Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem Read online

  Inside the bag I could still hear everything. But I couldn’t see. The ride from Acapulco to Ciudad de Mexico was long and stifling.

  The kidnappers burst into the private top-floor lounge of Don Silvester’s nightclub in the Zona Rosa.

  “You’ve no right to enter here,” Don Silvester’s voice boomed with menace. “If you’re police, show me your badges.”

  To which the killers replied:

  “We don’ need no stinkin’ baggezz.”

  Then they threw open the two burlap sacks. And out rolled our five severed heads. My four dead brothers and me.

  Very funny, Raymondo. But there’s no voodoo involved.

  I wink at the studio audience.

  I’m here today because of a miracle of modern science.

  Truly I’ve enjoyed being on your show, Raymondo. I hope you’ll have me back, God willing.

  Adios.

  The audience breaks into a fierce round of applause. The studio band slides into Raymondo’s theme song. Two lab-coated attendants set my head back on the life-support machine and push me behind the curtain.

  Ideas of Murder in Southern Vermont

  May 20th is a good day to begin cutting the grass.

  —Old Farmers Almanac

  May 20. Ray, decked out in a faded Batman T-shirt, stands in comic book chiaroscuro, half in and half out of the dusky tool shed. The air is redolent with wood rot and grass cuttings. A robin struts across the greensward, a bushwhacked earthworm dangling like a miniature intestine from its beak. The sky is as blue as the eyes of a madman.

  From the corner of his eye, Ray catches movement in the kitchen window twenty-odd yards away. A hand pulling aside the lace curtain. Baby blues peering forth. It’s Gillian.

  Too late to fade into his lair, Ray stiffens. The screen door swings wide and Gillian emerges onto the back porch. An apron disguises the skimpy details of her sundress, ordered from the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Her reddish hair hangs in curlicues to her bare shoulders. A tropical fruit color taints her lips. Harlot, thinks Ray.

  “Your lunch is on the table,” she calls.

  He waves at her, pretending he can’t hear, his ears sealed with wax. His lips twist in the rictus of a smile. She smiles back at him. Fake as false teeth.

  “I’ve got to go to the supermarket and the hairdresser’s,” she announces.

  When Ray doesn’t respond, she turns back into the house. Behind her receding derriere, the screen door smacks shut.

  Stepping into the dim interior of the shed, Ray reaches down and gropes for the fifth of Old Crow hidden behind the gas can. Gasoline fumes slither up his nose like a flesh-eating amoeba, bringing a wave of nausea. He takes a long pull from the bottle. He knows that Gillian knows what he’s up to.

  After a second drink, Ray hoists up the waist of his belt-less khakis, reties the leather thongs of his deck shoes and strides across the lawn to the abandoned mower. It sits on the embankment above the drainage ditch that fronts the road. As he bends over to grip the starter rope, the screen door slams again. He turns his head to look. Everything is upside down.

  Gillian descends the steps from the porch and walks to the Camry, parked at an angle parallel to where Ray crouches, futzing with the mower. Without the apron, the décolletage of the sundress is revealed in all its wantonness. The hem comes barely halfway to her knees. As she lowers herself into the driver’s seat, the bleached-flour whiteness of her thighs momentarily flashes into view.

  His groin tightening with desire, Ray looks away. He knows she’s meeting someone in town.

  In his mind he sees a dingy room, a shadow-cloaked divan. On it, caught in the glow of a cigarette tip, an unknown pair of lips nibble the crook of her neck, while a predatory hand plays with virtuosic aplomb up the keyboard of her thighs.

  It’s not clear to Ray how he and Gillian end up in the drainage ditch. She’s beneath him. His knees dig inexorably into her bare arms, crushing them into the water and muck at the bottom of the ditch. Her head splashes from side to side trying to escape the pressure of his hands over her mouth and nose. Fear has turned her eyes into iridescent saucers. Mud and deep-green plants stain the paleness of her skin and the jaunty yellow design of the sundress.

  Ray shifts his position, abruptly easing the pressure on Gillian’s 112 pounds. She starts to sit up. But it’s a trick from his high school wrestling team days. In the next instant he flips her over onto her stomach. His hands press downward again, mashing her face into two inches of runoff. She makes gurgling sounds, her body heaving and quivering. After a while she becomes as still as stagnant water. A sprig of watercress is entwined in her scum-streaked hair.

  Ray’s hands absorb the vibration of the mower, as it trundles moronically across the lawn. He squeezes his eyes shut to relieve the sting of oozing sweat. Opening them, he squints at the sun. 2 p.m. When he glances down, he makes the disturbing discovery that his pants and shoes are neither wet nor mud-stained. Instead, he finds himself thinking that Gillian should be getting home soon. He kills the mower and walks over to the tool shed for some additional distilled refreshment.

  Ray’s Ford F-150 is parked in front of the Paul Revere statue at the lower end of the Southbury commons. The red brick buildings of the college clutter the hillside. A summer school student in a lime green see-through camisole meanders by. Ray smokes a cigarette and watches her with psychosexual interest. He has no recollection of how he or the truck got into town.

  Twombley’s Tap Room is located in the Millard Fillmore Hotel—parking in rear. Ray turns down the alley. Behind and below the Fillmore East, as it’s called by a few diehard hippies, is an open parking area covered in crushed stone. Wooden stairs of dubious pedigree wobble up to the ground floor of the hotel.

  Ray sees the Camry in the third slot from the end. He wants to pretend it belongs to someone else. There’s an open space right next to it, so he pulls in.

  Rex, the afternoon bartender at the Tap Room, nods. Ray nods back, walks to the bar and shakes loose a cigarette. Rex lights it. This is not a pickup move. Anything between them happened when they were on the wrestling team together back in high school. As Rex pours a jigger of Old Crow, his eyes travel in an arc toward the back of the room. Ray squints in that direction. He’s forgotten to put in his contacts.

  But there’s no mistaking Gillian’s cascading tresses and shapely arms. A guy flaunting a straw Stetson sits on the reverse side of the same booth. Ray edges his drink down the bar until he can make out the cowboy’s walrus mustache. When the cowpoke gets up to go to the john, he appears tall and lanky and dangerous.

  Ray waits until the ranch hand disappears through the swing door to the pissoir. Then crosses from the end of the bar to Gillian’s booth in a single bound. A Colt pistol with a pearl handle appears from somewhere. At the distance of twelve inches, it’s hard to miss, especially when you pull the trigger five times. Blood spatters everywhere.

  Dropping the gun, Ray turns and walks out of the bar. Rex nods again as he passes. No one moves to stop Ray’s exit.

  When the shots ring out, the cowboy pisses himself in the shoe. He stays in the men’s room until a buddy gives him the all clear.

  When he hears the Camry’s tires on the gravel driveway, Ray opens his eyes. It’s Gillian, back from town.

  He’s sitting in an Adirondack chair facing the setting sun. The empty Old Crow bottle is at his feet, but hidden in shadow. He stands and raises a hand.

  “Ray, honey, help me out with these groceries. Then I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  As he walks toward her, he notes there are no bloodstains on his khakis. Maybe I should lay off the hooch, he thinks.

  Gillian kisses him on the mouth. Her body pushes into his. As his tongue chases hers, she shoves him away; then does a half-assed pirouette.

  “Do you like my hair?”

  “Looks about the same.”

  “Ray, baby, how come you’re always such a fucking romantic?”

  She sets her gr
ocery bag on the table, shaking her head. Next she puts on the teakettle to boil.

  “Personally, I need a pick-me-up.”

  She waltzes into the dining room and comes back with a crystal tumbler half full of Cutty Sark, to which she adds ice. Gillian never has a drink, thinks Ray.

  By now the teakettle is roiling and tooting. His stomach suddenly queasy, Ray chooses a mint teabag. An ill omen.

  Ray sits at the table with its embroidered tablecloth made by some ancient relative of his or Gillian’s. Gillian sets the everyday teapot on the table. The scent of the mint steeping rises like a Levantine ghost. She sets a cup and saucer in front of him and a pitcher of cream.

  “I baked this morning. A chocolate cherry cake. Your favorite.”

  She puts the cake on the table. It’s fallen in the middle, like a subsidence above an old mineshaft. She cuts a huge piece and places it on a plate in front of Ray. Gillian never bakes, goes through his head, as he swallows the first bite. Gillian is staring at him. Waiting for something to happen.

  He carves out another large hunk of cake onto his fork.

  He knows, of course, that it’s spiked with a deadly poison that leaves no trace after five hours.

  The things we do for love, he thinks, as he chomps on the second bite and goes for the third.

  Drive By

  The girl strolling past the Delta Omega Alpha house—from whence Earl Thigpen gazes out an upstairs window—is attractive in a bordello sort of way. Big chest, tight tank top, rayon miniskirt extra short. Secondary details obtrude: blonde, wide mouth framed in black cherry lip gloss, expensive handbag, long legs with a hint of five o’clock shadow, faux-panther Minolo Blahnik shoes. It’s enough to make you pant and loll your tongue down to your chin.

  Thigpen imagines she’s on her way to her fancy sports car parked in the student garage.

  “Y’all wanta get some lunch?” he calls out on a whim in his slow-as-molasses Mississippi drawl.

  Her eyes roll vaguely in his direction.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  Holy cow! Thigpen thinks. A live one.

  He leaps to his feet, leaning his barrel chest across the windowsill, his head thrust into a thicket of leaves from the live oaks shading the front yard of the fraternity. Behind him his flipped-over chair spins like a top on one leg; then crashes to the floor.

  “Do you like French food?” he asks. Then: “Come in for a drink.”

  The woman, or girl, throws back her shoulders, tosses her golden tresses and saunters up the front walk.

  “I hope you have some ice-cold beer, cause it’s damn hot out,” she says.

  For an instant Thigpen stares at himself in the dresser mirror. Curly hair worn in a modified mullet. Last night’s heavy drinking evidenced by swollen cheeks. Romanesque nose broken twice from playing fullback in high school. Eager brown eyes looking the worse for wear. His clothes are frat boy prep: blue oxford-cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, stained khakis, scuffed Docksiders.

  Play it as it lays, he thinks, as he bounds down the stairs.

  She’s waiting on the front porch, with its six white-painted fake southern-style columns and rotting rattan furniture.

  Thigpen sticks his head out the French doors.

  “Heineken or Shiner?” he queries.

  Her black crow-like eyes consider Thigpen as if he’s a fat locust she might or might not choose to devour as an appetizer.

  “Heineken,” say her cherry-stained lips. “S’il vous plait.”

  Her French accent is as fake as a padded bra, but it’s all the same to Thigpen, who’s never been closer to Europe than a weekend trip to Atlanta for his brother’s wedding. He ducks back inside and dashes down the hall, past the mug shots of former Delta Omega Alpha SMU chapter presidents, to the ramshackle kitchen.

  The twin Heinekens he grabs from the beer cooler clink together like a pair of sterling ideas whose time has come. When he flicks off the caps, a puff of smoke erupts from each bottle like the denouement of a cheap magic trick.

  He rolls each green-glass bottle, already foggy with precipitation, in a paper napkin and hurries back up the hall. It seems like it’s taken an eternity to get all this done. But there she is sitting sidesaddle on the arm of the only Adirondack chair.

  With a shit-ass grin to beat all shit-ass grins, Thigpen hands her one of the beers.

  She draws it to her lips. For a second Thigpen thinks she’s going to French kiss the mouth of the bottle. But she just takes a long deep swallow.

  “My name’s Earl,” Thigpen says. “Earl Thigpen from Biloxi, Mississippi.”

  “Dandelion,” she says, holding out her hand. “Pleased to meet ya.” Her nails are the same deep purple as her lip gloss, but with little white edges the color of bass bait grubs.

  “Is that a family name?” Thigpen asks to make conversation.

  “Lord, I don’t know.” She pulls a handkerchief from her purse and uses it to mop her forehead. “But it sure is hot. Hot as Hades.”

  “You can say that again,” Thigpen says.

  A while later they’re in Dandelion’s silver Audi TT convertible. It drives like a wet dream. Thigpen can’t take his eyes off the lushness of her inner thighs, as she pumps the clutch in and out, maneuvering the uber-beast through lunchtime traffic.

  Instead of French food, they end up at a burger joint called Snuffer’s on Lower Greenville.

  “Sweet,” the parking valet says, as he hops in and revs the engine.

  “You take good care of my baby,” Dandelion warns him. “No scratches and no joy rides. I wrote down the mileage.”

  The attendant gives her a mock salute and guns the Audi down a narrow alley.

  “Asshole,” Dandelion mutters. Then flashes Thigpen a big smile and clutches at his arm. “I’m hungry as a horse.”

  Inside, Thigpen slips the maitre d’ a ten-spot. Instantly they’re shown to an outside table with an umbrella. A waitress in a halter-top, camouflage capris and grease-stained Vans brings fresh Heinekens and a pair of flyblown menus.

  Without looking at the menu, Dandelion orders them bacon jalapeno cheeseburgers, fried pickles and onion rings. The first round of beers are gone in less than 30 seconds. The waitress brings another.

  “So,” says Thigpen, “You’re from …”

  “Daddy was in the oil business.”

  “Ah.”

  “Mama had a breakdown right after she gave birth to yours truly.” Dandelion toys with a gold Zippo. “Never did recover. Daddy had to have her committed. After that there was a trail of gold diggers in and out of the master bedroom suite. Nearly broke my heart.”

  She looks wistfully at the traffic pounding up and down Greenville Avenue.

  “Then you got your trust fund and moved to Dallas.”

  “I wish that were true, Earl. But Daddy’s wells dried up a long while ago. I came to Dallas ’cause I couldn’t bear watchin’ him make a fool of himself any more.”

  “You’re doin’ graduate work at SMU?”

  She laughs and starts a fresh beer, the deep green surface of the bottle heavy with moisture like meadow grass in early morning.

  “Honey, I never finished high school. I was just killin’ time in the library. Lookin’ at magazines.”

  A giant question mark hangs behind Thigpen’s eyes. What’s up with this kitty?

  Before Thigpen can come to grips with his cautionary intimations, the cheeseburgers and sides arrive. A flurry of activity descends around their table. Condiments and extra napkins are delivered. And, of course, more beers.

  Thigpen and Dandelion dig in like there’s no tomorrow.

  When the last fried pickle is chomped, when the last onion ring is crunched, masticated and swallowed, Dandelion sits back and works a toothpick through her teeth with ladylike aplomb. When she’s done, she flicks it off the deck into the parking lot.

  Thigpen lights a cigarette he cadges off the maitre d’. Thigpen doesn’t usually smoke but they’ve had
six beers apiece and despite the grease and grilled steer he’s feeling a little lightheaded.

  “What if I told you I made all that up?” Dandelion asks.

  “All what up?”

  “You know. About Daddy and his oil wells and Mom goin’ into the loony bin. Even about reading magazines at the library.”

  “Well …” Thigpen ponders the burning end of his cigarette, the defaced wood surface of the picnic table. The phrase Jimmy loves L.D. pops out at him. Then: shit for brains.

  “I guess I’d think you were a little bit dangerous. Like a moccasin hidin’ in a clump of water hyacinths.”

  “Well, it’s all true,” she says. “Everything I’ve told you. As true as God’s word.”

  Dandelion stands up, brushing crumbs from the front of her skirt.

  “I need to pee.”

  As Thigpen watches her buxom long-legged departure, lust flares from his anterior hypothalamus, down his spine and into the tip of his dick.

  When he takes a sip of beer, it’s warm. He makes a face. Then realizes he desperately needs to take an elephant-sized whiz himself.

  At the bathroom doors Thigpen waivers; then pushes through the one marked as belonging to the opposite sex. Dandelion and another woman with chapped lips and rosy cheeks are just finishing up a quartet of crystalline lines of coke.

  Intimidated by Thigpen’s abrupt arrival, the other woman grabs her purse and leaves. Dandelion offers Thigpen the tightly rolled greenback. Shaking his head, he pushes past her into one of the stalls, where he pisses vehemently.

  Behind him Dandelion vacuums up the final line. When her hands circumscribe Thigpen’s cock, he lurches sideways against the wall of the stall, scrawled as it is with femme-focused graffiti. His tumescence soars. She raises one leg like an egret, places the raised foot sheathed in a Minolo Blahnik pump firmly on the rim of the toilet bowl and mounts him. After a dozen or so erratic but energetic thrusts, he finishes, gasping for breath.

  “Better than key lime pie?” she asks, adjusting her undies.