Gaha: Babes of the Abyss by Jon Frankel

Author:Jon Frankel [Frankel, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Noir
ISBN: 9780692337233
Publisher: Whiskey Tit
Published: 2014-11-28T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

The drive to Tony’s was terrifying. I came down out of the hills and the entrance to the freeway was a maze of stainless steel bladed walls and blinking yellow eye censors on retractable necks. Troops on either side were digging trenches and laying down defenses. The only open route between downtown and the hills was closing as I drove. By the time I reached Torrance my knuckles had fused for lack of blood and I had cracks in my teeth.

I stood in the parking lot under the blue light poles panting. I had not been at Tony’s in a long time. It felt like I was still chasing Irmela out the door. Inside there was a cobweb stockinged girl in Dorothy punks playing pinball. I stared at her, just to see what I would feel. Would I feel like taking her home? But I didn’t feel a thing. She was immature, not fully formed. She had no angles and even if she did I wouldn’t care. Cause it wasn’t how Irmela looked or how young she was, or even how she acted. It was the anger. The anger was the lure. The anger that beat beneath her placid face and days of conversation consisting only of monotone non sequitors. I sat down. The bar smelled of malt and cigars. Tony ambled over and tossed down a coaster.

“Bob. How’s it going?”

“Get me a whiskey and a beer and I’ll tell you.”

“Mekong?”

“Rye if you have it.”

Tony raised an eyebrow and left, returning with a dusty bottle of Kentucky Rye. “I hope you have pesos.”

I put down two silver pesos. “Let me buy you one too. Sometimes you have to drink the good stuff.”

Tony dusted the bottle with a damp bar mop and poured out two shots. He took the pencil out from behind his ear and bounced the eraser on the bar top, catching it between his fingers.

“What’s it been, a year?” I asked.

“Time in this place? Who would know,” he said, sipping the rye.

“Ya miss me?” I laughed and downed the shot. “I’ll take another.”

“Everyone is dead. To a child.” He shook his head and stared off. “First the Mexicans came and then the goddamn Rulers returned. Back and forth.” He pulled over a bowl of roasted pinyons. “Right outside these doors was a gallows. I hid underground, in the supply pod.”

“Why didn’t they get you?”

His eyes widened and he looked up the bar and rubbed his chin. “Some of us made it. I have provisions. I could stay down for days. They would clear out a barrio and move on. They were an army on the move.” He nodded and sucked his teeth and downed the shot. “Don’t get me started. It ain’t over yet. The Mexicans won’t hold this long. They’ll relieve Lord Otis. It was the Ruler Tobor Ocktomann who screwed him. Otis would have torn it up all the way to Guatemala. He was amok amok. Why can’t they go back to the old way? It makes no fucking sense.

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