Slither (9 page)

Jesus ... Relief!

But...

She looked around. Where was Howie?

"I found the hose!" he bellowed, running back
around the comer. He held the long length in one
hand. "Turn it o-" But then he stopped, scanned his
eyes at the smoking ashes.

"Howie," Leona croaked. "That thing in your hand
isn't the hose ..."

It hung limp until the moment she'd said that, almost
as if it had sensed the trigger of Howie's fear. His eyes
snapped down. Then the "hose" began to move ...

Vaguely pink, glistening skin. About an inch thick.
How long was it? It extended from his hand, behind
him, its other end still on the other side of the shack.
Howie tried to drop the grotesque thing, but it was already too late. In the space of that synaptic second,
the creature energized and wrapped around Howie's
upper torso so fast it was but a silent, pinkish blur in
the air.

Then Howie was dressed in the thing, wearing it like
a corselet. His scream was severed when more of its
length coiled about his neck. Howie fell over.
- -- --- - - - - - - - - - -

His eyes still registered images as his vision clouded,
and then the thing's head made itself plain: slightly tapered, less like a snake and more like a worm.

A pink hole dilated-a mouth opening?-then a
thinner pink tube of something fleshy slipped out and"Howie!" Leona screamed.

-slithered down Howie's throat.

Leona stood, uncomprehending, glaze-eyed, as this
twenty-foot-long living thing that appeared to be a snake relaxed the pressure of its coils ... and began to
pulse.

Leona wasn't quite sure what she was seeing in those
last few moments before her paralysis snapped, but before her feet mindlessly began to take her away into the
woods, Howie's body seemed to be filling up with
something.

Something that the snake was pumping into him,
through the fleshy, ringed tube that was its mouth.

Ruth Bridge's lips looked like she'd been punched in
the mouth-hard-if one were cynical enough to look
closely; her face, in fact, would easily have been pretty
were it not for the permanent, uneven swelling. She'd
asked the doctor for "Lips like Pam Anderson!" but received something significantly less. She wasn't even
aware of it, though, so what did it matter? A positive
self-concept was sometimes more important than the
truth.

Her body, on the other hand, looked damn good for a
gal worn out by thirty-nine years of dope, booze, and onthe-run living. And her breasts? It had been a Miami
plastic surgeon who'd done the work-for free, because
Ruth had been his sideline plaything for most of her latter twenties. The doctor's name was Levin, and the manner with which he'd inflated Ruth's meager 32-As to
prominent 36-Cs was worthy of a certificate of achievement. Dr. Levin had tired of her, though, after so many
hotel rendevous, after which she'd ventured to Beverly
Hills for a change of scenery and the pesky warrant for
check kiting. Here she'd hooked up with another plastic
surgeon, one Dr. Winston Prouty, who, in return for
Ruth's pleasures, offered a free lip job. Well, Dr.
Prouty-jaundiced by a hidden Demerol addiction turned out to demonstrate some howlingly inferior skills.
The dirty collagen needle had caused an infection whose
scars had never properly healed. Hence, Ruth's overlarge
and permanently puffy lips.

In the end, though, it was all relative. These days,
most men likely to share company with a woman like
Ruth cared less about facial prettiness and more about
the auxiliary benefits of unnaturally swollen lips.

The first three dealers in Naples had offered Ruth
roughly twenty-five thousand for the watch, but ...
shit! They'd also insisted on identification. Fuckers
know the score, she thought. One had even had the
balls to add, "For instance, miss, if I sold this watch
and it turned out to be"-he winked at her-"stolen,
then I could be charged with a felony." Fuck you, Ruth
thought. But Slydes and Jonas had really scored a big
one this time. The watch they'd ripped off some broad
down South turned out to be a French-made lady's
Cartier Baignoire Mini, eighteen-karat gold and studded with diamonds and rubies. List price: fifty-three
thousand. Ruth had about had an accident in her
overly tight jeans when they'd told her that.

The fourth dealer had been a bit more compliant. "I
can take one look at you and know this watch is hot."

Ruth glared. "What's that supposed to mean? What?
I look like some lowlife? Some tramp thief trying to
peddle stolen goods?"

"Actually, yes. That's exactly what you look like, and
I see people like you every day."

"Aw, fuck you!" she dismissed and was about to
storm out.

And if you want some advice," the proprietor
added, "put your wig on right when you're trying to
disguise yourself."

She sneered. "Huh?" Then, Oh, shit! she thought. She'd forgotten to take off the cut-price sweeping redhaired wig. When she'd first picked it up, she tried it
on for Jonas and Slydes, striking a sexy pose. "Do I
look like Julianne Moore?"

"No," Slydes said, beer in hand. "You look like a
hose bag wearing a shitty red wig." The bastard! But it
was a good idea; she wore it whenever she jacked
money from an ATM. They all had cameras now.

And as for this chump jewelry salesman?

She dragged the wig off, revealing the unkempt
blond shag. Fuck him anyway. What could he do?

She gave him the finger and started to leave when he
said, "Wait! Don't be hasty!"

When she looked back, he was holding a stack of
bills. "There's no way in hell you'll do better than five
thousand. And that would be in cash, by the way."

Ooo ... Ruth pretended not to be waylaid. He's
right. And ... that's a lot of money!

"Plus," he added, "ten minutes of your time. In the
back. If you know what I mean, and I'm pretty sure
you do."

"Buddy!" she celebrated. "You got a deal!"

Ruth was the kind of woman who could relate to
those terms. He hadn't even lasted five minutes, which
was even better, and now all that money formed a big
clot in her purse. She'd already tapped five hundred
dollars out of the ATM (you could only take out five
hundred dollars per twenty-four-hour period); hence,
the wig. It was her job to hit a different machine each
day until everything was gone ... or until somebody
found the woman's body and the bank froze the account. The lady had bucks-thirty grand in her checking account!

All in a day's work ... Back down the main drag in
the dented white van the boys had jacked from some one in Georgia. She lived with Slydes and Jonas in their
dead daddy's house back at the far corner of Collier
County, near the Everglades Highway. When she'd
been dating Slydes, she'd cheated on him with Jonas,
and when she'd been dating Jonas, she'd cheated on
him with Slydes. So they decided to keep it simple;
they were both her boyfriends now.

Slydes poached gator; he was the brawn. Jonas grew
pot; he was the brains. (While Slydes had dropped out
of school in seventh grade, Jonas had actually made it
to college, if only for one semester, taking horticulture
and botany classes). Beefy, tall, and bearded, Slydes
didn't look anything like his short and slightly younger
brother. In fact, they had a slew of brothers, none of
whom looked anything like each other. Even in areas
south of the belt, Jonas and Slydes couldn't have been
more different-to put it one way, Jonas got all the
brains of the bloodline, while Slydes got ... something
else. The entire observation certainly suggested a moral
deficit on the part of their biological mother.

Most of the time, Ruth felt more like their sister than
a mutual lover, and given the oddity that Ruth's mother
had been good friends with the boys' father-well, that
suggested something to them, too (which they never
discussed.) Fuck it, was Ruth's overall view. She helped
the brothers work their scams and gigs, and they all
partied together: a great big happy dysfunctional family. It works, so why worry about it?

The ramshackle house sat at the end of an unpaved
road that twisted deep into the woods. Deliverance,
Ruth always thought. She made a face the second she
got out of the van. Fuck! Slydes has the tanning drum
going.... Between the hides and the meat, Slydes
could make about three hundred dollars per gatoractually, more now that gator ribs were big in all the Florida restaurants. (Alligators had a lot of ribs.) They
had a slaughterhouse out back, and plenty of freezers
for storage in between runs. He'd sell the meat under
the table to the restaurants, and then dealers would
buy the untrimmed hides for the European market.
Ruth liked gator meat, she supposed, but what made
her sick was the smell that often permeated the house:
the stench of Slydes's tanning chemicals.

"Hey, baby," Slydes greeted when she pushed open
the rickety door. "Give your man a great big kiss."

Ruth did, getting beer fumes along with the passion.

Jonas rose from a beaten chair. "Ruthie, I thought
you were givin' your man a great big kiss."

Ruthie smirked. In truth she was starting to get tired
of this threesome, but ... The three of us work so great
together. She feigned more passion, then tasted more
beer breath tinged with pot.

"So what'choo get for the old bitch's watch?" Jonas
called over. "It looked damn nice."

"Did ya get five hundred?"

"I got Jack Fuck," Ruth complained. "Twenty-five
bucks," and then she handed Slydes a twenty and a
five. "Can you believe it? It was a knockoff."

"Huh?"

"It was a fake Cartier. They make 'em in China, and
pilots and flight attendants bring 'em back in their luggage to sell here. They're all over the place. Fake Rolex,
fake Cartier, fake whatever."

"Well, I'll be damned," Slydes said, scratching his
heavy beard.

"Ain't that a kick in the ass?" Jonas said. "The bitch
was a phony. Bet her jewelry's all that fake Chinese
shit too."

"But I tapped another five hundred from her checking," Ruth said, and handed it over. "So nobody's-re-
ported her missing to the bank yet."

"I think we'll be milkin' that one for a while," Slydes
projected. "We'll have the account drained 'fore they
get wise."

Jonas winked. And it ain't like they'll ever find the
body,*

"We'll be going to Clearwater tomorrow, so you can
try to pawn the jewelry at some of the shops there."

"Clearwater?" Ruth asked. Finally, a break to the
boredom. "We're going to the island?"

Jonas nodded. "Yeah, got no choice. That last pound
went faster than shit; my hydro's so good the word
spreads, you know? Couple months ago I had ten dealers wanting a pound a month. Now I got twenty-"

"I?" Slydes raised a brow at his smaller brother.
"How's about we?"

"Aw, shit, Slydes. I'm the grower, you're the poacher.
We stick with what we know."

"Right, but we're a team, bro. And you keep talkin'
like you're the mastermind or some shit. Remember,
it's my boat that gets us on the island."

Jonas pursed his lips as if he'd just swigged straight
lemon juice. "I know that, but I'm just sayin'..."

"Yeah, well, you say too much."

Ruth shook her head. What a pair of rednecks. They
split everything down the middle anyway, so she didn't
know what they were always arguing about. Couple of
macho morons ...

Jonas danced his finger to the words. "We stick with
that we know. I know growing grade-A hydroponic pot
and you know guttin' gators-"

"And I know bustin' grade-A pussy, and you know
bitin' the pillow in the cell block and takin' it up the
tail."

"Aw, shit on you, Slydes!" Jonas yelled.

Slydes cracked laughter.

Idiots, Ruth thought. Whenever Slydes was at the back end of an argument, he always tossed up that little "joke," which wasn't totally a joke at all because
Jonas had done five years in Collier County Detent, and
being the skinny white longhaired fella that he was,
well ...

Jonas finally got back to his explanation to Ruth,
who was now brushing out her blond shag that had
been mussed from the wig.

"Gotta get some more right away or I might lose
some of my bagmen to the competition."

"Well, that's just fine with me," Ruth said. She liked
going out to the island. She pulled up her FLORIDA Is
FOR DRUNK LOVERS T-shirt, showing her perfectly flat
belly. "I need to work on my tan."

"Not this time, baby," Slydes informed. He stuck out
a leg and farted.

Gross, Ruth thought. Chili.

"We're in and out real fast; no time for layin' out in
the sun this trip."

"Oh, wait a minute," she remembered. "I thought
you said we couldn't go to the island for at least another week, some nature photographers out there or
something."

Slydes nodded his big block head. "Which is why we
slip in and slip out, at night. High tide's at eleven p.m.
tomorrow, and that's when I'll be pullin' up."

Fuck, Ruth thought. She liked to keep tan-it was
good for tricks when Jonas and Slydes were too busy to
realize what she might be doing on the side. And the island was perfect. But all this running around latelymainly running their errands-she'd lost most of that
Hot Tramp Florida tan.

"Have some chicken nuggets, hon." Slydes offered a
plate. "Jonas just got back from Chik-fil-A."

Ruth was famished. "Thanks!" she said, crunching a few down. "These are great!" When silence filled the
room, she noticed Jonas and Slydes staring at her.

Then they both burst out in laughter.

"Those ain't chicken nuggets, hose bag!" Slydes
roared. "It's fried gator dick!"

"You fuck!" Ruth yelled.

Slydes was cackling. Then he hugged her and smacked
her another kiss on her big overly swollen lips. "Aw, it
was just a joke, baby, and, mmmm-" One big callused
hand slipped under her shirt and up her back, the other
hand slipped down her jeans from behind. Ruth's nipples
shot right up. She was ... a reactive woman.