"Your ferry leaves in about two hours. We better get dressed."
"You really need to get his tattoo colored in again. Being out in the sun all day long is fading it." We were laying in my tiny bed, our bodies intertwined and covered in sweat. Reggie was lazily tracing her finger over the outlines of my tattoo.
The moment seemed strangely familiar. "Does your husband have your named
tattooed on his chest?"
"Hell no! This is my fourth time down the altar and not one of them has ever done anything near as romantic as that."
"I can't believe that you've been married four fucking times. Unbelievable."
"Well, my line of work plays hell on the married life. That's for sure."
I felt maudlin all of a sudden. "Does he treat you good? Are you happy?"
She looked up at me. "The captain? As good as a seventy year old man can. He is very sweet and I'll never have to worry about money again. The sex isn't that great of course. But with Viagra.."
"I guess I don't need to hear anymore."
She stood up and walk naked down the short hall of the Airstream and began getting dressed.
Pulling on a pair of black panties over those gorgeous tanned legs. Aging had been so gentle on her. A few extra pounds but incredibly sexy. "Are you jealous?"
I laid back with my hands behind my head and stared up at the ceiling. "Without a doubt."
Suddenly and without warning, I felt an incredible pressure on my chest! Jesus Christ! I was having a fucking heart attack! No, it couldn't be heart attack. The pain was coming from the right side not the left. I clutched my chest and looked down. My hands and the sheet were covered in blood. I tried to speak but nothing came out. Just a squeaky gasp. Trying to take a deep breath was impossible! The closest doctor had to be five miles away. In a panic I looked up to Reggie for help. She was already standing over me. I could swear that I could still see smoke coming out of the silencer.
The bitch had shot me! First I had been shot by a midget and now by a topless woman wearing nothing but black panties! At the angle I was laying in the bed the bullet had hit me just under the collarbone. The bullet must have exited out the back because down feathers were floating in the air. She quickly cuffed my hands over my head to the bed frame.
Reggie had my knife in her other hand. "I can't believe you never got that goddamn tattoo removed or covered up after all these years. You certainly are the romantic. Now I'm going to have to cut the fucking thing out. I certainly can't leave my name inscribed on your chest." She leaned over and stuck the silencer's barrel against my forehead as she stuck the knife against the tattoo hard enough that it felt like the blade had gone in at least half an inch. "Tell me where the briefcase is and if it's where you say it is, I'll call the police after my ferry gets to the mainland and have them send a doctor. I don't think you'll bleed to death in that time."
"Fuck you, you lying bitch," I whispered hoarsely.
"Still trying to be the tough guy, huh?" Reggie walked over and put a CD in the stereo and cranked it up. "Still like that redneck shit, don't you?" She leaned over me and stuck a dirty sock in my mouth then stuck the knife deep into the tattoo again, one hand against my throat to steady herself as she carved the knife around the tattoo. I closed my eyes and screamed in pain as I bucked my legs up and down in a feeble attempt to knock her off of me. Suddenly she stood up and flicked the piece of flesh against a window curtain, tore the curtain loose, and folded it up.
She pulled the sock out my mouth. "Tell me where the briefcase is and you'll live. I promise I'll call for a doctor when I get to the mainland."
I nodded to her. "OK," I gasped. "Just down the road there's a burned down cantina. Against the north wall there's a hole in the wall with a burned out candle sitting in it. Dig down about three, four, fuck, I don't know how may goddamn feet. That's where your goddamn case is. There‘s a shovel underneath the trailer."
She tapped my face with my knife. "That's a good boy. But if you're bullshitting me, I'll come straight back here. And this time I'll cut your cock off and shove it down your throat." She leaned over me and dragged her hard nipples across my face.
I didn't look at her as she dressed but I heard her walk out the trailer door, dig around underneath for the shovel, and start up my GEO over the stereo: “People say I'm no good and crazy as a loon Cause I get stoned in the morning I get drunk in the afternoon”
I lay there in that hot sweaty trailer as the blood ran out of me and I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
The explosion was loud that it shook my trailer. Seconds later it sounded like it was hailing outside as something metallic sounding rained down on to the roof of my trailer. Then I smiled and closed my eyes. Because I had to wait no longer.