St. Clair Ch. 04: The Angel

Tammi tried to suppress her smile of pride. "She's a damn tough girl."

"How'd she do it?" Cindy popped the diaper wipes into a bag.

TJ frowned and shook her head. "Their best guess is that she was awake for a few days, watching the Senator using his punch code. He came to see her alone one too many times. He was probably dead under her bed when I looked into the room. You can't see much through the window. Then when she was finished with him, she went out and got into the ventilation ducts."

"I'm just glad she didn't kill the guard." Tammi held Courtney a little tighter, thinking about Angie's promise.

"He never even saw her. They tried to reprimand him, but I sent over copies of our warnings about how dangerous she was, that they needed monitoring cameras on her, that they didn't have enough guards, along with their responses. They really should've had more guards on, then one would have still been there when the Senator went in." TJ gave an exasperated sigh.

Cindy glanced around with a conspiratorial look. "Is all the stuff about writing on the walls true?"

TJ nodded. "It's not really a secret, she pretty much signed her work. She did, actually. Carved her name on his forehead. She wrote 'rotting,' 'corruption,' and 'pervert' in his blood on the wall over his body. And she didn't eat the heart, just stuffed into his mouth."

Tammi checked to see if Courtney was still sleeping. "Angie told TJ that she ate the hearts to feel their strength or something like that."

"I'm not even sure Angie really knows why she does it. But I think doing what she did was an insult. Maybe." TJ gestured helplessly.

Tammi continued. "If he was 'rotting' she wouldn't want... that. He must have been bad. Maybe he touched her when he thought she was asleep."

TJ shrugged. "He was an asshole, but I can thank him for one thing."

Cindy looked at TJ. "What's that?"

"I know what color to call Tammi's eyes. Cerulean."

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Los Angeles

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The semi slowly maneuvered down the back street, seeking the loading dock.

"Bad neighborhood, huh?" The frail hitchhiker, slightly scrunched down in her oversize black and red woven Baja jacket, peered out the window at the gang signs on the walls.

"It isn't good." Marina's voice held a little life; a little more anyway, than it had. Maybe it had been being able to save someone. Maybe it had been the hitchhiker. Marina never picked up hitchhikers, but this one seemed special for some reason. She seemed to value the solitude and music just like Marina did. She'd also slept a lot, curled up on the bed in the sleeper, just moving over a bit whenever Marina grabbed some sleep. For whatever reason, it was comforting.

The hitchhiker pulled the bill of her faded green Texaco Gas ball cap a little higher and eyed an enormous grey "TRG" gang tag on a wall thoughtfully. "So you're coming back through on the ninth?"

"That's the schedule."

"I'll meet you here and ride back to New York with you. I've never been there before."

Marina manipulated the truck into a tight turn, and backed neatly into the loading dock. She glanced at her gaunt companion as she shut her truck down. "Do you have a place to stay?" Marina surprised herself with that monumental effort to be a bit more human.

"I'll find a place." Angela watched three gang members strutting down a nearby sidewalk. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and checked it for a second. "I've got your tattoo artist's name, I want my new tattoo to be special; it's gotta have the right color blue."

"She can do anything for you. But it won't take that much time."

Angie watched one of the gang catcall after a young mom carrying a baby. The woman kept her eyes fixed stonily on the sidewalk in front of her and walked just a bit faster, obviously terrified. She smiled just a bit, remembering her so-very-specific promise to Tammi. "I've got some things to keep me busy." She reached over and tweaked the stereo playfully, then slid out of the truck.

Marina watched the hitchhiker walk away, a small part of her looking forward to the next time she'd see her.

She tapped the music down just a bit. Pulling her manifest out, she began filling out the arrival time, listening to the soft voices of Blue Oyster Cult singing the opening verses of "Don't Fear the Reaper."

###

Post Production Notes:

The inspiration for this story was the 1876 Northfield bank robbery that destroyed the Cole Younger gang. They failed to take into account the number of Union Army Veterans in the town and the gang was shot to pieces. Frank and Jesse James managed to escape, more by sheer luck than by planning. They later claimed they weren't even at the disastrous robbery.

For the curious, Mae's dog is half Newfoundland, half Neapolitan Mastiff.

Originally, this started with a simple one-off short story; readers asked for more, and TJ and Tammi's world grew. I appreciate the encouragement and support I've gotten since the beginning. It has been simply amazing.