Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah (46 page)

You give thorns an inch and they’ll take a mile. You give a dog a bone and he’ll take his master’s plate. Even delicate flowers can have thorns. Thorns that make you bleed and scar your skin.

He hated roses. He hated dogs. He hated the dirty and unclean. He loved his voice, loved when other people listened to it even more. He loved keeping those women confused with his gentle hand, then his southpaw fist in their eye sockets. Cray loved control.
You want to control a woman, then you keep her emotions unsteady. You tell her words you know she wants to hear. Then you turn around and break her fingers.
Why? Because he damn well could. Who was going to stop him? He had more money than God.

His women were beautiful, living in unclean conditions. But for him, they had to clean the incurable. Work until their fingers bled, their feet blistered, and their heads ached. He kept them hidden in fields, having his babies, only spreading his name around if they were boys. He had the clout of the south, hiding them so far away from reality that no one would ever go snooping. He kept one polished shoe shoved against their cheeks, always keeping their faces in the mud, until their vision became blurry.

Give them scraps, cracked dishes, and dirty clothes, just to turn around and spoil them with fine china and crystal, perfumes and beautiful dresses on the day he was to arrive. See what he can do. Cray, Cray, he’s our man. He says jump and you say how high, mister, sir!

Hold them down, hold them down, until they can’t take it anymore. There was no rest for his women. They worked the week through. They had to earn that keep. Nothing comes free. Cray Lusianno never gave anything away. You earned it from him. Saturdays were for more cleaning. Sundays were the most work of all, preparing for his arrival. All hail the king of the goddamn south!

And if he showed up, for no reason at all, just to stop by and fornicate with them, everything better be in order. If not, you never know what he might do. He might just break your fingers, or bruise your eye, or maybe even slit your throat. Maybe he’d do nothing but make tender love. Keep ’em wondering was his motto.

Once he was through with them, he’d dispose of them with all those secrets. Oh yes, they were good for something after all. They were open graves, going down with all those hidden tales of torture, freeing him of those visions he’d never have to see again.

Paranoia is no friend to a man like Cray Lusianno, and it had been getting the best of him over the last few weeks. He had nowhere to turn except to blackmail. Blackmail was all he had, and he was a man of options. He owned choices. But where had they gone? They were starting to thin and fade. Until one day fate shined its light and almost blinded him senseless with the biggest option he never saw coming.

Love.

That stupid broad had fallen in love. With a man he was going to own nonetheless. What a sweet, sappy story for all; a real-life Romeo and Juliet with a twister of an ending. Juliet would die, because she was ignorant. Romeo would live on and work for him. It wasn’t so sad after all.

Yes, Cray wanted Hank Rivers. He wanted him for many reasons. He had Booty watch him carefully over the years. Booty was paranoid about what those boys saw. Cray went along, not caring one way or the other, until Hank went to law school.

Hank impressed Cray with his buzz. Plenty of hungry bees flying around that sticky honey. His honey. Hank was going to be someone one day. He was smart, spot on, had
this feeling
they all spoke so fondly of. He had an extra sense, and extra sense to Cray was like millions of dollars funneling straight into his pockets. And as fate can be very kind to even the cruelest of souls, Hank turned out to be one good-looking son of a bitch.

He didn’t need the custom suits, or the expensive cologne, or the polished shoes. He dressed up anything he ever wore with just a genuine smile and a limp eye. Something about that eye intrigued Cray, and he wasn’t a man intrigued by much, except for money and power.

That spellbinding eye gave him a mystique, something people never forgot. It was the fodder for conversation, a showstopper. Cray admired that eye. He wished he had one just like it. That’s why he instructed his people when they went to grab Hank that under no circumstances were they to touch his face. He was perfection. Cray knew perfection in a screwed up world was valued. It was worth more than money because it was the moneymaker. You take away the seed and you have nothing but gravel.

As Cray sat behind his mahogany desk, his exquisite butt cheeks planted firmly in deep leather, he contemplated Hank Rivers. He downed two of the anxiety pills the Doc had given him with a glass of red wine. He was having trouble sleeping lately. He was always looking over his shoulder. Fearing the unknown. Was there something in the bushes staring at him? Was that car trailing too closely? Were those footsteps he heard while sleeping in his bed? Or was the house just creaking? Was the ceiling moving? Or was it just a bird on the roof?

It all started with a bunch of rumors. Who could this fast-shooting Pistol woman be? Rumors, rumors, rumors. In the business of the fools, rumors can run rampant. Cray never fed into rumors. Had no use for them. He had to see it to believe it because he owned everything. And if he wanted you to tap dance while he beat you with shoes, you would.

At first this wasn’t about how quick she was. This was about respect! She had no respect for him. He owned her! It didn’t matter the cost. But the rumors grew greater and greater, until he could no longer ignore them. She was a force to be reckoned with. Booty had seen the ghost in the flesh. She was more than anyone of them could handle, he had said. She had to be destroyed, along with Hank Rivers. All of them.

He groaned and swallowed. He hated those pills. He couldn’t stand the feeling of losing control. And those damn pills controlled him. Made him feel lopsided and feathery. His anger against the pills only added to the anxiety, and he was angrier than usual when he took them.

Cray didn’t need them, he always told himself. It was his choice to take them. His paranoia flared even with the downers. He felt the fires of some unknown voodoo making its way toward him. The edge needed to be dulled a bit.

He lit his cigar, moving forward through the cloud of smoke he just exhaled. He stared at Hank, passed out cold in his office. He couldn’t understand why he would fall in love with a woman more than half his age. He was running behind a dinosaur. One who was maybe as ugly as a pterodactyl and thick boned to boot. A size fourteen nightmare. He would have to cover that mug with a paper bag.

Damn that woman was frightening. No wonder she never smiled—what could she possibly smile about? The mirror flinched when she walked into the room.

So much beauty wasted! What that boy could do with his genes if he only put them to good use. But all that didn’t matter much now. Cray had Hank right where he wanted him. Hank was his insurance policy. He knew those damn women were coming for him sooner or later, and before Hank the moneymaker, he was halfway in the grave. Moneymaker Hank was also a shovel.

Now he had all the power he needed. He had ears on every side of this southern planet, and he knew she was in love with Hank. She didn’t kill him when he ran behind her. Instead, she took him along for the ride. She damn near almost killed Booty for him. Cray had everything he ever needed, right here in his office. He could toss out the few guys he trusted and be just fine. Just fine. Two guns and that boy’s head and she’d surrender.

He was going to enjoy removing that mask immensely, whispering all those secrets, and then dumping her body with the rest. Oh, how those women deep below the ground make the prettiest cotton flowers. They were still working for him.

Cray smirked at the thought. He wiped around his mouth and took a sip of red wine, and relaxed behind his big mahogany desk. He snapped his fingers and one of his guys slapped Hank in the head. Right where he’d been hit.

Hank moaned. His head swayed from left to right before one of his eyes cracked open. Hank’s eyes were glossy, but when they met Cray’s, they turned to stone. Then his head slumped a bit.

Cray rose from his mighty throne, lowered down to Hank’s level. He snapped his fingers. Hank responded by looking at him again.

“Tell me, who’s the woman you’re running behind. Is it Rosemary?” Cray was sure it was the beast of a woman, but uncertainty never boded well with Cray. He hated it just as much as he hated the unclean and minimal amount of choices.

Hank’s head swayed, like soft moving ripples in the tide. Those eyes were still hard, though, and Cray knew it would only take a minimal amount of taunting to get them soft. Or at least, accepting.

Cray snapped his fingers again. Hank smiled. Hank smiled and Cray wanted that smile in his pocket. It was naturally crooked! That smile alone could get him so damn much.

“You have no idea who she is, do you?” Hank’s voice was as flighty as his head. The boy could have been loaded on whiskey with the way he drunkenly slurred his words.

“I know it’s her, Rosemary. The one they call Little Sister. You will admit it to me.”

Hank laughed. “I don’t know Rosemary.”

“You don’t know who she is, do you?” Cray said, enjoying this conversation. He despised the bitch, Hank loved her, and neither one truly knew who she was.

“Oh,” Hank smiled. “I know who she is all right. But I’ll be damned if I tell you. You’ll have to kill me first.”

The door to Cray’s office slammed shut. Cray’s muscles twitched. His eye started to jump. Hank stared at him like he was a rope burning slowly. Cray thought it looked like pride on the punk’s face.

Hank smirked. He used his pointer finger to call Cray closer. “Look at you, quivering in your designer suit. She has you just a-runnin’ scared, like a little ole mama’s boy. And you better, because she’s going to kill you. I promise you, she’s going to rid this earth of you. And when she does, I’ll be right beside her, right here on your floor, singing church songs, thanking God that the devil is dead.”

Cray stood, a mountain towering over a river. He used his fingers to wipe around his mouth. “Say her name.”

Hank looked up to the sky. He started singing church hymnals. He started singing them as though he was getting paid to do it. Cray signaled to two other mountain men and they stood closer to Barb and Curly, who were on either side of Hank on the floor.

Cray took a step back, turned his body just a fraction, and then stabbed his polished shoe into Hank’s stomach. Hank stopped singing; he stopped breathing for a moment. Cray did it five more times. Hank fell over onto the floor, wheezing and gasping for air. Barb and Curly tried to fight, but Cray’s flunkies stopped them. Curly was crying, pulling at his hair.

“Tell him, Hank!” Curly screamed. “Tell them who you think she is! Please, Hank! She’ll kill them. You know she will. Stop beating my brother! Tell them, Hank!”

Cray went to kick Hank again, but Curly screamed so loud, his foot stopped mid-strike. Hank held a shaking hand up to stop Curly, but Curly went on anyway, rambling like a frightened five year old.

“He thinks she’s Delilah Turner!” Curly screeched in horror. “He believes Pistollette is Delilah!”

Cray looked at the two flunkies and started to laugh. He laughed so hard that he started to sound like Hank on the floor, still trying to reach the air to breathe. Cray guffawed like a big buffoon and then kicked Hank in the mouth. He was just so damn tickled by Curly’s little joke.

Cray’s entire body shook, until suddenly it became as still as ice in a frozen over pond. He was deathly still, while he stared down at Hank.

“I hate jokes.” Cray said, wiping at his mouth. “And that’s all that is. A lousy joke from a pathetic louse with no coglioni between his legs. I know you know my sweet little Delilah. Somehow you got tangled with her too. They’re just one, big, happy family, aren’t they? They’re as close as coons trying to steal crackers together. Delilah Law.” He laughed and sighed.

“That little chicken shit couldn’t hurt a fly. I couldn’t find her for years and years, and you Hank, you brought me to my dear darlin’ daughter once again. I didn’t touch her because I knew that woman was around protecting her. But now that you’re here, I can do whatever the hell I want! That house she has over there in Magnolia Springs, it’s getting burned to the ground as we sit here and chat. Someone burnt mine down. It was only fair I return the favor.

“Delilah Law. Let me tell you something about that dirty little bitch. Let me tell you, Hank, all the things I did to her. I broke every one of her little fingers because she tried to stab with me a rose. I broke her fingers and then beat her until her eyes bled, because she couldn’t do her work with those same dirty little broken fingers. I stripped her of her clothes, her and her Mama, and paraded them around in front of my help, just because I damn well could. They used to do it to snitches back during war times, why couldn’t I with my own women…” Cray continued his horrid recounts, as Hank had no choice but to listen.

“Delilah Law couldn’t hurt a fly. Her and all her lil’ torn-up ragdoll sisters. Ragdolls that happen to have porcelain faces. Ah, I do make some pretty girls, don’t I? Too bad they’re good for nothin’.” He spat. “Delilah Law. She’s nothing but a scared little muted bitch who can’t stop trembling in her own underwear. And I did that! You see, you just have to cut those thorny ones down with sharp scissors. No, I have nothing to worry about with Delilah Law. Now that other one, Rosemary, she could be a problem. Could’ve been, but now that you’re here, no problem at all. Not an ounce of worry at all.” Rosemary almost killed him once. But her gun locked up and he was able to get a shot on her and get away.

“You killed Rosemary.” Hank voice was hoarse, barely audible.

“No, I killed Lilly Beth. Delilah’s gorgeous mother. I beat her until her face looked like pulp. I left her twitching—” Cray smirked and made his body jump “—and drooling blood. I have her ID right in my safe. I have all their IDS. I always do. Hmm, she was a hot little piece of tail, that Lilly Beth. Fate is so kind sometimes. I swear it.