Devil Girls Read online

  Lonnie moved to the teacher’s desk quickly and with a sweep of his arm he knocked everything that was there to the floor: books, papers, blotter, a beautiful pen set and a glass of water containing one single rose. “Get to it,” he said harshly.

  The boys jumped into action immediately, both taking short hatchets from their belts. They tore into the desks leaving a shamble of splintered wood and the metal frames. Lonnie hit the blackboard in several places with his tire iron, then he moved across the room to smash the several windows. Meanwhile Danny ran to the teacher’s desk and slammed his hatchet into it with all his might. The fragile wood broke and splintered with each blow, and each blow contained all the venom Danny felt. Rick finished the last of the smaller desks, then raced in beside Danny. He let his hatchet fall once to a leg of the desk; then his eyes caught on something more interesting to him. He raced to the American flag and hoisted it out of its standard. He raised it over his head and there froze.

  “Don’t touch that flag!” Lonnie’s voice was harsh.

  “What’s eatin’ you?” snapped Rick, and Danny stopped his desk wrecking to look across to them.

  “I said, don’t touch that flag.”

  Danny stepped in beside Lonnie. “Thought we got the idea to wreck this joint but good?”

  “Don’t give me any arguments. Just put it back like I said.” The fire of anger could be seen in Lonnie’s eyes even in that darkness.

  Rick shrugged, and silently returned the flag to its standard. “What’s that all about, Lonnie?” he asked as he turned back.

  “I don’t like hurtin’ the flag. I never did. So that’s all I gotta say about it.”

  The siren of the deputy sheriff’s car coming in fast from the distance caused them to snap around. “Get out of here.”

  Almost as one, the three young men went out through the window and raced across the playground to where their car, a stripped down hot rod, was hidden. They piled in with Lonnie at the wheel, and the twin pipes roared into life. The jalopy raced back across the playground and onto the grass lawn in front of the school to sideswipe the police car just as it turned in toward the school driveway. Before the sheriff’s car could be turned around by the deputy at the wheel, the hot rod had already disappeared into the darkness of the night and moments later even the blast of its twin pipes could no longer be heard.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The three girls, short of breath from their long run, came out of the desert and secreted themselves for a long time in one of the many alleys which led from the unsavory part of town . . . a section of town made up of beer bars, hamburger joints and, at the far end near the coast, a red-light district. They took deep breaths into painful lungs, and each breath seared their insides until they no longer had to fight to get the air down. Still gasping for breath, Babs said. “Man oh man! Did you see that thing go? Never expected it to blow that way. The skinny bitch must have had a full tank of gas in the rear end. Man oh man! Too bad the skinny bitch wasn’t in it.” She made a gesture with her hands. “Pow! All gone, skinny bitch!”

  Dee and Rhoda didn’t answer her remark, figuring there just wasn’t anything to answer. And after a long time, and when they were once more breathing easier, the girls made their way through the alley and drifted off with other strollers on the low-class lower part of the main street.

  Dee was heading them for the dock area.

  “What are we going this way for, Dee?” Rhoda actually didn’t like the dock area and kept away from it as much as possible. The red-light district, where they were heading, was a row of houses just before the docks began. And Rhoda knew they were illegal and sooner or later Sheriff Rhodes and his men would knock them over. Rhoda didn’t plan on being around when that happened. The sheriff had knocked them over twice on raids, but hadn’t found anything to close them up or convict anybody. But everybody in town knew what went on in those cockroach-infested screw dens . . . it was only a matter of time. Rhoda knew she had done just about everything the broads in those shacks had done, but in secret, and she liked what she did enough to not want the law finding out. If they ever did they’d put her away and it would be a long time before she could have fun with the boys.

  She couldn’t stand that. When she wanted a boy, she wanted a boy, and right now. There wasn’t any two ways about it. One of the boys was always calling her a Nymphomaniac. She liked the nymph part alright, it sounded nice. But the MANIAC . . . that she didn’t like. She knew what a maniac was and she didn’t like to be referred to as such. How could she be a maniac just because she liked to pull her skirt up and her panties down then go to bed with some boy? There was too much fun in it to have anything to do with being a maniac. “Why don’t we beat it over to Jockey’s Place, pick up a couple of the boys? Maybe they got some stuff and we can get whacked out. The night’s young enough for a long, long trip into dreamland.”

  “Dee’s looking for somebody,” informed Babs. Rhoda took a cigarette package from the belt-line of her tight Levi’s, and a pack of matches from the pocket. She lit up and replaced the pack and matches. “Anybody in particular?”

  “It figures. I don’t walk around all night just for the fun of it.” Her eyes trawled the dark streets ahead.

  “Oh man, our leader talks so much,” mused Babs.

  “If I wanted you to know any more I’d told you before.”

  “That’s right Dee. You sure ain’t one for words. But I don’t like mysteries. Not even on television.” Babs took the cigarette from Rhoda’s mouth, took a deep puff, then replaced it between the pretty girl’s lips. “Not even on television,” she repeated.

  “He ain’t no mystery.”

  “Now at least we know we’re lookin’ for a HE,” shrugged Babs.

  “The kind that comes down here I need like a hole in the head,” rejected Rhoda.

  “You’d take any kind that came along when you need it, just like your pot.” She stopped as a movement further along the street caused her to halt her words before they had finished. She snapped her gaze toward the direction of the intruder. Her eyes narrowed as they tried to pierce the darkness. Then recognition directed her tones. “It’s Holy Joe!”

  “How can you tell?” Rhoda shivered suddenly.

  “Nobody else walks like that. Like he’s always going to meetin’.”

  “What do you suppose he’s doin’ down here?” Rhoda stepped a bit more into the shadows.

  “One of two things,” grinned Dee. “Savin’ souls or gettin’ laid.”

  Rhoda didn’t think the remark so funny. “We better blow!”

  Dee took hold of her arm, and her fingers pressed tightly into the sweater-covered flesh.

  “I’ll tell you when to blow.” She let go of the girl’s arm in a snapping motion which spun her toward a brick wall, then she also moved to the wall and leaned up against it. Bab’s followed the lead.

  “Damn,” said Rhoda. “He’s in thick with my old lady.” She tossed her cigarette to the ground and crushed it out with the toe of her low-heeled shoe.

  “I oughta make you pick that up and eat it,” Dee sneered, flashing her angry eyes from the snuffed out cigarette butt up to Rhoda’s eyes. But the clergyman was getting too close for any more words. “We’ll talk more about that later.” Her tone meant what she said.

  Reverend Steele was a man in his early thirties with one distinguishing mark, other than his handsome features. He had a shock of white-grey along the middle of his otherwise full head of wavy, dark hair. He wore the round, white collar in pride and determination of purpose. In himself he had, however, a great insight for the problems of others. When he had graduated the seminary, he was given a choice of congregations anywhere in the world. Without a second thought Reverend Steele picked his own hometown. He knew the people, young and old, good and bad. And he knew the problems which needed solving. He felt with all his heart he could do his best work there in Almanac, Texas.

  Reverend Steele put on his best smile and tipped his black felt hat. �
�Good evening, young ladies,” he said.

  Dee and Babs looked to each other, then away along the street. Reverend Steele turned his smiling face full on Rhoda. “We’ve missed you at the church club lately, Rhoda . . .”

  “Now ain’t that an original line,” snapped Rhoda, conscious of Dee’s menacing eyes on her. “Look, preacher. Go peddle your sewing circles to somebody who needs it. I need it like a hole in the head.”

  Undisturbed by the girl’s remark and tone Reverend Steele retaliated with, “If you’d come, Rhoda, I think you’d find more things to do at the club than sewing . . .”

  Dee jammed her face in close to the man. “You ain’t sellin’ us. We like things just the way they are—so now BEAT IT!” Her voice became more intense. “What in hell you doin’ down here in the red-light district anyway?”

  “Looking for HELL,” he said simply; then as he turned, he threw a parting shot at Rhoda. “We’ll see you soon, Rhoda.”

  “No you won’t,” shouted Dee. “Now lay offa’ her!”

  “Good evening, girls,” the Reverend said and walked again on his way along the street, back toward the bright lights of the main street.

  “You played him pretty heavy, Dee,” said Rhoda, lighting up another cigarette.

  “The holy smucher had it comin’. Down here he’s damned well in my backyard and he plays the way I want him to play. He don’t like it he can damned well get the hell out. I don’t hafta talk with him.” Her anger again boiled over at Rhoda. “You keep backin’ down in front of that bastard and I’ll give you a goin’ over you won’t never see matched in your whole life.”

  “Ahh, lay off me,” frowned Rhoda.

  Dee was about to continue when a door in the house next to the brick wall opened. A man’s voice came from within the dark interior. “Dee! Over here, Dee!”

  Dee spun toward the sound then motioned for the other girls to follow her as she made her way to the opening just as a sharply-dressed young man stepped out to meet them. Directly behind him one of the house girls in a sheer negligee lazied up against a dirty hall siding. She watched the action through half-lids, through narcotic-glazed eyes, but said nothing. “I waited until the deity went on his way,” said the young man, then smiled. “Good to see you again, Dee.”

  Babs crept up beside Dee, her eyes all aglow. “So he’s the big mystery. Come to think of it Lark, you are a mystery.”

  “Makes me all the more alluring, baby.”

  “Shut up,” commanded Dee of her girls before she turned her full attention back to Lark.

  “Lonnie got your message to me.”

  “Good boy, Lonnie.”

  “Where ya been keepin’ yerself since the last time, Lark? Must be a month or more.”

  “More! I had a little ocean voyage, down lower Mexico way for a while.”

  “Something big?”

  “Big enough. Blow, girls,” he said to Rhoda and Babs.

  “Say. How come? We get all the way . . .” Dee pushed Babs back violently before she could finish her words.

  “When Lark says you blow . . . you blow. Now I’m telling you to blow. So blow!”

  “I don’t like bein’ pushed around.” Babs took a step back toward Dee.

  “Maybe you’d like a cracked lip?” Her hands were hard on her hips and her eyes were narrow. A narrowness all the girls knew meant trouble. If she were pushed any further.

  Babs stopped in her tracks. She glared at Dee another long moment, then turned and started back along the sidewalk toward town. “Jockey’s later?” asked Rhoda.

  “Yeah. Later.”

  Rhoda turned and hurried to catch up with Babs, then Dee once more looked to Lark who turned and slammed the door in the half-naked whore’s face before he looked to Dee again. A bright smile cracked his features and his hand reached out to mould Dee’s ample left breast.

  “Just as full as ever, baby,” he said in a tenderness which was hard for him to muster.

  Dee pulled the sweater up around her neck. She had on no brassiere. “Take a look for yourself. Better’n them creeps in the house behind you any day.”

  “Honey, you don’t have to prove that to me.”

  “Then why do you go in there all the time.”

  “If I have to explain, which I don’t, it’s my hideout.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all I’m tellin’ you about it.”

  She lowered the sweater and smoothed it over the top of her Levi’s again. “You didn’t call me all the way down here to admire my tits!”

  “That’s right, baby. I said it’s something big. How good are your girls?”

  “Good. Real good. They have to be, to be around me.

  “I get you. Any on the stuff?”

  “A couple. They’re my best girls. They work harder because they need more scratch, to keep their habit healthy.”

  “I don’t want anybody that ain’t on the stuff. You can’t trust them.”

  “You want junkies?”

  “Now you don’t classify yourself as a junkie, do you?”

  “Ahh, I can take it or leave it alone,”

  “Sure you can.” His outspoken words belied known facts inside. “That’s why you can be trusted. Like right now. You look a little nervous. Like you might need a fix just to pick you up.”

  She bit her lip. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice. Me and the girls were going over to Jockey’s Place and grab a couple of the boys for some gold. I ain’t got the scratch to buy any. Would you . . . ?”

  “Sure, baby. You’re doing me a favor. I’m doing you one. I ain’t with the stuff in my pocket, but one of the girls inside will have some.”

  “I don’t like those creepy whores. You know what they do to me everytime I go in there.”

  “Well now, let’s put it this way. They’re nice to you, you have to be nice to them. They’ve never hurt you any, have they?”

  “They . . .”

  Lark cut in with his giant smile. “Spare me the details. I’ve watched enough of your sessions with them. But if you want the stuff from them, that’s the way you get it.”

  She fought back the fever which had slowly been taking her body over the past hour since the fire. She wanted to shoot up, but a session with the whores was a rough way of getting it. She fought back the fever. “What’s your big deal?”

  “I need your girls. All of them.”

  “What for?”

  “A party Friday night.”

  “Gimme a fix and you get them.”

  “I told you how to get your fix.”

  “You get me one and you get my girls.”

  “Then, I find another way.” He started to turn away.

  Panic seized the girl. “No! No! Wait.” She calmed herself as he turned back to her. “What’s in it for me?”

  “Five pound brick of mary . . . you do with it the way you want. Sell it. Use it. Cut it with your girls. Anything you want.”

  “That much, huh?”

  “That much!”

  “But I need the white stuff. Mary ain’t no good for me.”

  “Like I said, baby. That’s your end. Sell it and you buy your own stuff . . .”

  “Yeah . . . yeah . . . that’s the way. What have you got?”

  “I said it was big. Our little town has become the transfer point from the Mexico outlet to the big boys in the North. I’m the boat man, honey-baby . . . the boat man. And I gotta get it ashore.”

  “You got it this far. Why not just row it ashore?”

  “Boy, you can be dumb sometimes, Chick . . . the heat’s on all up and down the coast. That teacher you folks put under the ground has every sea port on the watch.” He watched her puzzled look as she glanced to him when he mentioned the teacher. “Oh yes,” he informed. “I heard about your little schoolmarm and her sudden demise. Now, not that I blame you. She got what I suspect was coming to her. But it makes the cheeze more binding as the saying goes. Which makes me figure on a safe angle to get my wares ashore.�
�

  “A lot of stuff?”

  “Plenty.”

  “What?”

  “Marijuana. Pills. H. L.S.D. The works.”

  “L.S.D.?” Dee was truly puzzled. “What in hell’s that?”

  “Lysergic acid diethylamide. If that tells you anything.”

  “Nothing.”

  “See. There’s no use explaining. Tell you what. If you’re a good girl, I’ll turn you on sometime before Friday. I took my first trip on the boat, coming here. Wow! What a trip! I was five miles above the boat during the whole experience. I’ll turn you on sometime soon.”

  The talk of his trip into narcotic dreamland excited Dee’s imagination to a point of release and her urine drained through her panties and left a wet spot on the front of her Levi’s, the remainder ran down her leg . . . she crossed her legs in anticipation. There was no doubt she would blast off and the whores would do the things they wanted to do with her which they could not fully accomplish with men. “My . . . my girls will . . . will do what I say . . .” she stuttered through dry lips. “What do they do?”

  “There’s going to be a party. A nice soda pop and milkshake party for the girls on board my boat. Who would expect a bunch of teenage girls—only girls—are bringing ashore a fortune in fly high medicine?”

  “Hey, that’s pretty slick.”

  He beamed with pride. “Sure. Your broads go in with size thirty-two brassieres and come out with thirty-eights . . .”

  “And wait until you see the new hip pads and ass pads.”

  “All the more they can carry. Say, you’ve been improving your lot since I was here last.”

  She tried to smile but the craving for heroin made her face feel as if it were cracking. Her hands shook noticably as she stuck her thumbs into the top of her Levi’s, trying to push them hard against her belly to keep the nausea she knew would soon be coming from presenting itself. “Meantime, keep out of trouble. Lay off any of your other activities . . .” she heard him say and she wished he would shut up. Couldn’t he tell she was sick? She needed help, not talk. The son of a bitch keeps on talking and talking, always talking. Why don’t he shut up?