Blind Side, page 9
“Plan her demise?”
“You can’t simply wake up and no longer kill people; it has been burned into your DNA. You may not physically do it, but in your mind, you’re going to mentally off some people,” Elden said. “I say you start with Ms. Jenkins because you can taste the bourbon in that pie, which is why the judges keep letting her beat you. She’s going to show up to discuss the next competition, and that anger churning inside of you needs to be fixed on something. I say to mentally prepare yourself and to fix it on Ms. Jenkins because she is going to show up.”
Lizzie found herself smiling.
“When I wake up, I’m going to get that bitch,” she said, closing her eyes, “because her peach pie will never be better than mine.”
“That’s my girl. You get in there and give her hell, honey,” he said, turning to see the boy standing behind him. “Are you hungry, kiddo? I know I am. Let’s make some breakfast.”
The boy toddled along behind him in the oversized tee shirt and bare feet. He would head to the local big box store and pick up supplies for his soon-to-be wife and son. It may not be much, but in his chest, the tightness grew. He was needed in a good way. That was enough for now.
BEAUTY KURTZWILDE WAS on the carpet. The big boss, her brother-in-law Michael Kurtzwilde never really believed she could do the job of managing his side business. His idiot brother had married the woman, who was once a product to be shipped to a high-end buyer in Dubai. Leave it to Oscar to sleep with the help, who now considered herself to be an equal, only to become more of a problem than she helped to solve.
“Help me, Beauty, to understand what has transpired here,” Michael Kurtzwilde asked. “Ms. Hump was a prime asset to me and you decided to sell her to a collector?”
“The Collector,” she corrected.
“As if I know who the fuck that is,” he said, reaching for his phone.
Beauty hated when he reached for that phone. It was the phone that connected him to specialized staff members like Mr. Exit, The Red Oak, or worse, The Clydesdale. The last thing she wanted or needed was for Mr. Exit or any of those heavy hitters to appear on her doorstep.
“I should have run it by you first, Boss,” she started to say. “Hump was becoming an issue. For every two shipments we were getting through the lines, she redirected or basically took away our products. Don’t forget we lost the shipment in Los Angeles. She was part of that group that took the kids deep into Mexico. We are down almost five million.”
“And selling Ms. Hump was going to make up the shortfall?”
“No, he was willing to pay one hundred,” she told him.
Michael Kurtzwilde got to his feet. Few people knew or understood how well Ms. Hump’s connecting threads intersected with people above and below the law. Now, it became imperative to find her to stop her from talking.
“This is a goddamn shame, Beauty! You find her and bring her to me. You have a week,” he yelled, slamming his fist into the desk. “I don’t like you. I’ve never liked you but for half a second there, I thought maybe you were doing a good job.”
“Boss, the orders are up. We have a new shipment loading up in Norfolk at the end of the week headed to the European market. Specialized orders are coming in, and men like The Collector with exclusive tastes are also on the rise,” she told him.
“Specialized? I don’t like kiddie diddlers and don’t want to know shit about them,” he explained.
“No, Boss. The Collector has specific tastes of things he wants to add to his collection of dolls,” she told him and arched her brow.
In three steps, he was across the room, his hand coming down hard across her face, leaving Beauty on the carpet holding her stinging cheek. This was nothing new to her with the Boss. She had started her journey with The Company here on the floor in front of him, either on her back or her knees. The blow to her face was also nothing new. He was a man of violence who used anger to control others.
He'd controlled her for years until she’d managed to seduce his young brother to get away from his powerful clutches. He was right, Oscar was an idiot, but Beauty Kurtzwilde was a survivor. She would find Lizzie Perkins and take back her power.
“I know where to start looking for her, Boss. I won’t let you down,” she said with a bit of a smirk on her lips.
Beauty crawled from the floor, gathering her belongings. Lizzie was a creature of habit. She would either slink back to her hole in the mountain in West Virginia or hole up with one of Gabriel’s Directions. The Boss wasn’t as smart and powerful as he thought. His Number Two Hitter, Exit, had made changes in his life. That fool The Glitterman was out of the picture and his daughter had married one of the Archangel’s men. They were all getting married.
Then it hit her.
The Archangel would try to do the same for Hump. No one wanted a broken-down whore for a housewife. It didn’t matter how pretty she was. The woman was barren and couldn’t produce any kids, which made her the perfect sex doll for a man like The Collector.
“I’m going to find you bitch, and sell you to someone even worse,” Beauty said, wiping her bleeding lip.
In her office, behind the desk that her ambition had outgrown, she picked up the phone to make her own call to her heavy hitters. The conference call included three of her best hounds, and she issued the orders. She wanted and needed the woman alive.
“Start in West Virginia at her home,” Beauty said. “I don’t think she’s stupid enough to go there. The truck stop is where she left the vehicle. Canvas the local hospitals, veterinarian offices, and Wrong Way’s place in Louisville. There is one other place she could be; let me know if she is there.”
She ended the call, feeling a moment of triumph. Seven days wasn’t enough time to decide on a new hair cut let alone track down a bitch, beat her down, and deliver her to the Boss, tenderized and compliant. Lizzie’s days of ruining the soup were over.
Chapter Nine- Brim
The soup tasted like a bowl of manna from heaven. The home, dark in design and color, lacked the warmth of a woman’s touch. Rigid-backed chairs hurt her bottom the longer she sat, but he told her that she needed to be up and moving today. She was up. She was eating. She was moving.
“You need to walk at least three times a day to prevent blood clots from forming while you heal,” Elden told her. “Let’s save the bed rest for at night when it’s time to sleep. Eat up. I have errands to run.”
His eyes went to the boy and he told Miguelito, “Keep her company while I’m gone, okay? Anything you want from the store or would like to have?”
Miguelito’s eyes lit up. “I like trucks and cars, the little ones.”
“Trucks and cars, the little ones,” he repeated and looked at the woman whom he hoped would consent to be his wife, “and you, my lady?”
“I need things, underwear, clothes, and a pair of shoes,” she told him, pointing at her bare feet. She looked at the boy. “He needs at least two pairs as well, along with pajamas, underwear, jeans, and swim trunks.”
“On it,” Elden said, looking at the empty bowl of soup. “Would you like some more soup?”
“Yes, please,” Lizzie said, giving him a small smile.
“Good, honey, your appetite is returning, but I am not your man slave, so get off your adorable tushy and get it yourself,” he said, passing her a business card. “The house phone is active; here is my personal cell, not the one from The Company, should you need anything. Be back in an hour or so.”
“Bananas,” Miguelito said. “I would like some bananas, please.”
“Bananas it is,” he said, disarming the security system, re-arming the devices, and leaving through the back door.
Lizzie was on her feet, watching him go to the garage. He was not driving his shop, but an old Ford Bronco, an unassuming vehicle, dirt brown in color with normal wheels and no distinguishing marks.
This was an ideal time to explore the home where he lived, a masculine space trimmed out in dark wood. Ugly, green-tinted, flowered wallpaper covered the kitchen walls, and the first thing she planned to do when she got well was to yank it down. It didn’t matter whether she stayed or not, the wallpaper offended her as a woman and needed to be gone.
“I’ll bet Ms. Jenkins doesn’t have ugly wallpaper in her kitchen,” she said aloud.
“Who is that?” the boy asked, looking at her. He still wore Slow’s tee, which swallowed him whole. “Is Ms. Jenkins his Mamma? The man said we were going to be a family. If he’s going to be my poppa, are you going to be my mama?”
“What?” Lizzie asked, frowning at the child.
“Mama,” the boy said.
“What?”
“Should I call you Mama?”
“Uh...no,” she said, looking at the disappointment on his face.
“I like it here,” he said. “The man said he would teach me to swim, and he said I didn’t have to sleep in his bed sometimes so I can eat. I can be happy here and go to school. Do you think you could be happy here too?”
“Kid, I don’t know if I’ve ever been happy anywhere,” she confessed. A pain inched its way through her lower abdomen. She gripped her stomach, wincing at the interruption at the moment.
“Ayudate,” the boy said, helping her to the couch. As he’d seen the man do, he handed her a pillow, pressing it to her stomach while he helped her sit. “Agua. I’ll get you some.”
“Thank you, Miguelito,” she whispered, clutching the pillow.
A minute later, he returned with a glass of ice water. A smile covered his small face. “Ice. It comes out of the door of the refrigerator.”
The smile was so bright, so brilliant, and so true that Lizzie felt the hope in his little heart. Maybe The Doctor was right. They needed a new start. A new start would be a nice thing to have and not be afraid of making it out of the next job alive; or the next job crossing the line, knocking her out, and fucking her senseless. The Doctor seemed okay, but he worked for the same misguided, dirty-dealing people she worked for, in a sense. At least he understood where she was coming from and what she did for a living, which she no longer enjoyed and had no desire to go back to doing.
“I could do worse,” she said, closing her eyes.
“We can stay here. Be safe. I can be your little boy,” Miguelito said. “I will be no trouble.”
“You are a very good little boy, Miguelito,” she told him, tussling his thick black hair.
Her eyes closed as she drifted off to sleep. Elden would return soon. She imagined the items he would purchase for her which could reveal his true intentions. Peace settled into her soul as she thought for just a few seconds how nice it would be to truly rest.
Small hands touched her face, giving her a slight shake. In the kitchen, Elden had returned, stirring a pot of wonderful which made her mouth water. Lizzie’s eyes went to the clock on the wall and she realized that nearly three and a half hours had lapsed. The boy was no longer in the oversized tee but in clothes that fit his thin body.
“Mama,” he said, trying out the name again. “Look what I have!”
He pulled the tail of the tee upwards, showing off a pair of superhero underpants. He bounded onto the chair as if he were wearing a cape. His eyes sparkled as she turned her head toward The Doctor.
“A boy has to have a pair of doot-da-doos,” Elden said.
“A pair of what?”
“Doot-da-doos. You put them on, climb onto the bed, hold your fist in the air, and scream, doot-da-doo! You know, like Batman or some shit,” he said laughing. “See, he gets it.”
The boy echoed his words, yelling doot-da-doo as he bounced from one piece of furniture to the next. He grabbed the broom, pretending it was a weapon, yelling doot-da-doo, and swatting at his invisible bad guy. She didn’t want to admit it, but the kid was kind of, sort of, almost, adorable.
“You should have washed them first,” she told him.
“I did; you’ve been sleeping for a minute. You also need to wash up today; you’re kinda tart,” he said, frowning at her.
“Do I have clothes to change into?”
“Sure, most of the stuff is coming out of the dryer. There are things in your room on your bed which were in the first load,” he told her. “Also, you need to decide: are you saying yes to my proposal and staying here to make us a family, or are you only here to heal and get back at it?”
“Sure.”
“Sure, you’re accepting, or sure you’ve made a decision?”
“I’ve decided to accept,” she told him. “The boy started calling me Mama, which is making me all kinds of itchy, but I’m saying yes for him.”
Elden’s hands dropped to his sides. He didn’t want her as his wife out of some misplaced effort to be heroic for the boy. If she wanted him, he needed to know. He called her out on her statement.
“Don’t come into this ass first with me, Elizabeth! It’s not fair to either of us,” he told her. “If you don’t and can’t see me in the role of your husband and a father to the boy, I can handle it. I’m not going into the other room and curling into a ball.”
“I can see you as all kinds of things, Elden, but I can’t see me as your wife. I honestly can’t see me as his mother either, but I will try,” she told him.
“Tell me what you can see?”
“I can see redoing that kitchen and taking down that green, hideous wallpaper,” she said. “I can see taking down a bunch of this dark wood and adding some drapes. I can also see putting together a plan to handle Ms. Jenkins when she walks up on my porch talking shit about her pies. I know I’m going to have to put her and her peach pie down like the dog she is.”
“And how are you willing to see me?”
“Man, I want what you’re selling, but I’m broken. I’m ugly inside and shattered,” she said. “You want me to wake up tomorrow as a wife and Mom and forget all the ugly stuff I’ve seen in my life? You’re asking me to dismiss all the ugly things I’ve done in the lives of others.”
“No, Elizabeth, I’m asking you to stop doing the ugly things, heal, and love us. Turn your anger into something bigger and be a home, be a place of refuge for me and this child,” he said. “I’m offering you a tether. Hold on to me. Let me love you.”
The anger had come back in a vengeful way. Pain or not, she spat the words at him, still harboring the resentment of what Trey McCallister did all those years prior, “You don’t know shit about love! Love tried to kill me!”
“And love sterilized me, so I can’t have kids of my own,” he told her. “You don’t have a monopoly on pain and disappointment. Love sent that boy out on foot across deserts through hell to get to a better life. Love sent that boy forward each day searching for what we can easily give him. Quit being pissy about life, get off the pot, and start living!”
“Being pissy?”
“Yes. You’re being pissy, Missy. Okay, so some man disappointed you twenty years ago. Get in the damned line for a handout of a bowl of half steamed rice. Women have disappointed me. Men have betrayed me and let me down. You, I get,” he said. “There are no pretenses with you. Either you like some shit or you don’t. Either you’re going to go for it or you won’t. I will never have to question where I stand with you, and you, for the most part, are honest. Make your decision right damned now, so I can pick up the phone, call the Archangel, and let him know what tomorrow shall bring for us and the boy.”
Lizzie watched the fire in him. Elden was correct. He was right about what he was saying to her. He was right about her and the boy.
“Call the Archangel and have him send the paperwork for a last name change for me and the boy,” she said. “My first name is my own. I’m not going to change it just because you think I should.”
Miguelito, now wearing pants and a pair of sneakers that lit up each time he walked, held a die-cast car in each hand. “I like Carol. Carol is a good name. I always wanted a mama named Carol. If I get a new name, I want my name to be Bud!”
They both looked at him and said in unison, “Bud?”
“It sounds cool, like Hey, Bud,” Miguelito said. “Or Junior. I can be a Junior. What is your name, Mister?”
“Elden,” he answered, looking at the boy.
“Yeah, I want to go with Bud,” the boy said scowling his little face. The kid was sharper than they both imagined and caught on quickly.
“Okay Carol and Bud Thomas,” Elden spoke, squinting at them both. “You look like a Carol.”
“I don’t want my name to be Carol,” she stated.
“Archangel’s brother, I think he “directioned” as Mile Marker, he named his wife SheNanay. Not to me, that is messed up,” Elden said, laughing. He said it to the back of her head as she made her way to the bedroom for clean clothing. “I’m with Bud, I kinda like Carol. Hey Carol, you ready for some food?”
At the foot of the bed, he’d laid out an everyday, two-piece outfit. Nothing low cut or snug-fitting to give her a camel toe or to snuggle up tight in her vee to show off a moose knuckle. The size was right, and there was also a pair of slide-in shoes, which to her surprise were flat and not high-heeled. She picked up a pair of neatly folded underwear, which were normal, non-special occasion, cotton panties; the type of panties which came in a pack from the racks at box stores that also sold hams on one side and tires on the other.
Elden didn’t go to a lingerie store to buy the things she needed. He didn’t buy high heels or see-through or low-cut clothing. On the bed was a sports bra to fit a medium-sized set of boobs. A soft smile formed at the corner of her lips as she realized the man went shopping for a woman whom he wanted as his wife. He was dressing her as his middle-class, stay-at-home mother who made pork chops on Thursday, type of wife. Tears came to her eyes as she held the pair of pink polka-dotted panties.
“Yes, I will marry you,” she told him. “Carol and Bud Thomas will be your family, Elden.”
