= No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
  by J. Michael Blue

On his day off, Randy usually hit the slopes and then cooled out with some weed. Why else live in Vail, crammed into a three-room apartment with two bozos whose only virtue was their ability to cover most of the rent? Stealing cold cuts from the mini-mart, bumming beers from the tourists, cadging smokes from the kitchen crew in the hotel restaurant where he worked, it was a hell of a price to pay, but the skiing was awesome and grass was always cheap and available.

And there were the women. Rich girls taking winter breaks from college, the local honeys, mostly lonely cocktail servers and waitresses good for a quickie in the back seat of somebody's car, and on special occasions, one of "the wives." Like Shandra, Mrs. Brodvanne, almost twenty years his senior, but slender, tan, trim, and gorgeous. She was as well tended as a botanical garden. The woman's tits might not be natural, but they were perfect, and she had legs so smooth you could skate on them. She looked good and smelled good and she never whined about him only being interested in her for sex. Nice of Mr. B. to head back to San Francisco on business so often.

Vail had been blessed with twelve inches of new flakes overnight, so Randy did a pair of deep powder runs in the morning. Then he shaved, showered, dressed, packed his gym bag and sneaked up the fire stairs to the fourth floor of his employer's hotel to spend the afternoon in bed with Shandra B.

He was certain no one had seen them together, and this wouldn't be a good day to change that pattern. He told his roommates he planned to spend the afternoon skiing solo on cross-country trails, and he made certain no one saw him after he entered the hotel. Randy knew he wasn't Nobel prize smart, but he tried to be careful and he'd always been lucky.

Shandra insisted on safe sex, but she also liked quantity and variety. Today she said she wanted to box the compass, and though Randy always did his best to deliver, skiing could sap your energy. By the time they reached south by southwest, he faltered.

She didn't complain, but she did become demanding and bossy. Move over here, try this, hold that, touch me soft, treat me rough, CELEBRATE! The woman definitely wanted what she wanted when she wanted it.

"Perhaps you need some food and a quick nap," she said.

"That'd be good," he agreed. "I'll hang out in the john when they bring the food in. Wouldn't want to ruin your reputation."

She got a laugh out of that.

It was while they were waiting for room service that she brought up the stuff about killing her husband. "I didn't hear what you said," Randy told her, "and if you say it again, I still won't hear you."

"I have no choice," she said. "He's about to dump me."

Randy pulled himself into a sitting position and leaned against the headboard. He put a hand on one of her flawless mammaries and squeezed.

"Aww, come on. Any guy would be crazy to walk away from you, Shandra. He's probably just working too much."

"He's shacking up with a twenty-three year old swimsuit model he met in L.A. I'm history as far as he's concerned."

This was a moment for a cigarette, but she didn't let him smoke in her suite, because neither she nor her old man had the habit. "So get a divorce. Nail him for alimony."

"We have a pre-nup. I get fifty thousand, my car, my clothes, and the jewelry he bought me for our wedding. Nothing more."

"That's doesn't sound so bad."

"It's nothing. I'll be broke within six months. No, I have to do this."

Where the hell was room service? Things were getting loony here. "I'll bet you nail another rich guy before your money runs out. You're one fantastic woman, Shandra. You won't have any problem."

She raised one eyebrow and stared at Randy as though she couldn't believe his level of cluelessness. "I'm forty-one years old, Randall."

"Yeah, but look at you."

"Men I would be interested in want someone brainless and under thirty. Someone who'll hang on their arm and on their every word."

Randy shook his head. "Maybe so, but you can't kill somebody just because he's pissed you off."

"What's with this choirboy stuff, Randy? It's not like you've never done anything evil."

"I've done some things, had some scrapes," he admitted.

"You killed somebody, you told me."

"What I said was that I was in the car when it happened."

"You had the wheel in your hands. I know it."

He shrugged. "Maybe."

"Bullshit, maybe."

"Besides, it was an accident. I got drunk and I never saw him until I hit him. I didn't know he'd died until I saw it in the papers."

"But you drove away as fast as you could scoot."

"Not my car, not my girl, and I had a bag of grass under my seat. Why are you bringing this up? I never should have told you about it."

"I'm glad you did. That's how I knew you could help me with Henry."

"What if your husband figures out that you're after him?"

"We've got to move fast so that he doesn't. I sent a little valentine's gift to his sweetie-pie, a black widow spider in a box."

"Jesus, Shandra!"

"And I've told him I'll have his nuts in a coffee can before I'd let him screw me over."

"Are you crazy? I've watched your husband when people make him angry. He can be mean."

She rolled onto her side, facing him, and rested her cheek on her hand. "That's why I need your help."

"I think you're biting off way too big a mouthful if you're going to go after your old man. Guys like him have learned how to deal with people who get in their way. To tell you the truth, I've been damned scared he'd find out about us. I didn't know what he would do, but I knew I wouldn't like it."

"You ever notice how this part of my cheek doesn't quite match up with the rest of my face?" She crawled across the bed so he could get a good look.

"It's a little darker there."

"And the skin looks different, doesn't it?"

He shrugged. "I suppose," he said, "but it doesn't really show."

"When I have makeup on, it doesn't show at all."

"Well, there you go."

"But you see it."

"Yeah."

"That's all that's left of the worst port wine birthmark you've ever seen."

"You mean--"

"I mean the left side of my face used to be darker red than my hair, and the skin on my cheek felt like leather."

"No shit?"

"When I was ten years old, fatter than a 4-H Fair Sow, and living on welfare in a trailer outside of Paw-Paw, Michigan, my sweet old hillbilly grandmother found me sitting in the dirt and crying. 'What's the matter, Honey?' she said. 'Grams,' I told her, 'I'm fat and I'm so ugly with this birthmark. Nobody will ever want me. I'll never have a boyfriend. I'll never have any money. I'll be miserable my whole life.'

"'Nah,' she told me. 'You'll do fine. You just haven't lost your baby fat, and if that mark bothers you so much, you come out here before the sun comes up every morning for twenty days and wash your face in the dew from the grass. While you're doing the washing, sing soft to yourself, "wash it away, wash it away." The mark will disappear.'"

Randy stared at her, his mouth hanging open. "Did you do it?"

"Like a believer going to the altar."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. I lived with that old woman until the day she died, and I never forgave her for lying to me. I followed those instructions every morning for a month, scrubbed my face in dew until my cheeks were raw, but my birthmark kept right on shining."

"So how'd you get rid of it?"

"Plastic surgeon with a laser. Took it right off me like he was removing a tattoo. It cost eight thousand, but it delivered me from the world of the losers."

She glanced at her rounded chest. "Had my nose and boobs done a little later and that didn't hurt my chances, but it was the birthmark I had to escape from."

Randy wasn't sure why she had told him this story, but he knew he would find out. "So what's all this got to do with killing your husband."

"You know what I learned from that experience, Randy?"

"Not exactly."

"Three things. One, you can't believe what anybody tells you. Two, there is no magic in this world, no true love and no miracles. And three, if you want something set right, you'd better get yourself some cash and you'd better take care of it yourself."

He nodded. "And you plan to set this right."

"I sure do."

"So why are you asking me to ice your old man? He isn't my problem."

"No, he isn't, he's mine. Your problem is that the only things you love to do in this world are ski and screw and smoke dope, and those activities take money if you're going to do a lot of them. I'm asking you to help me, and I'm offering to take you out of the state of poverty you're wallowing in. Twenty thousand dollars, how does that sound?"

"Depends. What would I have to do?"

"Almost nothing, and I'm also willing to give you ready access to the best bedroom gymnastics you've ever had, at least for the next few months. I won't marry you, darling, but I'll keep a smile on your face until I find something better to do."

"So you think you're doing me a favor."

"I'm doing a favor for a favor, but you're getting the best end of the deal. Consider it my good deed for today."

Randy had never met a woman like her. Cold. She was hot as jalapeno massage oil in bed, but Shandra was cold, and very damned sure of herself. You had to be careful with a woman like that.

Someone knocked at the door, and she jumped off the bed and went for her robe. "Who is it?"

"Room Service, Mrs. Brodvanne. It's Terry. I have your lunch."

"I know him," Randy whispered. "Be careful when you let him in. Don't let him wander around."

"Hang on a minute, Terry. I'll be right there." She motioned for Randy to get moving, but he had already begun gathering his clothes. He scooped up everything he had worn, grabbed his gym bag and hustled into the bathroom.

He pulled the door toward him until only a slim shaft of light showed through.

"Hi, Terry. Sorry it took me a couple of minutes. I was about to get in the shower."

"No problem, Mrs. B. I wouldn't want your food to get cold, but I'm not going anywhere until five o'clock."

Randy stepped into his pants and sat down on the toilet to pull his shoes on. Room service had not figured in his plan, but maybe this would be better. The door to the suite would be blocked open as long as Terry was in the room, and Randy could hear the sappy bellman doing his waiter routine, setting up the table and spreading out the food.

"You must be hungry, Mrs. B. You've got a lot of grub here for one slender lady."

Shandra laughed. "Yes, I haven't eaten much today."

The gun with the silencer attached hadn't moved around in the gymbag. Too heavy to be displaced by socks and underwear. Randy put on his shirt and jacket and picked up the gun. His hands shook and his mouth had gone dry. He could feel his heart racing in his chest. This way it could look like a crime of opportunity, a robbery by a stranger. Too bad about Terry, but the guy was kind of an asshole.

He wondered what he would have done if Shandra had gotten to him with her deal before her husband had locked him into a contract. The money was about the same either way, and Shandra said that sex went with her deal. Even so, he'd probably have gone with the old man. Too risky to bet against a guy who'd spent his working life breaking people's balls. Brodvanne knew Randy had been screwing his wife, and he had not been pleased about it.

This was scary. No doubt about it. Randy stepped out of the bathroom.

Neither of them saw him as he slid along the wall toward the open hallway door. Shandra stood bent over the room service cart signing the bill and Terry waited behind her, giving her ass a good looking over.

When the door clicked shut, they both spun around, and Randy shot Terry twice in the chest. Nothing much to it, just point and squeeze them off. No more noise than a couple of loud farts. The big doofus went over backward onto the bed, his arms flying around like kite tails, and blood spurting out behind him.

"What?" she said.

"Sorry, Shandra." He shot her twice as well, and she crashed over the table and slid onto the floor. "You had it right, Baby. You can't believe what anybody tells you."

He knew where she kept the cash and jewelry, so it took less than a minute to load up on everything of value in the suite. He trashed things a bit to make it look as though he'd had to search for the booty, but he didn't stick around long. He knew they would miss Terry soon.

This had gone well, better than he could have hoped. Now all he had to do was make it to the street without being spotted. His heart rate had slowed a little, and he felt giddy, excited. Maybe he'd discovered something today, and maybe Shandra had been wrong about him. He did like skiing, screwing, and smoking dope, but killing had as much juice for him as any of his other hobbies. It was nice to get paid to pull a trigger, but he would do this stuff for the fun of it.

[Editors' Note: If you like J. Michael Blue's writing take a look at his two eBooks, JUSTIFIED CRIMES and A FAVOR FOR ZODIAC, available at www.handheldcrime.com/ebooks. The novels are $3.50 (US) each or you can choose one as a complimentary gift for voluntary contributions of $15 (US) to support HandHeldCrime.]

J. MICHAEL BLUE has published more than 75 short stories, and 50 essays and articles in publications as diverse as Byline, The Flying Island, The Concho River Review, Blue Murder Magazine, Papyrus, HandHeldCrime, and Plots With Guns. His short fiction has won awards in a dozen contests.

Copyrights (c) 2002 J. Michael Blue

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