Misty's Game

(an excerpt from Jailbreak!)

Prohibition makes the most viciouspeople on Earth the richest people on Earth . . . Bob Newland

Misty is a girl I met through Annette. She is another beautiful blond, except much taller, better educated and more reserved. She had taken up with a large black guy who liked to be called "Dirk". They were paying enormous motel bills and were looking for a cheaper place to stay. Annette suggested that we had room to spare and that it would bne a temporary arrangement. I was attracted to Misty, and Dirk was a nice enough guy. Also, they didn't mind sleeping in the front room on a small mattress Betsy had biven me from the old folks home.

It turned out that Misty was a California girl and knew Santa Fe well too. She was 24 years old, well traveled, fashionably thin, had deep, dark blue eyes and would cook for us. Annette wouldn't, so my kitchen was usually pretty bare. Coke fiends eat very little, ahnd usually they make their tricks feed them; that is, when they do eat. Usually they slept by day while I worked and left soon as darkness fell. Misty really impresseed me with how she could make a good, hot supper out of the nothing I'd stock my cabinets with. She could be very industrious and resourseful, never buying any food, only creating a way around what was missing.

It was pleasant having them stay. Like Annette, they didn't need anything but the barest minimum. A mattress, roof and bathroom seemed to suffice, and they'd origanally planned to flop on the rug, asking only for a blanket or sheet. I felt sorry for them, particularly Misty because she seemed to be their sole means of support. This was no life for either of them, and I was curious as to why he wouldn't get a job and why she consented to support him. Misty was also supplying Annette with cocaine as "rent". Dirk had a yellow caddy and would drive them to "work", which was nice. To escape having to pick them up every couple of hours I would never have a phone in any place I lived. Dirk and his caddy relieved me of having to drive them back. This gave me more time to work on my own projects of getting prosperous enough to take weeks off to search Okie files for the actuall killer of the porn merchant.

One morning they left before I did. A few minutes later Annette came back, afoot and breathless to say Dirk had bashed his caddy into someone nearby. The guy had called the cops. She wanted me to come by and pick up a briefcase before the cops came and searched Dirk's car. It was right on my way to work, so Annette and I stopped by the scene. The guy who'd called the cops was still gone. The yellow caddy was sprawled scross the road, it's fenter squashed up against the front wheel, making it driveable only in circles. Misty had told Dirk he shouldn't be driving the thing except when absolutely necessary, leading me to believe he'd probably scammed it from an independant seller on the pretext of test driving it prior to purchase. (Cops and prosecutors don't waste a lot of effort on cases like these where the seller unwittingly assists the theft of his vehicle.)

Instead of all of them piling into my car and shouting for me to "step on it!" Misty really did pass me a briefcase, spoke in whispers to dirk, then left with Annette and I. Before I got out of sight, the cop drove up with the copcaller. He wanted to chase me, but Dirk stood in front of his vehicle, preventing him from charging after me by pretendind to flag him down. He was angry enough to gnaw his steering wheel at being victimized by a dispised minority pulling this common coptrick of daring you to run over him. His horn and siren did no good at dislodging Dirk from his copcar bumper as the three of us sped away in a series of zigs and zags.

Misty assured me that Dirk would not give the cops my name or address, but I wasn't going to take any chances. The cops have nearly infinite resources, and just seeing my car was perhaps enough for them to narrow it down to me merely by make, model and vicinity. The apartment house people act as the cops spies, submitting to them monthly lists of who lives where, what they drive and which tags, stickers and titles have expired, etc. They even help cops make secret snooping expiditions into your domicile to steal or plant evidence as they dixire. I'd have to send in a cleaning service after I cleaned out everything that might interest the cops first. This really pissed me off; their silly car wreck destroying my plans for a while. I'd have to be very stealthy coming home tonight, and really needed to clean the place out now instead of going to work. I hoped Dirk would get dragged off, but this wasn't likely, since he'd been brave enough to stay behind and face down the growing swarm of cops. Misty and Annette didn't see how angry I was, or, if they did, they gid this knowledge better than I. They directed me to a private residential corner. Annette gave me a quick peck on the lips and leaped out. Misty took my head in both hands, pulled me close, kissed me slowly with much feeling, then pulled back a few inches and looked seriously into my eyes.

"Thanks, James", she murmured, "I'll see you tonight." "Baby, you're too hot for me." I replied.

"I'll show you hot tonight. Don't let my case get away from you or else!" She yanked my head back and kissed me like a cannibal subduing a meal. "I mean the cops." "Don't worry! Be at the car wash at 4:30 tonight!" she answered. "Just black with white is too much heat." I said. "Dirk is out. He won't be there. After tonight, its me and you, and skeeter too. You want to learn what I teach you."

"I don't need trouble with Dirk!" "Dirk doesn't have a choice, and neither do you." She winked saucily, threw her pert nose in the air and slipped away without even closing the car door. She was mighty sure of herself for a woman so young and with such small breasts, but she knew I'd be there.

Her briefcase was locked, but it still scared me so much that I stealthily tossed it between weed encrusted fences at the parking lot at work. The apartment people probably knew where I worked, and my employers would swiftly direct the cops to my car whise I was out on assignment. You can't be too clean with evberyone looking for dirt. The dispacher gave me a good assistant who wouldn't snitch on me, so we loaded our truck and went straight back to my place. In five minutes I'd gathered a small sack of crap and fled. Dirk was with the caddy and a wrecker going the opposite direction as we sped to Fort Worth. Randy pitched the bag into the trinity river as we crossed the bridge. Along with the drug paraphernalia the girls brought was a 50$ bottle of photocatalyst the cops could call "drug precursor" and dupe a jury of nitwits into believing it. You won't believe this, but it's a fact you can look up that the cop lobby has purchased laws that make amateur dabbling in plastics a felony crime worth a life sentence. This is how nutty law is and how hysterical the gluttons of privilege get over simple chemicals that are fractional pieces of molecules that can be fitted together with other pieces to form outlawed drugs. It's the same as outlawing the screws that can hold a gun together, even when they hold together a sewing machine.

Crack fiends somehow manage to strew coke crumbs everywhere, so I was adamant that Susan let the carpet-plus thieves in to water vac the rugs. I had to promise Kenny an extra 50$ for "emergency service, same as he'd screwed the judge with the flooding livingroom. Else they'd not do it till next day. Nobody got favors from carpet-plus.

Work seemed to last forever, but finally it was over. Gina had called the office and left a note for me to come see her at the Red Roof Inn. She knew Misty and didn't like her. A simplistic view is that Gina envied Misty's height, eyes and hair. It wasn't that. Gina was totally secure in her looks, brown eyes and auburn hair. Misty was competition. Gina told me Mysty's "work" was luring affluent men into the dark for embraces that ended with Dirk dragging them out of their cars and off of his "wife". A deal would be made and off they'd go to find another victim. Gina warned me against both of them, but that didn't stop her from dirving me in her silver 'bird to the carwash to pick up Misty. After all, they were both of the sisterhood. I'd just put a quarter in and begun spraying when Misty bolted out of the shadows and leaped into the car, shouting "Let's go! Let's go!" Leaving the wand skittering around in the stall, I jumped in as Gina began driving off sedately despite Misty's frantic orders to hurry up. She was disheveled and had spots and streaks of some dark substance on her fingers and face. Half a block from the carwash was a bingo hall and a dark street famous for trick-traffic. It was a good place to park for oral sex. This time it was bathed in the garish red and blue of many police car strobs. Misty ducked below window level as one, then another copcar sped recklessly to join their brothers in blue.

Gina swore, "Damn you Misty! Don't get blood on my car! What's that smell? Open a window back there; you're choking me out!" Misty said, "I need a room to clean up in."

"You sure do, babe," Gina continued. "We'lll be there in a jiff. You left Dirk back there, didn't you?"

"I think he's dead." Misty said. "See what's in this." Misty shoved a man's wallet into my hands and took the wetnaps I'd been smudging her face and neck with.

"Who's dead? Dirk?"

"Probably, and the trick. He pulled a gun out of nowhere and shot Dirk twice before he twisted it back and shot him in the face."

"That smell is mace!" Gina growled. "Nothing says 'pig' louder than a gun and mace!"

"Yep," I said, "Dick Tracy, right here."

"Throw that out right now! You bitch! How could you let a dick sneak up on you like that?"

"We were in his car, Gina! I can't check everything in the dark!"

"You found his mace!"

"Not soon enough for Dirk!" Misty sobbed, just let's get off the street, okay?"

Gina took us to her room where Misty quickly bathed without shutting the door. This was not immodesty, but a desire to know immediately who enters, leaves, gets on the phone and what's said. Many motels arrange mirrors to provide suprizingly wide and long views into and out of the bathroom. On the sink counter she'd laid a wad of cash, a man's gold watch, chain and six diamond pinkie ring of mashed nugget gold to match the watch and chain. Next to them were a copcard, badge, driver's license and four credit cards; one for gas, one for food, one American Express and one that said "City of Dallas".

"With a little effort, James, you could pass for him."

"I'm not a trick, Misty."

"I know you're not, James." She came up out of the mounds of bubbles and fragrant oils. "Dry me off."

"My favorite task," I told her. She had sleek lines, like a greyhound. I could see a hint of her ribs just below the firm curve of her breast. "You don't want to run his cards, baby."

"I know people who do. They can change the picture. I know some jews in chicago who'll want the diamonds. Want to come?" She smiled wickedly at me through the mirror at the double meaning as she brushed up her golden hair. Her eyes sparkled with promise.

"I'd love to come with you, Misty, but not to Chicago."

"Another time then," she shrugged. "My case in your car?"

"We'll get it on the way out."

Leaving her at the airport was the hardest thing I've ever done. She looked like a million dollars in a new blue suit. I waved boodbye and watched her walk jauntily down the concourse toward United. Before she reached the counter, she'd hooked another trick. Misty was very resourceful. Still is.