The Outlaw Stinky Joe (Baer Creighton Book 4), page 3
He grinned at her. “Lookit this.” He pulled aside his untucked flannel shirt revealing what appeared to be a cucumber—one of those skinny English cucumbers—in his pants. “Don’t make a Munsinger wait.”
He unbuttoned his shirt from the top.
“Get that little thing in here. I need to wake up early tomorrow, and I’m coming down with a cold or something. Strep maybe. And I found a new wart this morning.”
“Yeah, Shirley, but you got to pay the bills. Can’t leave the bills unpaid.”
“Screwing you ain’t a bill. It’s screwing. For rent. Come inside, if you’re going to. I’m not heating Flagstaff.”
Clyde nodded. “What’s this?”
“That’s a mixing bowl. Pick it up. Be a sweetie.”
“Why’s a mixing bowl on your porch?”
“I dunno. But I need one that size.”
He turned sideways and rubbed his tool on her fold as he entered the trailer.
“What’s that smell?”
“I had chicken livers for dinner.”
“What?”
“Yeah. They’re healthy. I saw a diet guru on TV.”
He looked across the living room area, studied the sofa, inert television, the kitchen.
“Say, you want to commence the copulation, or what? I said I don’t have all night.”
Clyde nodded. Held her eyes while his head moved. He looked a little unhinged.
“You got another man in here?”
“So what if I did?”
Clyde stepped toward the bedroom. Stopped.
“He here now?”
“Would you just pull out your willy? Come on. I told you I got a cold coming on, and I need my sleep. Plus I took a bunch of vitamin C and zinc. I need to keep the backside puckered—you understand me? I’m about to crap bean soup. But if you want rent, let’s start before I need to run down the hall again.”
Clyde opened his right hand wide, then closed his fingers. He said, loud enough to be heard throughout, “You got a man in that room, I’ll beat his ass dumb. I ain’t into three ways. Not with a dude.”
“Tell you what. You stay here and pull your pud. I’m going to the bedroom.”
Shirley rubbed past him. She let the bedroom door jamb dislodge her left breast from its normal stance, and squeeze it to a bubble as she passed through. She paused, boob about to pop. Shirley parted her mouth, pouted her lower lip. Bit it. Rolled her eyes.
Dragged that boob slow, the way a mama bird might pretend a broken wing to lure a wolf from the chicks.
Clyde followed.
Chapter 6
Clyde Munsinger scratched his thigh, scrunched a pillow, and sat upright in Shirley Lyle’s bed. His gaze fell on his pants on the floor, and the faded circle worn into the back pocket. He could use a rub—nicotine after sex was as good as after a meal. But that required he climb out of bed and fetch his can. After the workout Shirley gave him, he needed a few minutes for his vertebrae to settle back into alignment.
Plus he had nowhere to spit.
He took her pretty rough while they were doggy, but not like she wanted. “You even hard?” she said. She dropped him on the mattress and rode him cowgirl. Until you’ve played the bronc with a four hundred pound hooker, you haven’t been ridden cowgirl. Clyde hadn’t known whether to brace for doom or marvel at the spectacle. After twenty seconds, he remembered a story on HuffPo about a girl who smothered her boyfriend. She had a heart attack and fell forward on him. Both of them dead, like that.
If Clyde could climb from under her, he would ensure he never wound up below her again. Then, instead of riding upright on the dally wrap, she put her hands on his shoulders. Bent her elbows and closed in. Claustrophobic, having that much woman above him—like the news story.
But afterward, the silly precariousness of the adventure took away his anxiety. He scored the fornication event a win.
Shirley spread out on her back next to him, a flooded lake of rose-colored flesh. Her stomach lifted and fell. She rolled her left leg partly outward, foot sideways on the bed.
Needle tracks? Or varicose veins?
And behold: he’d taken out a milestone without even realizing: he was poking a woman with gray pubic hair.
Time to move on. Clyde closed his eyes and thought to the night ahead. He was about to meet Lester Toungate and advance his business interests a decade in the space of a night. On that score, he had a small problem to solve.
“I got a job for you. A favor.”
“Oh. Great.”
“Listen.”
He rolled from bed, kept his legs aboard but walked out with his hands to his pants. Fished out a thumb drive. “I want you to keep this. A couple days, at most.”
“What’s on it?”
“Some numbers. If I don’t come back, I want you to mail this to the FBI.”
“What trouble are you in?”
“I’m taking a precaution. I need you to do that. Right?”
“Whatever.”
He handed the USB memory stick to her. The drive fell between them on the bed.
“You got a towel? I’m gonna grab a shower.”
Shirley jumped. Planted fists on hips.
“Not here.”
“I have someplace to be in an hour.”
“So walk two hundred feet and use your own bathroom.”
He studied her.
Shirley stood naked, shoulders broad, chest thrust strong and proud. “I don’t know what you tell yourself about us, but the sex—that’s the full agreement. Nothing more.”
“What?”
“You don’t say what I do and don’t do. Where I go. Who I see. And you damn sure don’t go through my things. You ain’t the boss of me.”
Clyde pulled the bed sheet over his unit. “I’m in a hurry.”
“You look like a hurry.”
“Woman—”
“Don’t you woman me. Climb your sorry ass up outta my bed! Go on!”
She leaned in, and that claustrophobic feeling overcame him. The tightness was back, constricting deep, like a vise squeezing his heart and lungs. He glanced at his pistol in his butt holster, right there in the seat of his pants, on the floor.
“You grab that thing you better pull the trigger. Or I’ll tear you limb from limb.”
“What the hell? I said I want a shower.”
“And I said not here, and you acted like I didn’t say a thing, like all I am is a snatch and two handles. Now leave my house! Go on.”
She moved for his gun.
Clyde threw back the sheet and twisted his legs to the floor.
This was exactly why his system was superior. How many men slept on the couch because their women were batshit nuts? They didn’t explain. Didn’t apologize. Oh, you’re a woman? I understand. I’ll remove myself while the hormones eat you from the inside.
“I’m going. Easy, now.”
He jumped into his jeans. Shirt on and tucked, he slid out the 9mm and checked the safety. Tucked the holster, held by its tacky surface, between his lower back and denim. Grabbed his coat.
She backed as he approached the door.
Funny—he thought she’d have put herself between him and the bathroom. In the kitchen he turned. She was at the bedroom door.
“I’m going to take a leak.”
“No!” She stomped toward him. “Get the hell outta here!”
He backed, nodding.
But inward a new dimension of chaos overcame him. He stepped toward the door in a daze. Pieces of the evening assembled. Not in answers, but questions:
The stray dog?
The mixing bowl?
Ulyana with another man, on Clyde’s night?
And Shirley calling forth her inner grizzly—with a queer guy in the bathroom?
The world was large and Clyde small. Its workings mysterious and his comprehension tiny. The threat looming, his confidence zero.
His brain sputtered.
Except he sensed danger the way sometimes you notice an evil spirit in the room. Not Shirley—but the force animated her and gave her assurance.
“You remember about that thumb drive. I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day. Keep it safe.”
At the door, Clyde checked the surroundings outside, before stepping into them.
“I know what’s going on,” he said.
She squinted.
He closed the door and eased out the 9mm while still on the stoop. Thumbed off the safety. The door clicked as Shirley twisted the lock. He thought of the scene in every western movie, where pedestrians scuttle off the sidewalks, expecting gunplay.
Clyde stepped down, stood beside the trailer—his trailer—and listened. Inside, Shirley pounded back and forth, walking on her heels.
The stray dog.
The mixing bowl.
Ulyana poking another man, on Clyde’s night.
Shirley, launching a preemptive war over him wanting to clean off the stink of sex.
Looking toward the road, he about-faced and strolled the length of the mobile home. Senses acute, each step slow. Ear cocked. Eyes narrow. Heart pounding ... and tight. He circled Shirley’s trailer. At the tow hitch, he lit a joint of synthetic weed, called spice. Cigarette tobacco, with a layer of laboratory-made cannabinoids sprayed on the leaves. Most users reported the same high as from pot, but a few exceptional people became violent. Depressed. Suicidal.
But not Clyde. It made him feel more himself—and gave him a happier edge.
He finished his joint. Looked at the stars, made dim by security lights.
Something weird was going on, and you don’t tangle with a guy like Lester Toungate without knowing all the angles. He could go back inside and beat it out of Shirley.
Yeah, why not beat Shirley?
Chapter 7
Paul Toungate walked to Ulyana’s bathroom, wetted a washcloth he found hanging beside the sink, and cleaned his sex-fouled nethers. You’d think for a young girl shaved bare, the odor would have been more antiseptic.
He gave her rent money and listened as she told Clyde Munsinger to screw off. When she returned to him, he finished and resumed his post at the window.
Lester insisted he not poke her at all. His father: four hundred years old and still sticking his nose in other people’s business. Paul tooled her once, early, on the sofa, watching through the glass toward the mobile home park’s office. When Clyde arrived, beat on the door, and pulled his pistol, Paul lifted his from the lamp table. Ready to end the show right there.
Why Lester messed around with Clyde made no sense. His father had a weird tolerance for him. Like a cat playing with a mouse, and the mouse gets a good lick in. The cat laughs and keeps torturing him because the mouse isn’t the enemy. Boredom is. Being old did that to a man. To Lester. So world-weary he tolerated enemies for their entertainment value.
Leave a fool like Clyde Munsinger grasping for opportunity for too long, the situation gets hard to control. From Paul’s surveillance, he understood Clyde’s game. He thought it best to finish it.
But Lester didn’t agree.
His half-brother L.J. had something to do with Lester’s behavior.
L.J.
He used his initials, and nobody knew his name. El Jay—like that rap star.
Lester was losing his marbles.
Ever since the wiry little prick showed up looking for work, Lester seemed smitten. Paul asked, “What’s your interest in the kid? We don’t hire people off the street—and you bring him in without so much as asking me?”
“Asking you? Whose business do you think you run?”
“Well, excuse me. I’m your only son running the show for twenty years. Maybe at this point I got a little clout?”
Senile prick. Lester had to have things his way.
El Jay started off selling Ziplock bags of weed to varsity-jackets cruising the block after school. A couple years later he ran the tree cutting company. Year or two after that, Lester made him his personal assistant. Would he follow the old man to the nursing home and wipe his ass there?
Time to have a judge declare Lester incompetent and park him somewhere he couldn’t do any more harm. Well, he had a plan for that.
He and El Jay, working together for the greater good. Then he’d finish that too.
Paul left the wash cloth in the sink. He’d scrubbed himself, and the white cloth looked wiry with pubic hair. He turned away.
In the back of his head, the voice.
That’s a shitty thing to do. You’re an asshole.
Since Paul was young and his mother died, and he and Lester lived by themselves, the words in the back of his head popped up like a conscience. As a kid it spoke to him every day, every hour.
“You suck.”
As he aged, it interrupted him less. When he took over the pavement company, and after bruising a few egos, brought the business into line. He hadn’t heard the voice so much then.
But that was twenty years past. After moving to the real enterprise, the true source of family wealth, the voice came back. Didn’t matter where he was. He could be driving his new Harley—every year a new Harley. He could be getting blown for the price of paying a beer wench overtime. He could be setting up a hundred thousand dollar wire to an offshore account. Back of his mind was the little voice with big amplification.
You’re a shithead.
Suppose I am.
He left the washcloth in the sink.
Chapter 8
Mind surging on a dark, edgy glee, Clyde Munsinger extracted his keys and found the one matching Shirley Lyle’s door. He inserted it, then pulled his 9mm from his holster. He looked at the safety—off—which didn’t matter because there was never a shell in the chamber.
Easy, he twisted the key. Pushed. Not a sound.
Shirley’s voice wafted slow, silky.
“There, baby. Lick that up. Ohhh, yeah. You never tasted anything so good in your sick little life ...”
Synthetic cannabinoids hopped ... Blood pressure ... eyes hot ... Clyde crashed through the door.
“You got some kinda nerve. I said I wasn’t queer. Who you got—”
He slammed the front door and it bounced back open.
Cacophony in the bathroom. Yelps and scratches. A thud in the tub.
He stomped ten feet, swung up his pistol arm as he faced the closed bathroom door.
“Go away, Clyde! This ain’t what you—”
She’d tricked him into sloppy seconds. As queer as it gets.
He lifted his foot. This was his trailer anyway. Reared back and kicked forward, boot landing flat on the door. The jamb shattered at the latch bolt. The door punched inward, bounced off Shirley.
Pistol up, Clyde stared into the bathroom. A feral-eyed dog glared from the bathtub, half covered in a blue beach towel, the rest of him soaked, gaunt, yet beefy at the shoulder and blocky in the head. Below the dog on the faucet side sat a bowl with a few drops of milk and beside that, an empty plastic plate. Under the bowls, mud and hair that hadn’t drained with the water.
Shirley sat on the commode. In a bath robe. Closed up front. Calves planted like oaks on the shag carpet.
His mind flashed to the stray dog wandering his park.
The mixing bowl.
This didn’t have anything to do with Ulyana. Couldn’t—unless they’d let the dog loose and forced Shirley to participate in the subterfuge.
Clyde pointed the 9mm at her. At the mutt. Back at Shirley.
“You know the policy.”
He swung the pistol back to the dog. Squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
“Damn.”
He held the gun sideways while he studied the button on the slide.
“No!”
“What?”
“Don’t point that at me!”
“Huh? Oh.” Clyde thumbed the safety and pointed the muzzle back toward the dog. “Say goodbye, asshole.”
Nothing.
“Shit!” He racked the pistol.
Shirley breathed hard, almost asthmatic. “You got a—?”
Claws on plastic—he looked. The dog was midair, towel flapping like a cape.
Shining teeth.
The dog’s position changed faster than Clyde’s brain could triangulate. He absorbed the impact. Felt wetness, breath sweet like heavy cream and ham gravy. The back side of his hand smashed against the splintered jamb. Wood stuck in him and the pistol dropped. The tube flashed. The blast deafened. The mirror shattered but the sound entered his consciousness unregistered, part of the unfolding chaos of teeth and fury.
Clyde’s face ripped—he knew without feeling the skin tear. The dog collided, thrashed, and Clyde fell backward into the hall. The beast rode him down. As he thought he should push, the dog leaped to the trailer door, spun around and bolted outside.
“Ahhhhh!”
Shirley screamed.
Clyde brought his hand to his face, pulled it away bloody.
“Ahhhhh!”
He dropped his head against the hallway wall. Slumped his back into the corner, exhaled like to let the fear out. But it was in him deep.
What just happened?
Lester Toungate?
Blood rolled into his shirt collar. Clyde pressed along his neck on both sides where the carotid hid under the jaw. The flesh seemed sound. Slippery, though.
The pistol was in there with the hyperventilating, crazy woman. And the wild dog was outside, with the door hanging open. Clyde rolled to his side, righted himself.
Shirley sat snot-lipped with her hands at her cheeks, black mascara streaming. Chest wheezing.
His 9mm lay on the floor. A starburst split the mirror into segments, with the missing shards in a jagged pile in the basin. Glass dust glittered.
“It’s over,” he said.
Clyde swiped a white towel from the rack and wiped the blood from his hands. His pulse thudded in his face, and blood dripped to the carpet. He stooped. Recovered his pistol. At the sink he removed the magazine, ejected the bullet from the chamber into the glass shards in the basin. He tried to shove the round back in but it slipped in his hand. He put the shell in his pocket and slapped home the magazine. Returned the automatic to his butt holster.
He caught his reflection in the mirror, fractured into a dozen splinters. Pieces of crazed eyeballs stared back at him. He shifted to an unmarred section on the other side.
