~ Bingo Boogie ~

by

Ellis Hoff

The car was ditched. One glance in the rearview window and his foot instinctively hit the brake pedal.

From thirty feet away, he could see she was pretty.

Not just the female shape outlined by the dim left light (though that, he thought—what he could see of it over the dashboard—looked above average in curve differential) but the cut of her face and the way she’d lifted it when he’d skidded to a full halt in front of her.

He was a big man. The driver’s seat of the Suburban was positioned to the farthest back setting and still he was cramped every time he got in, or out, of it. At six foot eight, fitting into the world of little people around him was not always easy. Or, comfortable.

Now, it was her turn.

He watched the way her shoulders fell, no doubt relieved that help had arrived.

Let’s just see, Armand thought as he pulled back the handle and set one eel skinned boot down on the peppered gray pavement, how her comfort level adjusted to the fact the her highway assistance came in the form “one big Indian”.

~ * ~

“He’s… huge.”

The words wafted around her in the dead silent Volvo and she realized she’d said them instead of only thinking them. Another nagging habit that had surfaced since Lewis’ sudden departure. One she would have to work on.

She was sitting. Maybe that was it. Maybe he just looked bigger than…

…no, he was huge. Monstrous. His shoulders, she reasoned with a sudden, smothering dread as he dismissed the distance between the two vehicles with three enormous strides, matched the width of the Volvo’s hood. He was a giant and she…

…was alone.

On a deserted road. No phone. No protection. No feeling in any of her appendages.

He raised one opened hand making that “I come in peace” gesture that translated into every language. Surely serial killers, and roadside rapists, were familiar with the gesture.

A wide, crooked smile nearly undid the menacing impression of his stature as her eyes flickered over it landing, fully, on the rest of his features. A huge smile on a huge face donned with the deepest, darkest eyes she’d ever seen. He was, she conceded in this state of “hesitation teetering on desperation”, not bad looking… for serial killer.

“Ma’am,” he offered shifting his huge, hard frame fluidly from one enormous leg to the other, holding his distance, “having a little trouble with your car?”

A little trouble? Cleo thought stifling the urge to laugh and cry at the same time. The deep baritone had an almost velvet quality that seemed, somehow, to unhinge her usual resilience. She’d been prepared to walk five miles on six inch heels and now… now she felt as if she could barely get out of the car.

“I’ve got a few tools. Want me to take a look under the hood? “

This time she did laugh. Hard. Unabridged fits of hysteria so out of place they echoed off the golden cliffs of sandstone like the battering fists of a madwoman.

Knock, knock!

Who’s there?

Cleo.

Cleo who?

Cleo on the verge of a well deserved breakdown.

“I’ll take that as a… no,” the man said, rubbing his smooth, wide chin with an enormous hand. He didn’t look alarmed, which said something. She wasn’t sure what. Maybe he was as crazy as she was.

“Good choice, unless,” she said sliding her legs out from under the wheel realizing, suddenly, just how short her uniform was, looking away from the eyes that openly assessed her body, “you have a magic wand in there.”

~ * ~

They were magnificent legs, Armand assessed taking advantage of the view. Carved calves and smooth thighs widening at just the right junctures.

The woman, using the steering wheel as leverage, ousted herself from the vehicle in a manner that was enticing, to say the least. Probably, he mused, because it wasn’t the effect she was going for. Even in the corseted “push-them-up-and-show-them-off” get-up, she sported an element of reserve that hung over her like a brawny body guard.

“Can you get me to the casino?” She asked, staggering on the stilts attached to her feet like a colt getting its legs. It was an attractive portrait. Spirited. Too busy adjusting to circumstances to apologize for, or be embarrassed by, them. It was all he could do to stop himself from reaching for her, steadying her. There was a well of strength beneath the flamboyant garb and an engaging face that warned him that she was on her own. Wanted it that way.

“Great Waters?” He asked.

“Unless you know of another one on the way.”

Armand bit back a smile. Feisty and smart and… half clothed. Either she was trying to level the playing field with the cutting retort or she had one gigantic chip on her shoulder. The car was only part of the problem, he was sure of that. The rest of it probably played out in one hell of an interesting story, too bad he didn’t have the time to get involved. Still, he thought, he could give her a hand. A ride. He was going in her direction. Hell, he was going to her destination.

“What about the car?” He asked.

“Traitor. I say we call the sheriff and have her hanged at high noon.”

“We could just… tow it,” he offered playing straight man to her witty rant. Without intending to, he’d accepted the gauntlet. She could play brains, he’d play brawn. He’d done it before. The game had become a bit of bore, or, so he’d thought. Until now.

“Tow it?” She echoed as if the concept was so foreign the words had never before formed on the full, pouty lips. He surveyed the Volvo for a split second then dismissed the possibility. This car knew the cold feel of steel hook as intimately as it once knew three missing hubcaps.

“Sure,” he said, an involuntary half step forcing him toward her as she quelled a dangerous teeter. “I’ve got a rope and a big truck. I’ve seen it done.”

The look on her face was priceless. A probing seer that took in every peak and valley of his resting, finally, on his eyes. Hers were golden, so openly searching, that he wasn’t altogether sure he could pull this off.

“I don’t want to trouble you, Mister…”

“Bluesky. Armand Bluesky.”

The look stayed even. Open. He’d expected that flicker of recognition, that “uh, huh, I thought he was an Indian” look, but it didn’t surface. “No bother, Ma’am. I’m headed to Great Waters myself, can’t see the sense in you paying some grease monkey a hundred bucks to do the honors. I say we tie the old girl up an’ take her with.”

He’d struck a cord. And not, Armand thought, with his comfy, old boy routine. It was the mention of money. The flicker of sudden interest she’d tried to conceal by batting the huge pools of soft brown had not been lost on him. A hundred bucks was a big player in her arena and Armand felt a twinge of… something. Something unfamiliar.

“Well,” she said, “if it’s not too much trouble.” Red apples stood out on the smooth face, the reaction to a stoically forced smile that was oddly enticing.

She was not, Armand thought, accustomed to taking help. Her circumstances, the thumbnail sketch he had of them, were fairly new to her. He’d bet on it.

“I don’t want to keep you from your—”

“No trouble at all, Miss…?”

“Baumgarten. Uh, Cleo Baumgarten.” A hand shot free of the emotional armor and Armand swallowed it with his own.

Warm. Hot. The little slip of white flesh she offered seemed to pulse in his palm. The shaking was the abbreviated kind, the two beat gesture he was familiar with from his meetings with government officials and prominent crime lords. It was the moment after, when her soft fingers laid cradled in his, that set it apart. He met her eyes. “You can get in the truck. I have to back it up.” He smiled, holding her gaze a moment longer as she slipped her hand free of his. “The rope isn’t that long.”

He looked off into the distance as she ran the offer through the steely gates behind the pretty face. He could almost hear the hum of wheels. He didn’t have a lot of time to kill, but he liked the fact that she didn’t jump into the Suburban, no questions asked. Smart. She was not the kind of woman to be easily intimidated, regardless of her situation. And her situation was, he thought, pretty crappy.

“I think I’ll wait until you get her, it, hooked up. You might need help.”

Not likely, he thought, but a good call on her part. A damned good stall. “I just might at that.”

Armand turned making his way back to the Suburban. He folded himself back into the confining space. Then, glancing into the rearview mirror, inched the big truck closer to the old Volvo and… closer to her. Yes, it was a pity he didn’t have time to get involved. Cleo Baumgarten was just he kind of woman he’d make some for under normal circumstances.