Devil Girls Read online

  “All out, all out,” babbled Rick as he jumped over the car door on his side, missed his footing and fell flat on his face. He turned over on his back and looked skyward. Suddenly everything seemed silly to him and he giggled like a fool.

  “Let them finish,” replied Lonnie as he relaxed back against the seat as he puffed himself into dreamland from the cigarette. Rhoda’s Levi’s fell over the seat next to him and he smiled excitedly as he listened to her deep moans and words of endearment . . . of never ending love . . . of feelings no man could ever give her. “Save some for me, baby . . . save some for me,” he heard himself echoing Rick’s words, then he closed his eyes and let his own thoughts take over the scene.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sheriff Buck Rhodes was tired and at eleven p.m. the night was still young for him. He figured all he needed was some kind of race riot and he’d have a complete night. Fire! Destruction! Murder! His town had always been a rough, tough town, but since the innovation of hidden narcotics, their transportation and pushers, violence had been the order of the day, getting steadily worse. He’d requested more funds for extra deputies but none had been forthcoming.

  “Good Christ, how in hell can you expect me to keep law and order in a KILL CRAZY town like this has become with only four men?” he had screamed at the Town Council and the Mayor. His words of attack had about as much effect on them as a fly’s attack on an elephant.

  “Taxes are too high already.” The words were always the same, and he still retained only his four men.

  Buck looked out of his window, out over his town. “Taxes,” he said angrily to himself. “Damn the taxes. Let ’em take the taxes and wipe their ass.” He moved to his desk and took out a fifth of straight whiskey and put the bottle neck to his lips for a long slug.

  He was so engrossed when his office door opened to admit Reverend Steele. “Long time no see,” smiled the clergyman.

  Buck lowered the whiskey bottle, but there was no embarrassment in the move. “Yeah! Like all of two hours,” the big man said.

  Reverend Steele closed the door and moved across the room to sit in a deep leather chair in front of Buck’s desk. He indicated the bottle.

  “You suddenly have something against drinking glasses?” he mused.

  “Only when I’m in a hurry and cussin’ the taxes.” Buck put the bottle on his desk and took a cigar from his desk humidor. “Want one?”

  “Not just now, thanks.”

  Buck lit up. He let the grey smoke drift up around his head. Then he sat down in his chair behind the desk.

  “What’s with the taxes bit, Buck?”

  “Same old story. I need more men. Every time we get a night like this one’s been I get on the same old kick. Then I remember the Mayor and the Councilmen and the City Fathers, and I get mad. And the madder I get . . . Hell’s fire, I need a drink.” He took another long pull at the bottle.

  Reverend Steele grinned broadly. “Another time I’d join you.”

  “And you’d be most welcome. I never was a solitary drinker.” He put the bottle down on the desk again. “You hosting the Long girl’s funeral tomorrow?”

  “I’m officiating.” He looked deep into Buck’s troubled eyes. “Are you expecting trouble, Buck?”

  “Hank! Trouble has already started, you know that.”

  “But at the grave side?”

  “No! I guess not. Even these hop-heads have better sense than to come out in the open. But it’s like I told the new school teacher. Just because the Long girl is dead and will be planted, doesn’t mean they’re through with her.” Buck got up and looked out of the window. “We try, and sometimes we learn something, but we can’t fully learn how the hopped up mind works. With every individual the thoughts differ.” He turned to lean his rump on the window sill. “They have it in for this teacher and anyone or anything connected with her. That’s the way I’ve got it figured. Don’t be surprised to see that grave all torn up some night . . . maybe worse. It’s been done before.”

  “My job is with the living as well as the dead. Anything I can do, you know I’m available.”

  Buck smiled. “I wish you were on the board of Councilmen.” Then pointedly he said, “You know Hank, you should run for office next election. Bet you’d make it. Then maybe I’d have an ally for a change.”

  “Bring that up around election time and I’ll think about it,” smiled the Reverend.

  “Don’t be surprised if I do just that!”

  “I mean it, Buck. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. Maybe I’d also like to see, first hand, where all the taxes you talk about are going. It certainly isn’t into town improvement.”

  “You damned well said a mouthful that time, Hank.” Then his eyes narrowed seriously. “You didn’t come all the way over here to talk about taxes or elections. You’ve got something else on your mind.”

  “Haven’t I always?”

  “Let’s have it.”

  Reverend Steele let his eyes narrow in a light smile knowing beforehand just what Buck’s reaction would be. “It’s about one of the girls from Lincoln Street.”

  Buck was true to form, he threw up his hands. “Ah, come on Hank, not again.”

  The clergyman crossed one leg over the other as he leaned back in his chair. “I’ll take that cigar now, if you still want to offer me one.”

  Buck went to his desk and reached into the humidor. He took the cigar and tossed it to Reverend Steele. “You’d better take it while we’re still friends.”

  “You have her over in juvenile hall,” he said as he puffed his cigar into life.

  Buck threw himself into his heavy leather chair behind the desk. “If she’s in juvenile hall, that’s where she damn well probably belongs.”

  “We’ve been friends a long time, Buck.”

  “What in hell’s that got to do with it?”

  “We come from the same part of town as these others.”

  “Sure we did. And as tough a street as any in the country. But we didn’t end up in the pokey.”

  “Maybe we weren’t caught!”

  Buck’s voice came hard. “Doing what? Lifting a banana from Luigi’s fruit stand? Painting dirty words on the bathroom walls? Taking a chocolate bar from Hemp’s candy store?” His anger at his own thoughts made his words come in a steady stream. “Sure. We had a gang. But there wasn’t any marijuana, or heroin, hashish, bennies or L.S.D. in it. We didn’t go around knocking over liquor stores and kill the people who run them. And we didn’t hold up drugstores to get high. We didn’t carry knives, blackjacks, zip guns or even good pistols.” His anger subsided and he leaned back in his chair. Both men were silent for a long moment, then Buck said, “The girl you’re referring to—Jenny Rameriz?”

  “Yes!”

  Buck got up from the chair again and moved to the window. He gazed out of it over the tough town spread out before him. “As little as it is there’s a lot of town out there, and a lot of desert beyond that. A lot of things take place in it, day and night.” He sneaked a look back to Reverend Steele. “Guess your boss the Good Lord is the only one who can keep track of everything that does happen.” Again he turned to look back out of the window. “One thing’s for sure. This town, as small as it is, has one of the highest juvenile crime records of any town its size in the country. And when we catch them with the goods, like we just did your Jenny Rameriz, I’m going to do everything I can do to put her away for good. Put her right away where she can’t contaminate anyone else.”

  “What did she do, Buck?”

  Buck spun on him. “You mean you’re ready to stick your neck out for a little witch and you don’t even know what she’s done?”

  “Her father asked me to look in on her. He didn’t say what she’s done. I don’t even think he knew. He said your office only informed him she was jailed.”

  Buck sighed. “Yeah, I guess that could be.” He thought a long moment in silence as he moved to sit behind his desk again. “I mentioned the chocolate bar you and I as
kids took from Hemp’s candy store.” Then his eyes hardened as he continued. “Your little Jenny Rameriz went us one better. When old man Hemp caught her at the cash register, she knifed him to death.” He made the motion with his hand. “One quick swipe across his throat.”

  Reverend Steele leaned back in the leather chair, for a moment he thought he would be sick to his stomach. “She . . . she killed old man Hemp?”

  “Just like I said, Hank.” The telephone on his desk rang cutting off any more information he might have given. He picked it up and put it in the using position. “Sheriff Rhodes,” he said, then listened silently with a growing troubled expression falling over his features. When his hand hung up the receiver, his face was ashen grey.

  Reverend Steele forgot his own stomach. He moved forward in his chair. “What’s up, Buck? You look like a ghost, and I don’t mean the Holy one.”

  “My night has just been made complete. Lila Purdue killed one of the nurses in the prison hospital and escaped.”

  Reverend Steele stood up quickly and leaned his hands on Buck’s desk. “Good Lord! The girl has really gone mad. Is she heading this way, Buck?”

  “No one seems to know yet how long ago she escaped or which way she went. She’d be stupid to come this way.”

  “Murder is stupid.”

  “I buy that. But she swore vengence against her mother.”

  “Do you want me to inform her?”

  “No. Let’s not worry the old lady just yet. It’s better if she stays in the dark for the time being. That way she can’t do something foolish. I’ll put a man on her place. Ha, a man,” he sighed. “One man is all I can afford, when I need a dozen . . .”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At midnight Jockey locked the front door to his café and while going through that operation he called over his shoulder to the chief as he heard him come out of the kitchen. “Hey, Chief. Look in the back of my refrigerator. I got some cold beer hidden in there.”

  “Me no likum fire water. No drinkum!”

  Jockey, with a scowl on his face, turned to the big man. “Who the hell said you had to? Get me one!”

  The big Indian grunted and went back into the kitchen.

  Jockey spun around fast to face the front door he had just locked as he heard it open. The man who stood framed in the doorway was a young fellow wearing a plaid sports jacket and a porkpie hat. “Hello, Jockey. Long time no see.” He looked around the interior of the café. “Place looks the same as last time. Can’t be doin’ much business, Jock old boy. Now if you’d listen to me you could be riding on easy street.”

  “If I listen to you I’d be riding in a patrol car heading for state prison.” He pointed. “How’d you get in here? I just locked that door.”

  “Hell, boy . . . you don’t call that thing a lock, do you? I got a skeleton key.” Then he hastened to add, “But I coulda’ done it with a hairpin . . .”

  “Get out.”

  “Now don’t be so all-fired temperish . . .”

  “We ain’t got nothing to talk about.”

  The man smiled, and for the first time a large slash cut across his right cheek. When he smiled it became a deep crease and quite noticeable even in poor light. “Well now. The Boss thinks different.”

  “Claude, you’re always talking about some guy named BOSS. If you got a BOSS, let’s hear his name.”

  “Boss is good enough!” He pulled out a wooden chair from beneath one of the tables, and he sat on it backwards. “And he don’t like the way you act. Now maybe we ain’t the biggest operators in the business, but we got connections with them, and our stuff is good stuff. Ya see. We get paid off in stuff, and we do like to have some cash on hand, so we take our share of the stuff and sell it. Now, in order to sell it we gotta have somebody to sell it to. Oh, we got a lot of places workin’ for us in this ole town, but we want yours. You got the biggest cache of kids. Now take this for the sense it’s meant to be. Most of the slugs that hang around here are on the stuff anyway. So why don’t you make it easy on yourself and make some good ole American cash at the same time? Then we’re all happy and nobody gets hurt. See, Jock, ole pal? Don’t that make real sense?”

  “Get outta’ here!”

  “You don’t seem to hear so good. The Boss wants this joint of yours.”

  “This joint is out of bounds.”

  “Everybody has his price.”

  “My neck is worth more than any price.”

  “Well now, I can only say, if your neck means that much to you, you’d better start doing business with us.”

  “That a threat?”

  “You’ve been threatened before. Take it any way you like. Only take some good advice. Don’t play footsies with us anymore. We don’t like it. Take our good advice and live longer and happier.”

  “Your kind of advice I don’t need.”

  “Okay—if that’s the way you want it.” Claude stood up as if to leave. But at the closed door he took a switchblade knife from his pocket and snapped open the blade. He turned to Jockey again, and started cleaning his fingernails with the tip of the blade. “Look, Jockey. Don’t you sometimes long for the day, the old days when you could lose all your troubles and bad feelings just with a little puff of smoke, or the pinprick of a needle?” Jockey noticably shuddered in remembrance. “There, you see! You do remember! Oh, we know all about you, Jockey. How you fell off the horses, wrecked the cars, an’ all the time you were blastin’ off with the big H and the brown weed and probably all the other stuff. Yeah, I know you claim to have licked it, taken the cure at Lexington. But did you really get cured, Jockey? Did it really take? Nobody ever gets really cured. Now, here I offer you all you can hold. You just skim it off the top—all you want. All your troubles gone with the puff of a smoke or the pinprick of the needle like I said, and all the cash you can spend along with it. Think about it, has-been. Just let it roll around in your little mind awhile . . .”

  Jockey jumped between Claude and the door so that Claude had to turn his back toward the kitchen. “Clear out, you bastard!” screamed Jockey at the top of his lungs.

  Claude reached in and grabbed Jockey by the front of his shirt. He brought the wicked-looking switchblade knife up so that it was pricking Jockey’s throat. Claude did not see the giant of a man as he came out of the kitchen, suddenly alerted by Jockey’s screaming demands.

  Claude was desperately angry. “You oughta speak softer to your betters, HASBEEN!”

  Chief hurled the beer bottle he had brought from the kitchen across the room and it shattered on the wall, just missing Claude’s head. Claude snapped around to see the giant of a man slowly approaching him. “Keep him away from me,” and there was panic in his voice suddenly. But Chief kept coming. Claude spun toward the door.

  He pushed Jockey out of his way and stabbed at the door which had locked again by the automatic spring lock. He snapped around just in time to see the big hands fly through the air and grab him by both shoulders. Chief threw the creep, with all his might, across the room to land on one of the tables which splintered under the sudden weight. But Claude’s body did not stop its movement with the crashing of the table. It slid with the broken wood across the remainder of the café and hit with a sickening thud against the more stable lunch counter. Blood immediately spurted from Claude’s nose as it cracked against the fixed counter stools. Then he lay there moaning.

  Chief turned to Jockey who had moved in beside him. “What me do with bum?”

  “Toss him out on his ear, what else?”

  Chief walked to the cowering Claude who tried desperately to find a hole in the counter to crawl in, all the time whimpering his fears. “Keep him away . . . Jockey . . . keep him away . . . you’ll get it for this . . .” And that was all he could say amid his frightened, indistinguishable murmurings. Chief reached over and picked him up bodily. He carried him half-way across the room then with a mighty heave, he threw the pusher through the plate-glass window. “Jockey say you go—you go! No come back no mo
re!” shouted the chief after him.

  Claude landed amid the shattered glass onto the sidewalk at the feet of Reverend Steele who had been passing. He stopped and looked down at the dazed man, then to the window, broken as it was, as Jockey and the chief moved in to look out. Claude stumbled to his feet, cutting himself on the shattered glass before running off down the street.

  “Good evening, Jockey,” said the Reverend as if he had seen nothing to excite him.

  “Evening Reverend. Don’t see much of you lately.”

  “Oh, I’ve been rather busy. I guess you have also been busy.” The Reverend smiled and walked off down the dark street.

  Jockey smiled knowingly, then turned to Chief. “So okay. You want a medal. You broke the window, so you stay and fix it. Get some old boards from the back alley and board it up. There’s a hammer and nails in the kitchen. That should hold it till morning when I can get a glass man in to fix it up right.”

  “Ugh,” the big man said and walked back across the café and out through the kitchen door.

  Lonnie drove his hot rod up and pulled to a stop just as Jockey was turning from the broken window. He turned back to see Rhoda, alone, get out from beside Lonnie. Her clothes were a mess, as if she had been sleeping in them, or romping with the pigs. “Romping with the pigs is more like it,” he thought to himself. Jockey had always liked Rhoda. He figured she was about the smartest of the bunch. But lately she had been getting just like the rest of them. And as Lonnie drove off and she drew in close to him, Jockey could smell the tell-tale odor on her breath. Right then he was sure all his previous suspicions had been correct. “Heard around your mother has been looking for you all night, Rhoda.”

  “So let the old bat look,” she sneered.

  “Now that ain’t no way to talk.”

  “Who the hell are you to talk to me like that?” She spit a big glob of marijuana-infected saliva at him. “You ain’t my father.”