Free Film Strip by Nancy Bartholomew

Sierra, whatever do you mean? I have shown you the utmost honesty.”
    â€œYou ain’t shown me shit, Marla. We’re going to have a good, old-fashioned talk about guns, tempers, and boyfriends.”
    Marla tried to smooth it over. “Goodie,” she cried. “Girl talk!”
    â€œThere ain’t no girls talking here, Marla. Why didn’t you tell me you gave your gun to Little Ricky? Why didn’t you tell the police? In fact, you should’ve turned it right over to them. They have tests they can do, Marla. They can look at your gun and tell straight off if it’s been fired.”
    The look on her face told me more than I wanted to know.
    â€œYou fired the gun, didn’t you?” A bad feeling crept up through my gut. I never had liked Marla and the feeling was mutual on her part. Why had I ever agreed to help her? It just never occurred to me that Marla might have nobody in her life for a reason. She might have killed them all off.
    She looked down at her toes, shiny pink lacquered ones, and said nothing.
    â€œMarla, I have to ask you this: Did you kill Venus Lovemotion?”
    Her head shot up. “No! How could you think such a thing?” Marla was holding to the letter of the law. She was pulling a Clinton on me.
    â€œMarla, did you fire your gun in Venus Lovemotion’s direction?”
    She shrugged, cocked her head, and gave me a very hard look. She was cracking, but not fast enough. I stepped forward quickly, shoving her shoulders with both hands. She lost her balance and stumbled backward, fear replacing the hostile look. I went after her, grabbing a handful of her long black hair and wrapping it tightly around my hand, then I yanked, hard.
    â€œLet go!” Her eyes filled with tears and I took another step closer, forcing her to pull back and hurt herself more.
    â€œDon’t dick around with me, Marla. I’m the only person playing on your team, and believe me, I’m not doing it for you. Did you try to shoot Venus Lovemotion or not?”
    â€œAll right, all right! Yes! But it isn’t like you thought.”
    I let go of her hair and waited. She rubbed her scalp and looked at me like she wanted to try and even the score.
    â€œWhen I found her with Ricky, I don’t know, something inside me just started seeing red. Next thing I knew I was standing by my car and somebody had fired a shot.”
    â€œThen what happened?” I asked.
    Marla shrugged and chuckled. “Well, Ricky ran over, grabbed my arm, and took the gun away. Venus ran like a rabbit back inside, and that’s when I let Ricky keep the gun.”
    I stared at her. Was she telling the truth? Somehow I didn’t think so.
    â€œLet me get this straight. You fired a shot at Venus, but nobody heard it or reported it? I frankly find that hard to believe.”
    â€œAs God is my witness,” Marla said solemnly.
    â€œIf God was witnessing half of your shit, Marla, she would’ve struck you dead a long time ago. Now, where’s the gun?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    I looked past Marla, through the picture window in her living room, and contemplated throwing her off the balcony.
    â€œHonest,” she swore. “You have it all now. The truth. Me and Little Ricky, we’ve just been so frightened. We didn’t know who to trust. Honest, hon, I didn’t think you’d need to know about me trying to shoot that slut. I figured it would only make things worse, and frankly, they’re bad enough.”
    She seemed so pathetically eager for me to believe her. For an entire moment I forgot Marla was a chronic liar. I started thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad deal if Vincent lost the club to the IRS. Hell, with what I’d saved up, maybe I could buy the place and run it right. But, no, then I’d have headaches like Marla on a daily basis. It was best to deal with the current mess and never get stuck this way