"deLuca, Sandy - The Hunter's Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deluca Sandy)

We’d stroll down Elmwood, thumbs stuck out and heels clicking on pavement.
We sang Brown Sugar to each other.
In the beginning all we wanted was a ride downtown. Later on if a guy was willing to pay us a few bucks for some extra fun we didn’t object.
If we knew it was going to be a slow night at the clubs, we’d make them drive us out to the suburbs, past Warwick and deep into Coventry, where they were building condos.
We’d take turns riding solo pickups, give them their money’s worth. If there were two of them I’d stay in the car with one guy while Andra took the other into the thick woods.
One night Andra ran her knife across a guy’s neck. She didn’t cut him or anything like that—just scared him real good and made him hand over his wallet.
He was one of those geeky types.
Three nights later we saw him sitting in a window booth at Spencer’s coffee shop.
A red Cadillac breezed by a minute before. It stopped at the next corner, backed up a bit, as if the driver was looking at us in the rear view mirror.
The guy in the coffee shop window shook his fist at us, pointed to a cop who drank coffee and ate a cinnamon donut at the counter.
Andra went to the window and glared at the guy.
She used to get this real weird look in her eyes—a look that could scare you if you were the whimpy type.
We never saw the guy after that, but we’d see that red Caddie every time we walked down Elmwood.
Andra talked about going to Boston or New York, traveling across the country and making scores on people like the geek in the coffee shop.
"We’re growing up, Lucy. We need to get more sophisticated."
I’d say, "Yeah, whatever."
I was still a kid who just wanted to have fun.
*
You said you wanted to know about the first time?
I could use a cigarette about now.
It was last October—just a year ago—a warm Indian Summer night. People liked to drive to the beach on nights like that—catch the last remnants of warmth before a New England winter came to call.
We knew nothing much would be going on at Mortuary’s—the hottest club in downtown Providence. We figured we could find a good time anyway.
We were walking along Elmwood. I wore a yellow mini and black heels. Andra was wearing a bright red short set and high black boots.
I was closest to the street and held out my thumb as traffic flew past.
The red Caddie cruised by, turned into Solitro Brothers parking lot and waited until we got to the corner.
The door on the driver’s side opened. A woman got out, stood on the sidewalk and watched us—hands on hips, smiling.
She was something else—about six feet tall, skin the color of chestnuts and wild burgundy hair. She wore a silk dress. I’d seen it in the exclusives section of Gazebo’s. It cost four hundred bucks. It was hiked high on her hips.
She was dripping in gold—ears, neck fingers and ankles. A skinny cigar was stuck in between white teeth—fang-like teeth—and her lips were painted with purple gloss.
"You working girls?" she asked as she plucked her cigar out of her mouth. Dark tendrils of smoke curled around her head.
"Looks like some bucks there," Andra said nudging me.
"Its a chick. I don’t do chicks."
"We don’t have to do her. We’ll get her out to the construction site and I’ll pull the gun before anything happens."
Andra had that look in her eyes.
"A gun stops anything, don’t worry."
"Hey, I don’t know. We ain’t never did—"
"Don’t be a chicken, Lucy. Something like this had to happen sooner or later. We’ve just been moving up to it real fast and steady."
"Somebody like that will turn us in. We’ll never be able to hitch rides on this strip again—"
"So what. This stuff is getting old anyway. We need to move on."
"I don—"
"You girls want to go for a ride?" The woman’s voice was husky.
Andra smiled wide. "Yeah, sounds like fun."
"I know where you go," the woman said as I slid into the car beside her—"I followed you last night."
I wanted to split, bolt out of the car, but Andra had already gotten in, squeezed up close to me and shut the door. She slipped my bag off my shoulders and stuck it between her feet.
I had a real bad feeling.
We drove to the site. We were silent until the woman pulled into the lot.
Half-finished skeletal buildings loomed in the distance and above the moon hung full and round. I remember thinking that it looked sickly yellow. Later Andra told me it was the Hunter’s Moon—the full moon in October.
The woman shut off the engine, undid the buttons on her dress and stroked my face. I felt Andra move closer. The woman’s teeth flashed.
"You first, come on a bit closer."
I heard rustling behind me, vinyl crinkling, and then Andra’s hand shot past my head, her full weight was against my back.
The Colt was pressed against the woman’s head.