The Stupidest Angel Chapter 2

Chapter 2THE LOCAL GIRLS HAVE A WAY ABOUT THEMThe Warrior Babe of the Outland steered her Honda station wagon down cypress tree Street, stopping forevery ten feet or so for tourists who were stepping into the street from between parked cars, completely listless of any automobile traffic. My kingdom for a razor-blade cowcatcher and Cuisinart wheel covers to cut my path finished this move of ignorant peasant meat, she thought. Then Whoa, I guess I really do need the meds. So she say, They act want Cypress Street is the midway at Disneyland like no one very has to use the street to drive on. You guys wouldnt do that, would you?She glanced over her shoulder at the two damp immature boys who were huddled in the corner of the keister informalityoceant of the car. They shook their heads furiously. One said, No, Miss Michon, no wed never. No.Her real reboot was molly Michon, but years ago, as a B-movie queen, shed done eight movies as Kendra, Warrior Babe of the Outland. She h ad a wild mane of blond hair shot with gray and the body of a fitness model. She could fend for up for thirty or fifty, depending on the time of day, what she was wearing, and how deeply medicated she was. Fans agreed that she was plausibly approximatelywhere in her previous(predicate) to midforties.Fans. The two teenage boys in the posteriorseat of the car were fans. Theyd made the mis pursue of taking part of their Christmas break to go to Pine Cove in search of the famed cult-film star, Molly Michon, and get her autograph on their copies of Warrior Babe VI Revenge of the Savage Skank, upright released on DVD, with never-before-seen tabootakes of Mollys boobs popping push through of her gun-metal bra. Molly had seen them skulking nigh the impertinent of the cabin she shared with her husband, Theo Crowe. Shed snuck come to the fore the cover charge door and ambushed them on the side of the house with a tend hose sprayed them down effectual, chased them through the pine away forest till the hose reeled out of its cart, therefore she tackled the taller one and threatened to snap his neck if the some other one didnt stop in his tracks.Realizing at that head that she talent have made a public relations error, Molly invited her fans to come along to ease pick out a Christmas tree for the Santa genus Rosa Chapel Christmas Party for the Lonesome. (She had been making more than a a few(prenominal) minor misjudgments lately, as shed stopped taking her meds a week ago in revisal to save money for Theos Christmas present.)So, where are you guys from? she said cheerfully.Please dont hurt us, said Bert, the taller, thinner of the two kids (She had been thought of them as Bert and Ernie not because they really looked like the puppets, but because they had the similar relative shapes except for the big give way up their bottoms, of course.)Im not freeing to hurt you. Its great to have you along. The guys at the Christmas-tree dole out are a lower-ranking wary of me since I fed one of their coworkers to a sea monster a few years ago, so you guys can sort of act as a social buffer. Damn, she shouldnt have mentioned the sea monster. Shed had so many years of obscurity between the time shed been pushed out of the movie business until the resurgence to cult status of her movies that shed lost most of her people skills. And then there was that fifteen-year disconnect with reality when shed been cognize as Pine Coves crazy lady but since shed hooked up with Theo, and had stayed on her anti-psychotics, things had been a lot check.She turned into the parking lot of Pine Cove Hardware and Gift, where a half acre of tarmac was corralled move out for the Christmas-tree lot. Upon sleuthing her car, three middle-aged guys in canvas aprons quickstepped their way into the store, threw the bolt, and turned the Open sign to CLOSED.Shed thought this might happen, but she valued to surprise Theo, prove that she could handle g etting the big Christmas tree for the chapel party. instantly these narrow-minded minions of Black & Decker were foiling her plans for a perfect Christmas. She took a deep breath and tried to emanate herself into a calm moment as her yoga teacher had instructed.Well, she did live in the middle of a pine forest, didnt she? Maybe she should just go cut a Christmas tree herself.Lets just go back to the cabin, guys I have an ax there that will work.Noooooooo screamed Ernie as he reached across his damp friend, threw the latch on the Hondas door, and rolled them both out of the moving car into a pallet of plastic reindeer.Okay, then, Molly said, you guys take care. Ill just see if I can cut a tree out of the front yard. She swung around in the parking lot and headed back home.Slick with sweat, Lena Marquez slid out of her Santa suit like a botch lizard emerging from a fuzzy red egg. The temperature had risen into the high seventies before shed destroyed her shift at the Thrifty-Mart, and she was sure shed probably lost five malleuss in water in the good suit. Wearing only her bra and panties, she padded into the bathroom and jumped on the scale to enjoy the surprise fillip weight loss. The disk spun and settled on her usual preshower weight. Perfect for her height, catch fire for her age, but dammit, shed fought with her ex, been pounded with ice, rang out good cheer for the less fortunate, and endured the jolly heat of the Santa suit for eight hours, she deserved something for her efforts.She took off her bra and panties and hopped back on the scale. No discernible difference. Dammit She sat, peed, wiped, and jumped back on the scale. Maybe a third of a pound below normal. Ah she thought, brushing her beard aside so she could read the scale more clearly, this could be the problem. She pulled off the w worke beard and Santa hat, flung them into the nearby bedroom, shook out her long black hair, and waited for the scale to settle.Oh yeah. Four pounds. She di d a quick Tae Bo kick of celebration and stepped into the shower. She winced as she soaped up, hitting a sore spot there by her solar plexus. There were a couple of purple bruises developing on her ribs where the ice bag had hit her. Shed had more pain after doing too many crunches at the gym, but this pain seemed to shoot on through to her heart. Maybe it was the thought of spending Christmas alone.This would be her first since the divorce. Her sister, whom shed spent the last few Christmases with, was going with her husband and the kids to Europe. Dale, total prick that he was, had involved her in all sorts of holiday activities from which she was now excluded. The rest of her family was back in Chicago, and she hadnt had any luck with men since Dale too much residual anger and mistrust. (He hadnt just been a prick, he had cheated on her.) Her girlfriends, all of them married or paired up with semipermanent boyfriends, told her that she mandatory to be single for a while, spend some time getting to know herself. That, of course, was total bullshit. She knew herself, desire herself, washed herself, dressed herself, bought herself presents, took herself out on dates, and even had sex with herself from time to time, which always ended better than it used to with Dale.Oh, that get-to-know-yourself tug will send you full-blown batshit, said her friend Molly Michon. And believe me, I am the uncrowned queen of batshit. Last time I really got to know myself it turned out there was a whole gang of bitches in there to deal with. I felt like the receptionist at a rehab center. They all had nice tits, though, I gotta say. Anyway, forget that. Go out and do stuff for someone else. Thats much better for you. Get to know yourself what good is that? What if you get to know yourself and find out youre a total harpy? Sure, I like you, but you cant trust my judgment. Go do something for other people.It was true. Molly could be uh, eccentric, but she did make sense o ccasionally. So Lena had volunteered to man the Salvation Army kettle, shed still canned food and frozen turkeys for the Pine Cove Anonymous Neighbors food drive, and tomorrow night, as soon as it got dark, she was going to go out and collect live Christmas trees and drop them off at the homes of people who probably wouldnt be able to afford them. That should take her mind off herself. And if it didnt work, shed spend Christmas Eve at the Santa Rosa Chapel Party for the Lonesome. Oh God, there it was. It was Christmastime, and she was in the Christmas olfactory perception she was feeling lonesome.To mavis Sand, the owner of the Head of the lap saloon, the word lonesome rang like the bell on a cash register. Come Christmas break, Pine Cove alter up with tourists seeking small-town charm, and the Head of the Slug filled up with lonesome, disenfranchised winners seeking solace mavis was glad to serve it up in the form of her signature (and overpriced) Christmas cocktail, the S low Comfortable Screw in the Back of Santas Sleigh, which consisted of Well, fuck off if you need to know whats in it, Mavis would say. Im a professional barkeeper since your daddy flushed the condom that held your only hope of havin a brain, so get in the spirit and inn the goddamn drink.Mavis was always in the Christmas spirit, right down to the Christmas-tree earrings that she wore year-round to give her that new-car smell. A sheaf of mistletoe the size of a moose head hung over the order station at her bar, and throughout the season, any unsuspecting drunk who leaned too far over the bar to shout his order into one of Maviss hearing aids would find that beyond the fluttering black nylon whips of her mascara-plastered pseudo lashes, so-and-so the groyne with the hair and the palette knife-applied cakes of Red Seduction lipstick, past the Tareyton 100s breath and the clacking dentures, Mavis still had some beneficial tongue action left in her. One guy, breathless and stagg ering toward the door, claimed that she had tongued his medulla oblongata and bear on visions of being choked in Deaths dark closet which Mavis took as a compliment.About the same time that Dale and Lena were having their go-round down at the Thrifty-Mart, Mavis, perched on her stool behind the bar, looked up from a crossword lodge to see the most beautiful man shed ever lain eyes on coming through Slugs recur doors. What had once been a desert bloomed down low where for years lay a dusty streambed, a mighty river did now flow. Her heart skipped a beat and the defibrillator implanted in her chest gave her a little jolt that sent her sluicing electric off her bar stool to his service. If he ordered a wallbanger shed come so hard her tennis shoes would rip out from the toe curl, she knew it, she felt it, she wanted it. Mavis was a romantic.Can I help you? she asked, batting her eyelashes, which gave the appearance of spastic wolf spiders convulsing behind her glasses.A half-doz en daytime regulars who had been sitting at the bar turned on their stools to behold the source of that oily courtesy there was no way that voice had come out of Mavis, who normally spoke to them in tones of disdain and nicotine.Im look for for a kidskin, said the stranger. He had long blond hair that fanned out over the rain flap of a black trench coat. His eyes were violet, his facial features both broken and delicate, finely cut and yet with no lines of age or experience.Mavis tweaked the little knob on her right hearing aid and tilted her head like a dog who has just bitten into a plastic pork chop. Oh, how the pillars of lust can crumble under the weight of stupidity. Youre looking for a baby bird? asked Mavis.Yes, said the stranger.In a bar? On a Monday afternoon? Youre looking for a child?Yes.A particular child, or will just any child do?Ill know it when I see it, said the stranger.You sick fuck, said one of the daytime regulars, and Mavis, for once, nodded in agreem ent, her neck vertebrae clicking like a socket wrench.Get the inferno out of my bar, she said. A long, lacquered fingernail pointed the way back out the door. Go on, get out. What do you think this is, Bangkok?The stranger looked at her finger. The Nativity is approaching, am I correct?Yeah, Christmas is Saturday. Mavis growled. The hell does that have anything to do with anything?Then Ill need a child before Saturday, said the stranger.Mavis reached under the bar and pulled out her miniature baseball bat. Just because he was pretty didnt mean he couldnt be improved by a smack upside the head with a piece of earnest hickory. manpower a wink, a thrill, a damp squish, and before you knew it it was time to start raising lumps and loosening teeth. Mavis was a pragmatic romantic love correctly performed, she believed hurts.Smack im, Mavis, cheered one of the daytime regulars.What kind of perv wears an overcoat in seventy-five-degree weather? said another. I say brain him. Bets w ere beginning to be exchanged back by the pool table.Mavis tugged at an errant chin hair and peered over her glasses at the stranger. Think you might want to move your little search on down the road some?What day is it? asked the stranger.Monday.Then Ill have a diet Coke.What about the kid? asked Mavis, punctuating the question by thwack the baseball bat against her palm (which hurt like hell, but she wasnt going to flinch, not a notice).I have until Saturday, said the beautiful perv. For now, just a diet Coke and a Snickers bar. Please.Thats it, Mavis said. Youre a dead man.But, I said please, said Blondie, missing the point, somewhat.She didnt even bother to throw open the lift-away through the bar but ducked under it and charged. At that moment a bell rang, and a beam of light blasted into the bar, indicating that someone had come in from outside. When Mavis stood back up, leaning heavily on her back foot as she wound up to knock the strangers nads well into the next county, he was gone.Problem, Mavis? asked Theophilus Crowe. The constable was standing right where the stranger had been.Damn, whered he go? Mavis looked around behind Theo, then back at the daytime regulars.Whered he go?Got me, they said, a chorus of shrugs.Who? asked Theo.Blond guy in a black trench coat, said Mavis. You had to pass him on the way in.Trench coat? Its seventy-five degrees out, said Theo. Id have noticed someone in a trench coat.He was a perv someone shouted from the back.Theo looked down at Mavis. This guy flash you?Their height difference was nearly two feet and Mavis had to back up a step to look him in the eye. Hell no. I like a man who believes in truth in advertising. This guy was looking for a child.He told you that? He came in here and said he was looking for a kid?Thats it. I was just getting put in to teach him some Youre sure he hadnt lost his kid? That happens, Christmas shopping, they wander away No, he wasnt looking for a particular kid, he was just lo oking for a kid.Well, maybe he wanted to be a Big Brother or Secret Santa or something, said Theo, expressing a faith in the goodness of man for which he had little to no evidence, do something nice for Christmas.Goddammit, Theo, you dumbfuck, you dont have to pry a priest off an altar boy with a crowbar to figure out that hes not circumstances the kid with his Rosary. The guy was a perv.Well, I should probably go look for him.Well, you probably oughta should.Theo started to turn to go out the door, then turned back. Im not a dumbfuck, Mavis. Theres no need for that kind of talk.Sorry, Theo, said Mavis, lumbering her baseball bat to show the sincerity of her contrition. Why was it you came in, then?Cant remember. Theo raised his eyebrows, daring her.Mavis grinned at him. Theo was a good guy a little flaky but a good guy. authentically?Nah, I just wanted to check with you on the food for the Christmas party. You were going to barbecue, right?I was homework on it.Well, I just h eard on the radio that theres a pretty good chance of rain, so you might want to have a backup plan.More liquor?I was persuasion something that wouldnt involve cooking outdoors.Like more liquor?Theo shook his head and started toward the door. Call me or Molly if you need any help.It wont rain, said Mavis. It never rains in December.But Theo was gone, out on the street looking for the trench-coated stranger.It could rain, said one of the daytime regulars. Scientists say we could see El Nio this year.Yeah, like they ever tell us until after half the state has washed away, said Mavis. Screw the scientists.But El Nio was coming.El Nio. The Child.