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“Put a shirt on,” I tell him, glancing out the tattered curtains.
“Where are we going?”
“To the local bar.”
“Ha. Funny.” He actually laughs. “No, really, where are you taking me?”
“We’re going to get in my truck,” I say. “We’ll finish this conversation there.”
Robinette Mason is easy to get from the hotel room to my truck, which is generally a bad sign. It means he’s conserving his energy. Waiting for his shot. He’s also drunk, which sometimes helps and sometimes doesn’t.
“When it comes to women,” he says, staring out the window into the dark, his voice cold and hard. “Never trust ‘em. Especially not if they’re good looking.”
It’s almost sweet, the way he thinks we’re going to be friends. Except I know he’s up to something.
“I learned that lesson early, and it served me well ever since. One minute, you think it’s just sex, the next she’s got your balls in a salad shooter and your liver on toast.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, I found that out the hard way. The last woman I fell for really did me wrong, like no one I’ve ever known. She was obviously intelligent and looked like a million bucks, but she had the morals of an alley cat. Just thinking about it makes me want to kick myself, but the truth is, I never saw it coming.”
“Never?”
“Nope.” He glances over at me. “When I’d finally figured out what she was all about, she was already making moves on my next-door neighbor. Two weeks later, they were married, and I was eating a bullet to get away from her evil clutches.”
“Sounds rough.”
“Believe me, it was.”
We pull into the cemetery, and I put the truck in park. He keeps talking, “I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but sometimes ugly girls are the best lays because they appreciate you more than the pretty ones. You don’t have to keep your guard up with them. They know they’re unattractive, so they don’t fish for compliments or expect you to worship them like some kind of goddess. Meanwhile, an ugly girl will pull out all the stops, just so she can lie next to a real man for a second in her life.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”
“Not everything,” he says, waving me off. “I digress... But just so you know: never trust a girl who looks like a pinup model or Playboy centerfold, because nine times out of ten, they're dirty-dealing heartbreakers that could gut a man like a fucking fish.”
“Speaking from experience, eh?”
“Damn straight,” he says, pulling a pistol from his waistband. I should have known better than to let my guard down around him. I’ve been a little preoccupied ever since the sun came up.
He smiled. I’d seen his smile before, and this one was no different. It was the one that signaled the end was in sight. I knew it the moment I saw it. It's the kind of smile a man wears right before he rips your face off. “How ‘bout you, cowboy?” he asks. “Ever had your heart broken?”
“What?” I look down at his hands, which hold the gun in a surprisingly steady grip. I can almost see the light flashing at the end of the barrel.
“Well, if you haven’t, you’re one lucky bastard.”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“Well, then you got a lot to look forward to.”
“What're you talking about?”
“Cruelty,” he says, leveling the barrel of the gun at my neck. “Those pretty girls will break your heart, for sure. All women,” he says. “But damn, you gotta watch out for the pretty ones.”
It has not escaped me that he called me cowboy. Only one person calls me that.
“So you know Layla then?”
This feels like a setup. A trap.
