Absinthe Angels Always Lie

 “I will get your money soon, I promise!” screamed the mayor as Delilah waved the flame of a blow torch closer to his groin. Blackwell used to find her antics funny but now it all seemed so sadistic. She turned the valve until the flame was blue, and the mayor reeled back into Blackwell. He pushed him back down into the chair like a disobedient child. Later this moment would sum up their relationship – Blackwell holding the world down while Delilah tortured it.

It wasn’t the first time negotiations had gone sour but Blackwell was starting to think Delilah had lost it completely. Just the week before she shot the owner of a 7-Eleven in the foot for being only a day late on protection fees. Blackwell was growing tired of her rash choices and violent impulses.

“Oh mister Mayor, this isn’t about money, it’s about respect.” She backed away and twisted the valve until it squeaked tightly. “The biggest commodity in my world is respect.” Blackwell watched the wrinkles around the mayor’s eyes expand. Delilah pulled her gun out and waved it in his face, “do you respect me?”

“Of course I do, I am doing everything you have asked, just a slight banking error that is all.” Blackwell could see big beads of sweat rolling down his neck.

“No! You failed, the police chief was supposed to be in our pocket, instead he has locked away twelve of my men.”

“Kill him then, take him out, but spare me, I have a family, a beautiful daughter. Please Delilah.” The mayor looked panicked, like a shrew pulled out of its nest into the light, he squirmed. Blackwell almost felt bad, he had a family once, and he wondered about how many fathers he had killed.

Delilah looked up at Blackwell with the same enchanting stare she had always given him, “Blackwell, go find Rico and then take care of the driver.” He didn’t move. Beneath her designer leather outfit and make up, under her fine white porcelain skin all Blackwell could see was a machine. It made him feel cold on the inside. “What are you waiting for, go already.” She said over the mayor’s unintelligible mumblings for salvation.

 To Delilah, Blackwell was just a weapon, an effectively crude blunt instrument, a relic.

He didn’t want to stay and watch so he headed for the door in long fast strides. He thought he might hear screams but he heard duct tape first, then metallic squeaking and then he smelled something similar to bacon fat sizzling in a pan. He rushed into the briny air of the docks, to taste the salt, and escape the smell.

Rico was outside watching the car, smoking a cigarette; he was the guy that Delilah got to do the dirty work: clean up bodies, distribute coke to the dealers, get her Kung Pow chicken from her favorite Chinese food place. To Blackwell, he was a Scarface impersonator who snorted to much of his own product. He tapped Rico on the shoulder and thumbed back into the warehouse,

“Mind the smell, Delilah is having a heyday with the blowtorch.”

“What’s she cooking?” he stamped out his cigarette and tied the red bandanna from his back pocket around his neck that made Blackwell imagine a bandito.

“Long pig,” Blackwell said walking towards the stretch limousine.

Blackwell’s heart sank when he saw the teenage girl in the back seat of the mayor’s car texting, and if he hadn’t already crushed the driver’s temple in with a brick he might have told him to drive her as far away as possible. Delilah has few rules but “no witnesses” was at the top of her list. The first thing he did was grab her phone and snap it, the first thing she did was punch him in the face and scream.  His nose hurt but didn’t bleed, it was something about the girl’s eyes that unsettled him, made him pause for another punch. Then she was trapped between his massive arms and left dangling over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. With each step towards the warehouse Blackwell felt like a demon.

The girl didn’t quit struggling until they passed Rico dragging something heavy wrapped in plastic and squeezing the trigger of a Mediterranean Lavender Febreze Aerosol can. He could hear her choking back tears.

The warehouse was dark and full of cargo crates, some with drugs and others with umbrellas, dim lights hung from rust fixtures that dangle from the ceiling like sleepy spiders. Delilah rolled her eyes and mouthed what-the-fuck at him.

“The daughter was in the car.” Blackwell said, and she wriggled between his arms.

“Let me go asshole! Was that my dad? What did you do to my dad?” They ignored her.

“Ugh! What kind of man would bring his daughter here. . . Fucking politicians,” Delilah turned her back on them. A singed hair, burnt pig aroma was barely masked under an almost visible layer of lavender scent.

“You take care of her, I need some fresh air,” she looked over her shoulder at him and gave him her look that always meant kill. One sinister well plucked eyebrow raised slightly higher than the other, and her ruby lipped smile was crooked as a scarecrows. He looked away when normally he would watch her walk out of the room. The girl’s nails dug into his back and he slammed her into a metal chair and sat in another one facing her. They sat in a tense silence.

“Don’t try to run, I’ll catch you.” Blackwell said to her pulling a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. The girl was smart and didn’t move, although Blackwell could notice her tendons strain in her legs like a deer about to bound away. She crossed her arms defensively.

“What brand do you smoke?” she asked him abruptly. Blackwell wasn’t shocked but he paused to light his first.

“Marlboro Reds, let me guess . . . you want one?” It was the first time he had looked at her directly. It took him back twelve years, as if fashion for 16 year olds hadn’t changed in a decade. Partially dyed blond hair, grey hoody, jeans weathered and torn, and black high-top converse. He sucked in on his cigarette until she spoke.

“Sure,” she said confidently, “you’re going to kill me aren’t you?” He couldn’t bear to look into her eyes so he sat sideways like a crab, and handed her a cigarette that way.  “Light me?” he flicked a new flame out of his lighter, the only thing he kept from the war.

“What’s your name?” she stifled a cough after she inhaled the first time, but only then.

“Rebecca, yours?”

“Blackwell.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“My last one,” Blackwell said, staring at a bubbly black spot graphed onto the dirty concrete floor, he rubbed his cigarette there and remembered the smell.  He stood and removed his heavy jacket so all he had on was a black tank top, his massive arm bore an eagle perched on the world, with Semper Fidelis on a ribbon in its beak. Rebecca nodded silently.

“Well, Blackwell. Are you going to kill me?” he felt her eyes burrow into his skull, blue eyes with wisps of grey that reminded him of too much. “That’s what she meant by take care of me right? It is like bad guy code-word for kill.”

“I don’t know”, he was surprised that he said it, he normally didn’t talk to hostages at all, but Rebecca had struck some human chord within him.

“Then why would you?”

“Because Delilah told me to.”

“And do you do everything she says?”  Blackwell Zoned out. Remembered the first time he met Delilah, how he winded up in this spot, it was in France six years ago.

He’d just drunk some absinthe and chased it with half a bottle of tequila. He was about to finish the rest when a Frenchmen decided to pick a fight with him. He was too gone to remember the guy tell him in the best English he could that American pigs like him were ruining the world, he just remembers getting punched in the back of the head and seeing red.

Blackwell turned to see demons, green skinned, forked tongues, spitting at him and charging him with pitch forks. He couldn’t help laughing, great big bellowing laughter that only a man his size could muster, he had seen worse in war. His fists struck like he was wielding fire, cracked. Delilah had been watching from the floor above, and told him later she saw potential. But that night, when he could taste colors and feel sound, he saw the most devilish women, as an angel, sent to take him back to America. He now thinks that it was just because she was wearing white.

Since their meeting in France Blackwell was never far from Delilah’s side, once or twice they even shared a bed. He loved her amber eyes, her rose perfume, and the way she smiled like she ruled the world. She made him feel something for the first time since the Army discharged him. He threw their plane ticket back at them and hopped off an aircraft carrier near Kuwait. He was only good at killing and drinking, Delilah liked him that way.  

Falling out of a daze he turned to Rebecca and said, “Usually.”

“Huh, well, thanks for the cigarette. . .” she said, looking sullen and hopeless, tapping her foot. Blackwell noticed the sharpie marks, his daughter had written on her shoes too, carpe diem, followed by squiggly lines.

“No problem,” he mumbled.  He could hear the clicking of Delilah’s heels growing near. Blackwell didn’t know what to do. 

 “Jesus Christ Blackwell kill the little bitch already.” Delilah said, always having a better place to be then wherever she was at the moment. Blackwell looked at Rebecca, and could sense the natural tension that built in her muscles, animal choices of fight and flight all but removed. He looked at her, and was paralyzed by her storm colored eyes. He didn’t want to kill her but didn’t know what else to do.  He flicked the top of his lighter back and forth like a metronome.

He disappeared into the past, to the day his daughter died, four weeks before her 17^th birthday. She wanted to get a lip ring, he said no, they fought, she stormed out. It still hurts him to think the last thing he said to her was, “No.” He repeated it over and over to himself after he saw the news that evening. He had hidden this memory in his nightmares, usually drinking it away when he could, but this was a sober moment.  

“Blackwell, if you don’t kill her I will.” Delilah said, gritting her teeth. She drew her silver embossed handgun from her purse and cocked the lever back, a click echoing into the shadows of the vaulted ceiling.

 “No” Blackwell whispered, and even though the only other noise in the room was the hushing of air conditioning overhead Delilah didn’t believe she heard him correctly. He stared at the rose that was so finely detailed around the barrel of her gun and noticed how sharp the tiny thorns looked under the flickering halogen bulbs.

“What did you say Blackwell?” she gave him a look that she hadn’t given him in months, since the last time he hesitated to kill a witness. 

“I said no Delilah.” The last one was a girl, maybe nineteen. She was unfortunate enough to be in her dealer’s bed with him when Delilah chose to pay a visit.

Normally she would have just sent Blackwell, but she enjoyed getting personal on matters of product. Blackwell crushed the dealer’s sternum with one punch before snapping his neck with a snap that reminded him of fried chicken. Fetally tucked in the corner the girl looked despicable. Hair that hadn’t been washed in days, streaming mascara, face sunken and scarred by meth, wrapped in a dirty sheet, Blackwell felt pity for the first time in years. Even though he had just dispatched a man without thinking twice something about that girl’s frailty made him pause. Delilah got mad at him, shouted like a drill Sergeant until he drew his gun and fired. The next day the front page of the newspaper read: Meth addict gunned down in L.A. Gang-war.

Delilah marched closer to Blackwell her gun still aimed at Rebecca, who glared past the barrel defiantly. Delilah’s nails were painted the color of her hair, somewhere between Maroon and blood orange.  She said, “Too young? You’ve gotten soft Blackwell, don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“She is innocent Delilah, I can’t let you kill her,” despite her comment he was feeling strong. He rubbed his jagged block thumbs on the concrete calluses of his palms, and balled them into fists. Blackwell watched Delilah think. He could see the robotic gears grind in Delilah’s head like molars trying to chew the question of what to say, how to win Blackwell back to her side.

“Innocent? How many ‘Innocent’ people have you killed Blackwell? When you were in Iraq pulling triggers for uncle Sam?” She smiled when he winced as if shaking off ghosts.

“That doesn’t matter; I’m saving this one.” He didn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. He was almost as shocked as Delilah whose jaw loosened in frustration. He had never denied Delilah before, and in his years as her body guard he had never seen anyone deny Delilah and live. Blackwell noticed Rebecca grin wildly in his peripheral. Looking into Delilah’s eyes he could see fuses popping as she realized she had to kill Blackwell, her favorite toy soldier.

“Look at you!” Delilah snorted; turning her gun on him, gripping its pearl handle tighter, “Big bad Blackwell having a little change of heart? Do you really think saving this little Skank will make up for all the bad you’ve done.” She walked closer towards him, and for the first time Blackwell realized how tiny Delilah is compared to him, he wasn’t afraid of her anymore.

 She was a smart woman, strong willed, ruthless, she rarely made mistakes, but something in her wiring must have gone bad. She underestimated her enemy. Suddenly Rebecca chose fight over flight and with a move like lightning she had knocked the gun out of Delilah’s hand, just as the trigger was pulled. Blackwell recognized the familiar sting, sunset red drips running towards his knuckles. The fire that burned in him once long ago was re-lit. He breathed in and felt the world grow silent as a tide of adrenaline washed through him.

In a split second his hand was on Delilah’s wrist, her face froze skyward in a silent scream, there was a crunching sound as he made the back of her fingers touch the top of her forearm. He lifted her screaming into the air like a gutted swine, and slammed a fist of granite into her side, once, twice, three, four times. She kicked at him and raked his arm with her working hand. She would have been screaming if she wasn’t already coughing up blood. Each impact grew more merciless than the last. With every strike he removed a layer of self-loathing, unpacked an emotion, remembered something beautiful about his life before the war.   

Blackwell thought about how beautiful she once was, how she first enchanted him in the bar in France. She had him wrapped around her finger for so long that he felt like an alien to himself in the moment before he slammed the red haired bitch to the floor, her head made a thud and her eyes rolled back in shock a moment. She wasn’t struggling anymore.

He moved his hand from her wrist to her porcelain neck.

 He squeezed until her eyes began to bulge. As if the screws had come loose near her retina, and the gears inside her head were overheating. He thought about how even in her last moments her eyes were machine like, her expression telling him she had someplace better to be.   

He felt Delilah’s windpipe collapse like an empty tin can.

Blackwell was lost in the moment, he didn’t notice how fast his heart beat raced, the tremble in his hands, the tear that formed in one eye and down the long vertical scar that curved from brow to chin. He didn’t see the blood drip from his arm to join the growing puddle of hers on the floor. He didn’t even notice when Rebecca grabbed Delilah’s gun and hid behind a box. He only noticed the rose tattoo on Delilah’s left breast, and how red it was against her pale flesh. For a few moments he was a statue. He thought back to the day he lost himself.

He refused to believe his eyes when he first saw his daughter upon that cold metal table, draped in a thick white sheet. Eight hours after an angry Muslim boy blew up half of the food court and part of the J.C. Pennies. He shook, and beat his fist against his chest, and heaved tears that no one would ever expect from a man his size. They didn’t try to hold him back. Only half of her was recognizable, just one of her beautiful blue eyes glazed over like a marble the color of thunderstorms. A month after he buried his daughter, he left her roses, joined the army, and learned how to stop feeling.

Blackwell heard a click next to his ear.

“Okay, you killed her. So you’re the boss now right? But what if I kill you?” Rico stammered, but Blackwell began to laugh because all he could picture is Rico trying to snort a mound of cocaine and overdosing.

“Go ahead,” he said defiantly, he turned to face Rico and grinned. He hadn’t smiled in years, and Rico would have been afraid if he didn’t think Blackwell was insane.

“You are a crazy old man.” Blackwell felt the cold of Rico’s barrel on his forehead, his arm going numb. He smelled Delilah’s rosy perfume. He closed his eyes and heard the shot echo, the reeking cokehead drop to the ground, then Delilah’s gun hitting the floor. Rebecca didn’t miss.  

Outside the warehouse they watched as the fire they lit leaped from crate to crate like a creature on fire. Blackwell lit a cigarette with his lucky lighter and breathed in the smoke.

 “Do you have somewhere to go Rebecca?”

“I would call my mom but you broke my phone,” Rebecca replied kicking the shrapnel of her phone under the limo. Then she looked up at him and said, “where you gonna go?”

He handed her fifty cents and said “I’m tired of California, was thinking of heading north.” He thought of the vast deserts he had crossed and how he had longed to go home to the rain and the pine trees. He looked back at Rebecca, in her blood spattered grey hoody and said, “Thanks kid.” She didn’t say anything, just stared down at one spot of red that was glued onto the white rubber rim of her shoe.

“What is your real name?” Rebecca looked up at him then shivered as a cold wind blew in from the docks.”

“Sampson,” he said, handing her his heavy trench coat, still reminded so much of the daughter he lost so many years ago. He thought of the beautiful strong girl who had eyes like thunderstorms and streaks of red in her blond hair, who listened to grunge music and colored on everything in black sharpie. Who’s mother’s favorite flower were roses.

“Thanks for saving me Sampson.” He nodded at her one last time, and smiled before he disappeared down a dark alley just as he heard the sirens in the distance.