Charlie
The next morning, I got up real early and took one of the club cars out for a ride. It was a twelve-hour car trip from Carlsbad to Durango, and I didn’t wanna be on a bike for that long. Plus, I didn’t want that bitch Nicolette on the back of a bike; that would give her opportunities to jump off the whole damn day. Not that I thought she’d do it. But the way Jack had talked about their split made me realize something was going seriously fucking haywire between the two of them.
I’d never really talked to Nicolette. Her last name was something generic – McDodson or McDonald or something like that – and even though she was real pretty, like I’ve said before, she was meek as hell. She never said a word to any of the Steel Gods aside from “excuse me” if we bumped into her on purpose, which some of the assholes did all the time because they wanted to see her pretty little face blush. But we couldn’t look too long – there was one God, a guy named Kyle who’d let his eyes hang all over Nicolette like fur on a dog. He was gone the next day. No one ever found out where he went, and Jack’s smile was one shade smugger for the next couple weeks.
It was like that. It was like that all the fuckin’ time.
When I got to Durango, I rented a room in a cheap motel, right in the middle of the town. The whole damn town was like that: cheap, cheap, cheap. The room only cost me sixty bucks a night, and it had air conditioning and color TV. I guess most people would scoff at that nowadays. Luxury hotels with their heated indoor swimming pools and turndown service with cute little chocolates. But I could tell right away that Durango wasn’t that kind of place. It was a little wild, a little rustic, a lot small. The people who lived here had obviously lived here for years and years. Nicolette should stick out like a sore thumb.
I was exhausted from the drive, but I knew nothing could quench my thirst better than a beer. Hell, maybe even some local pussy. I’d seen a few cute girls walkin’ around with short-shorts on and belly shirts. They looked young and inexperienced, which is just the way I like girls. I like being with girls I can train: how to suck my dick, how to take my cock like a pro. That turned me on. Just thinking about it was getting me hard. But then a vision of Jack’s stern face popped into my mind and I knew I couldn’t waste any time fucking around, not right now. One beer, I decided. One beer, and then I’ll go hunt for this bitch Nicolette.
As luck would have it, there was a bar right underneath the hotel. It wasn’t some fancy place, but one of those Western bars, with a big bucking mechanical bronco and smudged bottles of whiskey decorating the bar. It was empty, too. When I walked in, only a few grizzled locals were perched on stools, wetting their whistles with Colorado’s finest. I grinned. I loved Carlsbad, but some part of me liked small, anonymous towns like this. I felt like I could really lose myself here in Durango, or maybe lose myself and then find somethin’ better.
Stop thinkin’ like that, Charlie, I told myself as I slid up to the bar and hopped onto a torn stool. You ain’t stayin’ here for long. Jack told you to bring her back within the week. So you don’t get too comfortable in this shit town.
The bartender was busty and sun-browned. She smiled flirtatiously at me. “Honey, what can I get you? You don’t look like you’re from around here,” she added. “You want some whiskey?”
“Straight up,” I said, sliding a five-dollar bill across the counter towards her. “And thank you.”
She winked at me, then passed me a smudged shot glass brimming with liquid fire. Picking it up, I sniffed, then threw my head back and knocked it all down. I figured now would be a good time to ask about locals. Hell, maybe Nicolette came into this place once in a while. I realized that aside from her behavior around the Steel Gods, I barely knew anything about this bitch. My lips curled into a smile at the realization. All the better to bring her back home, I thought smugly. All the better if I don’t have to listen to her whining and screaming the whole damn time.
“So,” I said casually. “You ever see a real pretty girl in here? Brown hair, long legs? Cute smile?”
The woman laughed. “Honey, you just described half my locals,” she said with a smile. “What else, does she wear cowboy boots, too?”
I frowned and thought hard. I hadn’t looked at Nicolette too close before – didn’t wanna risk getting my ass beat by the boss – but that sounded like something she’d wear. I closed my eyes and tried to picture her now. The details were blurry, fuzzy at best, but I saw a solid image start to form behind my eyes.
“No,” I said slowly. “Black high-heel sandals. With a platform. She’s on the shorter side.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” the woman said. She whistled and pointed out the window. “That your girl?”
I spun around on the stool so fast my head was spinning. There she was, walking down the middle of Main Street, pleased as punch. Nicolette. Nicolette the cheating bitch, Nicolette the liar who I had to bring home. She was swinging her little hips from side to side and there was a big pair of sunglasses perched on that little, upturned nose. Sure enough, she was wearing a tight white t-shirt, a denim miniskirt, and black high-heeled sandals with straps that crisscrossed over those long, long legs.
“That’s her,” I said. “You know her?”
“Oh, Nicolette? Sure I do,” the woman said. She poured me another generous three fingers of whiskey. “She’s a real doll. Just real sweet. Her family done raised her right.”
The fuck she is, I thought. She’s a fucking cunt and she’s gonna get the shit beaten out of her when I get her home, I thought. But instead, I smiled. “I’m sure she is,” I said with a wolfish grin. “How much do I owe ya?”
Five minutes later, I ducked out from the bar and into the fresh, dry sunshine of Main Street. The air was dusty and I could tell I was real high up in the mountains. Nicolette was walking ahead of me, real slow, almost like she was teasing me. She had long, shiny brown hair tucked into a loose braid and she moved differently than I’d seen her move around the Gods. For one thing, she seemed much more relaxed. Around the Gods, she’d always seemed a little controlled, a little robotic. I hadn’t noticed it at the time – none of us had – but, here, I could tell she was moving much more freely than she had before. Not for long, bitch, I thought as I watched her peer over to look in the window of a local shop. You better enjoy your last taste of freedom. Because you’re going back to Jack and he is not gonna be happy you decided to leave.
Nicolette trailed ahead on the sidewalk. She was the perfect victim to watch – she never even turned around. Most people would have been able to sense they were being watched, but not her. She poked her head in two or three local shops, finally buying a small bouquet of flowers and carrying them over to a car that looked like it had seen better days. Triumphantly, I recognized the car as one belonging to the Steel Gods and a shiver went through my body. I hadn’t known she’d stolen a car – for some reason, Jack hadn’t told me. A smile formed on my lips as she climbed behind the wheel and slowly drove out of sight.
They must have just had a real bad fight, I thought as I watched the taillights disappear. He probably called her a liar or a bitch or something, and she got real scared and took off. You can’t hit a woman now – they all leave. But she’s been with him for so long, I bet she really loves him. I grinned to myself. I was beginning to think of myself as almost a matchmaker type. Here I was, doing this errand for my boss. And maybe she wanted to get caught; if she hadn’t, she woulda changed her name or her hair or something else. Y’know, something to throw me off the trail.
But she hadn’t, and here I was.
Eventually, I loped back to my car and climbed behind the wheel. My ass was real sore from twelve hours on the road, but I knew I had to work fast. Durango was a small town and there weren’t many places where she could’ve gone. Finally, I spotted her car just on the edge of town, parked beside a rundown little cottage. The windows were open and the curtains were fluttering in the breeze. I parked on the street and watched like a hawk. Sure enough, I saw her prancing around in the kitchen not two minutes later. She’d put the flowers on a vase by the windowsill, and she looked like she was pacing back and forth on the floor. There was a serious expression on her face and her hands were wrapped around that slim belly of hers.
“Why so serious, Nicolette?” I asked softly as I watched her pace back and forth. She didn’t even look up as I continued to stare, feeling emboldened. “You thinkin’ about that fight you had with Jack? You worried about some other girl movin’ in and takin’ your place now?” I leaned out of the driver’s side window and spat on the ground. “You better worry, bitch,” I added softly. “You’re goin’ home soon. And Jack is not gonna be happy to see you.”