Free The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman

lightbulb to the mothlike Luther Nixons of the world, and it was working Barb’s nerves. She loved her cousin but didn’t love these beery postdivorce forays into downtown St. Louis. Not that men bothered Barb that often—despite her svelte stewardess’s build and high cheekbones, there was something hawkish and unattainable about her that steered men of small character away. Straight into Peggy.
    â€œIt
is
my car,” Luther Nixon said, nodding proudly at the machine whose tires kissed the curb near their sidewalk table. “Wanna ride?”
    â€œNo, thank you,” said Barb, even though the question was clearly not directed at her. She did not care for this man. She did not care for the one-size-too-small shirt he had stuffed his almost-muscular shoulders and chest into, nor for the weak, thin lips that jerked around the botched fence of his teeth. Nor for his baldness. Her pity for balding men extended to those who parked toupees upon their bare crowns and also to those who did not. Of the latter sort, the overcombers were most pathetic, followed by the au naturel types who allowed their remaining hair to congregate on the back and sides in a sort of fat horseshoe. Somewhat better, though too often criminals or sex fiends, were the glossy-domed full-baldies who razored it off in the shower. Better still, most noble of a sad lot, were the military types and realists who buzzed it close, as this man had done, reducing all of it to varying densities of stubble. Luther Nixon’s stubble silvered at the temples, and silver shone in the odd little rogue hairs on his neckthat caught the streetlight unflatteringly. She didn’t like it that he was close enough for her to note those fine hairs.
    She let her eyes fall contemptuously on his bald pate, let a sneer seep onto her face, and he noted this. Damned if he didn’t, but who cared? Perhaps he would be offended enough to leave. It was really all Barb wanted.
    â€œWhat kind of car is it?” Peggy asked.
    â€œIt’s big. And red,” Luther said, suggestively enough that it was clear he meant something else, but not so suggestively that Barb could call him out for it. Peggy laughed. “Besides being big and red,
that
is a super-cherry ’67 Pontiac GTO with a cordova top. GTO stands for
Gran Turismo Oh-lookit-her-go
, but I just call her a goat. Four-hundred-cubic-inch V-8, but I done some things to it. It ain’t what you’d call slow. Hood tachometer, Hurst shifter, but I don’t want to bore you ladies with boy talk. Let’s just say it’s the meanest, sweetest piece of metal since the
Enola Gay
.” Barb fished in her purse for her Virginia Slims, turned her face deliberately away when Luther produced a lighter, lit it herself.
    â€œWhoa, horsy!” Luther said. “That’s a hot, sassy horse, there! Look over here, horsy.”
    Luther grinned at her then, and, aside from the off-center gap or notch in his teeth, Barb remarked something odd about his smile. It blurred like a bad photograph. She had been about to say something sharp to Mr. Nixon, but the hazy quality of his smile stopped her short, made her forget the words. How could the teeth of a real, live man blur like teeth in a picture? She looked up into his eyes. She hadn’t noticed how warm they were, how his fine crow’s feet hinted at an inner kindness he covered with crude jokes and poor manners.
Don’t believe him it’s a trick he’s like a devil look away look away he’s gonna kill if you don’t it’s a trick trick trick trick.
    â€œWould you like to see a trick?” he said, drilling harder into her eyes with his own.
    â€œSure,” Barb answered, confused about the word
trick
, but then remembering how kind this man’s eyes were, this man whose dick knew two tricks. She tried to take a drag of her cigarette but noticed it was too wet. Her brother would have said she