Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom (18 page)

Instead of a helmet, Sheila wore his hat. She smiled when she saw him coming. Her friends stood behind her and watched him come. Duncan stopped a yard away.

“That’s my hat,” he said.

“I don’t see your name on it.”

“Nonetheless,” Duncan said, “it’s mine.”

“I found it in the street.” She turned her back and started toward the Hollywood. “Finders keepers.”

“Aw, look,” said Samantha, “I think he’s going to cry.”

“Damn it! I want my hat back!”

Sheila turned. Samantha circled behind him. Sheila smiled and wrapped a chain around her fist.

“Why don’t you come get it?”

“All right,” he said, “I will.”

He heard more motorcycles behind him.
I am a dead man,
he thought. Sheila’s smirk changed to a frown. When he looked behind, he saw it was not more lesbians come to participate in a sacrifice of male flesh. Wilson, Marco, and Peewee sat on the newly arrived Harleys, looking like death minus the scythes but with the requisite scars and tattoos, calm and dangerous and not at all to be trifled with. Duncan thought them beautiful. Samantha stepped quietly aside.

Wilson glanced at Sheila and then to Duncan. “Anything wrong?”

“Not a thing,” Duncan said.

He took the Stetson from Sheila’s head, brushed it off, and put it on. By the fury in her eyes Duncan believed she was contemplating taking on the Guardians. But then she sagged and she and her friends got on their motorcycles and rode away.

“Nice bikes,” Peewee said, “friends of yours?”

“More like acquaintances,” Duncan replied.

The Guardians gazed in wonder at the painting on Duncan’s easel.

“Jesus,” Peewee said. “Aren’t we beautiful?”

“How much is that worth?” asked Wilson.

“Whatever you can get for it.” Duncan took the canvas off the easel and gave it to him. “It’s yours.”

“Why?” Wilson asked.

“Why not?”

Duncan took off his hat and with a permanent marker he wrote
Delaney
in big black letters on the white satin liner.

“All right!” Peewee said. “Roscoe said the painting of him sold for two thousand. I bet we get three for this one.”

“We’re not selling it.” Wilson took a plastic bag full of a fine white powder from his pocket and gave it to Duncan.

“What’s this?”

“Something in return.”

After the Guardians left, Duncan sat on the couch holding the baggie. He heard a siren in the distance grow stronger. He stood in the bathroom until the siren faded past his window. Then he flushed a small fortune in what he could not have known was China White Heroin down the toilet.

While Duncan watched white powder swirl down a porcelain portal, Tiffy and Danny were sitting in the Hollywood at a table near the bar. Tiffy had inadvertently selected amateur night for her reconnaissance, and the bar was packed. A five hundred dollar prize awaited the alleged nonprofessional judged best at removing her clothing to the music of her choice. Tiffy wore a shawl and dark glasses. She had seen Jackie O dressed like this in a photo in which Jackie was surrounded by four burly body guards. Tiffy did not have bodyguards but she had Danny which, she supposed, was better than nothing. She could get the body guards later, when she was …

When she was what?

“Go get me a beer,” she said.

Danny went to the bar. Tiffy took off her sunglasses. The place was filled with an eclectic assortment of suits and jeans and various females with large hair and painted skin who could best be described as tramps, harlots, and possibly sluts. Tiffy experienced a strange sense of sisterhood. She shook her head and the feeling left. Danny set two beers on the table and sat. Tiffy drank half her bottle.

“Slow down!”

“Do you believe someone would pay any of these women five hundred dollars for stripping?”

“They don’t look so bad.”

“Oh come on!” Tiffy pointed at a tall red haired girl in a tight red velvet dress. “Take her. Nose job, liposuction, and fake tits. And there. Bleached hair, chin implant, and fake tits.”

“I’ll give you the tits,” Danny said. “But how could you know the rest?”

“I did graduate third in my cosmetology class, didn’t I? And that one. Thirty-five if she’s a day. Lipo, chemical peel, nose job, bleached hair, and fake tits.” Tiffy snorted. “Not a genuine beauty in the lot.”

“Not like you.” Danny blushed. “Your beauty is natural.”

“How sweet!” Tiffy pinched his cheek. “But how would you know that?”

“Hell, I’ve watched you since I was five. Don’t you think I’d know?”

“Hush now.” The lights dimmed. Music began. “They’re starting.”

Over three songs Champagne went from a cheerleader’s outfit with pom poms and bobby socks to a pair of white panties. The crowd, including Danny, appreciated her efforts. She spent two minutes picking up the currency littering the stage.

“I could do that,” Tiffy muttered.

Misty was next. She wore a nurse’s uniform and was down to a G-string and support hose in three songs, including a heartfelt segment involving a stethoscope staged to
Stairway to Heaven
. She spent several minutes retrieving several denominations of paper money from the stage.

“What’s so special about her?” Tiffy asked.

“Hold on, Tiffy. Give the girl her due. You should appreciate someone who’s good at their job.”

“Maybe you ought to appreciate them a little less and me a little more.”

Danny stopped clapping. “Sorry.”

The room darkened and the crowd hushed. When the lights came back, Pris sat backwards on a chair facing the audience, her arms folded over the seat and her head in her arms. She wore a simple skirt and blouse, silk stockings and shoes with stiletto heels. She slowly raised her head as
Only Women Bleed
began to play. Tiffy felt an electric jolt.

“It’s her!” she hissed.

The woman on stage exuded an intoxicating mixture of innocence and sexuality. Her eyes were sad and angry and challenging. Tiffy had never before been intimidated by another woman’s beauty, but there it was. This had to be her. Pris stood as if grabbed and pulled to her feet. She fell backwards against the pole and leaned there breathing heavily and looking angrily at nothing before her. She ripped her shirt open. A button flew across the audience and hit Danny in the face.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing his eye, “that hurt!”

“Quiet!” Tiffy commanded.

Pris moved about the stage with the music, as if fleeing an unseen assailant. She kicked out once and her right shoe flew into the audience.

“Ow!” someone said.

“Shhh!” several voices responded.

She kicked again. Her left shoe knocked a pitcher of beer unnoticed into a bald man’s lap. She ripped her shirt off and threw it into the crowd. She unhooked her dress as she writhed in mock combat and the dress floated off the stage. She fell to the floor, unbuttoning her bra and throwing her arms to her sides as though pinned. She kicked and fought, naked except for her plain cotton panties. She started to pull those down. Men and women both held their collective breath. She flipped onto her hands and knees, her breasts moving back and forth, up and down. She rolled violently over and stood. She smashed the chair against the pole. She picked up a broken leg and stabbed the splintered end repeatedly into the stage. The men in the room clasped their hands over their hearts. The music stopped.

“Holy Jesus,” Danny said.

“Amen,” Tiffy whispered.

Pris slowly stood and looked out over the audience.

“I’d like my clothes back, please,” she said, “line forms to the right.”

A man opened his wallet and stuffed the shoe he held with twenties. The bald man did the same with the other shoe and a third wrapped a wad of tens in her shirt. They lined up along the stage with men holding nothing but money. Danny wrapped the button in a fifty-dollar bill and got in line behind a man holding a bra he had brought himself and stuffed with singles. Pris smiled at the bald man. He was the only one so graced. He sat down with a face so smug that the heavy metal pretenders in the back resolved to later beat him senseless. Pris clutched her clothes and went backstage. Danny returned and set two beers on the table. Tiffy stood.

“Where you going?”

“To enter that contest.”

“I won’t allow it!”

Tiffy took Danny’s face in her hand and squeezed so hard his cheeks met between his teeth and painful tears came to his eyes.

“Don’t ever tell me what I can or can’t do.”

“Ho kah,”
he mumbled.
“Har ee.”

Tiffy released him. He rubbed his jaw. She drank deep from her beer.

“All right,” she said, “wish me luck.”

“Good luck.” Danny rubbed his cheek as she elbowed her way to the bar. He regarded the other contestants with pity.
Though you’re not the one who needs it,
he thought.

“You drive,” Tiffy said.

She got in the Cobra beside Danny. He turned over the engine and shifted into first. He stalled the engine three times.

“It’s a powerful engine. You have to give it more gas.”

Danny lurched into traffic. He drove like a zombie, unnerved and sickly fascinated by what he had beheld. Tiffy took a wad of money from her bra and counted. Danny was afraid and very much her slave.

“You’ve watched me ever since kindergarten but I bet you never saw anything like that.”

“No,” Danny said, “can’t say I have.”

Tiffy had taken the stage seventh out of ten contestants, and after she finished, the remaining three refused to go on. The first six were good, but when introduced for judgment, the audience booed until Tiffy took the stage to unanimous applause. Danny was unaware of her decisive victory until he came out of the bathroom where he was cleaning up after an unfortunate accident that had dampened his lap.

“Spilled my beer,” he had told her.

“With the five hundred dollar prize I made nine seventy three in cash.” She stuffed the money into her bra. “I would have more only Duncan’s bitch cleaned out a couple of them.”

“Too bad you couldn’t take checks,” Danny said.

“Who says I didn’t? That’s another three hundred or so. I’m not set up for credit cards. Not yet, at least.”

“I’ll never forget tonight.”

“Well, don’t get too attached to the memory. A girl told me about another contest at a club in the valley tomorrow night.”

“You’re going to do that again?”

“Why not? Easiest money I ever made.”

“What happens if Mrs. Delaney finds out?”

Tiffy turned to him, her eyes hot. “The only way she could find out is if you tell her, and if that happens, you’ll never see me again, naked or otherwise. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All I’m doing is making some pocket change. So I don’t want to hear any more objections out of you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” They pulled up to the valet at the hotel. They got out and Tiffy took the claim check. “Now you get yourself a taxi and go on home.”

Danny looked down and kicked gravel. “Well, I was hoping …”

“Danny, you’ve had enough fun for one night. Now go on home and change your pants. And be back here tomorrow night at eight.”

The valet called for a taxi. When it came, Danny got in and looked longingly at her. A Hispanic valet who looked so much like Valentino that the hotel matrons called him Rudolph stood beside her and watched the taxi coast down the driveway.

“He wants you, no?”

“He wants me, yes.”

Tiffy looked him over. She had never heard of Valentino but she was a good judge of horseflesh. And the experience on stage had her hornier than the time she gave the captain of the high school basketball team a special congratulations after they won the state championship her junior year.

“What time do you get off?” she asked.

“Eleven thirty.”

“Good.” Tiffy wrote her room number on a slip of paper. “Be at my room at eleven forty five. I plan on getting off myself by twelve.”

Twelve

The next morning Duncan received a letter from Fiona’s bank. It bore a yellow sticker with his new address and had been forwarded from Cheyenne. He read it slowly, then read the letter again. He picked up the phone and dialed the number listed beneath the bank’s address.

“Mr. Ambrose, please,” he said to the woman who answered.

Stuart Ambrose was his mother’s banker and Sean’s old friend, a big, white-haired man who played Santa Claus in the parade every Christmas until his wife of thirty years died a half decade before. After that, the stuffing escaped from his jolly belly, and his laugh resounded no more.

“Duncan! Where are you boy? Fiona’s been worried as hell.”

“I’m in Los Angeles, sir.”

“Hell, son, we knew that. What are you doing there?”

“Well, right now I’m trying to find out about a letter I got today.”

“A letter?” Ambrose was suddenly wary.

“A letter from you. The way I read this letter is that my father left me a trust fund worth fifty thousand dollars when he died. That sound right?”

“I don’t have the figures handy.”

“The way I read this letter, that same trust fund is now worth twenty-two thousand six hundred and ninety dollars.” Duncan waited for a response. When none came he said, “you did write this letter didn’t you?”

“Is my name on it?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then I suppose I did.” Ambrose sounded bitter.

“And the way I read this letter,” Duncan went on, “this money should have been made available to me when I was eighteen.”

“Fiona thought you couldn’t manage the investing of it.”

“Looks like she didn’t do so well herself,” Duncan said.

“She made a few bad choices. But she tried her best.”

“That’s a comfort. Now if you don’t mind I’ll just take my money out of your bank while there’s still money left to get.”

“I don’t think I like your tone, son.”

“And I don’t like the fact that I’m out thirty thousand dollars.”

“Maybe you should talk to your mother about this.”