Creekers (48 page)

««—»»

Eagle seemed duly amused by Phil’s recital of the story. “Yeah? So what did you see?”

“I don’t know,” Phil foolishly confessed, his elbow propped out of the truck window. “That’s the last thing I really remember, kneeling down and looking in that keyhole. Sometimes I think I remember more, sometimes I dream about it, but the only stuff that comes to mind are just little pieces, glimpses of things, like a hand or a foot, or part of a face in the shadows. Anyway, next thing I knew, it was a couple days later. I was in bed with a hundred-and-four fever.”

Eagle laughed. “Ya probably didn’t see anything; ya probably just dreamed it all on account of you were sick.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Phil said, but he didn’t really believe that, even though the doctor said that fevers frequently caused hallucinations and morbid dreams. Phil knew he could never prove it, but he also knew that the whole thing really had happened and that the House—

Phil blinked hard.

The House was real.

I just wish I could remember. I wish I could remember what I saw in that keyhole. Not just the glimpses I’ve dreamed about. Everything. Why can’t I remember it all…

“Time to forget about your haunted Creeker whorehouse,” Eagle said. He pulled the truck up another rutted, narrow road, and stopped. “We’re here.”

Blackjack had a little hovel of a cottage with clapboard shingles. It sat jammed back into the woods amid a bed of high-reaching weeds and gangling vines.

Strings of mist from the previous rain floated off the ground.

“Wasted trip,” Eagle cited. “His truck ain’t here. I knew something happened to him. I’ll bet you and Paul were right. Somebody put a hit on him.”

Phil peered through the moving mist. “Keep your shirt on. You ever think that maybe it’s just that his truck blew a gasket, and he’s got it in the shop? And look.” Phil pointed out the window. “That back window—there’s a light on.”

“Blackjack’s bedroom. Well, maybe the fucker is home after all. Come on.”

They disembarked. The night sucked up the heavy
chunks
 of Eagle’s truck doors closing. The mist parted as they moved forward, swatting at mosquitoes and gnats. Phil seemed to inhale the thick fog, the air’s humidity sopping him at once. Pulsing nightsounds throbbed from the woods which backed the shack.

Eagle began to rap on the front door but stopped when the door, ajar, swung open. “Shit, now I know he’s here. No way Blackjack’d leave his place with the door open. He’s got guns and shit in here.”

“Guns?” Phil asked with some concern.

“Yeah, so we better announce ourselves good and loud.” Eagle stuck his head in. “Hey, Blackjack, you here? Don’t shit a brick. It’s me, Eagle.”

They waited a moment. The shack responded with silence.

“Blackjack! Come on, man, wake it up and shag ass. It’s Eagle, and I got our new driver with me.”

Nothing.

“Must be asleep or stoned,” Phil guessed.

“Yeah, come on.”

They edged inside. The place was a dump, but it wasn’t wrecked. “At least there’s one good sign. Ain’t all busted up like Paul’s joint. Wait here. I’m gonna go check out the bedroom.”

Phil nodded, glancing around.
I’ve seen better-looking shithouses,
he reflected of Blackjack’s interior decorating tastes. He crossed his arms, waiting, but then—

What?

Some sound, ever-faint, seemed to slowly leaven itself into his ears.

What is that?

A hum, etchy yet so slight he could barely detect it. It seemed to originate off to the right.

The kitchen,
he realized, noticing old enamel-white appliances standing in the dark.

Phil walked over, looked in.

The shifting hum rose.

Phil’s hand padded up the wall and flicked on the light.

His stare locked downward…

“I don’t believe this shit, man,” Eagle complained, coming up from behind. “The fucker ain’t here.”

“Yes, he is,” Phil croaked.

Then he pointed down to the fly-covered corpse sprawled across the kitchen floor.

««—»»

“Dream On” by Aerosmith ended Vicki’s set amid a rowdy cannonade of applause.
Sure, dream on,
she thought beneath her best “dance-face.”
Dream forever—

Dream till you’re dead.

She could swear Sallee’s walls actually shook, they were clapping so hard. It sounded like a storm. And when she stepped down through the stagelights and endless, moving sheets of cigarette smoke, she always felt the notion that she was stepping down into hell.

Maybe I really am
, she considered.

She took a final bow, then left the stage and the noise and the crowd behind her, perhaps in the same way she’d left her dignity and self-worth behind her so many years ago—with a cold turn of her shoulder.

Druck stood at the entrance to the back room, a deformed sentinel in overalls. Vicki could feel his warped gaze sliding down her naked back as she quickly passed and slipped into the dressing room. She noted a trickling sound the moment she entered; it was coming from one of the toilet stalls.
Someone douching,
she guessed at once.
One of the Creekers.
Cody forbade the Creeker girls from using condoms—hence the necessity to douche. The rednecks paid more to forego protection. What did they care? Men couldn’t get pregnant, and were at much less risk of contracting diseases. There’d only been a few occasions when, servicing a special client, Cody had ordered her to not use condoms, but on those nights she’d been too coked up to really care. She got tested every two months at the county clinic and had so far tested negative. It seemed a miracle, considering the extent of her prostitution before she’d married Natter.
Anything for a line,
she thought in utter grimness. She’d done things she couldn’t believe…

The stall door opened and, as predicted, one of the Creeker girls emerged, immediately looking down when noticing Vicki there. The Creekers treated Vicki with an almost queenly respect; they were afraid of her. After all, she was the king’s wife now. The girl, who only had one arm, limped past and out the door, her black hair lifting in her wake.

Jesus…

Vicki knew the Creekers were powerless against Cody’s exploitation of them. Still, she subtly despised them. The Creeker girls were an ultimate reminder of the depraved backwoods underworld that Vicki’s life now tightly revolved around.

They reminded her of her own powerlessness against Cody Natter.
They’re retarded and deformed and terrorized,
she thought.
At least they have an excuse.

But what’s mine?

She knew there
were
no excuses. She had no one to blame for the wreckage of her life but herself.

Dozens of one-dollar bills stuffed her tip garter, along with a few tens and twenties. It all went to Cody, just like her trick money. She knew he made a fortune off her, and God knew how much he made off the Creekers. She transferred the cash to her purse, then, as she did every night after her last set, turned to face herself in the mirror.

It was an accuser’s face that peered back, or a ragged Doppelganger’s. Her red hair didn’t shine like it used to, and her green eyes had lost some of their emerald luster. Crow’s feet encroached, and the tiniest threadlike lines.
At least my tits aren’t sagging yet,
she indelicately noted of her bare, thrusting bosom.

But what of the rest of her?

The truth compiled every day. Her lean, nimble physique was a little too lean now, and beginning to show signs of depletion. Sometimes, when she woke up, she looked absolutely emaciated. The coke stole not only her vitality but also the simple common sense that she should eat better. Each day of her life took another little fleck away.

And the flecks were adding up.

Yeah, I’m starting to really look beat,
her thoughts informed her reflection.
Pretty soon I’ll be lucky to pull a couple five-dollar blowjobs per night.

Not much of a destiny.

And what would Cody do then? There was so much she had seen, so much she knew…

She tried to think of a time when her life hadn’t been in so many pieces. She knew when it was: during her engagement to Phil. She’d been a different person then; she’d had a real future, and real ambitions. Where had it all gone?
To hell,
she thought.
To hell in a handbasket and straight up my nose.
The diamond pendant glittered between her breasts—Phil had given it to her a decade ago. For the past few nights she’d been wearing it again, but—
Why?
she wondered. Did she think that he would notice? And so what if he did? Phil’s own life, it seemed, had taken the same fall as hers; he was hanging out with Eagle Peters now, a known dope runner. He said he was doing dust. And the other night?
I was just another fuck, like I always am.
She must be out of her mind thinking that he could somehow save her from Natter.
Why would he even want to?
she asked herself in steepening self-hatred.
My whole life is in the pits…