In the Last Episode, Frank Bill’s Whorehound Gang brought the whiskey, the women, the weapons, and the wheelbarrow.When the boy JJ came back to the Virtual Dive Bar holding his ass as he ordered a full bottle of Wild Turkey, with shiny patches on his cheeks look like he’d been crying, Steel God sent Red Gator down to that massage parlor to get the lowdown…and some payback if necessary.
In the long run, it wouldn’t matter. Red Gator knew JJ was one of the mutineers out to topple Steel God and take the gang back to the Outlaws where it belonged, rather than this Biker Messiah crap he was peddling.
Shit, Red himself wasn’t even fully on-board. And maybe it was time to get off the road, anyway. Been loyal to his old lady for seven years--what a rotten bitch she’d turned out to be. Nagged him every waking hour, used sex to barter with him, and then what happens when word gets around that Steel God offered him one of Whorehound’s whores? Well, she up and leaves. She’d been on about that for a while, now that her daughter from her first fling with a Navy guy (there were three) was having kids, it changed things. She wanted to be near her grandkids. After all, she was getting up there--thirty-nine. And someone had to watch the kids while her daughter finished her junior year.
She left without a word, and then stole his hidden cash. Damn, how’d she known? He’d been careful, a fake chrome pipe welded on to look like it belonged. Shit shit shit.
Too old to start over. At least with his own money.
Ray pushed through the doors of Bloody Knuckles, Callused Fingertips--really? And people still got ripped off here? Who could guess?--and found the front room empty except for a mama-san behind the front desk, sitting on a stool, one leg crossed over the other. She looked probably in her fifties, but she was one of those indeterminate women who could’ve been anything. She still had a lot of appeal, and worked hard to maintain it. Red Gator was just the right age to appreciate that, but he was here for business, not pleasure.
He stepped over to the desk and said, “You’re the owner, right?”
She didn’t answer. Just had a dreamy grin across her face.
Red pointed. “You. Owner? This place?”
He heard some scuffling, then a wet sound, from down below. The Mama-san raised her chin. “No.”
“I need to talk to the owner.”
“No.”
“Lady, stop fucking around. Something happened to one of our boys while he was here--”
That wet, sucking sound again. Red stopped, leaned over the counter as far as he could. The mama-san was barefoot, and her higher foot was being caressed by a big, badass looking son of a bitch on his knees, a couple of the mama-san’s toes in his mouth. He took them out, and then liked the bottom of her foot.
Mama-san pointed down at the guy. “He’s the owner.”
Red Gator reached over and tapped the guy on the head. He seemed to awake as if from sleepwalking, gagged a little, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up.
He planted his hands on the counter and looked piiiiiiissed.
“Can I help you?”
Red Gator hadn’t even brought a gun. Of course, he hadn’t checked to see if the old lady took that, too. There was the switchblade in his boot, at least.
“You the owner?”
The big guy wore a Black Sabbath T-shirt and weird, red-tinted shades. A goatee. He looked like he could crush a watermelon between his hands with barely any effort.
He nodded. “I’m Rawson. It’s my place. But I don’t take kindly to complaints.”
Red stepped back. “But you would admit to running some kind of bait and switch?”
Rawson smiled. “Only if a customer has the balls to prosecute. Of course, so far none have. So, your boy, I figure he’s not going to testify.”
“But you do know who he rides with. At least tell me you had an idea.”
He crinkled his brow, turned and rumbled some Korean at the mama-san. She gave it back harder and louder, but in all of the noise, Red recognized “Steel Army”. Rawson shot back even louder, crueler Korean, and the mama-san’s eyes got wider and wider. She finally, stepped off the stool and made for the back faster than Red’s lady split town.
Rawson looked back at Red, shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry. I was out of the office for a while, and I didn’t realize…you are talking about that guy who split from the Outlaws? You guys are really on the edge, aren’t you?”
Red shrugged. “He’s something else, our Steel God.”
Rawson let out a sigh. Finally, he said, “Look, we don’t want any trouble here. If your boys want to come in, fine. Anytime, free of charge, and no bait and switch. I only do that when I think I can get away with it. It’s easy to tell the pussies from the guys who really deserve a good one. Funny, too.”
“And what about JJ?”
“I can’t undo the deed. And we can’t apologize for it, understand. How about you come on back right now, take a steam. We can work this out.”
Well, shit, why not? Red was bone-tired, and he hadn’t had a chance to use the hot-tub or a good bed or anything. It seemed more and more like him orbit around Steel God was growing wider, farther away. This new Lafitte fucker, he was the go-to guy. And him an ex-cop, most wanted, damn near celebrity. What was Steel God thinking?
Fuck them all. Red Gator wanted to relax, get his fucking boots off, and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh as only massage parlors could offer.
“All right. It’s a start.”
*
He was so sleepy back there, wrapped in nothing but a towel after being undressed by the most delicate hands, rubbed all over in oils, kissed on his lips and on his cock like he hadn’t felt since those three weeks in Vegas when he was twenty-one, so long ago.
Later, Rawson beside him in the steam room, he laughed at stories of guys coming in--big shots, rich guys, married guys, frat boys, bikers, full of attitude and entitlement--getting the bait and switch, and then crying like babies when they realized there wasn’t a goddamned thing they could do unless they wanted to admit what had happened. Getting barebacked by a tattoo-laden tranny in a dirty massage joint? Not one prosecution in five years. Not one.
Red Gator laughed hard, made him feel better about the old lady leaving. Made him think of his family down in Louisiana. Hadn’t seen them in years. He’d heard that maybe his sister wasn’t doing so well. Maybe it was time to take a leave of absence, go see them. He was in the right state of mind. Steel God and him had gone way back, all the way to Illinois, the first time Steel God took on his name. Good times back then.
The man surely would understand.
Rawson reached over, slapped Red Gator on the shoulder, and said, “You’re a good guy. Really, I’m talking great. I’m sorry I have to do this to you.”
Fuck. Gator tensed. Fucker was going to bait and switch him? After they’d shook hands and everything? Fucking Rawson was crazy.
Gator tried to stand, but he was drowsy from the steam, all rubber-legged. He fell to the floor as Rawson stood, whistled, and said, “Come on in.”
What sort of punishment was Red Gator in for? He’d survived jail, took plenty of beatings to keep his backside pure. He’d survived fires, shootings, some chick who tried to poison him, and his own daddy’s drunken belt-whuppins. Was this going to top that?
Instead of the glammed-up shemale, the mama-san walked in followed by a man in a suit. A typical Fed suit. Before he could connect the dots in his head, they were on him, flipping him onto his stomach, linking the cuffs on.
“Mr. Savoie, you’re under arrest,” the mama-san said, all her phony-baloney accent out the window.
*
Thing was--and he didn’t realize it until much later--he stood tall for Steel God that time, but he probably shouldn‘t have. Didn’t say a word. It seemed like they’d been watching him for a while, and also that there was a hidden layer of Feds all over town just watching how the Rally played out, hoping to make some contacts.
They wanted Steel God. But they wanted Lafitte more.
So, Red Gator said, “Why don’t you go pick him up?”
The two agents stared at each other. Shrugged. Then, “We pick him up now, we just have to let him go again. When it’s time, it’s going to be for good.”
They offered him everything they could think of--immunity, Witness Protection, money, a house--but they don’t do that when they’ve got you nailed to the wall.
And so they let him go, their cards in his pocket. “Any time you’re ready. Any time.”
He was back on the street. Hours had passed, sun going down. And he thought about what a shitty ass day it had turned out to be.
But that steam room, those girls, that happy ending…it had been a long time, and it would be a long time again. Unless…shit, enough of that. He trudged back to HQ, thinking Not tonight, my friend, but soon.
*
Rawson’s a sick fuck. At least in his writing. He thinks up scenarios that make you laugh when you consider it, but when you read them detailed on the page, your blood curdles.
He’s also not afraid of fucking around with genre, either, as we see with the “super-soldier serum” of
“Clinical Trial”:
The noise Carol is making in the trunk of my Nissan is relentless. Kicking and screaming, growling like some kind of animal. I can easily picture her there in the dark; her young body sweating and straining, her clothes streaked with a fine layer of grime; knuckles, elbows, knees, toes, forehead gashed and bleeding from beating them so hard against the jagged metal surfaces of the trunk space. I wish I’d thought ahead and bound her before I dosed her with the Accelerant. In hindsight it would’ve been easy to trick my way back into her bed.
And you get the feeling that he’s tiptoeing the “horror” edge in the creepy, claustrophobic winner of March’s A Twist of Noir contest,
“In the Shower, Thinking”.
All in all, he’s got a lot of nerve, and that makes for some great reading. Sex and violence, people having their dignity ripped clear away. Embarrassment turned to revenge. A pulp explosion. Remind me of Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford. Except the nasty just keeps on flowing.
*
Next time,
Mr. Saturday Boy himself strolls into town like he owns the joint.
Tonight on the Main Stage:
Social Distortion, “Bad Luck”
