Carter
As the Metal Monsters swaggered into The Boot Hill Saloon, Carter immediately noticed the beautiful barmaid in her skimpy denim top and cutoff jeans. Years of playing it cool with the opposite sex had given him the discipline to check her out in his peripheral vision without looking at her directly and betraying his interest—but even so, he found himself struggling not to stare openly at her petite frame, cascading reddish-brown hair, and prominently displayed cleavage.
The three bikers had been riding so hard for the past few months—fighting the Naggias, running from them, riding from state to state while trying to avoid the law—that Carter suddenly realized how long it had been since he'd felt a woman's touch.
So long, in fact, that it took an extra few seconds for his brain to register the fact that she was talking to the local sheriff.
He felt an electric tingle of dread tip-toe up his spine. Even before their current spree of robberies, he'd always gotten this feeling when he was this close to a cop, as though he'd accidentally stepped into a cage with a hungry tiger. In the animal kingdom, cops were the natural predators of bikers, even the ones who weren't outlaws. Any sudden movements, any outward indication of fear, and the creature wouldn't hesitate to tear its prey to shreds.
His fight-or-flight instincts kicked into high gear, screaming for him to turn right back around and walk out of the bar—calmly, without any sense of urgency, as though he'd left his wallet with his bike or something like that—so that he and the others could hop on their bikes and make tracks for the next town. But no matter how natural they tried to make it look, Carter knew it could still make the sheriff suspicious enough to go after them, especially if he'd heard about the previous robberies they’d committed.
Nope. The only way to safely navigate this situation was to sit down, have some drinks, and act like they had nothing in the world to be nervous about.
Carter tossed what he hoped was an offhand glance toward the bar. “Three beers,” he said.
“Coming up,” the barmaid answered.
As Carter led Hazmat and Oiler to a table in the corner, he could feel eyes on his back. He wondered whether they belonged to the barmaid, the sheriff, or both.
When Hazmat and Oiler sat down across from Carter, he could see his own tension reflected in their eyes as they tried to look casual.
“He's lookin' at us,” Oiler murmured, trying to keep his lips from moving.
“Of course he's lookin' at us, stupid,” Hazmat said in a low voice through clenched teeth. “We're fuckin' bikers. And he's gonna keep lookin' at us if we keep whisperin' and doin' half-assed ventriloquist acts like we got somethin' to hide.”
“So what should we talk about?” Oiler asked quietly.
“Nothing,” Carter said. “We're not a fucking book club for housewives. We're just three dudes who came in for a drink. We don't need to talk about anything. We just need to sit here and act normal for a few minutes, so chill the fuck out, both of you.”
The seconds ticked by like hours as the three men sat, trying not to make eye contact with anything in particular. Carter felt like an idiot just drumming his fingers and staring off into space, and with each passing moment, he could feel the sheriff's eyes drilling holes in his back. The tension kept building inside him like a boiler with its pressure valve increasing past the danger levels, threatening to explode him from the inside out the longer they stayed.
Finally, the sheriff lumbered over to the door, shooting a dirty look at them before leaving.
“There, you see?” Carter said, smiling. “No trouble at all. Now we can relax, enjoy our beers, and go over the plan.”
“Are you nuts?” Oiler asked, his voice going up an octave. “After what just happened, you still want to go through with this?”
“Nothing happened, asshole,” Hazmat sneered. “Didn't you see? He doesn't suspect a thing. He was just here to get a look at the chick behind the bar before he goes back to his trailer park and beats off to her. He barely even noticed us.”
“He noticed,” Oiler insisted, shaking his head. “He was staring. You saw that, didn't you?” He turned to Carter imploringly. “Look, we've had a great run, okay? Four states, four banks, that's impressive enough to build a rep on. The money's not perfect, but we can make things work with what we've got. Maybe that last job went so smoothly as a warning for us to just be grateful for what we got away with instead of pushing it too far and fucking it all up.”
Before Carter could respond, the barmaid sidled up to their table, placing their beers down in front of them. Now that the cop was gone, Carter allowed himself a more deliberate look at the woman, taking in her vivid green eyes and the dash of freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. She was sexy as hell, but there was also something impish and mischievous about her expression and mannerisms that he found alluring.
“Here you go, fellas,” she said. “Sorry you got the greasy eye from the sheriff. It's nothing personal. He was just having a John Wayne moment, trying to impress me.”
“Did it work?” Carter asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Nah,” she replied, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. “It takes a lot more than that to get my motor running. Anyway, that's nine bucks. You guys want to pay now, or start a tab?”
“We'll pay now...” Oiler began before Carter raised a hand, cutting him off.
“Actually, we're going to go ahead and start a tab,” Carter said, sizing her up. “Now that we've been here a few minutes, the place is starting to grow on me.”
“Suit yourself,” she answered, shrugging. “When you need another round, just give me a yell. My name's Billie.”
“Kind of a boy's name, ain't it?” Hazmat grunted.
Billie rolled her eyes. “It's spelled with an '-ie' to make it more feminine, genius.”
“Oh yeah?” he snickered, sipping his beer. “Like Johnnie or Timothie or Harvie?”
“Well, if you're such a good judge of names, how about telling me yours?” she countered.
Hazmat opened his mouth reflexively, but Carter spoke up quickly. “Whatever he tells you is going to be a lie,” he said evenly. “His real name is Yorick. That's what it is.” Carter shot a steely glance at Hazmat. “Isn't that right...Yorick?”
Oiler stifled a giggle, putting his hand to his face and pretending it was a sneeze.
The muscles in Hazmat's jaw twitched angrily as he glared back at Carter. Finally, he said, “Yeah. Yorick. Sure. That's me.”
Billie threw her head back and laughed loudly. “I stand corrected, then! Clearly, you're an expert on shitty names, so you're free to discuss them with impunity.” She took a few steps toward the bar, then repeated the name and cackled again.
Hazmat's huge fists clenched on the table top. “Yorick? What the fuck, man? Why Yorick?”
Carter leaned in, his smile frozen on his face as his voice lowered dangerously. “Because if you ever come that close to blurting out your real name again when we're about to pull a job, you moronic shitkicker, I'll make you into a skull in the fucking dirt. Understand?”
“Okay, jeez,” Hazmat said sheepishly, backing down. “I wasn't gonna give 'er my real name anyway.”
“Yeah, I'll bet, Yorick,” Oiler giggled.
Hazmat stared down Oiler coldly. “Carter can get away with that shit. He's president. But if you keep titterin' at me like a spastic little girl, I'm gonna rearrange you so you'll have to unzip your fly to eat.”
Oiler nodded, snorting and trying to suppress his laughter.
I'm the president of a three-person MC, Carter thought. One of them's me, and the other two are these knuckleheads. God help me.
Hazmat pulled the napkin out from under his beer and removed a pen from his pocket, handing them to Carter. “So, you wanna sketch this job out for us, since you're supposed to have all this 'inside info?'”
“Hey, now wait a minute,” Oiler interjected. “Since when did we decide we're still gonna go through with this, after that thing with the sheriff? I still say we quit while we're ahead, instead of being dumb an' greedy.”
“An' I still say you might as well be wearin' a diaper instead've a cut, if you're gonna keep cryin' an' pissin' yourself every five seconds,” Hazmat spat.
“Oiler, you heard what that hot little barmaid just told us,” Carter said evenly. “That sheriff doesn't suspect us of a damn thing. He was just trying to make his balls look big. The job tomorrow's no more dangerous now than it was when we walked in fifteen minutes ago. It's foolproof, and the money we pull out of it's going to make what we've taken so far look like pennies.”
“Yeah, I know a lot 'bout foolproof plans,” Oiler sulked. “I heard about 'em every day from the fools who were in the slammer with me.”
“Look, just hear me out,” Carter insisted, starting to sketch out a basic diagram on the napkin. Hazmat and Oiler leaned in closer to see what he was drawing. “This bank we're hitting tomorrow has never been robbed once since it opened in 1904. Now, I happen to know for a fact that the bank's manager, Coop Scanlon, has been embezzling money from the place for years...”
“How do you know that?” Oiler asked.
“Never mind that now,” Carter said. “The point is, to cover up what he's been stealing, Coop has cut corners on their security measures. The cameras are just there for decoration...they aren't hooked up to anything. Their only security guard is a retired, half-blind cop whose arthritis is so bad he can barely draw his gun anymore. Oh, and they mostly hire high school kids as tellers, so they can pay them minimum wage and work the shit out of them.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Hazmat grumbled impatiently. “But if they're such half-assed idiots, then how come you keep sayin' this bank's gonna be so loaded?”
“That's the best part,” Carter said, grinning. “See, all the farmers and yokels keep their money in this bank, and most of them tend to make deposits just about every week. They're small amounts individually, but after a while they start to pile up. And Coop's such a penny-pinching asshole that he only pays for the bank's armored car service to come pick up the surplus cash once every month, unlike the weekly pick-ups a lot of banks have. This bank's pick-ups are always scheduled for the same day and time—the third Wednesday at two o'clock.”
“And tomorrow's the third Wednesday of this month,” Oiler said.
“Exactly,” Carter replied. “We show up at noon, hit the place hard when it's got the most cash, and blow out of here with over a hundred thou. Plus what we got from the previous scores, of course.”
“Sounds like a solid plan,” Hazmat said, nodding.
“I dunno, guys,” Oiler said doubtfully.
Carter sighed. “Oiler, I know doing time was hard for you. I know you almost lost your family over that shit, and you don't want to risk that again. But the Hobgoblins are toast, man. Gone forever. And without a new club and a real chance to start earning again, you're not going to be able to send your wife anything to take care of herself or the kid, and then you'll lose them for sure. If we do this thing right, we can get situated somewhere and you can send for them to come join you soon so you can be a real family again. What do you say?”
Oiler sighed, then nodded. “Okay, I'm in. But no matter what happens, I ain't goin' to prison again. Let's get that clear.”
“Fair enough,” Carter agreed, finishing his beer and getting up from his seat. “Now if you'll excuse me...”
“Where the fuck do you think you're goin'?” Hazmat asked.
“I'm going over to the bar for another drink,” Carter said. “And while I'm there, I'm going to see if I can arrange to spend the night in a nice bed with that girl's legs wrapped around me, instead of out under the stars with you two dickheads.”
“I thought you were all about makin' sure we didn't do anythin' to get known or draw attention to ourselves,” Hazmat protested.
“Hey, do as I say, not as I do, Yorick,” Carter answered with a wink, striding over to the bar.
Billie looked up and smiled when she saw him approach. “You ready for another beer?”
“I'll take a beer, sure,” Carter said, leaning against the bar and giving her his most devil-may-care grin. “I also came over to find out what it actually does take to get your motor running.”
Billie's smile widened, and her eyes danced with amusement. “You're pretty direct, huh?”
“Life's too short for anything else,” Carter conceded.
“Well, I took a look out the window while you were conferring with your colleagues over there,” Billie said, “and from the look of those bikes outside, you already know a thing or two about motors and what makes them run. Why bother asking?”
Carter shrugged. “Different makes, different models, different instruction manuals.”
“Uh-huh,” Billie said, nodding. “Okay. Since you seem to be so brave tonight, I'll tell you exactly what you can do.” She pointed. “See that mechanical bull over there?”
Carter followed her gaze. Sure enough, there was a humped, ugly-looking contraption with long horns and fake fur on the other side of the bar.
“Pretty hard to miss,” he commented. “Never been on one myself.”
“Oh yeah?” she said. “I've been on that one plenty of times, and earlier tonight, I lasted a whole two minutes. You stay on for even half that, and I'll spend the rest of the night on your lap when I'm not serving drinks. Deal?”
Before Carter could answer, Oiler appeared at his side. “That doesn't sound like such a good idea, man,” he said. “We've, uh, got a pretty big day ahead of us tomorrow. The last thing we need is you mashing your ass and your nuts against a metal sawhorse tonight so you can't, y'know...ride tomorrow. Or anything else.”
Billie looked at Carter, raising her eyebrows.
Carter clenched his teeth. He wanted to tell Oiler to go fuck himself so he could hop on the bull and win Billie's attention for the night, but he knew Oiler was right. They'd come too far, and now that he'd talked Oiler into the final score, he couldn't risk blowing the whole thing over some random barmaid.
Even if she was fucking gorgeous, and even if he'd been without sex for so long that his dick got hard when the wind blew.
“My friend's absolutely right,” Carter admitted with great difficulty. “I'll have to raincheck you on that the next time I'm in town.”
“I sure hope you will,” Billie said, handing him another beer. “Too bad it's not tonight, though. Either you'd have spent the rest of the evening in my ever-lovin' arms, or you'd have been splattered against the wall. Whichever one it was, at least it would've been entertaining.”
Carter favored her with another smile and sauntered back to the table, silently cursing both Oiler and the aching erection in his jeans that was making it difficult for him to walk.
“Look on the bright side,” Oiler snickered. “Maybe tonight we can point out shootin' stars an' constellations to each other.”
“Blow me,” Carter retorted.
Billie
After the bikers and the other patrons finished their drinks and left, Carlito closed the saloon up for the night, locking the door and putting up the “Closed” sign. As Carlito rinsed and wiped the last few glasses, Billie put the chairs up on the tables.
She kept thinking about the biker who'd flirted with her, and wondered what his name was. She'd been tempted to invite him back to her place that night, but some stubborn streak inside of her had insisted that she couldn't since he'd declined her challenge. Now she was thinking about the look in his eyes when he'd smiled at her and regretting that choice, especially when she considered the empty apartment that was waiting for her.
Carlito went to the small office at the back of the bar and grabbed his coat. “You can finish up on your own, right?” he asked her.
“Sure,” she said. “Get home safe. And don't forget, tomorrow's my day off.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving at her dismissively as he left. “Have fun.”
Billie went to the small television behind the bar and turned it on, flipping to the classic movie channel. The reception on the higher channels was fuzzy and the sound hissed, but they always played old Westerns after midnight, and she loved having them on in the background as she cleaned the bar up after hours—stories of daring robbers and brave lawmen shooting each other up. She envied their adventures, the way the stars rode the trails and tamed the wild frontiers while the background characters just stayed in the same small towns and watched.
She knew she was just like those background characters, but she wished she could be like one of the stars someday and have an adventure of her own.
As Dean Martin socked John Wayne in the jaw on the tiny screen while a horse whinnied in the background, Billie picked up the broom and started to sweep the dust, grit, and peanut shells into a pile at the center of the floor. When she extended the broom under the table where the bikers had been drinking and swept out the dirt, a soggy, crumpled cocktail napkin drifted out with it. She almost kept sweeping it toward the middle of the floor with the rest of the detritus, until she noticed several marks on it in blue ink.
Maybe it's got one of their phone numbers on it, she mused, frowning down at the napkin. Maybe the handsome biker wrote it down for me when they left, but it fell under the table somehow before I could see it. Maybe there's a chance I might not need to spend tonight alone after all. The chances are slim—one of them was probably just doodling on it aimlessly while they were talking—but still, I've got nothing to lose by picking it up and taking a look, right?
Billie bent down and snatched the napkin. She opened it up and brushed the dirt away. The blue ink was smudged and blurry from moisture that had soaked through it, but she could still faintly make out a rectangular shape. It was marked with X's and O's with arrows that reminded her of diagrams of football plays.
No names or phone numbers. They'd probably just been talking about some game they'd watched on TV recently. Shit.
She started to crumple the napkin up, then stopped and looked at it again. There were other marks at the edges of the rectangle, and she realized that they looked like they could be entrances and exits.
So it's not a drawing of a football field, then, she thought. A building? The O's all appear to be inside it already, and the three X's appear to be positioned so that two of them are entering while the third one stays outside.
She thought about the bank robbers Panzie had mentioned and remembered the way the biker had told her the other one's name was Yorick (which was obviously fake) before he could answer for himself.
And why hadn't the handsome biker told her his name when he was flirting with her, anyway?
A small shudder of excitement rippled through Billie's body. What if they really had been the robbers, like Panzie thought? The rectangle they'd drawn was vague, but it could easily be a map of the McMurtry Bank & Loan downtown. The O's positioned at regular intervals could be the tellers, and the final O off to the side could be Rusty, the security guard. The X's could indicate a plan for two of the bikers to enter and carry out the robbery while the third one stayed outside as lookout.
Billie heard gunshots and glanced at the TV. On the screen, a pair of masked robbers were leveling their six-shooters at a timid-looking bank teller and ordering him to reach for the sky.
She laughed uneasily, tossing the napkin onto the floor. Clearly, she'd been watching so many of these stupid movies that she was starting to see outlaws everywhere. Bikers of all shapes and sizes came into the bar almost every day—in groups of two, five, ten, and yes, sometimes even three.
And the crude drawing didn't have to be a bank, did it? Her mind had probably framed it that way thanks to the power of suggestion, but it could be anything at all, really.
Besides, nothing exciting had ever happened in Cactus Hollow—at least not in her lifetime. How could she honestly bring herself to believe that this would change now?
She finished sweeping and grabbed the dustpan, carefully lifting the pile of dirt and tossing it into the trash before washing her hands. Then she got her coat from the back room, shrugged it on, and locked the place up again before heading to her car. As she drove home, she kept picturing the sexy biker bursting into the bank downtown tomorrow with a gun in his hand and a rakish smile on his face, commanding everyone to put their hands in the air.
She even imagined herself as his willing accomplice, keeping her own gun trained on Kathy and Mary Jo and the other plain girls she'd grown up with who made fun of her in school and went on to work as assistant managers at the bank. She'd relish the looks of shock and terror on their faces as they tossed heavy stacks of bills into a sack, taunting them about their boring husbands and boring kids and boring lives.
Then she and the biker would fire a couple of shots at the ceiling just to spook the tellers even more before they ran out to his bike. He’d straddle it and rev the engine as she got on behind him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight while they blew out of town together. They'd hole up in some ratty little motel together, laughing and making love and planning their next big score.
Silly thoughts, she knew. But they kept her company as she warmed up a dinner of leftovers and watched another Western, one where Lee Marvin menaced Jimmy Stewart's stagecoach.
The fantasies were even more comforting later when she was in bed with her hand between her legs, wishing she knew that biker's name so she could moan it out loud in her empty apartment.