Charlie
I trailed Nicolette all week long. I was half-expecting her to leave town and try going somewhere else. Deep down, I dreaded that possibility. I knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do to Jack if she left, and I couldn’t handle that right now.
But thankfully, everything went pretty fuckin’ well, all things considered. Nicolette didn’t try shit – she stayed put, she went to work on time, she didn’t even go to lunch during the week. I watched her from a distance, carefully plotting my next move.
I couldn’t fuck with her car when she was at work. That was the first big problem. She parked in a big parking lot that was watched all day by a guard. And get this? The parking was free! I laughed my ass off the first time I saw that. After living in California for a while, believing that anything was free seemed pretty fuckin’ impossible. But that guard never left the lot, either, and I had a couple of days where I thought about trying to get rid of him.
I wouldn’t have known how to do it, though. He kept a close eye, and I didn’t think I could take out a man, then wait for Nicolette to leave and snatch her off the street. Durango was a small town, but as I’d learned over the years, sometimes small towns were harder to work in than bigger ones. In a small town, everyone knew everyone else’s business. Hell, your neighbor could probably tell everyone what kind of a shit you took after eating Mexican food. Big cities aren’t like that – they’re crowded, but anonymous. It’s easy to get away. It’s easy to hide.
So instead, I was stuck waiting for Precious Miss Nicolette to make another move.
Jack called me nearly every day, wanting to know how it was going, wanting to know if I’d bagged her yet. He got angrier and angrier each time we talked, but I promised him I had everything under control. I told him I was tailing Nicolette, sleeping during the day while she worked and then staying up all night watching her cottage. He always asked me if there were guys there, if she brought any men home, if she was fuckin’ anyone else.
I always, always told him no. Sometimes I wondered whether or not he’d find out what had happened. I’d gotten over the fear of Nicolette telling him. After all, if she hated him as much as she pretended, it was likely only a matter of time until she’d run off again. And then, obviously, I wouldn’t be able to go catch her. It would have to be some other innocent, some other man Jack needed a favor from.
On Saturday, I was shocked as hell to see Nicolette up and at ‘em before nine o clock in the morning. She’d always struck me as sort of a lazy girl – the kind of chick who stays in bed with girlie magazines all day, eating ice cream straight from the tub, like a fuckin’ pig. But instead she walked out to the car, dressed in a baggy shirt that hid that perfect figure and a pair of jeans. I waited until she was a block or so away before I followed her.
Nicolette turned out of town, and I felt my first real note of fear. If she tried running now, I wasn’t sure I could catch up. The car I was driving only had a pint of gas left, and I didn’t trust that bitch not to try losing me on the highway. So you can imagine my real intense relief when she pulled into a shopping center outside town. It was a real dumpy place, with some outdated supermarket, a dollar store, and a discount shoe place. But the final sign made me freeze right in my tracks.
It was a Planned Parenthood. And Nicolette, in her baggy fuckin’ shirt, was goin’ inside. My hands clenched the steering wheel and I screamed “God damn it!” as loud as I could. Fuck! This is bad. This is real, real bad. If she gets rid of that kid, Jack is going to fucking kill me. I’m going to be ruined. I’m gonna get kicked out of the Gods, and be homeless again. Fuck!
I knew right then and there I had no time to lose. As soon as Nicolette was inside, I pulled up next to her car and pulled my tools out of the back. I popped the hood and went to work. A few seconds later, I had the spark plugs disconnected, in my hand, with the wires fraying around. I grinned to myself – there was something so satisfying about doing what I’d just done, knowing I was smart enough to figure it out. Jack’s gonna be really proud of me, I thought. But when I thought back to Nicolette, crawling inside the building like some kind of human parasite, my brief feeling of cleverness with myself disappeared.
I was filled with anger, that felt strange and alien. I could have throttled Nicolette! She was carrying Jack’s child, the heir to the Steel Gods, and she was getting an abortion like some back-alley slut? I couldn’t fucking believe I’d slept with a woman who would do a thing like that. I shook my head as I slammed the hood to Nicolette’s car and pocketed the spark plugs.
At least this espionage shit was easier than I thought.
As soon as I was done with the car’s “maintenance,” I climbed back into my car and sped away towards the nearest gas station. I had to be close when Nicolette would inevitably call and ask me for a ride. My lips curled into a smile. Oh, I’ll give her a ride all right, I thought as I cruised down the road. I’ll give her a ride she’s never gonna forget.