Too Wylde (2 page)

"Hello?" I said.

A long pause.

"Jimmy John," a familiar voice said. "How you
be, Infantry?"

"Who is this?"

"How many people call you Johnny, Jimmy John?
Jimmy John Alexander Wylde. But only to your friends."

I felt as though someone had stuck an ice
cold knife in my gut and twisted it.

"Who the fuck is this?"

Wheezy laughter. "See you soon, Jimmy John.
We got that...thing to take care of. Nice to hear you again. You
sound different on the phone."

Click.

Thieu, the bartender, looked up from the bar
sink. "Jimmy? Who that? You okay?"

I set the phone down, carefully, in the
charger.

"Jimmy?" Thieu said.

I said to Big Dick: "I'm going for a walk.
Anybody calls again, just take a message, tell 'em I'll be back
shortly."

"What..." Big Dick started.

I held up a hand and walked outside.

Dusk. Early summer in Lake City. Clear, no
humidity to speak of yet. Busy streets, night life warming up,
people going home from the Lakes, dropping their bikes and
rollerblades and running gear off and trading up for the mating
dance threads.

Plenty of passerby, chatting, looking in
windows. Any of them watching me? Hard to tell if they'd been set
up before I came out. I took my phone, hit speed dial.

Deon answered on the second ring. "Oi,
Oke?"

"Got a problem, bro."

"Don't we all?" He laughed. "What kind?"

"Your favorite kind."

"Well, then. Come heavy?"

"Yeah. Sweep the street. You'll need some
more bodies."

"I'll bring the live ones and find a place
for the dead."

"There's that."

"You don't sound well, oke."

"I just spoke to the dead."

That brought a long silence.

"Well, Oke," Deon said. "That's a first for
me. I'll be there."

"Thanks, Deon."

"Have a drink and this story ready."

"Yep."

I stared up at the dark growing in the sky
and remembered a mountain side in Afghanistan.

Jimmy John, help me, brah...Jimmy...

Lance T.

Lance T perched on an extra-tall spindle leg
kitchen stool in front of a full length mirror. Behind him, a tall
naked brunette, swollen silicon breasts and skinny legs, carefully
scraped a safety razor through the white foam on his back.

"Careful," he said.

"Sorry, Lance," the stripper said. "Lemme get
another razor."

She took a fresh disposable from the ten-pack
on her make up table, ran it gingerly down his back. "That's
better, baby."

A few strokes and it was done. His back and
chest gleamed, hairless, and the muscles stood out after the
kettlebell workout he'd run through in the gym he maintained in a
back room of The Trojan Horse.

The Trojan Horse. Finest Gentleman's Club in
all of Lake City. Hottest strippers. Best buffet. And scene of the
occasional shoot-out.

Lance's club.

He loved his job. Having strippers shave his
back wasn't even part of it.

Lucille, the brunette, took a warm wet towel
and wiped off a few dabs of shaving cream. "There you go,
baby."

"Thanks, Lucille," he said.

It was time. He shrugged into a black silk
shirt, tucked it into Armani trousers and laced a Hermes leather
belt into place. A well shined pair of Ferragamos, oxford, on his
feet, over Dior stockings. Lucille spritzed him with whatever the
scent of the day was.

Good to go.

Lance T went out the door, down a hallway,
and felt like he did in his wrestling days. Ready for the crowd. He
came out a side door onto the club floor, on the far side away from
the runway and the stage. A new girl, Tina Marie, was working the
pole. He studied her critically. She needed work.

But then, they all did, at first.

He nodded to Silent Kai, his long time
bouncer, forever mute because of a knife in his voice box during an
epic brawl that at first killed his business, then brought it back
to life like a zombie doing the lindy hop, as all the Lake City
wannabes wanted to hang out in the club that had been the scene of
a major shoot out between Lake City PD's one and only female
man-killer cop, the Russian Mob and the Cambodian gangsters. He
ended up making bank, and even kept the bullet holes in the wall,
put a frame around them so the wannabes could get their pictures
taken next to them.

There was a long line of pictures; all his
girls, the dancers that put dollars in his pocket every day, a few
of them slipping him an extra envelope from time to time with a
percentage -- not too much, don't want to kill the Golden Goose --
of their earnings on the side, or their belly, or their backs, up
to them, he didn't care, as long as he got his cut and they didn't
bring heat down on the club. Vice took their pay offs in various
ways: pussy, free drinks and food, the occasional tip, some
information the girls pulled out of the low-lifes that came through
here and the occasional dark side high roller, the use of a room,
looking the other way when Internal Affairs or Professional
Standards came sniffing around.

That was bidness here in Lake City. Everybody
gets a taste of the good. That's what it takes to keep the good
coming.

Lance surveyed his kingdom.

The Trojan Horse was good.

Nina Capushek

Nina stuck her thumb in his eye, gripped his
head between her hands, leaned forward and bit the face mask over
his nose.

Growled.

Her opponent, padded from head to toe, fell
backwards and shrieked like a little girl.

Nina slid into the mount, slammed palm heels
into the face place, leaned into her elbow strikes and screamed,
"C'mon bitch! Think you're bad? Fuck you, motherfucker!"

The padded man tried to get a punch into her,
couldn't, tried to buck her off, couldn't.

Nina started to pull his helmet off.

"Stop! Break! Somebody get this crazy bitch
off me!" the padded man shouted.

The coach ran up, grabbed Nina, got
backhanded.

"Don't touch me!" Nina shouted.

Two other coaches grabbed her, pulled her off
her opponent. She took a deep breath, then another. Relaxed. Let
them hold her arms.

The first coach helped the padded man up.

The padded man took his helmet off, threw it
down. "Hey, fuck this," he said. "I'm not working with that crazy
bitch." He stomped away.

"Come back anytime, sweet meat!" Nina jeered.
"You only got a hundred pounds and a suit on me!"

"Nina," the defensive tactics coach said.
"You're gonna hurt somebody."

Nina shook the hands off her and glared at
him. "That's the whole point of this silly bullshit, isn't it?
Padded Bitch wouldn't last with me for a short minute on the
street. Why the fuck don't you try some of this shit out there?
Huh?"

"Cool --"

"-- down? Fuck you."

Nina stalked off out of the gym.

The coaches looked after her, and then at
each other.

"What you gonna say to her?" one said.

The lead coach shrugged. "What *can* I say to
her? Gee, Nina, you've kicked more ass and killed more men than all
of us, but I can't pass you because you kicked our padded man's ass
so bad he won't work with you?"

"I get your point.

"Fuck you."

Lizzy Caprica

Lizzy Caprica sat cross legged on her yoga
mat on the polished pine floor. She inhaled a four count through
her nostrils, circled the breath round her spine down to her root
chakra, from there deep into the earth, held it for a four count,
then exhaled, drew in another breath, drawing energy up from Mother
Earth to suffuse her body.

A tone from the Tibetan bowl the teacher
stroked. The tone rippled through her, a wave, a breath of air on
still waters, movement without and within. And then they began, the
entire class in unison, the Gayatri Mantra:

Om bhur bhuvaha, suvaha

Tat savitur varenyam

Bhargo devasya dhimahi

Dhiyo yonaha prachodyath...

Three slow soulful repetitions. Infusing
herself with the light of the Divine.

After the class, good byes, and she was off
in her black BMW, home to a shower and to bed. Lizzy was a
day-sleeper, unless she had company. Her job kept her up late most
nights. It was worth it. Between what Lance T paid her and what she
earned in tips, she banked mid six-figures yearly for three years
now. Debt free and able to do whatever she chose to do.

She smiled, murmured "Thank you," to the
Divine and parked her car in her private slot behind the co-op
building she owned a big piece of.

Stood and let the rising sun fall over
her.

Life was good, in the Light.

Reni Taylor Meets Mr. Smith

Reni Taylor liked, as much as you can like a
shit job, her early morning shift at the Cheap Cars rental kiosk at
Lake City International Airport. She could stay up all night and
party, drink some coffee, pop a little meth and a breath mint, show
up at 4 a.m. all chipper and happy, which made the poor sad fat
fuck who called himself her boss happy, stand around, take long
smoke breaks and every once in awhile go through the canned speech
written down and taped on the counter:

Hi, welcome to Cheap Cars, do you have a
reservation? If Yes, go to A; if No, go to B.

Fucking easy, which she liked. She was out of
there by noon, home to eat and crash, maybe let Joey fuck her if he
was up, then get up and do it all over again.

She got to see everybody that was too poor to
afford an Enterprise, Avis, Hertz, or whatever; Cheap Cars got
cheap-ass beat-to-shit cars and didn't give a fuck if you paid for
cash, so of course the local narcs and vice and the fucking feds
would hang around, try to chat her up, lean on her a little, but
she had the "I don't know nothing" hang dog rap down cold, which
served her good.

Reni was working her gum good when this guy
stepped up the counter, and when she looked up, she couldn't help
herself:

"Fuck! What happened to you?"

The man, and she could only tell he was
dressed like a man and built like one, had a nearly smooth face,
with two eyes peering out of them, a double hole for his nostrils,
and a tiny hole where his mouth should have been. His eyes were
muddy brown, with a yellow glaze.

His voice was frighteningly normal.
"Afghanistan, baby. Fighting for your right to be a crack whore. I
used to be pretty, just like you used to be."

"Hey, I...."

"Car."

"Okay, I'm sorry, sorry...do you have a
reservation?"

"Yep. Smith, right under the part that says
read your fucking time line, bitch."

Reni's heart was pounding. She met a lot of
hard guys muling shit for Joey, bikers, gangsters of all types;
this fucking guy radiated the kind of vibe that said "I'll cut you
up for fun and hang your parts from a Christmas tree."

Scary fucking bad.

Her hand was shaking when she handed him the
keys. "You're prepaid, Mr...."

"I know I'm pre-paid. Where is it?"

"Slot A-49, it's a...."

"Jeep Cherokee, unlimited mileage, no more
than three years old, or else I'll come back here, and you don't
want that."

She swallowed, on the verge of tears. "Yes,
sir. That's what it is."

He reached across the counter, tugged her
badge off, held it close to the scar that was his face. "Reni
Taylor," he said. He threw it on the counter, then reached over and
pinched her nipple through her blouse. "Lousy tits. You better
knock off the meth before your teeth fall out. Oh, and Reni?"

She stood there, her hands at her side,
trembling.

"I was never here, anybody comes asking. I
know your name and where you work. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's better. Go smoke some crack, you look
like hell."

She stared straight ahead as he walked past
her, out into the early morning light breaking over Lake City.

Deon Oosthuizen

"Didn't see a thing, oke. We worked it hard,"
Deon said. He sipped his coffee, grimaced, held it up and called to
Thieu, the tiny Vietnamese bartender cleaning up behind the bar.
"Another cup, please, beauty?"

"I make fresh," Thieu said. "Wait."

Deon set his cup down. "Thank you, beauty."
He studied his long time friend and occasional business partner.
Jimmy was one of those guys with the gift of appearing normal.
Whatever that meant. Just under six feet, fit without making a big
deal of it, watchful only in a way that another pro would make.
He'd seen Jimmy happy, seen him sad, seen him mad, seen him in
combat, seen him in a fight.

He'd never seen him the way he saw him right
now.

Deon drummed his fingers on the table. "All
night. Video and three walkers. Nothing. Nobody since closing that
rings any bells. And here we sit in the early light of day...so
when you going to tell me who we're looking for."

Jimmy, haggard with no sleep and too much
coffee, stared off into space. "Somebody who's supposed to be
dead."

"You've said that three times. And nothing
more?"

"I need to sleep."

Thieu set a fresh cup of coffee in a clean
mug in front of Deon. "Jimmy? You want?"

"No," Jimmy said. "Thank you, Thieu."

She patted him on the shoulder. "I think you
go see Lizzy, Jimmy. You need woman now."

She walked away, her angular ass writing a
symphony across the seat of her tight designer jeans.

Deon tasted his coffee and closed his eyes in
appreciation. "Wise woman, that one. I should marry her."

"Never happen, old man," Thieu said without
looking back.

He grinned. "See? Wise woman."

"Yeah," Jimmy said. He pushed back from the
table. "I'm going to go sleep. I'll call you later."

"I'll send someone to watch your back."