The Country Cave was a greasy dive off old highway 66 where rednecks came when they wanted cheap booze, a plate of jerked pork and maybe, a choked chicken. Parked out front, next to all of the mud-covered pick-ups and rusty Toyotas, Harry Gold's shiny black SUV looked like it had wandered away from a motorcade.
Harry had his butt glued to a bar stool and it looked like he was trying to undress the chanteuse on the stage with his eyeballs. He was three martinis into the struggle and still trying to figure out the catch on the back of her gown. Harry fancied himself a promoter, but in a business dominated by early birds, most often Harry was the early worm.
The songbird, Marla Mackie, was his latest ticket outta here. He'd told me she had Trisha Yearwood's voice, Shania Twain's cheekbones and Dolly Partin's boobs. He'd promised her Nashville, Hollywood and New York, but right now she was singing love songs to hillbilly horndogs in a half-empty hellhole in suburban Rat Snatch, PA. Harry meant well, but if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, nobody needed a GPS to figure out where he was headed.
Harry lit up like a gas plume when he saw me walk in.
“C.J., you look amazing!” he shouted, “Have you lost weight?”
“Yeah, I had to have my jaw wired shut for a while and the pounds just melted away. You should try it.”
“No can do, you know God gave me the gift of gab, can't interfere with it.”
I told the bartender I wanted whiskey, neat and she slopped three fingers worth out of a Rebel Yell bottle with a label that looked older than the juice inside.
Harry nodded toward the bird on the stage. “That's the horse I'm riding to the big time. Is she great or what?”
I opened my eyes and ears. She was easy on both. She was as hot as advertised, dressed in low-cut black silk with a skirt slit up the side to show a right leg that could create chaos in a cardiac ward. Her bluesy voice grabbed hold of something in my chest and squeezed it. I looked back at Harry. “She's good. What's she doing with you?”
“I found her pulling pints for lumberjacks in a bucket shop in Roseburg, swear-to-God.” He swore to God a lot. I doubt the Almighty appreciated it.
He turned toward the stage and caught Marla's eye and shouted, “This is C.J.”
She made eye contact and gave me a smile that made me feel light-headed, like all the blood in my brain had rushed to my crotch.
A minute later she wrapped up her set with an elegant bow and the boys with the tattoos and spit cans went wild, but the place went dead as soon as she started to walk off. She may have been the embodiment of grace standing behind the microphone, but when she walked, the painful-looking hitch in her get-along made her look like poultry in motion.
I shot Harry a look. He shrugged, “Her boyfriend chainsawed her right leg to keep her from running around. He got out of prison this week. Five years early-- budget cuts. That's why I called.”
“You think he wants another piece of her?”
“Marla got the call last night – he's on his way.”
He looked over my shoulder and I saw Marla limping up to the bar. She ordered club soda with a twist and slapped an eyelock on me.
“Harry said you're supposed to be tough,” she said.
“You believe everything Harry says?” I asked.
“I believe he has a car and enough gas money to get us to the East Coast.” I waited while she took a sip of her fizzy water and looked me up and down. I've had less intrusive body cavity searches.
“Tell me about your boyfriend,” I said.
“Ex-boyfriend, I decided to stop seeing him shortly after he cut off my leg and fed it to his dogs.”
“You're not a dog person?”
“I was really attached to that leg.” She didn't smile and didn't blink.
“You're a tough kid, ” I said.
“How tough are you?”
I shrugged. “I'm a professional thug, pain amuses me.”
The expression on her face said she couldn't tell if I was kidding. That made two of us.
“Josef – that's his name, like Stalin, - he likes pain too. You two ought to get along.”
On stage, her smile was infectious. Up close she looked like other parts of her probably were as well.
“Maybe Josef has learned his lesson.”
“My sister saw him yesterday. He said he was going to spatchcock me like a Thanksgiving turkey.” She put up a brave front, and the plunging neckline of her gown showed a lot of it.
Harry stepped between us. “Let's not get all emotional over this thing, the man's psycho, but C.J. can handle him – you've handled a lot worse haven't you C.J.?”
“Seriously, he threatened to spatchcock you?”
“Yeah, he saw Martha Stewart do a turkey on TV while he was in the joint.”
Harry jumped in, “Martha's show does huge numbers at Statesville, even though the demographics are skewed. A couple of years ago they tried to stick her in a time slot opposite re-runs of Pee Wee's Playhouse and they had a riot on their hands.”
“Stop fooling around Harry, what do you want me to do, kill him? Scare him off?”
He went pale and developed a twitch. The way he squirmed around without talking, I started to worry that he was turning into a mime.
Finally, Marla goosed him and he blurted it out. “Marla wants you to bring her his left leg.”
I turned and gave her a full frontal glare. Most people start to beg forgiveness when I do that. She looked as happy as a clown in hell.
“Mid-thigh all right?” I asked.
“Right about here,” she said, pulling her skirt aside and revealing the prosthesis attached to what was left of her own left leg. It hadn't been a smooth cut. The saw had gnawed and shredded its way through flesh and bone about four inches above the knee.
“Bring me his leg, cowboy, and I'll do for something you." She paused and looked me up and down again. She stopped about halfway down and said, “Ever been stumped, cowboy, I mean really stumped?
Before I could answer I heard a something unexpected behind me, like the sound of a third shoe hitting the floor.
No comments:
Post a Comment