John Locke - Vegas Moon

“Funny. But seriously.”

“You’re awfully nosey.”

“I’m the bodyguard.”

“Tina the housekeeper, and sometimes Maddie.”

We stop. She opens a door and says, “This is the theater room. Nice, huh?”

“It certainly is. Who’s Maddie?”

“Maddie’s my girlfriend.”

“When you say ‘girlfriend’…”

“She and I have sex, while Lucky watches.”

“Does she happen to be here today?” I ask.

“Aren’t you the eager beaver?” she says.

“I was just taking inventory.”

“Of course you were.” She closes the theater room door, and leads me to the next one. “This goes to the garage, home of Dick the Rooster.”

She opens the door and waits for me to enter.

“After you,” I say.

“Aren’t you the gentleman!”

Not really. I was afraid if the rooster was running around loose, it might fly up and attack me. If one of us has to take a cock to the face, I’d prefer it was her.

13.

There’s no need to worry about Dick. He’s locked in a giant cage that’s six feet high, four feet deep, and takes up half the wall.

“Beautiful, isn’t he!” she says, practically breathlessly.

I don’t know much about roosters, but this one is probably as handsome and clean as they get. He’s white, with a giant, black plume of a tail, and his head and neck sport that red rooster skin thing they all have that looks like a punk rocker’s spiked hair above the beak, and a giant set of nuts below. It’s a generally nasty look. Freaky, up close.

“He’s quite a specimen,” I proclaim, for lack of anything better to say.

“While we’re here,” Gwen says, “we ought to go ahead and walk him.”

“Walk him?”

She looks into my eyes. “Unless you think it’s too dangerous.”

I look into hers. They’re mud brown, but far prettier than that sounds. “We’ll be fine,” I say.

Her smile is so sudden and radiant, it takes me by surprise.

“What?” I say.

“You’re really tough, aren’t you? I mean, you’re the real deal.”

“You think?”

Gwen launches a punch to my face, which I easily catch in my hand. She smiles and says, “I know it.”

She crosses the floor to a small sink, turns on the water, and lets it run long enough to warm. Next, she gets a cotton ball from a container and wets it with warm water. She removes the bird from the cage, holds it upside down and starts stroking it with the cotton ball.

“What are you doing?”

“Dick hasn’t peed today.”

“So?”

“If you rub a warm, moist cotton ball on his genitals, it stimulates him to pee.”

I think about telling her I haven’t peed since early this morning.

Gwen waits a moment, then frowns.

“Maybe the walk will help him pee,” she says. She fits him with a harness and attaches a leash to it. Then she pops the garage door open, and starts to leave.

“Shouldn’t we lock the door?” I say.

“Probably. Punch in 5197, then hit “Enter.”

I do as instructed, and we stroll down the driveway, walking her rooster.

“You know what I call this?” she says.

“The cock walk?”

Gwen smiles. “How’d you know?”

“Nothing else would be quite right.”

“Exactly.”

It takes much longer than I would have thought to walk a rooster to the end of the driveway. As we approach the gates, the gate goons puff themselves up to impress her. But Gwen doesn’t seem to notice, or at least, pretends not to. We pass by them, stand on the road a few minutes, then turn around and head back to the garage.

“Does he crow every morning at dawn?” I ask.

“Do you kill someone every morning at dawn?” she says, testily.

I think briefly about the five I killed this morning, but decide hers is a rhetorical question.

“Did I offend you by asking that?” I say.

“It’s just a stupid question.”

“Don’t roosters crow in the mornings?”

“No more than any other time. It’s a myth.”

“You sure about that?”

“Quite.”

We walk some more. Then I say, “What’s that red stuff on his head and neck?”

“Wattles and comb.”

“And the red-and-white part?”

“His earlobes. You don’t know much about roosters, do you, Mr. Creed?”

She could have said cocks, for shock value. But something tells me we’ve moved past that now.

“Please. Call me Donovan.”

She stops short.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

She turns and nods toward the two muscle heads guarding the gate. “Could you take them down without a gun?”

I don’t even look up. “Yes.”

“Both of them? At the same time?”

“I doubt one would stand still while I kill the other.”

We start walking again, only now she’s walking much closer to me.

14.

“How much do you charge?”

“What, to guard Lucky?”

We’re back in the kitchen. It’s four p.m. Gwen has just polished off beer number four.

“To kill someone.”

“Depends on the job.”

“In general.”

“Each job is different.”

We’re sitting across the table from each other. Gwen is twisting her hair with her thumb and index finger. She’s not drunk, but not sober, either. She’s in that middle zone, where endless possibilities reside. Tipsy enough to exude sensuality, but sober enough to know what she’s doing. And saying.

“So,” she says. “If I hired you to kill one of the guards out front, what would it cost me?”

“Nothing.”

She perks up. “What do you mean?”

“I’m on the clock. I’d kill them both for free, if they tried to hurt you or Lucky.”

“Oh,” she says. Then says, “But say they weren’t trying to hurt us. Say I just wanted one of them dead?”

“I’d need a reason,” I say.

“I thought hit men killed ’cause it’s their job.”

“We kill for lots of reasons. I’m one of those who never used to ask questions.”

“And now you do?”

“Depends on the client.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re what, twenty years old?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if you were twice that, I probably wouldn’t need a reason.”

Her eyes widen just enough to show I offended her. But not too much.

“Are you saying I’m not mature enough to make that decision?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“But if I had a good reason?”

“I’d do it.”

She nods. “For how much?”

“Those guys at the gate?”

“They’re pretty tough,” she says. “Lucky wouldn’t have hired them if they weren’t.”

I nod. “Ten.”

“Ten thousand?”

“No. Cents.”

Gwen’s smile blooms before my eyes, and spreads across her face.

She says, “Would you be offended if I gave you a real kiss right now?”

“You mean here, at the table?”

“For now.”

“What about Lucky?”

“He’ll have to wait for his kiss.”

“The answer is no.”

Her smile fades. “Why not?”

“I meant no, I wouldn’t be offended.”

She smiles again, climbs into the chair next to mine, puts her arms around me, and gives me a long, slow, hot-breathed kiss. When she pulls away, her face is flushed. She stands and says, “That was nice, Donovan.”

“Nicer for me, I expect.”

“Maybe,” she says. “And maybe not.”

With that, she turns toward the opposite hall.

“Where are you off to?” I ask.

She stops, turns around. “My bedroom.”

“A nap?”

“Eventually. First, I’m going to lock the door, remove my clothes, climb into bed, and, um…think… about what just happened.”

“Wow! I hate to miss that!”

She smiles. “Disregard any gasps you might hear.”

“Maybe you should leave the door unlocked. You know, in case you need help.”

“The area I plan to focus on is very small. I think I can handle it myself.”

This time when she turns, she keeps walking until she’s out of view. A moment later, I hear a door close. I take a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

Then I start searching the house.

15.

I don’t see Gwen again till 8:15 p.m., when she enters the kitchen, dressed to kill.

“Wow!”

“The one word a woman loves to hear when she dresses up,” she says.

“Again, then. Wow!” And I meant it.

“Zip me up in the back?” she says sweetly, turning away from me.

She’s wearing a simple black sweater with the sleeves rolled up to just above the elbows, tucked into a black, pleated skirt, and fire-engine red boots with black heels that have rhinestone strips attached over the toe, and above the upper ankle. The boots stop mid-calf, leaving plenty of leg showing. I move behind her and pull the material toward me enough to peek down her back.

“You cad!” she says.

“That word is way too old for you,” I say.

“Nevertheless, it applies.”

“How so?”

“Come on, Donovan. We both know you were checking to see if I had panties on.”

“Guilty. Sorry.”

“That’s all right. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t want to see.”

“Why?”

“It’s a girl thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand enough to know it isn’t easy matching panties to those boots.”

She spins around and finds herself quite close to me.

“You’ll have to back away quickly,” Gwen says, “or I’ll wind up smearing my lipstick.”

I take a couple of steps back, reluctantly. I don’t know what it is about this young woman that’s getting to me. Yes, she’s beautiful. Enticing. But there’s more. She’s incredibly sensual, in a bad girl sort of way. Not “hooker sensual,” or “prison bad.” More like: college girl-who’s-fucking-her-dad’s-business-partner bad. She heads to the fridge to get one last beer before we leave for the airport.

“Want one?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t drink much, do you.”

“I’m a bourbon guy.”

“You should’ve said. Would you like one now?”

“Maybe later.”

Gwen twists the top off and takes a long swallow. When she looks back at me, I ask, “How well did you know Phyllis?”

“Phyllis the Willis?” She shrugs. “Phyllis did some work on me. Boobs, chemical peel, laser hair removal. Mostly I spent time at the spa. I mean, we spoke, but she didn’t like me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Because?”

“I think it’s because she was fucking Lucky.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know for sure. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Why not?”

“She seriously didn’t like me. Always made me feel uncomfortable. I hate to say it, but I’m glad she’s dead.”

“Because she didn’t like you?”

“Because they were always together. She was on the board of that company, Ropic Industries, and Lucky’s the major stockholder.”

“Is the stock doing well?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

I suddenly hear something, and jump to the side of the kitchen door.

“What?” Gwen says.

“Someone’s coming in the back. Duck behind the counter!”

I crouch, ready to strike.

“Relax, killer. It’s Tina.”

Turns out it is Tina, the housekeeper, returning from wherever she’d been all afternoon. Gwen introduces us and tells her which bedroom I’ll be camping in tonight. Tina immediately grabs some sheets from the laundry room and heads toward the bedroom that’s situated between Gwen’s bedroom and the kitchen.