Author: Marcus van Heller (not the real one)

About: House name Marcus borrows a page from the Greta X playbook in this tale of women on the make using sex, violence and cement blocks to get what they want, when they want it. Though a product of the late '60s, this is the kind of book you read if you want to hear of wanton, lascivious women taking what's coming to 'em... and beating the rap.

Excerpt:

“Get him out,” she ordered the boy, who had followed her and who was awkwardly trying to step into his jeans.

When Hughie was into his pants they pulled Wick out of the car. Then she picked his pants up from the floorboard and excitedly started to go through his pockets, pulling keys and coins and handkerchief out onto the ground until she found the wallet in the inside pocket of the coat. Wick had removed it before the screwing began. Wick lay in his shirt and socks on the cold ground while the girl and Hughie stared wide-eyed at the thick sheaf of bills from Wick's wallet.

“Gaw,” Hughie said. “Must be a hunnert dollars there.” He talked slowly, as if it took complete concentration to form each word. He paused often, searching for the proper sounds.

“At least,” she said, counting the five one-hundred-dollar bills first, then the twenties and the tens. She peeled off three one-dollar bills and gave them to Hughie. “Here's your share, Hughie.”

“That all?” He looked at the money.

“That's all for now,'“ she said. “You know what would happen if either of us started spending a lot of money. There's no use our risking a lot of questions. So I'll keep most of the money and hide it. Then, when we're ready to leave this crummy place, we'll take it and go and have ourselves a ball.”

Hughie was looking through the glove compartment. He came up with a pint bottle of whisky. He snickered. The girl jerked it from his hands and smashed it against the steering wheel.

“Aw, gaw,” Hughie said.

“We gotta get busy,” the girl told him. “No time for that.”

“You ain't gonna let me play with him?” The boy's face was devoid of all emotion, but his voice was plaintive.

“Goddamn, Hughie, you have to?”

He sulked.

“Oh, all right,” she said. “But put the bastard back in the car so you won't leave signs.”

He was long and lanky but he was strong. He horsed the body into the back seat. The girl watched for a minute, but when Hughie buried his wicked looking knife in Wick Diggs' great, dead stomach and the stomach growled and made a sound like escaping gas, she frowned and turned away. She walked down to the creek. It was, at that point, perhaps a hundred feet wide. She knew it was deep. And the water was dark with the swamp water which drained into it, so dark that no one would ever see anything on the bottom of the creek. She stood idly, seemingly untouched by the chill of the north wind. After a long time she went back to the car. Hughie was doing fine work with his sharp knife. He was making little crooning sounds down in his throat. She put her hand on his arm and shrank from the look he gave her. Then he grinned and allowed her to pull him out of the car.

Hughie had been careful. She always told him to be careful. He didn't have anything on him. She checked him three or four times to be sure and then she made him clean his fine-honed knife in the sand. After that there was nothing to do but start the car, put a brick on the accelerator, jump out and watch the car leap forward and disappear into the black water of the creek.