Hard Bite and Other Short Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

Pleeeease?”
     
    ***
     
    Malibu moonlight silvers everything it touches; the cars, the Pacific Coast Highway, the sea fidgeting beside them. An old Esso station looms ahead, one of the last hold-outs against the new Exxon brand name. Gas: 57 cents a gallon. Chad flicks his gaze to the rearview mirror and the Pontiac Grand Prix following—a vinyl hardtop with smoked opera windows in the rear. Jasmine’s face glows like a cameo behind the wheel, intently watching the back of his Triumph. She’s not a bad driver. He relaxes a little. Maybe this really is what it appears; a small favor for a deserving lady in distress.
    They near his home turf, Sherman Oaks. Expansive front yards edged with Mexican sage, climbing roses and banana palms. It’s ten degrees hotter than the coast. Pulling alongside the bungalow that Laura’s folks helped them buy, he waves the Grand Prix in, then pulls his Triumph in behind. Although chances are remote they were followed, no repo guys will see the plates from the street.
    The bungalow is vaguely Spanish with terra cotta tile and purple wisteria climbing a trellis beside the front door. The sight strengthens his resolve. Ahead, Jasmine’s platform shoes swing out of the Grand Prix and tap on the driveway. He watches them close in.
    “ Let’s call a cab,” she says, all business.
    “ Sure, sure. This way.”
     
    ***
     
    The bright Malibu moon that followed them here tags along to the doorstep and stares in as they toss both sets of keys on a bow-legged hall table. Neither moves to turn on a light.
    He paws at the table. “The Yellow Pages are right here, somewhere.”
    It takes a moment to find the book. When he lifts his head, she’s stepping out of a pool of red satin on the floor—naked Venus rising. Platform shoes tap towards him on the hardwood. Moonlight whitewashes her body moving.
    The Yellow Pages land in a heap.
     
    ***
     
    “ Where’s your wife?” she pants during a pause.
    “ Not my wife, we live together.
    “ My book, you’re single till it’s legal.”
    “ Yeah but tomorrow—“
    “ There is no tomorrow. Gimme some more.”
     
    ***
     
    Morning.
    Bed sheets in a tangle across the room. His shirt hangs drunkenly from the bedside swag lamp. The moon is on the lam; morning sun streams in like a search party. Where is Jasmine? Chad scrambles for some pants. His wallet, his wallet…there!...nothing missing.
    Downstairs, only one car in the driveway—the Grand Prix. No Triumph. Barefoot, he shuffles outside. Even from the terra cotta walkway he can see the man in the rear seat. His head is thrown back. For good reason; there’s a bullet through his forehead.
    Chad blinks hard. Surely he’s imagining. This is his driveway, bathed in butter-yellow California sun. The same sun shining on Laura, three hundred miles away in San Jose. He blinks again, but blinking doesn’t make the corpse disappear. Chad’s scalp crawls, realizing the dead man must have driven here last night with Jasmine at the wheel—already dead while they flirted at the motel, while they drank at the bar. He’ll have to prove he didn’t do it. Truth will have to come out—to cops, news reporters, neighbors, Laura and her folks. Either way life as he’s known it is over, good as dead. Dead as the backseat driver.
    Or…
    What if the Grand Prix disappeared and the body with it? The question seeps into his hung-over brain. He looks around a little. Neighboring houses show no sign of stirring. It’s Saturday morning, a lazy 7:45 ayem. Nobody’s even cracked an eyelid. He could head up the coast, abandon the vehicle in Oxnard or Ojai and catch a bus back. Or better yet, find a solitary bluff, set fire to the car and send it over. He imagines pouring gas—no, alcohol’s better—over the upholstery, pushing it to the brink of an ocean bluff with a good, steep drop—a hundred feet at least—flicking a match in the window, one good push, over it goes.
    Down it falls, the rock face gouging