I haven’t written anything in a good long while, but the prompt about Maxwell hit me just right. This isn’t weird unless you consider the fact that I have been reading Elmore Leonard and couldn’t resist trying his style weird.
Leonard clumps thoughts together in his prose, just like his characters do in their dialogue. He makes sparse use of attribution (he said, she said) leaving the well developed voice of his characters to tell the reader who is speaking.
Maxwell Gets His Due
by
L. S. Russell
Maxwell Sandwich pushed a lock of blood-matted hair up away from the thin blond girl’s forehead; it made a sick ripping noise, like when you peel masking tape away from a freshly painted wall, and the girl squeezed her eyes tight–bit her lip–to fight off the pain and surprise.
"Maybe I shouldn’a said nothin’."
Max dug in his breast pocket for a handkerchief, dabbed it on his tongue, and swabbed the gash above her ocean colored eyes. "Maybe."
"Maybe I shoulda just kept wigglin’ my ass at twenty bucks an hour." She slid her wet eyes toward him. "Worst thing ever happened some guy grabbed my tit."
Max had to look away—concentrate on the job—or get sucked in. He didn’t want to cover old ground, like who he was, or why he was here, and he didn’t like the way her expression made him feel like he needed to take a shower in battery acid.
He shoved the wad of stained linen into his pocket, grabbed her under the arms, and dragged her up with him. He could almost wrap his hands around her; just a little more and his thumbs would touch. He had always wondered why Nate kept her around; no tits, too skinny; but seeing her in the harsh light of the back alley, the way she looked up at him, not just with her eyes, but with the whole of her tiny round face he knew the reason—she was Nate’s little piece of heaven, an angel who could dance.
He slung her in the crook of one arm, bent and scooped up her purse, then cradled her down the alley toward Front Street. Her feet hardly touched the concrete–she was still a little shaken up from that right hook Nate had popped her–but Max didn’t mind wagging her around. She smelled sweet.
"Nate told me to drive you home…"
"You got a really deep voice anybody ever tell you that? Like Barry White."
Max peered down at the china-doll face, her eyes droopy, and the cut in her scalp beginning to bleed again. "But maybe I oughta take you to
a hospital."
She tried to shake her self loose from his grasp, but he wasn’t ready to let go. She kicked and scraped the toes of her shoes against the wet pavement.
"Lemme down. Lemme walk. I can walk. Don’t need no hospital."
She shoved her words together close, like a bum asking for change. He stopped, turned her face toward him, and started ticking off the signs in his head. Her pupils were wide dark spots, he could see himself reflected there, but in this light they would be. She wasn’t complaining about being dizzy, and she hadn’t thrown up; still, you never could be sure. That crack Nate had given her sounded hard enough to crack a brick, and Nate was a big guy.
"You been drinkin’?"
She pushed her hands against him, and strained. Max almost laughed at the expression on her face; her eyes squinted together, her small white teeth digging into her bottom lip, but he didn’t. Instead he loosened his grip a little so that she was just far enough away that she had no leverage to push away.
"Course I been drinkin’. All those dickheads wanna do is buy ya a drink smell yer panties." She sniggered, ratcheting air in through her nose. "Had this guy tonight, gave me his number, wants to buy `em off me. You fuckin’ believe that?"
"Watch yer mouth ok."
She peeled her eyelids back, and her eyeballs tracked toward his face. She put on the pout that most dancers use when they are talking customers into a lap dance. "Yes daddy."
"Don’t call me that."
"Nate likes when I call him daddy."
Max’s face flushed. His ears grew hot, and he, for once, was glad that most of his work took place in the darkness behind buildings.
"Well I ain’t Nate."
She snaked her slender arms around his waist and pressed her tiny body against his. She slid one knee up his leg, then back down, so slow that it didn’t register with his brain–although other parts of him noticed. Her sweet smell, roses or some other flower, crept up over his face—not over powering or strong, but consuming—and, unable to help himself, he drank in a thick tendril of it. It made him dizzy being this close to her.
"That’s right, you ain’t Nate."
"I gotta get you home."
Max covered her frail shoulder with his tree trunk arm, and swept her along with him to the long black car waiting at the mouth of the alley.
"Why you work for a dickhead like Nate anyway?" She said. "You could do better. Hell we all could do better."
"I make good money."
"Is that all it takes? You go where the money’s good?"
Max dug a key out of his pocket and poked it in the car door. He swung the girl out of the way as he pulled the ponderous door wide, and, placing his hand behind her head, tucked her in the front seat. She lolled to one side and grinned at him, all traces of professional pole dancer gone, as he pulled the safety belt over her bare shoulder and across her hips.
"Daddy," she said as she spread her knees apart. "Can you pull my skirt back down? I’m getting’ a little cold."
"Last time I’m gonna tell you—don’t call me that." Max stood and grabbed the door, checking to make sure she was all in. "You can pull your own skirt down."
He slammed the door and walked around the front of the car. He checked up and down the street in both directions before stepping around to the driver’s side door. The seat creaked a little, and the car tipped toward him, as he settled in. He didn’t bother buckling in–the belt wouldn’t fit around him anyway.
"Whaddam supposed to call you?"
Max fumbled with the key ring, found the right one, and turned the massive Chevy’s engine over on the first try. Normally the starter would laugh at him a few times before realizing that he really did mean for it to crank, but maybe this time it was too interested in the passenger to mock the driver.
"Whadda you care what my name is? All I gotta do is make sure you get home."
"That case, I just stick to Daddy."
He sighed pushing a great gust of air out through his nose. "Max. People call me Max."
The girl twisted in the seat and pulled her knees up onto the bench pointing toward Max. Her dress was a knot around her hips. Max pulled his eyes away from the triangle of sequin covered panties peaking at him, and pulled the car away from the curb.
"Well Max." She tried a sly grin on. "I got a proposition for you. And I think I can make ya a better deal than Nate."
Original Post
The prompt for this freewrite.
