Halley
With Cowboy gone being questioned, it was just Snakebite and me. We smoked a cigarette outside my room.
“Heard the Feds couldn’t find you for questioning.”
“Yeah, I’m staying somewhere else. I can’t get too close to the heat.”
“I heard. They say you killed some broad in San Diego.”
“What of it?”
“Never thought you had it in you. The killing. You didn’t have the raping in you like your brothers and father did.”
“I didn’t mean to. The old woman got caught in the crossfire. Believe me, it’s haunted me.”
“Whatever.”
“Star…”
“That’s not my name.”
“Besides, you’re one to talk.”
“Fucking Rusty. That was survival. You don’t know the half of what they did to me down there…”
“… In the rabbit hole,” he completed my sentence.
“Or did you know?”
“I didn’t want to know. I was a coward. But the thing that scared me the most is that they’d kill you if I made a wrong move. If I didn’t do all of dad’s bidding. You know they would have.”
“I wanted to die. I wanted to kill them all. Even you. Rusty, he got between me and all that blind rage.”
“You sawed his balls off with a butter knife.” He laughed about it like it was the funniest thing ever.
It wasn’t funny. I butchered a man for what he did to me. For what they all did to me. It was one of the things on my long list of shit I chose not to think about.
Snakebite still snickered.
“Stop laughing at me.”
He became serious. “I wasn’t even talking about you. I was talking about your boy, Cowboy.” He’d said his name like it pained him.
“Cowboy?”
“Yeah. His hands aren’t clean.”
I stared at him, wondering what on earth he was talking about. What could he possibly know about Cowboy?
“You don’t know. You never know what’s going on, do you? You’re lucky I haven’t killed him myself, yet.”
“Why?”
“You don’t remember? Oh, Halley, baby. Are you in there today?
Let me take you back. We’re in the Devil’s Den, you and me.
We sneak into the bathroom.” He smiles at me.
“You… you take my breath away… I’m planning a way to get you alone that weekend.
I want to get you out of there for good.
I never wanted to be leader of the freaks.
But who busts in. The Gods. Who got killed? ”
I remembered. “Little Betty Boop.” When I said it, I could picture her in a halo of blood, limp in Viper’s arms. The sound of a mother’s greatest sorrow rang in my ears.
“Yeah, don’t you know who the young fuck who pulled the trigger was?”
“Not Cowboy…” I felt sick at the thought.
“Ask him.”
Snakebite left before the agents dropped Cowboy off.
“I haven’t seen him,” I lied to the two about Snakebite.
“Okay, I guess we’re off to Arizona,” I overheard the man tell the woman.
“Why would they be going to Arizona?” I asked Cowboy when they left.
“You want the truth?” He asked, with wet eyes.
“Of course,” I said, although I prepared myself for the worse.
“You might want to sit down.” I felt again like I would hurl. I sat.
Cowboy sat on the bed across from me.
“Jessy Bell and Teeth are being held in the county lock up, now. They’ve questioned them. The police are combing the whole county, but those agents seem to believe the kidnappers handed off the baby to someone else.”
“A buyer?” My heart stopped.
“Maybe?”
“So, why Arizona?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Anarchy?”
I was speechless. The Feds had ratted me out. They told me if I really wanted to find my baby I needed to tell them all I could, so I had. I told them about Anarchy, telling me she was pregnant. Is that why his eyes were wet? Was he crying for her?
“She asked me not to tell you. She said she’d tell you in her own time.”
“You should have said something.”
“Why? You didn’t tell me you killed my niece.” She hadn’t been blood, but I’d thought of her that way.
“What are you talking about?”
“Were you at the Devil’s Den five years ago when Scar came to rescue me?”
“Yeah…” he answered, timidly.
“You know, I was there. Do you remember what happened? Scar, he’d picked me up by the hair on my head. He noticed my blonde hair and threw me down.”
“That was you?”
“Yep. Good thing he didn’t kill me.”
“Scar could never kill a woman after seeing your mama die.”
“I can’t blame him.” I started crying. “I saw someone die that night. She was just five years old. Same age I was when the devils took me. Little Betty. I called her Little Betty Boop. I was supposed to babysit her that weekend, like I always did.”
Cowboy made no move to say anything. His face emotionless, hard, stared off into the distance.
“You killed her, didn’t you?” I screamed in his face.
He searched my face, looking so put out, he didn’t have to answer, answering me all the same.
“Get out,” I screamed at him.