CANDY LOVE: ROOKIE IN A RED RAINCOAT

[Austin Girl]

Registration Number : 1357537

CANDY LOVE

by

Austin Girl

PROLOGUE

Rookie in a Red Raincoat


You can tell a true cowboy by the type of horse that he rides.
- Cowboy Proverb

1973. THE YEAR OF DISCO: Afro wigs, platform heels and strobe lights. I had to be different. I was still in the ‘60s with my beehive hair, cowboy boots and Wolsey tights. At twenty-eight, I was the first female rookie agent for the FBI in D.C. and let me tell you: when you’re a sassy cowgirl from West Texas who handles a Thompson Machine Gun better than her male counterparts, you can bet life at the Bureau ain’t easy.
In one day, I managed to obtain, from a semi-trailer bust, a crate of 100 extremely valuable first-edition Playboy Magazines, a raise, a pink slip, and a contract on my life. The magazines were a gift from my irresistible chauvinist boss, Jack Justice, for saving his life. The pink slip was for receiving the raise and the contract on my head was for the Playboys. But, I negotiated to get my job back, promising Jack I’d go undercover at Disco Disco Casino in Vegas and nab its owner, Cupcake, a rotten midget-mobster. I told him I’d be the slimy midget’s personal discotheque instructor without getting myself killed and tossed in a dumpster-shaped coffin. Only problem: I couldn’t dance to save my life-not then, not now. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

CHAPTER ONE
Granny’s Clay Pigeons

I hadn’t even picked up the double-barreled shotgun when my quirky granny reloaded clay disks in the skeet machine.
“Pull!” Granny Lucky hollered.
I raised an eyebrow and turned to her. My heavily-teased Crayon-yellow beehive hair stood perfectly still in the wind. The echo of a lone coyote billowed beyond the hill.
“Granny, I’m supposed to yell pull,” I said in my thick country twang. “That’s what the manual says.” I gestured with the tip of the shotgun to a small pamphlet lying on the bench. The title read: ‘CLAY PIGEON MANUAL.’
“Well, hurry up Ms. Candy Love, I ain’t got all day! This seventy-year-old woman’s feet are cold,” she whined.
I looked down at her open-toe four-inch platform heels. Once ‘Dr. Scholl clog’ conservative, now Granny Lucky channeled vintage punk rock and last season’s animal prints, both of which clashed with her pink Velcro rollers. Her gray poodle hair resembled the omnipresent tumbleweeds on Momma’s 80-acre ranch.
“It’s winter,” I said.
“Since when does San Marcos, Texas have a winter?” she asked.
Granny and Grandpa Lucky had moved from Vegas four years earlier when their luck ran out playing the slots. Now, they lived with Momma. Granny dressed slutty, in my opinion, but what did I know. I was just a feisty cowgirl who wore a red slicker and a wide smile. My emerald eyes bravely drifted to the eccentric sight: Granny Lucky’s cheetah pants. They made a lasting impression paired with Momma’s white vintage Sonny Bono fur. Good Lord, I mumbled.
I needed to practice my shooting. Bored with the shotgun, I laid it down. I unzipped my oversized duffle bag with the caricature of Annie Oakley on it, and extracted the beast—a Tommy Machine Gun. Granny’s eyes bulged as I handled the heavy piece of equipment with a veneer of confidence. This was Daddy’s.
Special agent Buddy Love had been Jack Justice’s partner in the FBI. They were undercover at a discothèque one night when a mirror ball fell on top of him. Daddy died instantly.
Holding the weapon with both hands, I walked a few steps away from Granny. I’ve always had an incurable restlessness, a need to better myself and seek out the unknown. Intrigued with the firearm, I aimed at a cloud, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. The sound of the machine gun shook the atmosphere. Birds flew from their trees. A coyote darted across the ranch for cover. I fell backwards onto the hard ground, the gun knocked out of my sweaty palms. I looked over at Granny Lucky, who was amused.
“Have you ever fired a weapon?” She asked.
I paused good and long for dramatic purposes.
“No. But, how hard can it be? All I have to do is aim this mother and pull the trigger.”
“Does the FBI still shoot machine guns?” Granny Lucky asked.
I stared at the barbed-wire-thin senile woman, with sympathetic eyes.
“Haven’t you ever seen the movie, Machine-Gun Kelley?” I asked.
She looked at me like I was wearing my spurs on backwards. Then, out of the blue, she blurted, in a raspy voice.
“Judge Limit has an opening at the courthouse for an assistant.”
My granny was filing her hooker-long red nails when she said this. “You could have a normal job with no machine guns. And, besides, how are you ever going to fall in love and marry a respectable man running off playing Wild Bill Hickok with old fat farts?”
“Playing Machine-Gun Kelley,” I quickly corrected her.
“Whatever,” she said.
“I don’t need a man. I’m happy!” I said, unconvincingly.
“Horse manure! Stubborn just like your daddy was,” Granny said.
The hussy was right. I was the spitting image of Daddy, except for my cleavage and my beehive.
“Please don’t move to D.C. I signed us up for dance lessons at the senior community center,” Granny Lucky pleaded.
“Dance lessons?” I asked. She knew better.
“Disco,” she replied softly.
“Disco? Why can’t you go with Momma?”
“Miss hot pepper and chili cook-off is a stick-in-the-mud,” she snapped.
I didn’t argue. Momma pretended to have her act together by staying busy. She grew the hottest peppers in the state.
“What about Grandpa?”
“Who? Santa Claus? Why the hell would I go dancing with Santa Claus?” Granny Lucky giggled adjusting her hearing aids.
I worried about Granny, but I had this destiny deep in my soul. I stood there with a painful expression. It was indigestion. I burped and lowered the gun, staring at the name engraved on its underside: Jack Justice. Wow, I thought to myself. Jack gave his personal Tommy to Daddy. From that point forward, I got sidetracked and thought of no one and nothing more than the enigmatic Jack Justice, FBI. Who was this guy? What did he look like?
“FBI agents are ugly! Granny Lucky said. “They’re short, fat and bald, too!” She released more skeet into the air.
“Well, he is seventeen-years older than me, Granny,” I admitted.
“Machu Picchu ancient,” she snickered.
“Age isn’t important. What’s important is that my background as the weekend night Dairy Queen Dipped Cone Manager during college will finally pay off. I was accustomed to taking seedy scums’ money. I could smell ‘em anywhere. I’m going to be the first female FBI rookie. I’m going to be Jack’s partner!” I boasted.
I closed my eyes real tight and fired the gun again with a mix of trepidation and urgency. When I opened them, I hoped to see shattered clay pieces streaming to the ground like a falling star. My smile quickly faded to a pout. The target had ditched me faster than Granny Lucky’s quarters in a Vegas slot machine.
“Hogwash, Candy, how the hell you gonna be this Jack ass’s partner if you can’t blast a clay pigeon with a machine gun?”
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the sound of a rattler was close. Apparently, the blasts disturbed the snake’s sleep. I inhaled deeply and shimmied sideways. Fortunately, my horse Rocky was tied to a tree nearby or Mister Four Legs would have run off without saying good-bye. My response was automatic. I emptied the Tommy right between its eyes. The snake didn’t know what hit him. Its head flew off and landed a few hundred yards away.
A vulture nose-dived and swallowed the head whole, too greedy to know that a severed rattlesnake head can continue striking for up to four-minutes. The flesh-eating predator promptly kicked the bucket.
Tinged with confusion, I shrugged and looked Granny Lucky right in her bloodshot eyes. She’d probably drunk too much whiskey the night before.
“Candy Love just needed a bigger target,” I said casually. Then, I marched off into the sunset with my cute little nose in the air. The smell of dusk was quickly approaching. Hearing a whistle, I turned back around quicker than Wonder Woman lassos a double-dealing crook. I had left Granny Lucky and my horse Rocky behind. Golden hues ricocheted off the dead vulture and a bird dropping landed inside my beehive hair.

(To be continued...)