The "very best" accommodations in an indian-themed motel doesn't amount to much, since the room was only large enough for a double bed and a beat up sofa and the walls were thin enough to let the heat in during daytime and out again at night, but we lived like royalty. And with no apparent competition for the luxury suite we were going on two weeks in that place, which suited the manager just fine since we paid every morning in cash.

Vanessa was back to her neurotic self again and I was able to drink myself half to death with complete impunity from her judgement, so long as I went outside to throw up when I had to. The sound of retching made her skin crawl and I was doing it more often now, like some fraternity pledge away from home for the first time in his life. I had a spot near the back of our teepee that was just out of sight from the lobby that I frequented for exactly that purpose, a spot that featured a mummified cat corpse jutting out of the hard, sun-baked earth from some long forgotten flash flood that no doubt ruined this place at one point. Now it collected my sick in stringy strands of mucous and liquor to a depth that had the cat posthumously drowning one last time.


There was a small town a few miles down the road, but there was hardly any reason to go there except for the liquor store or to pick up an overpriced loaf of week old bread and sardines in mustard. Even the bar was off limits to us. We stumbled in that place a day or so after we arrived only to find a game of bingo being played by a group of geriatric alcoholics that were sinful enough to drink, but innocent enough to consider bingo a good way to spend their time. But I sure did enjoy the dichotomy of reactions Vanessa got from the old men and old women with her tits hanging out of a five hundred dollar cocktail dress. The women stared in shocked anger and the men in wide-eyed wonderment. I wanted to hate fuck her in front of them but was dragged out before I could finish dreaming up the fantasy. Vanessa was embarrassed enough to cry. I didn't understand how she could be so ashamed by the very qualities that made me almost love her.


But when we were locked up in the teepee things were different. I wasn't shouting at her or degrading her, I let her take a bath first, decide when and what to eat, went down on her from time to time... we were playing like we were married. I even got blackout drunk one night and wrote a few dozen poems for her, all terrible, derivative, hackey, love-sick bullshit, but Vanessa wouldn't shut up about them. She read them over and over to herself and hid them from me like an overprotective cat with her kittens, like I might stomp the life out of them to hurt her when my mood changed and I wanted her to suffer again. And that's how we lived together out in the desert, always in the moment, just waiting for the other shoe to drop and get back to resenting each other again.


I was sure things were going better. I thought the happiness was going to sustain her. I thought she might be mending from all the badness that she was living through all those years, and that I would be able to keep her at my side for balance like an old bum with a million-dollar cane that he had no fucking business possessing. Maybe I was the naive one the whole time.

By the time Vanessa woke up I was a half hour through a harrowing battle with my hemorrhoids, leaving the toilet bowl looking like the aftermath of a homemade abortion. I was sick of the drink, sick of the travel, sick of the violence, and sick of Vanessa. She knocked twice on the door and I barked back that I needed more time, reading the labels on all the tiny hotel bottles before flushing the toilet three or four times. Vanessa was shamelessly squatting over the ice bucket when I opened the door, unable to wait for me. The indignity was a sobering contrast to her beauty, unbecoming to her like a baby covered in obscene tattoos. Sometimes you wished you didn't know someone so well that they could piss in a bucket in front of you without concern. She was so much easier to lust for when I wasn't intimately familiar with every ingrown hair, pimple, and nasty habit she had. The hypocrisy of these critical thoughts weren't lost on me as I stood in the bathroom doorway with a handful of toilet paper up my ass to stem the blood flow.

"We have to leave today" I told her. "I don't feel safe any more. I'll drive the first leg." I almost never drove, but I figured it would keep her protests to a minimum and allow me to put some distance between us and the bar from last night. I knew that since we were strangers in this town and paid all cash the cops probably wouldn't have much to go on, but these things are hard to predict in the decent parts of america. The locals are used to a fistfight or two, but clubbing a business owner in clear view of dozens of witnesses might get noticed around here.


"Ok, but after a shower I need some laundry done. This place will do it for you! I read in the booklet on the table that they will pick up your clothes and bring them back clean for free!" in one quick motion she had her nightgown off and tossed to the floor, her big ass covered in fresh bruises from the twenty minutes of sloppy fucking I managed before passing out last night. She wore the bruises well and it made me hard, so I jerked off into the nightgown while she showered with the door open then hid the evidence in a laundry bag like an embarrassed teenager. If she saw me she would be insulted and I would have to spend the next half hour explaining that I still enjoyed fucking her.


After her shower I convinced Vanessa to wait until the next stop to do laundry, and loaded the car will all our bags and bottles. I wanted to get far on this drive, far enough that we would find ourselves deep in the desert in a town small enough to not have a jailhouse. Vanessa would be the prettiest girl in town, and I could parade her around like an owner with a first prize poodle on a leash. She finished paying our tab and climbed into the passenger seat.


"Jesus christ. Seven bottles of whiskey in three days. And we even went out one night!" she said, annoyed at the cost of all my shitty habits. "Fuck you. If my drinking isn't to your liking then I might just take all the money and leave you in the street to support yourself the only way you know how. Only here the men won't pay as well as dear old dad!" I regretted it before the words even left my mouth. Vanessa stared down into the seat and started sobbing loudly as I started the car and pulled away.


She cried for a good thirty minutes and made me feel like shit, but I couldn't apologize. I just turned the radio up and we drove for six hours straight without even talking until I saw a tourist trap motel on the outskirts of an indian reservation. There was nothing to see for miles except red dirt and trees that looked like they might have never had leaves on them. The rooms were all shaped like teepees and painted with horizontal red stripes and blue diamonds, with poles sticking out of the stucco tip for an "authentic" touch.


Vanessa looked weary as she dragged herself out of the car and followed me silently into the motel lobby house with the perpetually lit VACANCY sign hanging out front. Before Vanessa could get her purse open and ask for a room I stepped forward and said "My beautiful wife and I would like to stay in your finest teepee, sir." I put my arm around her waist and pulled her to my side, and I could feel her tremble. "Certainly. Please follow me." He stated loudly as he plucked a set of keys from a nail in the wall. "The honeymoon hut! Our finest accommodations!" As we followed him out the door Vanessa leaned into me and I felt her tears through my shirt.

Once we were both dressed, Vanessa in one of her favorite new dresses and me in a ratty standby shirt and jeans, we called a cab to drive us over to a local bar. Now that we had the money to take taxis we made sure to do so whenever taking a short trip. A simple traffic stop might land us in jail with just enough time for a murder arrest. We tipped generously, took a short ride to the bar, and made sure to get the driver's personal number for the return trip. If you pay well, they will always be on time.

Vanessa immediately wanted to leave for precisely the reasons that I wanted to stay. The place was filled with professional drinkers and lowlifes, with a restroom door that was hanging on by one hinge, a couple that appeared to be fucking in the back booth, a man with swollen eyes and a broken nose backwashing blood into his beer, and a bartender that swayed like a man that measured his tips in one ounce increments. My kind of place. I sat at the bar and put my jacket down on the stool next to me for Vanessa since she wore a short dress that would make her big ass peek out when she sat, and I didn't want her getting pregnant off of whatever cocktail of filth might be growing on the faux leather beneath her. She always kept the money, but it didn't bother me as she ordered herself a gin and tonic, and me a bottle of irish whiskey and a dry glass.


I poured slightly faster than I drank it, and shared some with the bartender who confided in me that I "had the prettiest girl that had ever walked into this bar, I shit you not!" Once Vanessa started catching up on drinks she began to get a little more comfortable and started absorbing the compliments from the barkeep, as women always do. I got sick of listening to them so I went and stared into the jukebox list, finally deciding on a James Brown song that I don't think I ever heard before. The music was good and loud, enough to drown out the voices in the bar. So I listened and decided on a few more tunes, queued them up and pushed my way through the broken bathroom door to awkwardly piss one-handed while balancing a glass of booze.


When I walked back out Vanessa was waiting outside the door. "I wanna leave. Let's go" she said abruptly. I explained that I wasn't even halfway through the bottle she bought me, and still had two songs left on the box to play, but I could tell there was something wrong.


"The bartender" I said. The pleading look in her eyes told me everything. She had the same look when I shot her father, the one that begged me not to do anything but secretly wished I would. "Alright, alright..." I said "There's a payphone out front, call the cabbie to take us back to the hotel. But I'm NOT leaving without the whiskey." She took a few quick steps to the door, averting her eyes from the bar. I grabbed the bottle off the bar and leaned over to the barkeep and asked "What do I owe you, guy?" He must have not heard me well over the music and said "Hey listen, buddy... she's a fucking liar. If I wanted a piece I wouldn't just grab for it, I would talk to her pimp first" and poked his finger at me. I didn't have time to think. I just swung the bottle through the air and contacted his temple with an audible "ping" like a homerun off an aluminum bat. It wasn't like in the movies, a bottle has a lot more strength than that. It bounced off his head and nearly out of my hand, but didn't break, and he went crashing to the floor behind the bar in a motionless heap.


I thought about jumping the bar and giving him some more, but I quickly became aware that everyone had stopped what they were doing and were now staring at me. So I marched out the front door to Vanessa hanging up the phone. "You didn't say anything, did you?" she asked. "About what?" I was playing stupid. "Let's go for a walk and find another bar. It's a nice night and you look too good to keep to myself." I said. "But the cab is coming!" Vanessa protested. "Fuck the cab. Come on." And down the street we went.

Vanessa was stronger than me. Her mood was perpetually filled with childish glee, she had bleached her hair (which was ridiculous because she still had jet black eyebrows), and she was even learning how to drive my car so we could keep on the move when I was blind drunk. Which I was frequently now, up to two liters per day. It had been a week since I shot her dad and we were pretending it didn't happen, living out the lives of traveling gypsies until we could figure out what to do.

We thought about mexico, but neither of us spoke any spanish. She wanted to move to the south, but I fucking hate the humid weather. So we drifted from town to town, staying only a few nights at each stop until we either got bored or outstayed our welcome. I was feeling trapped with her again and it reminded me why I was so happy to be rid of her the first time. It was like I took in a stray dog and was stuck with it now, too guilty to put it back where I found it. Besides, it wasn't her fault. I guess I just can't be happy unless I'm miserable.

Shit. She was taking a shower, which means she is planning on dragging me into public tonight. We were staying in a $200 a night hotel now, complete with air conditioning and room service. They would bring us chilled bottles of wine with a simple ring of the telephone so I was lit up at all times and pretty content to stay in, but I was didn't argue with her anymore. Instead of stealing her music from her like before, or pursuing other women to make her angry, I just degraded her in bed. When she wanted to be on top, I would force her face in the pillows. If she started to enjoy it I would fuck her in the ass. And if she started to play along with that I just gave up altogether. And even after all that she would still wrap her skinny arms around me and bury her head in my chest until she was fast asleep. It was only then that I would take her hands and hold them close under the covers. She was always so fucking cold but my blood ran hot enough for both of us, and I would smell her hair and catch myself almost falling in love with her. And then in the morning I would treat her like a stranger again. Sometimes I wondered if she was ever just pretending to sleep, so starved for affection that she would feign unconsciousness just to trick me into being nice to her for a few precious minutes. She had better not be. Because I would never forgive her for it.


All this mess was going though my head as I walked into the bathroom, undressed, and stepped into the shower with her. She looked over her shoulder at me with a smile on her face and I grabbed a hold of her from behind and just let the hot water wash over us in silence. I guess I owed her that much.

It has been said that death is the bringer of peace, but that is complete bullshit in my experience. I have seen three dead men and one dead woman in my days and they all looked like pain and distress. I looked down onto the distorted, jawless face of my victim that night and witnessed his surprise and post-mortem agony in overflowing quantities. And when I dreamed that night I made penance. I tried in vain to patch the hole in his face with endless handfuls of mud and sand only to watch it pour through the funnel of gore onto the steps below us. I didn't mean to save his life, but rather to save my own from the cancer of lifelong guilt, but it was proven futile when I awoke and saw Vanessa's pale nudeness reflected in the moonlight from outside the Burgess' cracked windows and realized what had been done.

It was strange because while I slept in short fits she was down deep, sleeping like I had never seen her manage before. The entire drive to my apartment had been a stressful and silent mess, but surprisingly Vanessa seemed totally calm. I had slain her personal boogeyman, and now bore the burden she carried for so many years before our paths crossed. My mind was running weary with thoughts of consequence which was contrary to my nature and the drink wasn't numbing the sound anymore. We must leave this ghetto sanctuary. I have to abandon my gun. We need to drain her father's bank accounts in the morning. I have to burn my bloody clothes. Anything to dodge my justice.


I got out of bed and poured a glass of whiskey. Vanessa had the good sense to grab some of her belongings as well as her father's cash and billfold complete with four signed blank checks, which was enough to get us far from here. I had two more days left on this week's rent at the Burgess but we had no intention of staying any longer, so as soon as Vanessa woke we would hit the road and get to her father's bank before the cops had time to monitor the accounts. I went for a piss and when I came back Vanessa was up and looking out the curtain-less window. I reminded her that a topless white woman in the ghetto was bullet bait, so we got dressed and left.


We arrived at the bank just as it was opening, and I waited in the car. Vanessa said they knew here here, and sure enough she walked back a half hour later with 40k in cash and a shit-eating grin to match. I had never seen money like that before. So much for any plausible legal argument for manslaughter or self-defense. Before leaving the state we decided to do some quick shopping, and Vanessa was so thrilled she decided to blow me while I drove. I almost killed us both and had to put a stop to it since she nearly bit my cock off when I had to suddenly hit the brakes.


She spent the next four hours buying mostly clothes, and I found a nice gutter to drop my revolver into. I had that gun since I was twenty and nearly cried when I heard it splash in the sewage below. Now my car was full of shopping bags and damning evidence and we still had no idea where to go from here, so we stopped at a fast food joint and ate our fill of discount tacos. There we sat in the car, a bag filled to the brim with $100 bills and we still ate like white trash. Fucking wild.

I have no excuses. I had plenty of time to think the whole thing through. But I still grabbed my revolver from under the passenger seat of my car and headed back up the stairs. There was the sound of muffled crying and the whispers of consolation as I started the climb, and as I leaned over the railing to look up I could see the heel of a bare foot peeking out. Daddy was there, trying to be her rock. Pretending he wasn't the source of all Vanessa's fucked up thoughts, the reason she would give herself up to a man like me.


When I turned the corner of the level below them he turned back and looked at me. I'm pretty sure he saw the gun right away, because he just sat there with his mouth open. He was between me and Vanessa now, but he kneeled and she sat, so he was raised up over her a foot or two. I raised the gun and pulled the trigger.


I was as shocked as he was when the hammer dropped on an empty chamber, and for a moment he looked relieved. He brought his hand up in protest as I pulled the hammer up again and fired. The round thundered through the enclosed space of the stairwell and split his hand between the ring and middle finger. Vanessa's sobbing turned instantly to shrieking as her father slumped over her backwards, his back arching in a way that would have been incredibly painful for a man his age if he weren't already stone dead. I took the last few steps up the stairs to see if he needed finishing off, but the round had entered his face at the chin and I could see the white surface of the stairs on the other side. So I grabbed him by his shredded hand and pulled him off of Vanessa, who seemed to still be screaming except all I could hear was my heartbeat and a ringing sound now.


She rose up to her feet and hugged me around the shoulders, pinning my arm and the gun at the end of it to my waist. "We have to go" I said, "the car is downstairs." Her screaming was now labored breathing, and she nodded her approval of the plan. But just as I started leading her down the stairs she pulled her hand free. "Wait! I will be right back!" and started hurdling up the stairs two at a time in her bare feet. I wasn't giving her much time since I didn't feel like dying in prison, so I went for the car. I stashed the gun back under the seat and started the engine. The exit from the parking lot looked exactly like salvation, a womb to crawl into and escape the ugliness outside, but I didn't race for it. I waited.


After a few seconds that seemed like ten minutes Vanessa came running out of the alley between the two buildings with a garbage bag spilling over with clothes, and leapt into the open door at my side as the engine roared and we made our escape. She was crying silently now and gripped my arm so tight that I struggled to work the shifter, and I looked down at the top of her head as it rested on my bicep, the same spot where, just a few weeks ago, she had stabbed me in my sleep. The world is a truly fucked up place.

Perhaps I was being naive, or maybe just a little too hopeful, but I gathered up all my shit and packed it into my car. It all amounted to about two bags of clothes and crap, six cans of food, a dozen or so books, a half empty jug of whiskey, and my gun. I was going back to my old apartment to see Vanessa and hopefully move back in and get properly laid for the first time in a while. I decided to head out early since she was a late sleeper and would almost certainly still be asleep before about noon, and hit the road. If everything went well I would never come back to this shithole.

After stopping on the way to get gas I looked in my wallet at the three twenty dollar bills that seemed so very lonely, like the the final surviving prisoners of a condemned gang waiting silently for their number to be called. I couldn't help but wonder if my fond memories of Vanessa were subconsciously fueled by my need for money and aversion to work, or an indication of my true feelings for the woman. I just hoped she would be likewise yearning again for my company and not still furious over our fighting and the money I took from her purse. If she pressed me I could say I used it to pay for my emergency room visit (lies), and tell her how the betrayal felt more painful than the knife she left in my arm (more lies).


It took another hour and a half to make it back to my old neighborhood, and when I pulled into the lot I saw my old space still unoccupied. I took the stairs and sheepishly approached the apartment door, the carpet in the hallway still slightly orange from the blood I had spilled there. I could hear a muffled radio through the door, proof she was still home. I knocked softly, and after a few seconds heard the locks grinding open. I was face to face with an old man, probably twenty years my senior. "Hello." he said "Can I help you?" I was a bit startled. "I'm sorry... I used to know the last tenant here. Sorry to bother." And turned away, dejected.


On the way down the stairs I decided to drop by the landlord's apartment and see if she knew where Vanessa moved to, until I heard her voice. "Wait!" Vanessa came running down the steps after me in a bathrobe. "Oh my god! Where have you been? I have been so worried..." Tears were rolling down her face, smearing yesterday's mascara. I was confused. "Not worried enough to keep from dragging some old fuck back into our home, huh? Blowing his wrinkled cock in our bed, huh?" Her vulnerability triggered my predatory instinct and I was on the attack. "It's not what you think, goddammit! He's my fucking father, ok?" She was speaking through short, sobbing breaths. How could I be so fucking dumb? Of course it was her father. I took the last of her money, but she was still here. Still living comfortably, probably eating well, and most likely earning her hush money again. "Oh I get it." I said calmly. "Daddy's got his little whore back." I broke free of Vanessa's grasp and watched her fall to her knees on the stairs, wailing and broken, then turned and headed down to my car to get my gun.
 

I climbed off the whore an unsatisfied man. Sure, I came. But she had fulfilled the lowest possible expectation of the contract, from the lazy head to the disinterested fucking which ended silently and prompted her to immediately request to use my shower. Oh yeah, that's exactly what I want. A prostitute washing off a day's worth of semen shellac in my shower. But I was a gentleman and gave her the go-ahead.

I wished I hadn't. She robbed me of any delusion that she had even a sliver of feminine sexuality when she took out her teeth and removed her wig, placing them both on my kitchen table with more care than they appeared to warrant, then retiring to the bathroom. "Don't use my fucking soap!" I yelled after her, thoughts of a brown primordial soup pouring down the drain like blood in the title scene of "Psycho" playing through my head.


She stomped into the room with my towel buried in her armpit, still scrubbing away, every ounce of her ample frame shuddering with each heavy step. After pulling on her dress she reached into her purse and lit up a cigar. I shit you not, a BIG cigar like some prohibition-era bootlegger gangster, which she gummed away at without any shame. I was almost ready to swear off women forever, but thankfully she gathered up her gear and got ready to leave. "Twenty bucks, mister." She said. I handed her a ten dollar bill and she gave me a disapproving look. "Discount for the shower and the towel I have to burn." She didn't argue.


The brand new door I had installed by management had a massive deadbolt this time, and I was happy to have it as I locked the door behind her. I grabbed a trash bag off the floor and tossed my towel into it and checked the bathroom, where I found two fake eyelashes and a wet bar of soap, and tossed both. Whores never listen.


I opened all my windows to let the stink of sex waft out and couldn't help but think about Vanessa. She was a beautiful girl... better than I deserved anyway, and she took care of me. She cleaned, plied me with daily bottles of top shelf, and paid my bills. How did I ever fuck that one up? Putting up with her craziness and the occasional violent outburst didn't seem so bad after a few encounters with the pasty gutter-trash I was pulling these days. I felt like driving back to our home, knocking on the door and sweeping her off her feet, then drowning out the sound of the radio with her screams. But I had never come back to any of the women. Once I walked out the door they were ghosts to me. But I still had questions for her. I wanted to know the full story behind her letter. Maybe I could justify going back after all.

It was morning again, and I had managed to avoid getting raped and robbed despite my lack of security, but I still had my suspicions that my gambling partners were behind the break in. I put on a pair of pants but didn't bother with the shirt, and left the magnum by the door on the window sill as I went out to express my grievance. Diggs and Bucky were there as always, and pretended everything was normal despite my obviously destroyed door plainly in their line of sight. I told the boys they were a pair of motherfuckers, and suggested they were sore losers on the dice and probably a pair of enthusiastic homosexuals. Diggs reminded me that if he wanted my money he would just walk up to me and take it, and explained that he was off banging his old lady yesterday evening so Bucky was at home. Besides, he said, he only ever kicked down doors for cash on the other end of town to avoid the hassle

I should have walked away. I knew he was probably telling the truth, and that the two of them sitting out front was most likely the only thing that kept the unseen thieves that were certainly watching the goings-on in this motel everyday from robbing us blind, and starting shit with Diggs would only result in the revocation of my street pass and probable ass-kicking, but I've always been more stupid than cautious. I spit on the concrete between us and headed back to my room to get the magnum.


I wasn't going to shoot them, at least I didn't think I was going to, but either way I didn't get the chance. I heard two quick boot steps and saw a big flash, like when someone takes a photo of you when you aren't expecting it. I wanted to turn around and fight back, but that's when I realized I was laying face down on the pavement. I rolled over and then Diggs was on top of me. I put my arms up to try to defend myself, but I just flailed wildly with dead arms that felt like they belonged to someone else and I was unpracticed at controlling them. I took two big punches right in the jaw and started snoring with my face to the side, staring at the steel wheel of my car and unable to move for about five seconds. I could feel a giant hand raping the pockets of my jeans while Bucky was cackling like a retard with a puppy.


I regained the use of my arms and legs and managed to halfway get back up before falling down again and ultimately deciding to lay against my car until my head cleared up. I watched as Diggs pulled a handful of loose bills from my wallet and then threw it on the ground at my feet and said "That's the toll for being a bitch" then sat down on the steps next to Bucky and pulled out a deck of cards. "Now you want in on this? I'll spot your broke-ass the ante, unless you want to go cryin' to the po-lice..."


Looking down I saw that I was wearing a bib of my own blood, and guessed that I had at least one tooth knocked loose. That's when I realized he was telling the truth. He didn't know I still had a wad of cash back in my room. "I can pay it" I told him. "Just let me clean up a bit. Liquor's on me."


A qucik splash of filthy faucet water on my face and chest had me looking a little less fucked up, so I threw on a shirt and grabbed some cash and booze. Sometimes you take a beating in life, and I wasn't about to let it ruin my welcome in my new home. On the way out I thought about grabbing the magnum off the window sill and unloading on Bucky. I could still hear his annoying laughter ringing in my ears, but I didn't. We gambled like gentlemen for a good four hours, and I ended up bringing in another $45 bucks after being down over $200. I probably broke even from what Diggs took out of my wallet.

For a week I drank like a king and ate like a pauper, and kept a low profile in my shithole room. It was getting to be brutally hot in the daytime and I had no air conditioning, so I spent most afternoons in the cool darkness of the bar. I had bought enough drinks for the locals that they had warmed up to me, and I was even putting the lean on a couple loose broads that frequented the place.

But despite my modest living I was burning through Vanessa's money fast. I was down to just over a grand, which was less than half of what I pinched from her purse, and there was no pot of gold on my horizon. I was going to have to get a job or start some sort of hustle. But I wasn't the type to put that kind of effort in unless my dick was on the chopping block, and I had at least a couple weeks if I slowed down on the booze consumption, so I started throwing dice against the bricks out front. I was laying down my dollars with the two black guys that seemed to never leave. The skinny one was called Bucky, since he had some serious dental problems that come with generational poverty, and the big guy with the afro was called Diggs. They never told me how he got his nickname, but I suspected it had something to do with filling holes in the local cemetery. He was hard but we got along fine since my money was good. I lost more games than I won, but I managed to lay bigger bets when I was winning. In two days of playing I was up by over four hundred bucks.


I was getting a bit paranoid about keeping all that money around so I rarely left my room. And I didn't like to drive that much for fear that somehow Vanessa would somehow hunt me down and sic her crazy on me, so I got most of my food from the gas station or from the local food carts and I was starting to get sick of it. So I drove my car a couple blocks out and picked up some fresh bread and vegetables, some cans of chili and soup, and hit up the liquor store for a few gallons of cheap whiskey. I was preparing for lean times, especially if I ended up dropping a lot of cash on the dice in the next few days.


When I pulled back into the lot at the Burgess I could tell that something was up because Bucky and Diggs weren't out front. I left my bags in the car and walked up to my door to see it had been booted open, then carefully closed again. I ran inside and immediately went for my dirty clothes hamper where I left my cash, and found my wad securely nestled in a pair of shit-stained underwear, right where I left it. The room was normally so fucking trashed that no one would be able to tell it had been tossed, but the rat that lived in the filth knew it well, and I could see that my garbage was well out of order.


I ran over to the managers offices but no one was there. It seemed like the property owners were never anywhere to be found except on Sundays when they expected to get paid. So I went back to my car to get my bags and grabbed the magnum from under the seat. It was getting dark and if I was going to sleep without a locking door then I was going to sleep with a gun in my hand.