Chapter 3

The phone finally rang at three in the afternoon. It was a relief to Max. Pete and Butch had begun to look at him as though they thought he was trying to pull something on them.

And things hadn't been made any easier by the little blonde. She kept begging him to let her take the gag off her husband and feed him. Finally he had slapped her face a couple of good ones, and she had fallen silent, staring at him in shocked surprise. He wondered whether she had ever been slapped in the face before. Probably not.

"Your old man's better off without food," he told her irritably. "A couple of days fasting, and he'll be less likely to try something stupid."

"When's the little sister coming?" Pete asked a dozen times during the day, and when Max told him that the blonde had told him she was coming and that was all he knew, Pete finally asked, "What if she's a dog? I just happened to think of that."

"Yeah," Butch said from the couch. He was staring at Julie and grinning. "What if she's a dog?"

"Why would she be a dog?" Max demanded, "She's Blondie's little sister."

"Yeah, but what if she is?" Pete asked insistently.

"Yeah, what if she is?" echoed Butch.

"If she's a dog, we share Julie, the way you wanted to last night."

That seemed to satisfy them for a while. Then they started to get fidgety again, as the day wore on and there wasn't any little sister. They'd been without a woman for a long time, and they obviously couldn't see why they should wait any longer. Max couldn't really think of a good reason. He was on the verge of letting Pete take Julie into the bedroom when the phone rang.

They all stood looking at each other for a moment after the first ring. Julie clenched her hands, wadding the front of her robe. Pete grinned, and Max felt relief, because a little thing like this could have caused some real trouble, and trouble they didn't need. The phone rang again. Max grabbed Julie's arm tightly, making her wince.

"All right, you re on, Blondie. Now, don't forget, this is your big scene, and if you fuck it up you're going to stand here and watch your family get wiped out."

"I'll do what you want." her voice was shaky.

"You'll have to do it in a better voice than that." He led her to the telephone. There was a pad next to it, with a ball- point pen stuck on by a built-in magnet. Max picked up the pen and nodded to Julie. Just as the phone started its third ring, she picked it up and inserted the earpiece under her hair. Before she could speak, Max twisted the phone in her hand and stood close to her, their bodies lightly touching, so he could hear the other end of the conversation. Then he nodded to Julie.

"Hello?" Her voice was surprisingly steady. A supreme effort, he guessed.

"Hi, Sis!" A perky girl-voice came back from the other end of the wire. "I'm here, waiting."

Julie waited a moment before she answered. Max was afraid for a moment that she was going to blow the whole weenie, but, of course, she had more sense than that. "Why are you so late, Sally?" There was a touch of annoyance in Julie's voice. The wait had been nerve-wracking for her, too. "We've been worried." That was a nice touch, Max thought. She was really doing very well.

"The train got held up, Sis. We tried to call you, but all the trunks to this burg were busy." The "we" brought Max up smartly, and he saw a startled look on Julie's face.

"Are you with someone, dear?"

"Yeah. Connie's here."

Julie looked at Max and shook her head, signifying that she didn't know what was going on any more than he did. "Connie?" she asked.

"Connie Winslow. The girl I met in school. I wrote you about her."

"But you didn't say anything about bringing her here."

"I didn't talk her into it until yesterday. It's just for overnight, Sis. That's all right, isn't it?"

"Well, I don't know," Julie stalled, while Max scrawled a question on the pad. Then she read verbatim. "Do her parents know?"

"They don't expect her home. She was going to stay in school on her the vacation, but then her grades got better, and she decided to go home and surprise them, and I talked her into coming this far with me and staying overnight. Gee, what's the trouble, Sis? She can bunk with me. It won't be any trouble." The girl sounded surprised, and a little hurt, that her friend wasn't welcome. Julie looked at Max helplessly, and he nodded, coming to a quick decision.

"All right," she said. "Bring her on out."

"Bring her? I thought you were going to--"

"No, dear, we can't pick you up. The car broke down last night. You get a ride out here. Is Mr. Lister's cab there?"

There was a pause. "Yeah. It's here."

"Fine. Do you have money?"

"Well, sure. You don't think I'd take off across two states without money, do you?"

"Good. Take the cab out here, and we'll reimburse you for it."

"Sis, is something wrong?"

There was a real tension then, in Max and in Julie too. He could feel the stiffening in her body. "Why, no," she said in a very matter-of-fact voice. "Why do you ask, darling?"

"Well, you just sound kind of funny."

"It's just the worry over you, Sally. And Diane has a little cold. You hurry out here. I'm just dying to see you."

"Sure thing. So long." There was a click, and the line went dead.

Max took the phone out of Julie's hand and placed it on the cradle. "That was a nice piece of work, sweets. You showed good sense, and stage presence too." Julie looked at the floor. She looked like she was about to cry.

"Is the little sister comin'?" Pete asked.

"Better than that, We got two new pieces of poontang on the way. Little sister was nice enough to bring along a friend."

The cab showed up a half-hour later. It was an old Chevy with one bumper tip missing. They saw it clear out on the road, and then it turned down the driveway and plowed along through its own dust cloud toward the house. It pulled up close to the service porch in back and the doors opened. An old guy with what looked like a telegrapher's hat got out of the front seat and went back to the trunk. He took out some bags. Two girls got out of the back. They were both small, dressed in miniskirts and both damned good-looking little chicks. One had brown hair and the other had red. The redhead was so heavily freckled Max could tell it from this distance, and through the window screen. She was still cuter than a button, though.

"Which one is your sister?" he asked Julie.

"The one with brown hair." The one with brown hair was really the better looking of the two. He looked at her for a moment before the similarity hit him. It was uncanny. Julie saw his reaction, and she looked at him in apparent alarm. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"But you--"

"I said it was nothing. Shut up." He grasped her arm and pulled her into the bedroom. The baby was lying in her crib, awake but quiet. He picked her up. Julie got the fidgets. "I'm not going to hurt her," he said. "As long as you do what you're told. Now get out on the service porch."

She went, reluctantly, and he walked along behind her. "Get them in the house, and see to it the old asshole stays outside. Don't you go out there, I want you where I can hear every word you say. I'm going to be right inside the kitchen door with the baby." He cradled the kid in one arm and took out his.45. "One little slip on your part, and you've got half a baby. Understand?"

"Oh, please."

"Shut up anti get out there."

She hugged the robe about her and stepped out onto the porch. The girls were still outside. The one with brown hair was paying the old cab driver.

"Come on in, girls," Julie called. "I'm sorry I can't ask you in, Mr. Lister. I'm not dressed."

"Howdy, Miz Bradford," the old guy said, touching the bill of his hat. "I'll just give the girls a hand here. He picked up the bags and carried them toward the door. Julie looked panicky. The door was shattered, and if he saw that the old asshole might start to put two and two together.

"Oh, that's all right," the redhead said, grabbing one of the bags, Trying to be the good guest, Max supposed, and thought, Baby, you don't know how good a guest you're going to be. The girl with brown hair grabbed the other bag, and they both headed for the door. The old geezer shrugged and got back in his car. He waved and put it in gear and pulled away, making more dust than a windstorm.

"Sis, this is Connie," the girl with brown hair said. Max couldn't see any of them now, but he could hear them very clearly.

"Come on in, girls," Julie said.

"Hey, what happened to the door?" This from Brown Hair.

"Oh, an accident. I'll tell you about it when we get inside." Max heard light footsteps across the service porch, and then Julie came into the kitchen, clutching her cotton robe about her. She walked right past him without glancing in his direction, and the two girls followed her like sheep into the slaughter house. Each of them was carrying a suitcase, leaning to one side from the weight. Of course they saw him the moment they were in the kitchen, but Max had shifted the gun behind his back, so they just turned and smiled uncertainly at him, still holding their bags.

"Hi, girls," he said. "I'm a friend of Jim and Julie. Just visiting." Julie nodded when Brown Hair looked at her.

"Let's go into the living room," she said.

They knew they had walked into something when they got to the living room and saw Jim Bradford trussed up on the floor. Brown Hair dropped her bag and clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Her friend just stood there rigidly. Julie had taken the baby on the way in, and now Max stepped up behind the girls and gave them a hard shove toward the middle of the room. They both let out a yelp of surprise and fright.

"Sis," Brown Hair said, turning to Julie, "what's--"

"You got any questions, baby, you direct them to me," Max said. He pulled the gun into sight, and the two girls huddled together staring at the weapon. The sight of the pistol in his hand seemed to affect them more than the rifle and the shotgun in the hands of the other two. "Now, I guess you girls are wondering what kind of party you've wandered into. My name is Max. That's Pete. And the intellectual looking gentleman with the rifle over there is Butch. We're staying here for a few days, until some people who are looking for us get tired and go away."

"Oh, God," the redhead said suddenly. "They're the--" She broke off, and Max smiled his best smile.

"The escaped murderers. That what you were going to say, Red?" He paused, smiling again. "You know, you're right? We're the three who made history yesterday by escaping from death row. And if we're caught, we're going back to death row. So we really don't have anything to lose if we shoot holes through a couple of teenagers.

"Now, you're going to be our little guests for the next few days. You'll have to earn your keep by working around the place and by furnishing us with a little entertainment now and then. Mrs. Bradford can tell you all about that if you have any questions. But as long as you do as you're told, you won't get hurt. One little bit of bullshit, and we start using you for target practice. You got that?" They didn't answer in words, but he could see from their faces that they understood the situation fairly well.

"I want the one with brown hair," Pete said. He came forward and grabbed her by the arm. She tried to pull away, in a panic, and he cuffed her a good one alongside the head. She gasped and stopped fighting. Pete pulled her toward the hall, and the front bedroom. She looked around in a pleading way, as though she expected help.

"Just a minute "Max said. Pete stopped, eyeing him suspiciously. "I want to talk this over with you, buddy," Max went on. "I want that little gal myself."

"Yeah?" Pete's gun was suddenly in his hand. He didn't point it at Max, but it was there, and ready. "Well, how do you figure you got a right to two dames and me none?"

"I don't figure that."

"Then what you got in mind?"

"A trade. I'll give you the blonde. I'll give you Julie." Julie looked at Max sharply, and then at Pete, to see what he would say to the proposition. Pete looked at her for a moment, and then at the young twat next to him. They were both lookers. The younger one was a little more slender, less lush, than her sister, but she had a kind of fragile beauty that a slob like Pete probably wouldn't appreciate as much. Max stood waiting for him to make up his mind. Finally, he shrugged.

"It don't make a fuck to me, boss. One woman or another. As long as she's good-lookin'." Max could see that Pete thought he had gotten the better deal. Well, let him think so. Maybe he had. Pete shoved the girl toward Max. She was crying. Max took a close look at his acquisition.

She had a small, finely-chiseled face, and her brown hair was shoulder length, framing it nicely. She had on a red minidress, nylon hose or panty-hose, and black pumps. Her eyes were wide and blue, giving her an innocent look. Yes, the resemblance was striking.

Her friend was still standing in the middle of the room with terror written all over her face and bearing. She was short and slender, like Sally, and while not beautiful like her friend, she was certainly more than ordinarily pretty. She was heavily freckled, with a clean-cut, girl-back-home took that was attractive. And exciting.

"Well, Red," Max said, "Connie, whatever your name is, it looks like you belong to Butch over there." He walked over to her and gave her a shove toward Butch. She gave a little squeal and tried to stop herself. She fell on the floor, banging one knee so hard it made Max wince a little. Butch gave his gorilla laugh and reached down and Pulled her up by her hair. Her grey minidress had hiked up fair enough to reveal the bare beginning of white panties. Now it fell back into place.

Butch pulled her toward him and perched her on his lap like a ventriloquist's dummy. She made an effort to get up and he pulled her back. He must have given her one a hell of a squeeze, because she let out a squeal of pa in. But she didn't try to get up again.

"I wouldn't try anything if I were you," Max said to the girl. "Butch isn't much of a deep thinker, and he might just hurt you badly, without meaning to. Sometimes he forgets his own strength. He's the one who opened the back door last night. And he didn't use his shoulder, either. Just his hands." Max held up his own hands and pantomimed the manner in which Butch had forced the door. The girl's eyes grew even wider. "I'm not saying he won't hurt you anyway. Butch is just about the meanest man I've ever met. I'm no St. Francis of Assisi myself, but sometimes he makes me shudder. Still, if you're very nice and don't give him any shit, maybe you'll get through this period without any broken bones."

She was crying, but she sat still, as though she were afraid that moving itself might break her bones. Butch grabbed a thick handful of red hair and jerked her head back. It must have looked like deliberate cruelty to the other women, and to Julie's husband, but Max and Pete had been around Butch enough to know he was just being playful. He grinned at the girl's discomfort. As long as Butch could be supplied with playthings like Connie, there really wasn't much to fear from him.

"That sure is a pretty dress Connie's wearing, isn't it, Butch?" Max said with a laugh. "Only thing is, it's too long. Covers up too much of her." The dress was a mini, of course, almost a micro. Connie looked at Max with a startled expression. Max laughed again. "I think it would be much improved if it had a slit up the front, don't you?"

"Sure," Butch said, but he was smiling vacantly. He was the only one in the room who didn't understand what Max was getting at. Sometimes, Max thought, it was hard making yourself remember how stupid the big lunk was. "Don't you think you ought to make a slit in it, Butch?" He pantomimed a tearing motion with his hands. The smile grew broader as Butch realized finally, what Max was suggesting.

"Oh, sure. Sure," he said. He took the hem of the dress between his hands. It was a good, expensive-looking dress, tailored from sturdy material, but Butch tore it like a piece of Kleenex. He tore it all the way up to the girl's waist, revealing the white panties again. They were lace and brief, bikini panties, and a little of her belly showed above the elastic. Connie gave a shriek, and her hands waved in the air, wildly, like a terrified child's. She was sweating.