FIVE
ALL-AMERICAN SCRAMBLER
FIX
If she hadn’t been so obviously distressed and sorry for herself in the parking lot, I wouldn’t have agreed to drive her anywhere. But when Sera looked at me like I was her only hope, and she’d asked me for help, I’d fucking caved. Hopeless. I shouldn’t have still been hanging around Liberty Fields. It was a miracle that two jobs had converged, miraculously right on top of one another. I should have completed both of them already and been on my way back to New York, but…
I was distracted.
Sera had thoroughly distracted me, and I wasn’t ready to give her up just yet. That made me cruel, and wicked, and evil, and a thousand other things including stupid, but I’d never faltered before. I’d never dropped the ball. I wasn’t going to now. I was entitled to a little fun, though.
That was what I told myself.
A long time ago, people used to ask me for help all the livelong day. It had been my job to help people, and I used to like doing it. A lot had changed since then. I’d lost myself, not to mention my soul, on the road about ten thousand miles ago, and I’d never turned back to find either. I should have gotten into my truck and driven away from Sera and her destroyed car just now, but…I just couldn’t. I’d liked the way my name sounded on her lips. It had been hotter than fuck hearing her panting it over and over into my ear last night. And so what if I wanted to hear her say it a couple more times before I ended this? She was different. I got the sneaking suspicion that she was more than a little broken inside. She’d obviously been through hell at some point, but the flames had forged her, not burned her to ash. In a lot of ways, she reminded me of Monica.
I hadn’t slashed her tires. I had no idea who the fuck had done it, but I wanted to pat them on the back and also shove a whittled down toothbrush through each of their eyeballs for creating this situation, that was already seriously complicated enough.
I’d changed out of my wet running gear and dressed in something a little more murder-appropriate—black pants, black shirt, black leather driving gloves and a ball cap—before heading out to Franz Halford’s auto mechanic’s shop. As I piloted my way through a network of roads that bore a closer resemblance to swamps than highways, kind of enjoying the huge spray that went up from both front tires whenever I went through a particularly deep patch of standing water, I counted no less than three overturned vehicles, sitting on their roofs, waiting to be hauled out of ditches and away from the medians.
At the turn off I needed to take in order to reach the auto shop, a row of power lines had collapsed, and a confusion of cables, tangled and sparking, were causing havoc for passing drivers, who couldn’t quite figure out how to circumnavigate them without electrocuting themselves and dying horribly. A large woman with a tabby cat tucked under her arm, wearing a bright yellow waterproof jacket, seemed to be trying to direct the traffic, but she didn’t seem to know what she was doing either, so I wheeled around her and the fast growing line of cars and made the turn regardless.
Idiots.
I’d allowed my phone to go dead last night—there was nothing more distracting than an irate woman sending you a thousand text messages when you were trying to fucking come—but I’d plugged it in to charge when I climbed into the truck. The screen finally lit up as I took a left and pulled into the cluttered parking lot of Halford’s Family Auto and Lube, and I braced myself for a litany of messages from Monica. Nothing came through, though. Nothing at all. That was fucking weird. She’d said she needed me to call her immediately, and when Monica said immediately, she meant yesterday. Her patience was wearing thin with me, I knew that, but fuck me if she didn’t make my life harder. I was used to having her around now. I was used to her panicked outbursts, and her need for me to check in every day. I should probably have cut her loose by now, but it wasn’t that easy. I didn’t really have the right to do that to her, either.
The rusting, spray-painted roller shutters that fronted Halford’s Family Auto & Lube were still firmly shut and very locked, and a huge, fat, tarnished padlock was glinting in the weak early morning light. Didn’t look like Franz was an early riser. Didn’t look like anyone was at the shop at all, though it was really fucking hard to tell with all the decrepit vehicles that were sitting the parking lot. Given all of the dirt, corrosion, smashed glass and bald tires, it was hard to imagine any of the cars were running, but who fucking knew…
Across the street, the neon ‘open’ sign of a dingy looking café flickered to life, causing a red glow to be reflected across the surface of the family-sized swimming pool that had formed in café’s parking lot. Hot Donuts! Fresh coffee! All American Scrambler Breakfast! I read the sign in the window, not really paying much attention. The food would be shit. The coffee would be shit. Their donuts had probably been gathering dust and rat crap sprinkles for days, but I still got out of the truck, popped the collar of my jacket, shoved my hands in my pockets and ran across the now empty road. My socks were soaked in less than a second.
From inside the diner, I had a perfect view of the auto shop; there’d be no chance I’d miss the comings and goings of one Franz Halford from the booth I selected right in the window, so I sat my ass down on the cracked and peeling faux leather seat and pretended to read the sticky laminated menu that was propped between the salt and pepper shakers on the table in front of me. The garish, very badly taken, very unappealing photos of limp toast and rubbery eggs did nothing to inspire hunger in me. Committing homicide was usually something I liked to do on an empty stomach—things had a way of getting really fucking messy, after all. People shit themselves. They vomited. They bled all over the goddamn place. I’d learned my lesson in the past: food was never a good idea when the potential for bodily fluids was so high. I ordered a black coffee from a pimple-faced waiter when he finally decided to come over and check on me, and that was it. The poor bastard seemed disappointed.
An hour passed, and the caffeine in my veins began to make me antsy. Normally, patience was one of my strong points. I mean, the last job I’d done required me to hunker down for five hours in a forest, amongst the leaf litter and dead tree branches for my quarry to come along, and that hadn’t fazed me one bit. Waiting for Franz Halford this morning was hell on earth, though, and I knew why. It was her fault. Sera’s. God, her mouth really had been so fucking perfect, pouting, wrapped around my hard dick. And when she’d turned over and presented her ass to me, I’d known I was in fucking trouble. My job was now almost impossible, because I’d been stupid enough to think with my dick. Sera oozed sex appeal from every pore of her beautifully crafted, stunning fucking body. She welcomed a good fucking with every sideways glance she sent you, but she did so unintentionally, without expectation or any true knowledge that she was even doing it. Basically, she was the living embodiment of everything that turned me on. And I was still fucking turned on. My dick hadn’t stopped raging since last night—it had still been hard enough to crack concrete this morning when I’d woke up. I’d had to run in the pissing rain just to stop myself from sliding my fingers inside her while she slept. Even now, sitting in the booth, being handed lukewarm, disgusting coffee in a very dirty cup by a teenager who looked like he might not be all that clean himself, my cock was throbbing like a pulsing beacon.
The way she’d hesitantly wrapped her hand around me…
The way her eyes had flashed when she’d squeezed and felt how thick and ready I was…
The way she’d inadvertently wet her bottom lip with the pink tip of that delicate little tongue of hers…
Shit. I needed to go jerk off in the bathroom. These kinds of thoughts would do nothing but claw at my mind, demanding my attention, distracting me from the task at hand, and this wasn’t a line of work you could bumble your way through. I needed to be sharp. Focused. Single minded. So long as Sera Lafferty’s pretty pink pussy fogging my brain, I’d never be able to get anything done.
Getting up, I rearranged my cock in my pants to avoid any embarrassment, and then made my way into the restrooms. They were clean, at least, and smelled faintly like lemon. Plenty of paper towels. I grabbed a couple and locked myself into a stall, dropping my pants and pressing a hand against the back wall. I could make myself come in less than a minute if I wanted to. The memory of last night, of Sera looking so perfect and frankly fucking edible, deserved more respect than that, though. I worked my hand up and down the shaft of my cock slowly at first, relishing the pressure and the buzz of pleasure that began to tingle at the base of my dick. Fuck, that felt good. Not as good as Sera’s mouth, but still…
I stroked faster, sucking in a deep breath and holding it inside my chest. She looked so fucking hot this morning, her hair damp and curling at the ends, her dark eyes flashing with rage as she realized what someone had done to her car. Her shirt had been tight and a little wet from the rain; the very first thing I’d noticed when she’d lowered her window to scowl at me was her tight nipples, poking out of the material at me. I’d taken them into my mouth last night. I’d licked and I’d sucked them. I’d pinched and rolled them, knowing all too well that Sera would enjoy the frisson of pain racing between her breasts and her cunt.
God, she’d opened up so nicely for me. She’d smelled so fucking good. Her pussy juice had coated more than just my cock; I’d reveled in the silky feeling of her excitement between the pad of my thumb and my index finger. Next time, I was going to lap at her like a hungry dog, and I was going to go back for seconds.
I sucked in a fresh lungful of oxygen, holding that one in my chest, too. My mind transported me back to the moment when I was about to thrust into Sera for the first time, and my balls tightened, my cock pulsing in my hand. The tip glistened with pre-cum, and I couldn’t help it. I imagined her on her knees, her hands wrapped around my shaft, the tip of her tongue darting between her lips as she gently licked the clear fluid from me, and my legs threatened to bail on me.
Fuck, it was wrong of me, but I wanted her again. Last night should never have happened, but it did, and now? Urgh. I was never going to stop wanting her. I should complete my work and go. I should just do what I came here to do and get the fuck out of here, but that was thing about should, though. People rarely ever paid any heed to something they should do. Should was rear-view mirror knowledge, a right hand turn that you could still see over your shoulder if you turned around far enough to catch it out of the corner of your eye. The turning was still there. You could still make it, if you performed an emergency one-eighty and headed back in the opposite direction. But somehow your foot always stayed on the gas, pressing you toward disaster, and there was nothing you could do about it.
I wasn’t going to leave Sera here in Liberty Fields today. I was going to collect her from the motel as soon as my task was complete, and then it was inevitable. I was going to fuck her again. I was going to charm the ever-loving shit out of her, and she was going to be laid flat on the back seat of the truck, panting, digging her fingernails into my back all over again. And I was going to love every second of it.
God, it was so wrong…
I screwed my eyes shut, changing out my breath again, biting down on the inside of my cheek as I felt myself slipping and sliding toward oblivion. My hand was coated with pre-cum now, slick with the viscous fluid, which made running my hand up and down all the more enjoyable. It was easy to pretend that I was fucking her. It was easy to imagine I was pushing myself into her hot, wet, slick pussy. Too easy. I tipped my head back, straining as I teetered on the brink of coming, holding it back for as long as I could.
Her eyes, though…
Her mouth.
Her hands.
Her breasts.
Her spread thighs, and the fragile, pale pink between her legs, redder and darker where I slid myself inside of her…
Fuck…
Oh, fuck…
No way I was going to be able to hold it back. I opened my mouth and blasted out the air inside my lungs, making sure the roar that escaped me was a silent, wordless one. My cock throbbed once, twice, three times as I came, sending out jets of hot, white ejaculate that hit the wall behind the toilet. My vision danced. I’d come hard last night, I’d expected it then, but now, jerking off? It shouldn’t have felt that fucking good. It shouldn’t have felt so fucking incredible that I lost control and blew my load all over a motherfucking breezeblock wall. What the fuck was that?
I felt a little unsteady as I wiped myself off and put my dick away. My legs were jelly, and the back of my neck was burning, hotter than usual, the tips of my ears prickling with pins and needles. For a second I considered leaving my come running down the wall, but then I thought better of it. Leaving considerable deposits of DNA lying around was one thing, but when you were about to commit a crime directly across the street? Yeah, that wouldn’t have been the smartest move on my part. Took me a minute to do away with my mess, and another thirty seconds to wash my hands, straighten up my hair and my jacket, and then I exited the bathroom and went to locate my coffee.
Sitting opposite my booth, another customer had come in while I was busy in the back cleaning my rifle. I recognized him the moment I laid eyes on him, but my expression and my body language didn’t change. The world had shifted, but to the acne ridden server and the balding, overweight guy sitting at the bar, squinting at a menu, everything appeared completely normal.
“I’ll take the pancakes, Jason. And make sure Herb doesn’t skimp on the syrup this time. Last time I ordered ‘em, they came out drier’n my grand mammy’s cooter.”
Jason blanched a little—probably was a good church-going boy. Probably only heard words like cooter and references to them being dry when he was here, working in this shithole. Franz Halford didn’t seem to realize he’d made the boy uncomfortable, though. He dropped the menu down on the counter and pulled a tin of tobacco, popping the lid and thumbing a small amount of its contents underneath his top lip. Why was I not surprised the guy dipped? Such a gross, nasty habit. I enjoyed a cigarette more often that I should, but shoving that shit directly into your mouth made me want to gag.
I’d been careful not to make eye contact with Franz as I sat down and settled myself back in the booth, picking up my coffee mug and taking a sip. I was a fucking professional, for god’s sake. I’d given him absolutely no reason to talk to me whatsoever, but when Jason, the server, turned around and went to hand in Franz’s order to the kitchen, the miserable fucker turned around on his stool and grinned at me, a flash of brown liquid running over his teeth as he did so.
“How you enjoyin’ this here weather?” he asked. Then he did something I just could not fathom. He turned his head and he spat on the floor. I’d just been flinging my come around in the bathroom like a deranged monkey that couldn’t stop touching its own junk, but this was far, far worse. This was fucking unforgiveable.
I hid my disdain. I hid my violence—the violence that lived under my skin at all times, begging to be unleashed. I hid the fact that I wanted to pull out the gun I had resting in a holster in the small of my back at that very same moment we sat there. I plastered a broad smile on my face that said, Hey! I’m utterly enamored by your authentic Southern charm and I am abso-fucking-lutely thrilled that you decided to talk to me, kind sir. “We sure as hell don’t get rain like this where I’m from,” I announced. To a trained ear, the laughter I forced out of me next might possibly have sounded a little manic and unhinged, but Franz didn’t bat an eyelid. He pointed to the bench opposite me in the booth, waggling his bushy eyebrows up and down.
“You want some company while you have your mornin’ Joe, or you wanna be left alone? I don’t mind either way. I just thought you might like to enjoy some of the local color, seein’ as how y’ain’t from ‘round here and all.”
I gestured to the seat opposite and shrugged a shoulder, shaking my head. “Please. Be my guest.”
Halford slid from his stool, hiking his baggy, stained jeans up on one side, though the action was pointless. His belly was sticking out from beneath the hem of his Budweiser t-shirt, and hanging over his waistband at the same time—no matter how many times he pulled his pants up, there was no way his considerable belly was going to allow them to stay up. The man grunted like a walrus as he lowered himself down into the seat, then removed his sweat-rimmed baseball cap and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, before returning the cap to the crown of his head.
“I gotta say, people tell me I’m pretty good at figurin’ where people are from, sir. I can identify an accent from the other side of a crowded room, and I’m pretty sure I got you pegged. I’d be willing to bet good money that you’re from Minnesota or the like.” Franz’s eyebrows were more than bushy. They were like furry caterpillars that had crawled up onto his forehead and had the misfortune to get stuck there. I couldn’t stop staring at them—mostly grey, with a stripe of ginger in the center of each. Weird.
“I am from Minnesota! That’s really damn impressive,” I told him, taking another mouthful of coffee. Fuck knows who’d said he was good with accents, but they were dead fucking wrong. The Minnesotan accent bore absolutely no resemblance to the thick Chicago accent I was putting on just for him. Screw it. Let him believe what he wanted to believe. From the powerful waves of Jack Daniels that were wafting across the table, and the loose, watery grin on Franz’s face, there was a high probability that the guy was still drunk from last night. It was best not to antagonize half-drunk people by disagreeing with them.
“You were in the army, weren’t you?” Franz says, his eyes glazing over a little. “You got that look about you.”
“And what look would that be?” I say, smiling easily: a lie, a trick, a trap. A spider weaving his web with practice and ease.
“Back’s too straight for a civilian. And your eyes are quick,” he told me, scratching at the red scruff on his chin. “You’re looking at everything here, figuring it all out.”
I lowered my head—a show of deference—laughing a little under my breath. “Sad to say, I’ve never served. Wish I had, though. I’d probably have gotten a lot out of it when I was younger.”
Franz nodded enthusiastically, then spat on the floor again. Urgh. Bastard. “I was in the army for fifteen years,” he said. “Best years of my life, too. Protected the freedom of my fellow American citizens. Got to see the world. And got my dick sucked more times’n I can count!” He slapped the table, eyes disappearing into slits as he burst out laughing, his belly spilling over onto the table.
This was getting worse and worse by the second. Things would have been far simpler if I’d run into Franz over at the auto shop; now the piece of shit was ordering breakfast, and I was going to have to sit here with him until he fucking finished.
No.
Just no.
Completely ignoring his last statement, I stabbed a finger out of the window at the shop across the street, frowning slightly. “Hey, friend? I don’t suppose you know if that auto place is gonna open today? My truck’s making a rattling noise. I’m a little worried about driving it in this weather without getting it checked out first.”
Franz sat back in his seat, puffing his chest out with an unreasonable amount of pride. “That place most definitely is going to open up today. I’m Franz Halford. I own the place.” He thrust out his hand toward me, waiting for me to shake it, face split open with a grin, like he’d just surprised me with the biggest secret known to man or something. I shook, unhappy about the contact, feigning amusement to rival Franz’s.
“That’s well met, then. I’m lucky to have run into you. All the other places in town are closed.”
Franz pulled a face, waving me off with an unsteady flick of his wrist. “Those motherfuckers over at Dimson’s are criminals, man. Fucking immigrants. Don’t speak a word of English between ‘em. They ain’t ever open before midday, and when you do catch ‘em open, they’ll over change you by a couple’a hundred bucks every single goddamn time. It’s unchristian is what it is.”
A shiver of annoyance raced down my spine, but once again I managed to hide my reaction to the grotesque human being in front of me. “Then I really will consider myself lucky. Listen,” I said, making a show of looking down to glance at my watch. “I heard you ordering breakfast and all, but I was wondering…I’m in a serious hurry. If I picked up your tab here and shot you an extra hundred bucks for accommodating me, would you get your food to go and come cast an eye over my engine for a second? It’s probably nothing, I’m probably being overly cautious, but I just wanna make sure…”
Franz narrowed his eyes at me, looking me up and down. “A hundred bucks and you pay for my breakfast, on top of the assessment fee for looking at your vehicle?” He pronounced the H in vehicle—one of my pet peeves. I nodded, though, continuing to smile.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, alright then. I ain’t gonna argue with you, mister. What’s your name again?”
“Ray. Ray Sheraton.”
“Ohh, like them there hotels? You own any’a those things? Jason! Put my damn pancakes in a box! We’re leaving!” He lost half the sodden tobacco from his mouth when he pivoted toward the counter, suddenly yelling at the server, who I’d decided I now felt sorry for. Jason didn’t know which way to turn first as he hurried from one end of the diner to the other, first collecting Franz’s food from the service hatch, and then up and down as he clearly scrambled to locate a to-go box.
I paid the kid, Franz took his pancakes and a two-liter bottle of coke, and we headed over to the auto shop. I saw more than a couple of inches of Franz’s ass crack as he stooped to unlock the roller shutters. Once we were inside and Franz had opened the side door to the shop, he hiked up his pants again, hawking to clear his throat, and he pointed out into the parking lot, in the direction of my truck. “Shall we take a look at it, then?”
“Actually, I wanted to ask you a question first, if that’s okay?”
“Sure thing, Ray. Ask away.”
“Does the name Holly Shoji mean anything to you?” I watched as Franz’s expression transformed itself into something wary at first, and then something hard and unfeeling.
“I’m sorry, boss. Doesn’t ring a bell.” The lie was as obvious as the broken capillaries at the end of his nose. He wasn’t even trying to convince me he didn’t know Holly’s name. There was disgust in his eyes as he started to shuffle past me out of the garage. “I have a busy morning, too. If you want me to look at your truck, let’s get on with it. If not, I’m afraid we’re gonna have to save the chit chat for another day.”
Sidestepping, I blocked his path, preventing him from walking outside. It took all of a second to lean over to the wall and hit the switch on the wall—the switch that lowered the roller shutters back down again. Franz studied me with ice in his eyes, assessing me from head to toe.
“You sure you wasn’t in the military?” he asked, taking a step back.
“Nope. I never joined up. I thought about it, like I said, but my father had other ideas. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”
“And what did he do?” Franz muttered in an airy tone. It was funny how many times people did this—acted like nothing untoward was happening, when something clearly was happening. As if, should he keep his voice free from aggression and hostility or panic, I would be held at bay, unaware that a situation was developing, and he would somehow be able to distract me while he escaped. There would be no distracting me, though. No escape, either. I watched calmly as Franz fumbled with his left hand, reaching out for a tire iron that was sitting on top of a messy workbench.
“He was a priest,” I said, glancing down lazily to inspect my fingernails.
Franz nearly tripped over his own feet as he tried to back away from me. “So you’re Catholic, then. Like me.”
“Oh, we’re nothing alike, Franz. We’re not even the same species. See, I did follow in my father’s footsteps. I studied. I became a priest, just like my father wanted me to, and I learned many things. I learned that the Catholic Church doesn’t believe in brutally raping people just because they don’t share your skin color, or your belief system.”
Franz’s eyes were wide now. His fear was plain to see, but there was something else there, too: hatred. So much anger and hatred. He didn’t agree with what I was saying. Didn’t care for it one little bit.
“If you’re a priest, then what are you doing here, Ray? Shouldn’t you be tending to your flock?”
I smirked, reaching not for the gun in the holster at my back, but for something a little more fun. Something a little sharper. Something a little more…wicked.
“I was a priest,” I said, flipping over the heavy, serrated combat knife I was now holding. “I was a priest for a quite a while. And then I realized something. Wanna know what I realized?”
Franz shook his head, his jowls wobbling all over the place. “No, man. No. Just go. Get the fuck out of my shop. That filthy little whore deserved everything she got. She didn’t belong here. She was taking money from the government to study. And when she finished that course, what then? She was gonna take a job that belonged to a fucking American, man! We’re just lettin’ ‘em waltz in here and take everything from us. I showed that bitch we weren’t all gonna take it lying down. That she was gonna have to take something lying down, too, if—”
I tilted the blade from left to right in my hand, peering into the highly reflective surface of the weapon as if mesmerized by its beauty. “I realized I wasn’t really helping anyone by spritzing them with holy water and shoving bread into their mouths every Sunday. I realized… I didn’t believe anymore. I realized there were better ways to help save people, so I picked up this knife, and I decided to take matters into my own hands. Just like I’m about to do right now.”