested as they passed.

Everybody was on high alert.  Some of his boys were starting to look a little trigger happy.  He decided he might as well act now, when the blood was hot.  So he told Allen to alert them, and waited until they were in their places, and then went sauntering back to the office to rob the owner of three days of receipts.

Nobody was in the office.  He let himself in with the key, after fidding with a number of wrong ones.  The owner wasn’t there either.  Gordon checked the security cameras.  There was the owner’s car, in the parking lot.  Was there a bathroom in the office?  He checked around.  He found a big bag of coke in the desk.  He stopped for the pause that refreshes.  He noticed the camera picking up a bunch of the same make and model SUVs pull into the parking lot.  A group, maybe a bachelor party.  How nice.  A bunch of guys got out and started for the door.  He was going to have to be more strict about the dress code from now on.  None of those guys were wearing ties.

* * *

Go to chapter twenty-five

author’s note

i wrote half a section the day before yesterday, and my ex father in law came into town and visited, so i spent all day cleaning (and he never got past the kitchen).  i’ll write more tomorrow.  not that anybody’s reading, but thanks for your patience.

i’m almost to the end.  in my notes, we’re at the point where the owner goes down, and after that there’s nothing left but killing everyone off, and then wrapping everything up.  this is three sections.  in my notes.  in reality, i expect it’ll take a whole day’s work killing each one off.  on the other hand, i could just go right thru it, like i did the death of frank.

i was a little hesitant after i wrote frank’s death.  there was my first character dead, and i had so many more to go, it all seemed a little much, emotionally.  so i was reluctant to go back to work the next day, and i planned to sit in bed and read, or sleep (swine head cold relapse), or even paint.  but the internet was down momentarily, so i went back to work on my story.  and then i felt fine.  so much for mourning.