Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah (24 page)

Delilah stepped out the car, a siren in the California sunlight, wearing a tailor-fitted red lace dress she put on in the car. It stretched to fit her body perfectly in all the right places, and those heels gave her just enough height to give her an undeniable aura of confidence. She moved that body like one of the rocks from the mountain being rolled by the wind.

The realtor, Amore Porta, was waiting when they arrived. The property was rustic, all wooden, with brass touches here and there. Across the street sat an older-looking bank. Amore Porta showed them the property, a bright white smile on his coco-butter face. All swaggered out in his expensive black suit and purple tie, he tried to hypnotize Delilah with words like
prime location
,
breathtaking views
,
situated right in the heart of a rugged but eloquent town that would be the perfect host to a new Pistol Fanny’s
.

He tried charming her with his smile. Each and every time a new room would be shown to its prospective buyer, he would stop, turn his palm forward, and allow her to enter the room before him.

Delilah and Hank had gone over the prices of the comparables in the area on the plane. They studied the town, the demographics, and what was a reasonable price to pay for the place. But after they arrived and Amore Porta saw who was greeting him, the price went up.

Delilah went along with him, making all the right noises in all the right places. She asked simple questions, and he would give her complicated answers. Finally, when the tour had ended, and she seemed to be deliberating, Amore Porta looked at Hank and said, “Who are you again?”

“Hank Rivers.” They shook again. “I’m Ms. Turner’s attorney.” Hank smiled.

“Do you always travel with your attorney, Ms. Turner?” Amore Porta asked.

“No, not always. Only the ones in my pocket.” She winked. Then she excused herself to use the ladies’ room. Since the water wasn’t turned on in the space, she ran across the street to the bank to use theirs.

Hank and Amore stared at each for a moment.

“Are you and Ms. Turner more than just…business associates?” Amore said, his accent lightening just a bit in light of Delilah’s departure.

“Depends.” Hank leaned against the counter and crossed his arms.

“On?”

“Why you’re asking.”

“I was hoping to ask her out. For a drink or two.”

“On a date?”

“That’s what we call them in California.”

“Then the answer is,
sì
. That’s how you’d say yes in Italian, no?” Hank smirked, a wonderful feeling of possessiveness rising in his chest.

Delilah came into the property then, hiking her skirt down and fanning her face. “It sure is arid out west.” She walked between the two men and fiddled with the papers a bit. She turned her face to Amore and fixed her glasses. “I’ve thought it over, Mr. Porta, and I want the place. I won’t, however, take it for what you are trying to sell it to me for. My accent might cause me to seem slow, Mr. Porta, but I can promise you, my brain works just as quickly as your pretty little mouth does. Now…” She started going over facts and figures and the comparables she and Hank discussed on the plane. After she was done, Amore Porta looked a little pale. “Are you willing to give me a fair deal? I’m not asking for nothin’ absurd. What’s fair is fair. I won’t pay a penny over. Take it or leave it.”

Porta took it. And on the way to Gillian’s, Hank asked Delilah on a date. He wanted to take her out to celebrate her business deal. She said yes, a lovely smile playing on her face. They arrived at Gillian’s around four—still hot, but the cool ocean air was starting to bring the heat down.

Gillian’s place was nestled in the Malibu hills. It overlooked the ocean, the entire structure made of nothing but cream stone and sparkling glass. The walls were made of stone, stretched by an expanse of glass walls, taking in every view of the surrounding area.

Something about it reminded Hank of the smooth texture of steer horns, felt like it too. The doorways and windows seemed to be chiseled out by a master hand.

Nothing seemed to fit…yet everything fit. Even the television seemed to be carved into stone. It had a real bedrock kind of feel.

There was one bathroom in the place, and Hank thought the mirrors hanging on the wall resembled puddles of water frozen into a reflection. The floor appeared to be made of a million pennies glowing copper from the ambience of the sun shining through the windows. The shower was open except for a wall of glass and a wall of stone, creating its pond-like shape.

Hank looked around the bathroom. “How could Gillian forget this place?”

“She forgets most places she has. Now that she’s remembered this one, she’ll let someone who’s living in the slums take it. She always does. She doesn’t tell people that, but she’s good in that way. You want to shower first?”

“No, you go ahead. I’ll wait and go after.”

While Delilah showered, he could hear her singing
“Out of My Head and Back In My Bed.” He could hear her splashing her feet to the beat. Hank laughed, and after staring out of the windows at the views for a while, he heard her emerge and call to him that she was done. He was eager to clean the airport grime from his body and let the warm water roll over his shoulders. He stood naked in the shower, his head under the water, his arms stretched against the stone, feeling like he was worth a million bucks.

Hank dried his hair and slipped on a black t-shirt, his dark jeans, and his Memphis hat. He took a seat on the red leather couch and waited for the sun to go down, putting his head back and closing his eyes once it had. When he reopened them, she was standing before him, staring.

Heaven help me, he almost moaned out loud.

Her hair was curly and wild, her skin glowing as tender as the fading sun just had. It was as though she had somehow stolen the last of its light, gliding it over her skin. Her cream silk dress flowed down her body; wrapped in the front, it created just a light ripple as she walked. The hem fell just far enough from her thigh to be considered sexy, yet classy. A black leather jacket draped her shoulders, and a long gold cross fell well past her breasts, glinting like the diamond earrings shining like stars in her ears.

He tipped his hat to her. “You look mighty fine, ma’am. Mighty fine.”

She smiled. “I’ll take it, Hank. Thank you.”

They dined at a little Mexican restaurant along the coast. Dimly lit by hundreds of votive candles flickering throughout, the blue tile along the walls shone like a well-polished floor. It smelled like cilantro, fresh tortillas, and lime.

The waiter sat them in a dark little corner booth, and they could faintly hear the waves crashing to shore over the music playing in the background. The man took their food orders, but before he asked for their drinks, he looked at Delilah and smiled.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to guess your drink of choice. Is that okay with you?”

Delilah stared right at Hank. “This is going to be fun.”

“I believe you’re going to order—” the waiter put a finger to each temple, closed his eyes, blinked a few times “—red wine.”

Delilah turned her eyes on him then. “Try again.”

He tried a few more times—champagne, the real expensive kind, a watermelon margarita, or a banana- coconut drink with a big umbrella.

“I think you have this Lousianna lady all wrong,” Hank said, taking a sip of his water. “Do you mind if I give it a try?”

Delilah held out her hand to him as if to say,
Why, go right ahead
. She looked up at the waiter. “You see, my Mississippi man here, he has what he likes to call
the feelin’
. It hasn’t steered him wrong yet.”

Hank thought for a moment. “She’ll take a Corona with lime. Heavy on the lime.”

Delilah slapped her hands together, looked back up at the waiter. “See how good he is? We’ll take two of those, please, to start. Keep ’em coming steady, you hear?”

The waiter came back with two cold beers, two slices of lime for Delilah, one for Hank. In the glow of the votive candles, she slowly moved the limes around the mouth of her frosty bottle. The flesh of the lime created a thick ring around the rim. Juice flowed down the glass, acidic and tangy. She sucked the limes and then plopped them in, the action causing bubbles to explode in the beer. She licked the lime pieces off with her tongue and lifted her bottle to his.

“Here’s to losing our minds in California.” She laughed that laugh, razor-edged candy with just a hint of sensuality.

And to losing other things
, Hank thought. “Here’s to it.”

They clinked bottles and both took a slow pull, eyeing each other with a fierce fire. And like a slow wind blowing off the ocean, the night seemed to drift. They ate tacos and drank too much. Their hands smelled like lime and their breath lingering, sweet alcohol. They laughed like no one was watching, and they talked like no one was listening. They clanked more than anyone else, and they kissed one too many times with green, fruit-filled mouths.

When the music from the restaurant started to get louder and people started to dance, Hank pulled Delilah on the floor. Hank was moving fast, while Delilah was taking it slow. The men in the room looked at Hank with eyes that said
, If she’s your girl, watch your back, because she’s too good for you, but just right for me
. The girls rolled their eyes at Delilah. She was more than just a step ahead of the rest. They were hot together, and the room burned with jealousy. All they could feel, though, was the residual warmth, making them feel just toasty.

The miles between where they started, and where they were, seemed like a million and one. They seemed to disappear, like sand in an hourglass. They were disconnected from anything and everything, except for what they felt for each other.

Before their time was through, they had a steady line of bottles lined in their corner and too many half-eaten, fully squeezed, pungent fruit pieces lying around the table. They called a cab to take them home, and feeling a little light from a dinner full of delicious folly and sensual dancing, they decided to take a walk along the beach.

The sand was soft and warm, making its gritty way through the spaces between their toes. Waves crashed against rock, spraying them with cool droplets of water as they walked past. The moon in California floated over the water like a buoy. And an endless number of stars lit up the sky.

Delilah was playful, full, and still dancing. “Hank, why did you become a lawyer? You seem so young to have accomplished so much.”

Hank twirled her around, her bare feet collecting sand. “Well, Delilah, I always envisioned this life in my head—I wanted to be the voice. I wanted to stand up for the good people of the world. The ones who don’t have plenty of money to buy the system, the ones who get hurt and disappear with no voice to speak out for them. Some of them are real, Delilah. They can sit with me and speak to me and tell me all about their horrendous stories. And I’m there for them every step of the way. And then there are those who have no voices.”

“Ghosts.”

“Yes, ghosts who no longer have any choices, except to haunt me until I do right by them.”

Delilah stopped dancing, her eyes glossing over. “Why do you always look at the soles of my shoes?”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you do.” She paused for a moment, opening her mouth to speak. He could smell the lingering sweetness on her breath, a hint of the tang still on her tongue. A powerful wave crashed, they were sprayed again, and she closed her mouth. A determined look drifted into her eyes. “Why do you want her, Hank? You know she’s not going to lead you down any yellow brick road. She’s going to lead you right into the hands of the devil.”

Hank looked away, watching the water. Delilah took his face in her hand, moving it back toward her.

“I mean it, Hank. Why do you let your thoughts run away with her? Why are you here with me if you love her? What do you want with me? What do you want from her?”

Hank couldn’t answer her. He didn’t know how to. He loved them both, and he couldn’t figure out how to find one without hurting the other. He didn’t know if Pistollette cared, or if Delilah was really Pistollette. Hank had no idea what was going on, and with his mind swimming in what felt like magic, he didn’t want to speak something he couldn’t take back. Hank was just a teaspoon away from bursting again, with no idea what was going to come out of his mouth next.

He tried to keep it balanced but honest. “The part of me that is attracted to her, it’s dangerous. I know it. I can feel it. And it’s truly psychotic and disastrous. We’re wrong for each other. We’re so different it’s frightening. But for some reason, I still want her. I want to know her more than I’ve ever wanted to know any secret this earth possesses. Even more than I want her, I feel like I want to accept her.”

“You are wrong for each other, but maybe you’re not right for anyone else either.”

“That’s how life goes. You’re not right for each other, not meant for anyone else. You end up alone. And some day, at the end of your life, you find yourself wondering where the hell it all went wrong.”

Delilah curled her fingers around his. When they made it to the doorstep of the stone and glass house, Hank turned his hat around and kissed her. He pressed his lips to hers and they moved until they were pressed against the door.

She slowly pulled away from him, staring into his eyes. She unlocked the door, without so much as a glance behind her, and walked backward while he walked toward her, until they were in the kitchen. Hank stood with his stomach against the counter, watching and wanting more of her.

Delilah kept an eye on him, opening cabinets and taking out a bottle of red wine. She set it on the counter.

“What’s your poison, Rivers?” She licked her lips.

Hank’s stomach quivered. “My poison?”

“What can destroy you? The end of Hank Rivers.”

“Tequila and a sharp-shootin’ gal named Pistollette.”

Delilah narrowed her eyes at him, directing those storm clouds his way. He narrowed back.

“You’re not the end of me, Delilah. You’re the beginning of it all.”