A World of Thieves

chin down and took the next ones on top of the head. They hurt like hell but then he yowled and I knew he’d busted his hand. I grabbed him by the hair and lunged sideways and rammed his head hard against the rim of the bathtub. He groaned and lost his hold on me and I got better leverage and banged his head again and this one knocked him cold.

I got untangled from him and scrambled to my feet and rushed into the other room and there was Belle— standing beside the bed and holding the cocked Colt in the other guys’ face. One of her straps was broken and her top hung down and exposed a breast. The guy sat on the edge of the bed looking terrified, hands way up. “Always” was still blasting.

“Belle!” I said.

She didn’t even look at me. She jabbed the guy in the forehead with the muzzle of the gun and he fell on his back and said, “Jesus, lady…please!”

She held the gun to his eye. “Want to tear my dress some more, highroller? Want another grab up under my skirt?”

“No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth.

She tapped his teeth with the muzzle and said, “Open up.” Then slid a good portion of the barrel into his mouth—and now his eyes couldn’t get any bigger.

The telephone rang. She looked at it and then at me, her face blank. It rang again. I went over and turned down the radio and picked up the receiver.

The front desk. They’d received a complaint from the room next door about the loud music. Could we please be more considerate? I saw myself in the mirror, my nose bleeding, a dark swelling over one eye and on one cheek. The knots on my scalp hurt but didn’t show. “Certainly,” I said. “My apologies.”

I hung up. Belle still had the pistol barrel in the guy’s mouth.

“The desk clerk wonders if you’d be kind enough not to shoot that asshole,” I said. “They’re afraid the noise might disturb some of the guests.”

She held the blank look on me a moment longer—and then grinned wide and beautifully.

We bound their hands behind them with their own belts and gagged them with towels. It wouldn’t take much effort to get free of the belts, but that’s how I wanted it. The guy on the bathroom floor had a concussion for sure, maybe a skull fracture, and the sooner he made it to a hospital the better. At least he was breathing and it looked to me like he’d stay that way. He’d been the one to flash the roll of money at Belle—$3, 500, by my hasty count before I stuck the wad in my coat. The other guy was carrying a little more than a grand, and that roll went into my coat too. They’d told Belle they were drilling contractors just back from setting up a new field in Mexico and about to start a job outside San Angelo.

Belle hurriedly changed dresses, and because I didn’t want to raise any curiosity about my bruises, I sent her down to the desk to check us out while I finished putting our stuff in the valises. I told the guy on the bed he ought to be more careful about the women he took up. He nodded like he meant it. When she telephoned me from the lobby to say we were set to go, I pulled my hat low and grabbed our bags and took the elevator down.

I went out the front door and a moment later she pulled up in the roadster. She slid over to the passenger side and I got behind the wheel.

Before we’d gone two blocks she was hugging my neck and kissing me, running her hand inside my shirt. It was all I could do to steer.

“Jesus, girl—you’re gonna make us wreck!”

“Did you see how scared he was, baby? Did you see? I had him crying. I could’ve made that bullying bastard do anything, he was so scared of me.”

“A gun in the mouth can do that, all right.”

Then we were past the city limit sign and she placed my right hand up under her dress and panties so I could feel how wet she was. She fondled me through my trousers. I was suddenly aware of being so hard it hurt. She unbuttoned me and hunched down and took me in her mouth. She’d never done that before. In bed one time I’d made it obvious I wanted that, but she’d pulled away and said no, that her Corsicana boyfriend had practically forced her to do it once, and once was enough. So I’d let the matter drop. Now here she was, doing it to me in the car as we barreled along the dark highway. I had to pull over to the shoulder to avoid a collision. I sat there gripping the wheel while she kept at me below the sweep of passing headlights. When I shot off—rocking back and forth and banging my fist on the wheel—some of my fellow motorists must’ve thought I was having a fit.

We checked into a motor camp outside of Big Lake and frolicked into the wee hours. We did it every which way—sideways, dog style, standing, sitting, name it. Having seen the lunatic delight I’d taken from her special treat in the car, she was avid to pleasure me that way. And even though she’d previously been as shy of receiving my mouth on her as of putting hers to me, this time she didn’t resist as I kissed my way down her belly. When I used my tongue on her she dug her fingers into the back of my head and arched herself against my mouth and climaxed with such a shriek I hoped the neighboring cabin was unoccupied or somebody might call the cops to report a murder taking place.

For a minute afterward, she lay open-mouthed, breathing deeply, an arm over her eyes. Then let out a long sigh and said, “My God. I’d heard things, but I never imagined it could be soooooo fine.” She lowered her arm and looked at me. “Who taught you to do that, the devil?”

Actually, Brenda Marie Matson had given me the best instruction I ever received on oral sexual technique, but I didn’t think Belle would want to hear about her, so I simply grinned and waggled my eyebrows. I told her that at Gulliver we used to refer to the clitoris as the “little man in the boat,” and we’d spend hours discussing the best ways to get him up on tiptoes. She laughed so hard she got the hiccups.

I’d brought along the remaining bourbon and we sat up in bed and had a drink and a cigarette, but both of us were so tired we didn’t even finish the smokes before snuffing them out and spooning up, her ass snug against me.

I was almost asleep when her voice came to me from what seemed very far away…. “What’s it feel like to shoot somebody?”

I wanted to say, “Not sure I ever did,” but only managed a low mumble.

I thought I heard her say, “Must be something,” but I wasn’t certain. And then I was asleep.

We got back in the middle of the afternoon. Russell met us at the front door, leaning on his crutch, returning Belle’s hug with his free arm.

“Perfect timing with them reinforcements,” he said, nodding at the sackful of booze and beer I was carrying. I’d made a stop at the Callaghan Street house as soon as we rolled into town. “I’m about down to my last swallow,” he said. His breath smelled of drink and his eyes were red.

“You run out of pills?” I said as we headed for the kitchen.

“That’s all right,” he said. “Don’t need them.”

“Not if you’re using Dr. Barleycorn’s prescription, I guess.”

“You mind your health, kid, I’ll mind mine,” he said. “Tell me how-all you did.”

I’d expected to see Charlie in the kitchen but she wasn’t there. Belle stepped across the hall to peek into their bedroom, then started for the sideporch door.

“She’s down the park,” Russell said, grimacing slightly as he gingerly accommodated himself in a chair at the table, positioning his leg out in front of him. There was a nearly empty bottle and a tumbler on the table, together with some kind of map and what looked like a letter. “She’s been spending lots of time down there.” He waved his