Sailor & Lula (15 page)

“He was right,” said Sparky. “At least he got to find out before he died
of a heart attack from eatin' all that meat and pumpin' his body full of steroids.”

“That boy was marked for an early death,” said Katy, “however it happened. Findin' out the meanin' of life and all is fine, far as it goes, but dead's dead, you know what I mean?”

“Nice of you to drop by,” said Perdita.

Bobby let the screen door bang shut behind him as he came in.

“Told you I would.”

Perdita sat down on the couch, shook a Marlboro from the pack on the coffee table and lit it with a red Bic. Bobby roamed around the living room. The taps on the heels and toes of his boots clacked loudly against the hardwood floor.

“You still riled?” asked Bobby.

Perdita laughed. “You still screwin' sixteen-year-olds in the ass?”

Bobby smiled and kept circling.

“Ain't never had no teenaged girl pull a blade on me.”

“Wish I'd cut you up good.”

“Heard from Tony?”

“Juana called. They're stayin' another week.”

Bobby stopped walking and stared at a family photograph on the wall. “Stayin' a few extra days in the cow town, huh? This you?”

Perdita turned her head and looked, then turned back.

“Yes.”

“How old were you? Twelve?”

“Almost. Eleven and a half. Ten years ago in Corpus.”

“Mm, mm. What a tasty thing you musta been.”

“Nobody was tastin'.”

“Shame.”

Bobby turned around and leaned down and put his face next to Perdita's from behind.

“The cobra's waitin' to strike,
chica,
” he said.

Perdita crossed her legs and smoked. Bobby lowered his hands into the front of her blouse and cupped her small breasts. Perdita pretended not to care. He rubbed her nipples with the tips of his fingers, making them become rigid. She burned the back of his left wrist with her cigarette.

Bobby jumped back, then grabbed Perdita's hair and pulled her over the couch onto the floor. Neither of them spoke. She tried to stand up
but Bobby kept his right foot on her chest while he blew on the back of his wounded wrist. Perdita shoved his leg to one side and rolled away. She stood up and spit at him.

Bobby grinned. “I knew we could be friends again,” he said.

Lula read a magazine article about Evel Knievel, the man who'd tried to jump a rocket-shaped motorcycle across the mile-wide, 600-foot-deep Snake River Canyon; over 150-foot-tall fountains in front of a Las Vegas hotel-casino; a baker's dozen double-decker buses in London, England; a shark-filled pool in the Chicago stockyards; and made several other remarkable attempts at vehicular glory. At the Snake River, Knievel had crashed against the side of a mountain. In all, he'd broken at least forty bones, including both arms and his pelvis, and endured numerous brain concussions. Knievel had more than a dozen steel plates in his body, the article said, and now walked with the use of a gold-knobbed sword-cane since an operation had left one of his legs a half-inch shorter than the other.

Patsy Cline got killed in some kind of wreck when she was real young, Lula remembered. Patsy used that slow curve in her voice to talk about one kind of crazy. This daredevil idea, though, went way beyond natural.

“Take one of these,” Bobby Peru said, handing a plastic-wrapped package to Sailor.

“What is it?”

“Panty hose. Work better'n stockin's. Pull one of the legs down over your face and let the other leg trail behind your head.”

They were in the Eldorado, about two blocks away from the Ramos Feed Store in Iraaq. Perdita was at the wheel, Bobby was next to her and Sailor rode in back. The top was up.

“Here's the pistol,” said Bobby, taking the Smith and Wesson out of his belt and passing it to Sailor. “Remember, soon as we get inside you keep that bad boy up where those hicks can see it. Once they notice the Ithaca and the Smith, they'll know we ain't foolin' with 'em.”

Perdita tossed her cigarette out the window and immediately took out another and lit it with the dashboard lighter.

“Comin' up on it now, Bobby,” she said.

Bobby slipped the panty hose over his head and adjusted it. His face looked crooked, distorted and flat, the lips pancaked across the lower half and his hair plastered down over his forehead like broken teeth on a comb.

“Come on!” Bobby stage-whispered, his head snapping toward Sailor like a striking asp's. “Get that mask on!”

Sailor ripped open the package and pulled a nylon leg over his head, stretching the calf part to fit.

Perdita pulled up in front of the store. The street was deserted.

“Keep it revved, Chiquita. We won't be long,” Bobby said.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon and the sun took up the entire sky. As Sailor got out of the car, he felt the intense heat of the day for the first time. Until that moment, he'd been numb. Sailor had passed the preceding hours in a kind of trance, unaware of the temperature or anything other than the time. Fourteen hours, Bobby had said, that's when they'd go in. They'd be out at fourteen-oh-three and thirty seconds, he promised, with something in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars.

Bobby went in first, carrying a black canvas Sundog shoulder bag in
his left hand. He raised the sawed-off shotgun with his right and in a firm voice said to the two men behind the counter, “Move into the back room, both of you. Now!”

They moved. Both in their mid-fifties, portly, with wire-rim glasses and crown-bald heads, the men looked like brothers.

“Stay here,” Bobby told Sailor as he followed them. “Keep an eye on the door. If anyone comes in, herd 'em on back, quick.”

Sailor held the Smith up high, where Bobby could see it if he looked. Behind him, Sailor could hear Bobby instructing one of the men to open the safe. Neither of the men, so far as Sailor could tell, had said a word.

An Iguana County deputy sheriff cruised up in a patrol car and parked it on an angle in front of the idling Eldo. The deputy got out of his car and walked over to the driver's side of the Cadillac. He looked at Perdita through his aviator-style reflector Ray-Bans, smiled, and placed both of his hands on the rag top.

“Waitin' for somebody, miss?” he said.

“Mi esposo,”
said Perdita. “He's in the feed store picking up some supplies.”

“You'd best be careful of that cigarette, ma'am. It's about to burn down between your fingers.”

Perdita stubbed out her Marlboro in the ashtray.

“
Gracias
, officer.”

Bobby came out of the store in a hurry, still wearing the panty hose on his head, carrying the shoulder bag and the shotgun. Perdita jammed the gearshift into reverse and peeled out, knocking the deputy down. She floored the Eldo for fifty yards, braked hard, yanked it into drive and spun a mean yo-yo, fishtailing viciously but managing to keep the car under control. Perdita hit the accelerator again as hard as she could and never looked back.

The deputy came up on one knee with his revolver clasped in both hands. He fired his first shot into Bobby's right thigh and his second into Bobby's left hip. The shock of the initial slug caused Bobby to drop the bag. The impact of the second forced Bobby's right hand to twist sideways so that both barrels of the shotgun wedged under his chin. The Ithaca went off, blowing Bobby backwards through the RAMOS on the plate-glass window of the feed store.

Sailor had been right behind Bobby until he saw Perdita hightail it. As soon as he spotted the deputy, Sailor hit the ground, losing the Smith as he fell. He put his hands over his hosieried head and kept his face in the dirt until the deputy ordered him to stand up.

“Hello, Mace, it's Johnnie.”

“Glad you called, boy. You still east of El Paso?”

“We're at the Best Western in Fort Stockton.”

“Oughta take you about two hours to get to Lula. Just heard on the news that Sailor Ripley and another guy tried to stick up a feed store in Iraaq. They're holdin' Ripley in the Iguana County jail in Big Tuna. Deputy sheriff shot and killed the other one.”

“ 'Preciate it, Maceo. Be talkin' to ya.”

“Anytime.”

Lula was sitting on a bench in the waiting room of the Iguana County Courthouse when Johnnie and Marietta walked in. As soon as she saw Lula, Marietta ran over, sat down next to her and hugged and kissed her.

“Oh, baby, I was beginnin' to think I was never gonna see you again.”

Tears were pouring down Marietta's cheeks. She held Lula to her and Lula did not resist.

“Sweetheart, I'm so sorry about all this. I know you think I'm a crazy old woman, but I was so worried!”

“You ain't old, Mama. Hello, Johnnie.”

“Hello, Lula. How you holdin'?”

“I'm tired, just real, honest-to-Jesus dog-tired.”

“You're comin' home, precious,” said Marietta. “Johnnie's gonna drive us to the San Antonio airport.”

“Mama, Sailor's in deep trouble here. I can't just leave him.”

Marietta took Lula by the shoulders and looked straight at her. Lula's eyes were bloodshot, her hair was greasy and stringy, and her cheeks were pale.

“Oh, yes, you can,” Marietta said.

Sailor Ripley
#461208
Walls Unit
Huntsville, Texas 77340

Dearest Sailor Darling,

The first thing youll want to know is Im keeping the baby. Mama wasnt for it in the beginning but I think shes looking forward to it. Im gonna name it Pace no matter if its a boy or a girl. Pace Ripley sounds good dont it? Its kind of hard to believe that Pace will be ten years old when you get out.

What else can I tell you? Im feeling fine its not so terrible being with mama cause shes calmed down a lot. I think our running off that way scared her plenty and she has more respect for me now. She doesn't even speak poorly of you no more at least not so often. I explained to her how you was worried about us not having money and the idea of a baby and all and how of course it was no excuse for committing an armed robbery but there it is.

I hope its not too horrible for you inside the walls again I know how much you hate being confined. Is it different in a Texas prison than it was at Pee Dee? I bet it aint as pretty. The doctor here says I got to stay at home while Im pregnant. Theres something wrong with the way Im carrying the baby but if I keep still and dont smoke and eat right which mama and her friend Dalceda Delahoussaye are seeing to he says I should be just fine. It sure is hard not to smoke. I miss my Mores!!! I feel like Im kind of in prison too but I know in six months itll be over and Ill have a son or daughter to show for it.
Our
child!!

I hope you know it hurts me to not be able to visit you all I can do is write letters which is OK I like writing. Did you know that Johnnie Farragut is a writer? Mama told me he showed her some stories and things he wrote and that she liked them. She says he has an interesting imagination.

Did Perdita Durango ever get caught? Ill bet shes in Mexico now or somewhere out of the authorities reach. I have to confess it dont bother me one little bit about Bobby Peru being shot dead. He was one of them types you could feel it was coming and he killed his share as we know. Remember once I called him a black angel well hes not in heaven Ill guarantee. If he is then I never want to go
there
!!!

It was excellent of you to give yourself up the way you did and not try to shoot it out youd be dead too and never have got to see your child Pace. I hope this name is all right with you Sailor if its not tell me and Ill think it over some more but I love it and certainly hope you do.

Im going to take a nap now. Your probably thinking about how I was always sleeping at the end there in the Iguana Hotel and now I still am but the doctor says sometimes being pregnant makes the mother be that way and Im one of them. I love you Sailor. I dont know how much or what it means though I miss you an awful bunch sometimes I know your thinking about me cause I can feel it. I miss your not being around to call me peanut nobody else ever called me that.

Like I said I have to rest again. Its not really so simple to write like this at least not like it was before when you was at Pee Dee cause that was for only two years not ten. Time dont really fly honey does it?

Love,
your Lula

Lula P. Fortune
127 Reeves Avenue
Bay St. Clement, N.C. 28352

Dear Lula,

It is fine with me about the baby as you already know. And Pace being your family name and all is just right. What about a middle name if it is a boy after my grandaddy Roscoe? He would be proud I know though he is long passed. Pace Roscoe Ripley does not sound so bad do you think? If it is a girl instead choose whatever name you want for a middle I do not care. Leaving it be is OK without a middle or you might want to put in your mother Marietta. Anyway is good. Just you stay healthy.

Your right this place is not so pretty as Pee Dee. Not pretty at all. There are boys inside these walls meaner than Peru you can bet. There is a Death House. I am getting along. The only thing is not thinking about the future. Your right there 10 years is not 2. The baby will be 10 but I will be 33. There is always a chance of early parole though the rap back home and the fact I busted parole there probably cancels that. I am not there idea of a good risk.

I really got no idea what happened to Perdita. She disappeared as you figured. She is a strange person and I did not know her well. Tell your mama I am dreadful sorry about each and everything that has happened and the last thing ever in my mind is to see you harmed. You are her daughter but I would like to marry you if you would consent while I am inside. This can be arranged because I asked. The preacher would do it but I know you cannot leave home. Maybe after you have the baby you would come here.