By the time Madge made it out to the flats, the late afternoon sun slanting sideways and brushing the rocky landscape with vivid gold, she nearly had herself convinced that Maria would be there, maybe hiding in the back at first, but then coming out into the cantina at her mother's urging to face Madge with apologies and regrets for having run off. The cantina was closed, and there was an overslept siesta quiet all around, but the youngest sister peeked out of the window when Madge knocked on…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 27, 2010 at 3:08pm —
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Slappy scratched his unruly mop of dark curly hair, and said, "Humph," in response to Madge's insistence that the cleaning girl had "run off." He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he looked at her, glanced at the wall, and then walked over to the edge of the clearing to gaze out at the featureless wasteland surrounding the motel grounds. He pulled his pack of Luckys out of his shirt pocket, stuck one in his mouth and turned to look at her again as he struck a match with his thumbnail and lit…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 17, 2010 at 1:57pm —
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The West side of the Bella Vista motel suffered the full force of the afternoon sun every day, but the last room, number 12, gained a small advantage from the shade of the trees in the grove, and the back wall never saw the sun. Madge felt the improbable coolness of the smooth plaster next to her ear, and on her palm as she steadied herself against the wall. The scent of the plaster came up softly, a clean smell to her nose, its mineral chalkiness, strangely, causing her mouth to water and…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 16, 2010 at 6:40pm —
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Madge ran into the clearing behind the motel, the afternoon sun marking her body with crisscrossed shadows from the tree branches above. It was quiet and still, but for the birds flitting from branch to branch and the tiny, tear-shaped leaves that always floated through the air like soft rain. She could hear her own heart pounding as she peered out through the trees, down the long irregular path that led out deep into the grove where the light gave up to murky twilight and losing your way…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 14, 2010 at 10:36pm —
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Madge turned to leave room number 12, working herself up into a huff, overriding her unease with irritation at the cleaning girl's disappearance and locking on to the idea that she had run off. Before she made it to the door she heard a sound coming from the other side of the wall, a sound like a cat meowing far away and it stopped her cold. Room number 12 was the last room in the row on the west side of the motel and on the other side of the wall, there was a clearing that led into a deep…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 14, 2010 at 1:23am —
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Dawn was creeping in all around him as Romeo hung up the telephone and took a few shaky breaths. He wiped his hand across his mouth and felt the slick smear of blood spatter, stared at his palm for a moment, already moving his mind past what had just happened and on to what came next. Assess the situation... remove the corpse from the lobby, big heavy bastard, going to need help, wake up the kid and get him in here, blood, good amount of blood on the floor by the kitchen table and trailing out…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 12, 2010 at 12:30am —
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Stabbing Clark in the heart was the simplest, most obvious solution, so Romeo picked up the guy's empty coffee cup, slipped a knife up his sleeve while he refilled it –– halfway, no sense wasting a full cup of coffee –– then held it out to him like the gracious host that he was. When Clark reached out and took the cup, Romeo leaned in and drove the knife into the sweet spot, without so much as a, "Sorry, pal." Romeo expected the gasp of shock, the tumbling coffee cup and the gush of blood, even…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 10, 2010 at 9:30pm —
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The ringing telephone pulled Romeo into the lobby, the shattering bell sending waves of sound pounding against his back and throbbing with his outraged heart. Back, away from the monstrous error, the man, the abomination, not dead, though the knife Romeo had put in him still protruded from the precise place where his beating heart could not be beating any longer, but yet, the blood coursed from around the knife in regular throbbing rhythm, so maybe, holy Christ, maybe... Clark moved slowly…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 10, 2010 at 9:30pm —
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"I'm not up for the scenic route," Romeo said, "get to the point." Clark frowned, stared at Romeo for a few moments, rubbed at his unwanted beard, then resumed his story, "It was like this, the little dame was trouble, they liked her, especially next to a guy my size, because she looked... younger, but she was nothing but trouble and it was her that set those guys on the other girl. I didn't mind the artsy stuff so much at first, the other times, regular girls, more normal situations, but she,…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 8, 2010 at 3:00pm —
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"It wasn't like a regular gig or anything," Clark said, "just every once in a while to pick up some extra cash." Romeo didn't say anything, though his upper lip was slowly betraying his disgust. Clark went on, "I got started with the photo shoots, really easy money, just my hands holding ladies shoes and touching their feet and stuff." Romeo said, "What?" Clark rolled his eyes and sighed over dramatically, then explained, "The guys that produced this stuff didn't want to just make the…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 7, 2010 at 3:30pm —
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"You know those guys that work for the Boss out in Jersey?" Clark asked, after staring down into his empty coffee cup for a long moment. "You know the ones," he insisted when Romeo gave him a look like, guys... which guys... "they all look alike, dark, hairy, can't hardly understand them, their accents so thick, but not like regular Jersey guys..."
"Like they come from the old country, but not our old country," Romeo said mostly to himself, remembering the strange pack of…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 6, 2010 at 1:00pm —
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Romeo took another sip of his coffee and swallowed the small lump of dread that tried to crawl up his throat. He'd seen this before, the guy was going to tell some crazy story, some unhinged shit that was supposed to justify his innocence, but instead would only prove they should have sent the men in the white coats after him. Romeo hardened his…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 5, 2010 at 6:06pm —
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Romeo was not a deer in the headlights kind of guy. He gave Clark a steady, noncommittal look to answer the man's inappropriate question, then turned back slowly and deliberately to the cooking food on the stove. He put the eggs and bacon on a plate, poured them both a cup of coffee, took a sip of his, and looked at Clark's reflection in the night mirrored kitchen window. "What did you do?" he asked. The man met his eyes in that dark reflection and all thoughts of a quick, easy end for the guy…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 4, 2010 at 12:42pm —
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Romeo had to make an effort to keep a friendly look on his face as he made a fresh pot of coffee and got busy with eggs and bacon for Clark, because every word out of the guy's big mouth – though he seemed oblivious to his effect – grated and annoyed. "I can't believe you been gone from the city so long, I don't know how you keep from going nuts after being such a big shot and all, and then," he punctuated the observation with his weird, high pitched giggle, "to end up out here making beds in…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 3, 2010 at 6:00pm —
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Romeo smiled a smile that was little more than a tightening of the muscles at the corners of his mouth and considered Clark through narrowed eyes. Clark yawned, exposing Romeo to every tooth in his cavernous mouth, lifted his arm to reveal sweat stains as big as continents on a map, and sniffed at himself unhappily. “I’ve never needed a shower worse in my life,” he said. Romeo remembered the dream he’d had in the grove about the guest book, Joe’s voice saying, “You’re just going about this all…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 2, 2010 at 8:00pm —
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Romeo started a pot of coffee and stepped out of the back door to survey the vegetable garden in the soft morning light. If he didn't look beyond the edge of the neatly arrayed plot, he might be able to take comfort from its lush bounty, the glowing beauty of ripening tomatoes, the safety of picket fence incarceration. The road was too near not to draw his eyes, and then his feet, and he found himself standing in front of the Bella Vista Motel gazing out at a land that seemed to have no order…
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Added by Pamila Payne on February 1, 2010 at 12:30pm —
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Clark Mannish was pacing around in the lobby bellowing, "Hello? Anybody here?" when Romeo stepped out of the hallway to greet him, mere moments after he had banged on the desk bell. The guy was a mess, as guys always are after untold days on the road in varying states of shamed anxiety, or angry resentment, or depressed resolve, or some combination of all that and more for having been exiled from New York City. Romeo wasn't yet privy to what Mannish had done to earn himself a stint at the Bella…
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Added by Pamila Payne on September 17, 2009 at 9:40am —
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Madge lay in Romeo's arms, sleeping in her soft way, as light as a doll against his chest. He felt his body begin to settle against the mattress, the tension of the day loosening its grip on his muscles, his jaw unclenching, his mind giving way to allowing the sounds of crickets, night birds, the soft click and whir of the oscillating fan, and his own steady heartbeat to blend together and fade out into beautiful, blank sleep. The jolt that went through his head when the front desk bell…
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Added by Pamila Payne on September 16, 2009 at 4:22pm —
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Frank's wife never told him she wanted a divorce, she just went out and got a dog. He came home from work one day, stuck his key in the lock and was puzzled to hear barking on the other side of his front door. He was confronted in his own foyer by a snarling new adversary––some sort of Chihuahua, Terrier mix––that had all the charm of a foot-tall gargoyle. He stood there, briefcase in hand, ready to shield himself should the thing decide to launch an attack, when he heard Charlene call out from…
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Added by Pamila Payne on September 15, 2009 at 12:41pm —
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She couldn't get her eyeliner to go on straight. Her eyes kept tearing up and twitching under the sharp edge of the pencil. She rubbed at the lines with her finger, but that smeary, smoky look didn't work on her, her eyes were too intense already. She laid the pencil down beside the sink, grabbed a cigarette out of her pack, lit it, and sat down on the toilet to smoke. She looked into the half open eyes of the corpse, haphazardly submerged in bloody bath water and whispered, "God damn you,…
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Added by Pamila Payne on September 14, 2009 at 11:15am —
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