When She Was Bad

CHAPTER SIX
1

The undersides of the fluffy clouds to the east were dawn-pink, the tops in bruised shadow as Lilith, stiff and sore after driving all night, trudged up an asphalt driveway so steep she felt like she should have been roped to something.

Her destination was a pink ranch house with a shingled roof and dormer windows, which appeared to have been airlifted from some 1950s-era suburb complete with hissing lawn sprinklers and little kids riding fat-tired bikes with bells and streamers on the handlebars, then plunked down precariously on the western slope of this scrubby hillside in the boondocks north of Redding.

Lilith paused on the front doorstep, trying to decide whether it was too early to ring the doorbell. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the living-room curtains rustling. She rapped lightly on the green door. “It’s me,” she called. “It’s Lilith-open up.”

The man-or was it a troll? — who opened the door was short, dark, and stocky, shirtless under Ben Davis overalls, with matted hair and beard, and a nose so flat and eyes set so far apart that his broad face seemed vaguely unfinished, like an underdone gingerbread man.

“Hey, L’il T.,” said Lilith.

“Whaddaya want?” He kept one hand out of sight, behind the door.

Before she could reply, a woman’s voice behind him cried out, “Well I’ll be dipped in shit.”

“Mama Rose?”

“No, honey, it’s fucking Cher. I couldn’t stand them dickless Hollywood phonies no more, so I come up here for a break.”

Next thing Lilith knew, a six-foot-tall, orange-haired, two-hundred-pound white woman had shoved the troll out of the way, yanked her inside, and hugged her to an enormous bosom that smelled of cigarettes and cold pizza. “Hope you ain’t still pissed off about…Weed,” she whispered. “I’ll tell you later how it went down-for right now, as far as anybody else is concerned the story is that you run into some folks you recognized, and split with ’em. Okay?”

“But-”

“Later.” Mama Rose held Lilith at arm’s length, looked urgently into her eyes. “Please?”

Lilith shrugged. “Yeah, sure, what the fuck.”

Mama Rose pressed her palms against the girl’s temples, drew her close again, planted a wet kiss on her forehead. “Mmm-wwa! Now let’s get some breakfast into you, we’ll catch up on old times, how’s that sound?”

“We should probably get my car off the road first. The sooner we get it to the shop, the better.” Referring to Carson’s chop shop, where a surprisingly large percentage of Northern California’s stolen vehicles were either parted out or given new identities.

Mama Rose licked her forefinger, touched it to an imaginary stove and made a sizzling sound, then raised her eyebrows inquisitively. When Lilith nodded, Mama Rose caught L’il T.’s eye and nodded toward the driveway. He asked Lilith for the keys.

“They’re in the ignition,” she said, adding hastily: “The thing is, though, I’m not exactly, you know…alone.”