Chapter 3: Ballet of Blood

The next few days were awful. I had to cover up the bruise on my stomach that kept getting darker and more painful, and I had to cover up that I just got an old friend killed, and that I watched him die. Sherry knew something was wrong, but we didn’t talk. Mostly we just talked about Andy. He was getting better, but I knew I had to do something or Becky Finklestein would just send him to the hospital again. You have to stand up to bullies, or they’ll never stop picking on you. And that’s where I got my best idea yet.

The Carson brothers were seven of the meanest, ugliest, and least reputable people in the rust belt, and they would do a lot of wrong for a little money.

We met in a dive bar out by the abandoned foundry where the glasses hadn’t been cleaned since the Eisenhower administration. “Let me get this straight,” Jackie Carson said. “You want us to work over a woman and a kid for four hundred bucks?”

“Look guys. I know it ain’t right, but they killed Gary and the law doesn’t seem interested in finding out who-”

“Oh we got no problem with the job,” Joel Carson said, “but kids are extra. We won’t do this for less than four-fifty.”

Fortunately I brought some extra cash just to be on the safe side. “So here’s the plan,” I said. “I’m going to slip a note to the mom that says I know she killed Gary. I’ll tell her to meet us at the old foundry. Then five of you meet her here. And while that’s happening two of you drop by the house and take care of the kid.”

“Five of us for a woman and two of us for a kid...” Jackie said. “This don’t sound right.”

“Look guys I know what you’re thinking-”

“If you want all seven of us that’s going to be seven hundred,” Joel said.

“All right fellas, it’s a deal,” I said. “But remember, this needs to get ugly. Bats and pipes and chains, all that stuff.”

“You want us to work over a mother and daughter with pipes and chains?

I sighed. “How much?”

“Oh seven hundred is plenty, but it sounds like overkill.”

“No fellas,” I said. “These chicks are dangerous. The mom killed Gary with her bare hands. Beat him to a pulp and didn’t get a scratch on her.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll fix her good,” Jackie said. “And the kid, too, I guess.”

A few minutes later I was in my office in the mill writing a note with my off hand, telling Dr. Rachel Finklestein to bring $10,000 in small bills to the old foundry the next night. It was late fall by now, so it was dark enough that I could leave a note under the Finklesteins’ doormat without being noticed. I could hear Lisa Hatcher moaning inside, and my stomach throbbed in pain at the thought of the gorgeous brunette working her into a sweaty coil of lust. I cut around the front of the house to avoid the streetlights, but I froze as I passed Becky’s bedroom. The curtains were drawn, but I could hear the sound of weight plates clanking. Lots of weight plates.

The next day flew by. I told Sherry that I was working late, and made sure that the guys at the mill saw me in my office when they left. I kept the light on, but snuck out the back and walked the three miles to the old foundry as the sun set. Through a busted out window at the rear of the foundry I could see four of Carson brothers inside under the flickering lights of the foundry floor, smoking cigarettes and twirling pipes, axe handles, and chains. I couldn’t bear to watch a little kid get beat worked over, but I wouldn’t miss seeing that uppity doctor bitch get what was coming to her. It was only a few minutes before I heard a car pull up.

I snuck around the side of the foundry and saw the Bonneville that I recognized from the Finklestein’s driveway. A woman in a black coat and hat got out of the car carrying a dufflebag. I could tell by the easy but purposeful walk that it was Rachel. I snuck back around to the broken window just in time to see Rachel Finklestein walk into the shadows of the foundry floor. She looked at the three visible Carson brothers, one at a time, then squinted at the shadows, as if she knew the others were there hiding. “Are you the assholes who are trying to blackmail me?” she demanded.

“I hate to tell you lady, but we ain’t here for your money,” Jackie said.

“That’s good,” Rachel said, opening her duffle bag, “because I didn’t bring any money.”

“So what’s in the bag?” Tommy asked.

Silently, Dr. Finklestein pulled a small standing mirror out of the duffle bag and stood it up on the floor. From the shadows I saw her toss off her hat and slip out of her coat. Then she stepped into the light. Her brunette locks were dyed black, and pulled tightly into a pony tail. But it wasn’t her hair that made the Carson brothers lean forward. She was wearing a tiny leather bikini bottom that rode low on her rounded hips. Instead of a top, she wore two strips of black tape across each nipple in an ‘X’, but her dark brown areolas were so large that they were clearly visible even in the dim light of the foundry. She wore black leather gloves, black high heels and her beautiful face was now covered in white and black greasepaint in the image of a skull. It was an incredible scene. The slim but shredded body, the enormous breasts and the gothic imagery combined to be equal parts erotic and frightening. She put her hands on her hips and straightened up, causing her hyper-developed legs and torso to bloom into a symphony of muscular contraction and expansion. “I hope one of you idiots had the good sense to bring a gun,” she said dryly. “Because that might actually slow me down long enough for you to run away.

Tommy Carson pointed his finger and opened his mouth, but in an instant, Dr. Rachel Finklestein had leapt across the foundry floor, swiveled her incredible hips and brought her heel crashing into Tommy’s head. My stomach sank. I’d seen every Kung-Fu movie that came into town and I’d never seen anything like that. She jumped twenty-five feet from a standstill in high heels and dropped Tommy Carson with one kick. And Tommy wasn’t moving. Fortunately, his brothers were, running from the corners of the foundry to attach the buxom amazon who stood facing the rear wall of the foundry, just a few feet from my face, her nipples hardening visibly and straining at their coverings as blood pooled at her feet.

As Rachel Finklestein re-adjusted her ponytail, her back to the foundry floor, Jeff Carson brought an axe handle crashing down onto her trapezius. Rachel didn’t move, but the axe handle splintered into a dozen pieces. She wheeled around and kicked one of her luscious legs up onto his shoulder, her knee across his shoulder, and touched his lips with one of her gloved fingers. “You must have a heck of a grip,” she said breathily. “Normally when people try to hit me with sticks they just bounce off.” Then, with a smooth and lightning-quick pivot of her hips, she brought her leg down, forcing Jeff to his knees and trapping his head in between her incredible thighs. Her apple-shaped ass tightened, and Jeff’s head instantly started to turn red as he clawed and pounded uselessly at the doctor’s diamond-shaped claves and bulging quads.