Die behind the wheel, p.8
Die Behind the Wheel, page 8
“Liar.”
“No, seriously. The FBI is big and slow. I’m quick and nimble like a cat. The bigger question is why are you here?”
“Duh, because you sold me out.”
“Haiti isn’t a non-extradition country, Babs.”
They were talking too much. Making too much noise. Drawing too much attention. Will was buying time. She needed to get this done.
“Just a stepping stone.”
He grinned. “You haven’t filed for a Haitian Divorce by any chance, have you?”
Before she could say no, he reached behind him, pulled out a pistol and fired. There hadn’t been a moment’s hesitation. Will, her husband, her cohort for over fifteen years, had shot at her without a second thought. She was no different than any other problem in his life. When it had to go, it had to go. So be it. Divorce proceedings were now in motion. She fired back through her purse.
Both shots went wild. Will dove to the sand. She bolted for the tree line, wanting something solid between her and the next bullet.
“Sneaky minds think alike, eh, baby?” he yelled. “That’s why I love ya.”
She didn’t answer, instead pulling the heavy revolver free from the purse, now replete with a fresh bullet hole. It was ruined but it wasn’t worthless. She hurled the bag away. Will took the bait and fired at the flying purse. She used that moment’s advantage to come out from behind the tree. On his knees, he was a big fat target. Like him, she didn’t hesitate and squeezed the trigger. She’d aimed for his head but the bullet punched a hole in his shoulder. He yelled out and fell on his back.
She wouldn’t get a second chance. She charged towards him, her gun arm outstretched. Clean Willie writhed on the sand. He tried to raise his arm, the pistol now loose in his grip. She squeezed out two shots, both hitting Will in the chest. He was finished.
“Our marriage is now dissolved, Clean Willie.”
She grabbed Will’s pistol and twisted it to wrench it from his grasp. But the weapon remained tight in his hand. Worse, it twisted back toward her. She caught a cruel smile breaking out across Will’s face before the gun fired.
The bullet, such a tiny thing when you thought about it, felt like a cannonball. She tried to take a breath but it got stuck. Staggering backward, she pressed her hand to the epicenter of the pain radiating throughout her body just below her ribcage. The pain skyrocketed. It went from white hot to impossible to comprehend. She took another step back before collapsing. She dragged herself over to a downed tree and propped herself up.
Will was talking, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. The pain in her chest was speaking louder.
A commotion behind her caught her attention. The Haitian, Emmanuel and Charles appeared. She looked at Charles, but he ignored her. She shook her head in confusion.
“Get everything off him,” the Haitian ordered and Emmanuel and Charles descended upon Will like vultures.
The Haitian dropped to his knees at Barbara’s side.
“Is he dead?”
“He will be.” He patted her down. She yelled out in pain.
“I need a hospital.”
“No. No doctor for you. Where’s your purse?”
“Over there someplace. Are you screwing me?”
The Haitian laughed. “No. I’m honoring your deal, but I am honoring his deal too.”
No, this couldn’t be happening.
“You asked for a Haitian Divorce, but so did he. I always give my clients what they want.”
She couldn’t keep her head up any longer and rested it against the tree. As the Haitian stripped her of her necklace and bracelet, she looked up at the morning sun breaking through the clouds.
The Haitian leaned in. “Congratulations, this is your Haitian Divorce.”
Back to TOC
BLACK COW
Linda Joffe Hull
“I can’t cry anymore,” Debra says, dabbing her eyes.
But she can, and she will, if the last hour is any indication.
You know her name is Debra, not Deb or Debbie because that’s how she introduced herself. It’s a name you’ve always disliked, despite the fact it contains the word bra.
Which you do like.
For the record, her bra is black, lacy, and adorned with a little gold heart between her tits. You know this because it peeks out from the gap between the buttons of her blouse when she lifts her drink, which is often, and when she gesticulates wildly while talking about Kenny, her adulterous bastard of a husband, which is even more often.
She’s just your type.
Certainly for tonight, which is Monday Margarita Madness and, you can’t help but note, all-you-can-eat taco night at Rudy’s.
Debra is blonde with a quarter-inch of telltale gray at the roots. She is a little bunny-faced, but in a good way. Plus, the one time she stops going on about Kenny and excuses herself to the ladies’ room, you are able to confirm that she has not been exaggerating her repeated claim of “I work out every day. I mean, what more can he ask for?”
You picture Debra in the yoga pants she undoubtedly paints on most mornings before tooling around town doing errands, and you get a little hard. Hard enough that you are—semi—glad to endure another round of her heartbroken rant in the hopes she’ll go a last round with you in the back of the luxury SUV or minivan she undoubtedly drives.
You assume this because, as you offer Debra your shoulder to cry on while she spills her secrets and brags about her attributes, all of which should have kept Kenny toeing the marital line, she repeatedly slurs, we have everything.
Had everything…
You should be asking yourself why you’re willing to exploit a woman in such a fragile state, but instead find yourself wondering how Cheatin’ Kenny makes bank.
Kenny, whose name is again on Debra’s plum-colored mouth, her lipstick freshly reapplied, as she settles back onto her barstool. She takes a sip of the skinny margarita you sampled while she was gone. You wonder, but don’t ask, how it could possibly differ from the full-calorie version. Especially after multiple refills.
“How could I have been so naïve?” Debra asks.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” you say, settling in with your Tecate while she continues to unpack the duffel bag of dirty laundry that is her marriage.
“Did I tell you we were high-school sweethearts?”
She did.
“And that after I caught him with his hand up Mary Mullaney’s shirt at a homecoming after-party, he swore he’d never cheat again?”
Once a cheater…you definitely don’t say.
“I believed our marriage was built on a foundation of trust,” she says. “We’re Christians, for God’s sake.”
You shake your head in disgust practically in unison with her.
“I mean, would you believe he insisted we write our own wedding vows? He told the whole church the only thing he’d ever need, besides me, was a sports car or maybe a boat.”
Good one, you can’t help but think.
“And every baby came with a push present in a little blue box.”
You don’t need to ask what she means by push present or little blue box to know the dude has game, even if he is a cheating asshole.
“If only he hadn’t left his phone on the counter, by his keys.” She drops her face into her hands. “How could I not look at a message from a contact named Kenny’s Remedy?”
“I’d have looked, too,” you assure her, liking that her fingernails are painted a sparkly, fuck-me shade of silver.
“At first, I thought he had a secret drug problem or something.”
“It happens,” you say.
“I had every intention of standing behind him while he got sober,” she says, reaching for her drink. “Until I called the number and found out Kenny’s Remedy was Heather, our twenty-three-year-old dog groomer.”
You give her a sympathetic pat on the thigh. It’s toned and taut.
“Would you believe he told me that he meant to type in Monty’s Remedy, as in Monty, our dog?”
“Heather could be a dog groomer and a drug dealer.”
“I almost wish she was,” Debra said, reaching for her phone. “But I went through his text history and found this.”
The next thing you know, you’re looking at a naked redhead in an unbuttoned smock, dog clippers in hand, and a smirk on her face.
“That’s Monty in the cage behind her,” Debra says with a sniffle.
You hadn’t noticed the dog because Heather is anything but.
“What an asshole,” you say, blotting the enormous tear glistening on her cheek. “You deserve better.”
“Talking it out with you is helpful,” she says.
“I’m glad,” you say, looking into her big eyes, their color indeterminate in the low light of Rudy’s.
“You’re sweet,” she says, now putting her hand on your leg.
As in game on?
“I should probably go,” she says.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” you say.
“I’d like that,” she says.
If this were a movie, you’d wink at the bartender as you escort a wobbly Debra out of the restaurant and into the stifling Midwestern July night. But it’s not, and you’re not that big a douche, so you ignore his knowing smirk.
Once outside, Debra stops in front of a shiny, black, tricked-out truck.
“Wow,” you say. It isn’t what you expected.
“Kenny is out of town so I took his car,” Debra says. “I call it the Big Black Cow.”
“Clever,” you say.
Then you, so mercenary you’ve listened to the sad ramblings of a betrayed housewife in the hope of getting laid, are suddenly struck by an inability to execute that all-important first move. But you don’t have to, because Debra leans in and kisses you with all the force and insistence you’ve been imagining since you caught your first glimpse of black lace.
The next thing you know, you are inside the fancy truck, which is roomy and smells like leather and Kenny’s aftershave. From there it is all hands and tongues, and then she’s unbuttoning your jeans.
“A lipstick,” she suddenly says, stopping to clutch a silver tube on the floor of the passenger side instead of your similarly-shaped-but-not-sized item. “But it’s not mine.”
And then she is ugly crying. Again.
You hold her in your arms until she regains her composure.
“You can’t drive home,” you finally say, realizing she’s as drunk as she is upset. “You’ll crash.”
“I hope so,” she says. “He loves this stupid truck more than he loves me.”
“I’ll call an Uber for you.”
“No,” she says, her lips suddenly on yours again. “You drive me. In Kenny’s truck.”
You shouldn’t drive either, but with the renewed promise of her intentions, you agree and take the keys from Debra.
Soon, you’re heading to her place.
The address is in Valley Estates in the suburbs, on the tony East Side. It’s a good thing you know roughly where it is, because Debra has closed her eyes and you don’t want to be the one who wrecks Kenny’s truck trying to figure out the navigation system.
As you exit the highway and make your way toward the columned entrance, Debra awakens. She is sober enough to guide you down Valley Parkway, right onto Valley Avenue, left on Valley Way, and finally right again onto Valley Street.
She points to the third McMansion on the left.
“What a place,” you say, curving around the circular driveway of the massive colonial house.
“Everything is in his name,” she says with a sigh. “Pull up there.”
You stop where she has instructed, between doors two and three of the five garage doors along the north side of the house.
You are startled when a floodlight clicks on.
“Motion sensor,” she says.
And then, without warning, she’s all over you again.
“You did say Kenny’s out of town, right?” you manage, but she is already undoing the last two buttons on your jeans. And then you forget about everything but the fact that you are receiving what may be the finest blow job you’ve ever had. Certainly, the best you’ve ever gotten in another man’s truck. In his driveway. From his wife.
Thankfully, there’s no sign of Kenny before, during, or after.
“Thank you,” she says, before you do. “I wish we’d met under different circumstances.”
“Are you going to be okay?” you ask, wondering how to gracefully end this evening.
“Hard to know,” she says, opening the passenger side door.
You get out of the truck and hug her goodbye, blinking under the overly bright lights, which stayed on, due to the motion, for your whole encounter.
“I’m here if you need me,” you say, wishing you had a better exit line.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says, climbing into the driver’s seat. She fires up the engine and disappears into her fraught world via garage stall number three.
You walk to the street and call an Uber to take you back to your car, still parked at Rudy’s.
Which is where you should have left things.
You know you’re never going to see her again, but when you arrive at your townhouse—which you can’t help but note would fit inside Debra’s garage, with room to spare—you’re hungry and wired.
And your computer’s still awake.
Grabbing a bag of Doritos—to maintain the evening’s south-of-the-border theme—you type in Debra and Kenny and 11025 Valley Street.
It’s almost too easy.
Within seconds, you know they are Debra and Kenny Sampson. And that Kenny is, naturally, in financial services. He could lose twenty or thirty pounds and looks, at least to you, like a character from The Sopranos.
The thought gives you pause, but not enough that you resist the impulse to keep snooping. You read every Google search result mentioning either of them, rifle through all the public posts and photos on their Facebook pages, check out Kenny’s LinkedIn profile and Debra’s Instagram pictures, and browse every online image you can find.
You now know Debra and Kenny are forty-one. They have three children, whose names, pictures, and social media you’ve done your best to ignore, because that would be weird. Kenny has acquired both the boat and a Porsche in addition to the Big Black Cow—all of which he likes to pose beside.
The last thing you see is a link on page five of Kenny’s Google results for a place called Bark Tenders. You click on the link and find yourself staring at Kenny smiling lasciviously at Heather, though this time her smock is fully buttoned, as the unwitting but all-knowing Monty endures a promotional grooming for the sake of a website photo.
You fall asleep that evening thinking about the mournful way Debra kept repeating.
We have everything.
Had everything…
Because FirmFit Training posts a list of members who meet and—in Debra’s case—beat their monthly workout goals, you know she goes to the Valley Commons location. After driving by once or maybe twice, you also know she frequents the Starbucks next door and the Whole Foods at First and Grant. You don’t accidentally run into her at either because you are not a creep.
You tell yourself you’re just concerned about her well-being.
You aren’t trying to hook up with her, even if you’re not trying not to.
And Monday Madness at Rudy’s is a thing. Lots of people go regularly, including you.
The next time you do, you sit at the opposite end of the bar from where you sat with her. You watch the game on TV—and not the door, which is also in view—while you eat, drink, and don’t expect to see her at all.
And you don’t.
Noticing you aren’t the only dude that seems to be lurking and alone, you pay the bill and leave.
You’re halfway to your car when you see someone who looks very much like Debra across the parking lot. Of course, she can’t be Debra, because that would be too easy. Also, she’s not wearing the tight, short, black dress she was wearing in the Facebook post you keep looking at, the one you dream she’d be wearing if you did run into her again.
She waves.
You walk over to her and note that she looks just as good in a red tank top and short denim skirt.
“I was hoping I’d find you here,” Debra says, her voice trembling. “I need you.”
You do a quick count of the beers you drank because you wonder if you might be dreaming, and, in case you aren’t, she needs you to drive her home again.
There is fury in her eyes as she hands you her phone. “Kenny has at least two other remedies: Bethany, his personal trainer and Chloe, my massage therapist.”
You don’t mind being ambushed, but you’re too startled to come up with exactly the right words.
“What are you going to do?” you mumble.
“You,” she says.
Your first thought is that you are definitely dreaming. The second is you’re glad you have a condom in your wallet, given the depth and breadth of Kenny’s wanderings. You also have a fleeting concern about inviting her to your down-market townhouse. “Where should we—?”
“Right here,” she says, opening the door to a white Range Rover. “Right now.”
On the one hand, you’re glad you didn’t have to offer your place, which you fear would kill whatever moment you’re about to have. On the other, you’re not thrilled about doing it in a vehicle again.
Not that you’re going to say no.
You do wish she wouldn’t keep saying that fucker, and fucking Kenny, while her tears dampen your chest hair. After you finish simultaneously—really!—she returns to the ugly crying that caused last week’s rain delay.
“You should leave him,” you say, the postcoital glow once again enhanced by the street light her vehicle is parked beneath.
“I can’t,” she says. “We have to think of the kids.”
Seeing as their mother’s skirt is still around her waist, you’d rather not.
