Vulnerable (Barons of Sodom) (13 page)

The biker collapsed backwards after a moment, his heavy body
flopping onto the moist sheets.

“Jesus.”

Bridie followed suit, curling up beside him so her head
burrowed into the crevice his left arm and torso made.

“Jesus
Christ.
”

They were silent for a while.

Bridie heard her lover going weak beside her. He was sliding
into a deep sleep. She reached up and traced a finger across his sweaty nose,
motion languid.

“You know what they say about men with big noses,” Tuck
muttered, from the edge of sleep. The girl laughed. Then, she snaked a hand
down through the small thicket of his chest hair and came to cup his cock,
still semi-erect.

“What do they say?” Bridie asked coyly.

“They say—”

But just then there was a sharp rap on the windowpane. Tuck
froze up in his post-coital bliss. Bridie inhaled sharply. Together they turned
slowly toward the sound of the intruder.

Zuzu was preparing a hash pipe on the crusty living room rug
of the Big House. In typical fashion, her body splayed beyond the folds of her
silk Madame's robe. She was a woman who, at the end of the day, preferred to be
naked. Yet her movements with the pipe were precise, measured. She packed the
kush neatly after ministering to the device with a pipe cleaner. There was a
crackling tape-deck on the floor in front of her, eking out fragments of an old
show tune. She hummed as she worked.

“I didn't realize a man of the law could smoke a peace
pipe,” God drawled. He was resting comfortably on a plastic-wrapped armchair,
the remains of his own dinner—a princely cut of baked salmon and potatoes—spread
out on the floor before him. Officer Cannon was sucking at a cigarette across
the room, his expression cryptic. But he laughed hollowly at the leader's
remark. Both men did.

Zuzu finished her handiwork and then sparked the contents
and passed them to the police officer. As if in acknowledgement of the sacred
ceremony, she turned off her little tape deck. The room was silent. Cannon
accepted the pipe. He took a long huff of the drug, exhaling smoke in a neat
plume. Then he passed the pipe to God.

“Not a bad product,” God murmured, after taking his own hit.
“Not a bad product at all. Especially for a bunch of suit-wearing stiffs.”

“The boys at the precinct have had plenty access to
top-grade stuff. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, sir. We'd like to
start with hash, but then there's pharma-grade heroin, meth clear as a winter's
night, snow straight from the border...all uncut. Practically good for you.”

“Practically,” Zuzu snorted. She exhaled a fat cloud of smoke.
The room was growing muggy. All of the air was beginning to smell sweet.

“So let me get this straight, Officer Cannon. I knew you
fellas had a funny definition of '
to protect and serve
'—”

“On the contrary, I think the scumbags in this town feel
very
served
by their law enforcement.”

Zuzu chuckled again. The bowl had reached her little
floor-nest once more and she set to work re-packing its contents with a heap of
sticky-icky.

“Right. But try to see it from my end. I'm from New Orleans.
I've dealt with crooked cops plenty. But never have I ever flat out accepted a
police
officer's
invitation to use
my club
as middleman for a
precinct-based drug-running operation. I'm gonna need to be walked through it.”

Cannon cleared his throat. He seemed to snap to attention,
like a businessman set to unload a pitch. He even rose to a suave standing
position, resting his muscular arm on the mantle of the decrepit fireplace.

“Okay. Here's the skinny, sir. Since you don't, in fact,
have all the answers.”

“Shoot, Officer.”

“Alright. So about nine years ago, my precinct busted a big
fish. National news. This fella was a lynchpin of the drug trade in east Texas,
very important to the border community. But still our jurisdiction, mind you—no
FBI. The joker had loads of charisma, too. Newspapers styled him as a kind of
fallen film hero. Looked like Clark Gable a bit, in the face.”

“I follow.”

“Great. Now shut up. So we got to his stash house and it was
the biggest fucking haul any of us had ever seen. Kilos and kilos and kilos.
Very atypical, for the drug trade. The up-tops, naturally they expected us to
take all of this into evidence and—eventually—destroy it. But the up-tops,
naturally they couldn't remember living off a Texas police officer's wage.”

“So you and the boys went AWOL,” piped up Zuzu, her eyes glazed
but still curious. “You took the stash for your own!”

“That's right, princess. We appropriated the stash house.
But we quickly realized that corner kids won't buy squat from cops—and they can
sniff out the undercovers, too, the little rat bastards. We needed someone who
knew the trade. So, we approached Mr. Reginald in prison. That was our Clark
Gable's alias. Dumb as shit, ain't it? 'Mr. Reginald?'”

“You let him out on a deal? Oh goodie, I love stories like
this. So sexy,” Zuzu was riding her high something fierce. Robe still agape,
the woman pushed herself off the floor and stumbled toward God. There she
towered over him, twisting her long, elegant fingers through the thin remnants
of his hair.

“We let him out on a deal. He would work for us. We would
receive the profits. And in return, he wouldn't swing. So for seven years,
Reginald was our double-crosser. When we needed a minor bust to save face, he
pointed us to the petty criminals. In the meantime, he was pushing hard as ever—and
we were getting rich. Then one day he got hooked up with Caroline Calyer.”

“The girl.”

“The girl's
aunt
, actually. Caroline was a two-bit
crook, addled most of the time herself—but the woman still managed to sustain a
big slice of the trailer park trade. She had people come to her. Folks called
her Auntie. She was well-loved in the community because she was sweet, and—shall
we say
permissive—
and lonely lost boys liked to come watch TV in her
trailer and shoot the shit...sometimes more. Then, of course, people started
asking questions about her hot little piece of a niece, once she was old
enough. That was probably another attracting factor.”

“I've seen the girl,” Zuzu said. “Bodacious set of ta-tas.”

“Shut the fuck up, Z,” God muttered. “Go on, Cannon.”

“...ANYWAY. So we sent Reginald to Caroline one night,
planning to bust the old loon for edging in on our turf. But he fucked up. He
was supposed to get in, get out—essentially, take the money, knock out the aunt
and run. But the bastard stayed in the trailer for two hours, no communication.
So we sent in Sergeant Sal Collins, to rush the job. Hell, it wasn't impossible
that he'd gotten hip to our moves and was holding Reggie hostage. So we told
our man to go in with his weapon out.” Cannon took a dramatic pause here, aware
that his audience was captive. He pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket and
lit it slowly.

“Now Sal Collins was new to the force then, and in the years
since we'd tacitly legalized some of the drug trade, the caliber of our new
officers was slightly—shall we say, sub-par. Sal had his own drug problem, we
found out
later
. And it turned out he was a client of Caroline's. Might
have been more than a client, in fact.”

“Sounds like
you
fucked up here.”

Cannon was silent for a long second. He seemed lost in a
memory—or a hashish haze.

“Yes. We fucked up. No heroes in Waco.”

“So you sent in Sal Collins, and—let me guess from here—he
wandered into some kind of fucked up lover's scenario. And your man was either
jealous, fiending or high and he shot Reginald and the aunt in a crime of
passion. You see, baby? I can be a detective, too.” God craned his turtle-like
neck upwards to kiss Zuzu backward from his perch on the chair.

Cannon nodded slowly. “It was...unfortunate. We needed a
cover-up fast or the papers would start printing, 'enraged officer kills two
unarmed lovers in their home,' or some shit, and who knows what that
investigation would have led them to. And we had to get rid of Collins. People
might have been able to trace his connection to Caroline, or at the very least
place him near her trailer that night. So we made a plan to bump him off in a
bar brawl, ASAP.”

“I read about that one in the newspaper today,” Zuzu yawned.
She appeared to be growing bored with Cannon's story—though even without drugs,
the Madame's attention span was notoriously short.

“What we didn't fucking anticipate, then, was the girl. We
found her on the scene right after the murders and kept her for questioning. We
drilled her for days, and just when it seemed like she knew nothing—she
fingered Collins in a mugshot. With one call to the FBI, she could have brought
down the whole precinct with a surefire connection between the Waco drug trade
and us. So little big-tits, she had to be dispatched as well.”

The light was failing outside. The sounds of the Barons
eating had begun to give way to nighttime noises: hollers, the clinking of
glasses.

“I know you fellas have been bored here. You've been
thinking that this is a crimeless town when really it's plenty crooked. The police
have always been part of the cover-up. Kinda funny, if you think about it.”

Zuzu laughed from the corner of the couch where she now
huddled. But God was only staring intently out the window, the wheels of his
warped little mind visibly turning in the low light.

“So the precinct has proposed a compromise. We want to hold
on to our turf. It's been lucrative. But we need a new crew now that we've seen
the error in using ex-cons. You fellas like to live outside the law. You're
good at business. You have a network, you've got transport, you have muscle. We
could work out the profit margins, but I offer 60/40 off the top. Bonuses for
both expanding the client base and— well,
dispatching
of our
competitors.”

“Now of course, if any of my men get caught, they're off to
jail. While all you fat cats will be protected by your titles.”

“That's easy, then.
Don't get caught.
” Cannon was
smiling now—in fact, he looked half-crazed with glee. God recognized the effect
of power on this man, the frenetic joy that came with being a leader. Almost
without pausing, he extended a claw-like hand.

“I do believe you have a deal, Officer. The Barons of Sodom
will be happy to protect and serve the good junkies of Waco.”

The men grabbed one another's hands in a firm shake, and
Cannon dropped his glossy, businessman demeanor. They laughed together,
sounding for all the world like villains in a Bond movie.

“But what about the girl?” Zuzu ventured, her eyes half
closed, voluptuous body sliding into the creaky folds of the couch. “What's
going to happen to the girl?” But neither man responded. They seemed dizzy with
the promises of money and adventure.

Athena's fountain of dark curls was peeking over the sill.
Tuck couldn't quite bear to look at his best friend after such a private act—never
mind the fact that she'd practically given him a heart attack by creeping up to
the window.

“Are you two finished in there?” Athena called. Her voice
quavered a little.

“It's fine, A. You can come in,” Bridie said. She'd managed
to regain her composure much faster than Tuck. The girl sat upright on the cot
in one fluid motion and moved to cover her bare body with the thin blanket.
Tuck snapped out of his reverie and slid his pants back on. He would have liked
to sit naked on the cot with Bridie until the morning. But then, this wasn't
really a fairytale romance scenario. The stakes remained dire, the liaison
clandestine—for both of them.

“Spivey's been looking for you!” Athena called from beyond
the window. “I think to gloat. I'm coming in, is that okay?”

“Jesus—yes, Sark, come on in. You moment-ruiner, you.”

“Whatever you've all been doing, it took more than a
MOMENT,” Athena muttered darkly. The lovers listened to her heavy boots
tromping around to the front of the garage. They heard the garage door creak
open.

“We need to make some kind of plan for tomorrow.” Athena
began to bang around in the garage, just beyond the bedroom enclosure. It
sounded like she was lifting up parts and then setting them back down again, in
different places. Tuck fought off a wave of nauseous guilt. Had he done
something wrong, taking Bridie for his own? He'd asked her if she'd wanted it,
hadn't he? Many, many times...

“What do you mean, a plan?”

“Tuck, are you seriously telling me that your aim tomorrow
was just—'win the race'? How stupid can you get?”

“Why don't you watch your fat lip, Sark,” Tuck hollered from
the hideaway. He tried to sound casual, but for whatever reason this remark
misfired. Athena was silent for a long second. He could feel her hurt through
the door.

Then there came the thwacking sound of her approaching
motorcycle boots on cement. Before Tuck had entirely finished zipping up his
jeans the little fountain of brown curls had materialized fully, in the center
of the makeshift love nest.

Athena continued to say nothing as she drank in the scene.
Her strong chin was set as Tuck had never seen it set before. Her eyes were
moist. She looked from Bridie to the lieutenant, then back again. She was hurt,
alright. She looked as if someone had just stolen her puppy—or more accurately,
her prize motorcycle.

“No. How stupid can
I
be,” she whispered. Then in one
quick flash, his best friend's face hardened. “I don't know why I fucking
bother. You two deserve each other. Why don't you muddle your way out of this
mess alone?”

“Athena!”

“No! I'm tired of pretending I don't—you know, it doesn't
even matter. Enjoy your little teenage slut. I'm sure whatever trouble she gets
you in will be
totally
worth it.”

When the garage door clanked shut behind its favorite
mechanic, the room suddenly seemed to grow cold. Bridie lurched toward the
wall. Tuck imagined, from her posture, that she was fighting back tears. He
crept softly to her little frame, hoping to—well, he didn't quite know what he
was hoping for. These days, it felt like he rarely knew.

“Bridie– ”

“I think you should go, Tuck. If you stay, I'll just feel
worse.”

“Bridie. That had nothing to do with us. That had nothing to
do with you and I.”

“Oh,
you and I
? You and I what? What?!” She rolled
over on her belly, so she was facing him again. “I am your
hostage
. I
am
a slut. I don't belong here. And whatever it is you're thinking now, you can't
save me. So don't even try.”

The girl reached for her discarded shirt and overalls,
beginning to yank them on ferociously.

“This was nice, but I'm 'club property,' now, right? So it's
your job to win back my maiden head, or some shit? Well, don't bother. This can
never be right. And I'm sure I'll get what I deserve tomorrow.”

“Bridie!”

“I'm dead serious, lieutenant. Clear out. Unless you want to
fuck me again.” Tuck searched his young lover's face for meaning, but the smile
Bridie shot him was all wrong—it betrayed both cruelty and wound at once. Not
knowing what to do (or where, exactly, he'd gone wrong...), Tuck threw on his
sweaty t-shirt and crept out of the garage.

Women.

God.

He'd never been so confused in all his life.