by Chris Bauer
The beam from his flashlight panned back and forth between Fungo and me. His other hand slowly rose. Goddamn it, a gun.
“Some incentive for you to participate, sweetie. Help me out, and you’ll still be alive when I leave.” He steadied the flashlight on me now, blinding me. “Ready?”
“I don’t live around here. I don’t know anyone—”
The beam moved from me to Fungo. A trigger pull; the bullet hit a rock between my deputy and me, close to my dog. Fungo went berserk.
“That miss was me giving you credit for being honest. But local resident or not, you know more than I do. One more time, starting with the lightning round.” He raised the gun at me again, followed by the flashlight. “First name, Juicy Luster. Exotic dancer.”
“Never heard of her.” True.
“Fair enough. Regina Briscoe.”
“Don’t know her. Met one Briscoe, a guy. Floyd, the bowling alley bartender. No Regina.” More truth.
“Good, that was good, even convincing. How about this one: Randall Burton.”
“No.” True again.
“Just funnin’ you. That’s my real name. Not Stephen Linkletter, not Ding-a-ling Hammer, a personal favorite of mine, one I used in a skin flick once. Also not Howard Isaacs, or…”
My agitated subconscious was now reloading. Tess’s takedown, his torn coat, torn shirt, his exposed arm—yes, a tattoo on his bicep…
The women, the prostitutes all marked, all scarred—his women—
A tattoo of a bunyip. The Bunyip. Christ—
He’d branded himself.
The torrent of verbal vomit queuing in my throat erupted. “Demerol, clever all, suck my buns, yep, yep—pimp my buns, yep, yep—
“Bunyip, Bunyip, Deveraux…”
He lowered the gun. I couldn’t see his face above me, surprised or pissed or happy or sad, no idea what it registered, only a silhouette—
“Wow. One I haven’t heard in a while. Bravo. Yes, I still have this little leader-of-the-pack tattoo here, on my arm. So you do know me. My past life. Before the attempted execution that didn’t take. And the reason for me being here.”
“Before—the attempted rape—of a minor,” I said, grimacing. “Which is why I’m here. And why we’ll still… come after you.”
“Good for you. A paper tiger to the end. You won’t survive the night down there.”
An ambulance siren in the distance, faint but building. His head lifted in the siren’s direction.
“How about that. An ambulance, or maybe a State cop. Change of plans then.” He rubbed his crotch, where Fungo’s sharp dogteeth had gripped him during the takedown. “Let’s close this part out, right now.”
An underground fire burning for decades for miles in all directions, a fire that never went out… the dark cave the sinkhole had exposed to my left was now glowing. Not a cave, but rather a tunnel, backlit by distant flames, and in its forefront were low-lying shadows on the tunnel’s floor. The shadows advanced to become silhouettes, all shaped the same, a crowd of them, scurrying, climbing over each other as they approached the tunnel’s mouth. They released into the sinkhole, the moon turning these silhouettes into a frothy-tipped, living waterfall that emptied into an advancing river of white and brown fur.
Rats, hundreds of them, headed in my direction.
“Good-bye, Miss Tourette’s-afflicted bounty hunter.” Linkletter’s gun barrel steadied itself. “Bullets to the head. Much better than being eaten alive by rats, right? Glad I could help out. And truth be told, this is the only real cure for your affliction—”
The rat swarm overtook me, covered my head, my arms, all of my upper torso. I waited for their sharp teeth to sink into my cheeks, into my scalp, attack my eyes, my exposed arms. Instead the rats scampered lightly onto my body, gently, the same for the arm that was broken, cozying up like furry little puppies on a cold night. No malice, just comfort. The rat pile thickened, rising around my head, burying my face… my eyes needed to close. The shadowy gray and white terrain dully lit by the moon now gave way to total blackness.
Craack.
Craack craack craack.
Four gunshots. Two zipped past my ear, but the third and fourth shook the tower of rats protecting my head, blasting through fur and rat flesh and bone, with a layer of rat bodies severing into bloody chunks. Fungo barked and the horde separated, all except for the few severed dead rats left behind to bleed out, onto my face. My head was now exposed. I didn’t open my eyes, there was so much blood.
Click. Click-click.
The gun was empty. A beam of light from a flashlight pierced my bloodied, closed eyelids for a pregnant few seconds. Fungo barked again and nudged my head. I stayed still, held my breath, didn’t hazard moving, listening keenly. The ambulance siren was fainter; they couldn’t find us. The flashlight switched off. Above me, shuffling feet rustled the leaves followed by plodding footsteps that trailed off. I opened my blood-soaked eyelids, surprised to see two eyes still peering down at me from the rim of the hole, but they weren’t Linkletter’s. Too closely set and not human, and glowing green from the reflective moonlight.
Tess. She was mesmerized. How long she’d been up there, taking all this in or dazed, I had no idea, but she was in doggie dreamland, her rat-chasing terrier genes paralyzing her. So many rodents, she’d either died and gone to dog heaven or she was in doggie hell, because they were so close, but short of a kamikaze dive into a fifty-foot-deep dark hole, she had no way to get at them.
The river of rats receded, silently retracing its steps, the rats scrambling over each other and scaling the pit’s steep incline, a frothy waterfall in reverse. Now Tess asserted herself, barked loudly, upset at the rats leaving the sinkhole debris, upset at them climbing back into the tunnel.
But wait, inside the exposed tunnel…
What the hell was that?
Someone was there, standing just inside the mouth, the helmeted head a giveaway. A coal miner. Or, as I tried to keep an open mind, someone who maybe once was a coal miner but was now, at best, an apparition. It was joined by other nondescript shadows who filled in behind him, shoulder to shoulder, milling around, observant, backlit by orange flames, their safety lamps on and glowing white above their invisible faces, their helmets all facing out, facing the hole. Facing me. The river of rats flowed back upstream around and between their legs, returning to the interior of the coal mine. After the last of the rats retreated, the figures turned and peeled off to follow them, wandering deep into the rear of the tunnel, a crowd of helmeted heads disappearing into a wall of flames. A lone figure stood his ground, a guard with a safety lamp, the light like a luminous white eye in the middle of his forehead. I stared, awestruck, long enough to decide on my condition, that this was a near-death experience, not the real thing.
I was drained. I exhaled. “Fungo,” I called. “Here, boy. Over here.”
Fungo complied, came to my side, nudged away the few rat bodies still covering my head, was more interested in my face. He whimpered while licking me, cleaning off some of the blood. All this rat blood, soaking my head and shoulders—Linkletter had to think most of it was mine.
The bowling alley. Linkletter was headed there, which was where I needed to be. An ambulance could still be looking for us, but it should have been here by now. Other FBI too, if they were out there.
“Tess,” I called. “Sit, girl.” She obeyed, sat three stories up along the jagged rim of the pit, her butt wiggling, her glowing moonlit green eyes riveted on me, awaiting my next command. Only one command I could give her, and I felt silly giving it.
Timmy’s fallen down the well, Lassie.
“Tess, GO.”
She bolted. She’d retrace her steps and head back to home base, which was my van sitting out front of the bowling alley. After that I hoped to get lucky, have someone who knew her recognize her, maybe Andy or one of his friends. If that happened, Tess would bring someone back. Until then I was in major pain and virtually immobile, and yet, crazy as it s
eemed, I didn’t feel in any more danger. But I didn’t feel the same about Andy and the women at the bowling alley, with a psycho heading their way.
51
Rags to riches in a matter of seconds. Vicious dogs attached to his body parts. A gun under his chin. A mentally defective bounty hunter whose finger twitch should have put a bullet up into Randall’s brain by way of his jaw. How the hell her bullet missed when the forest floor collapsed, he didn’t know.
And those rats. Any concern Randall had about his shots missing their target wouldn’t much matter. The rats would pick her bones clean.
Randall was feeling invincible.
He had the bounty hunter’s flashlight, and with all his pursuers dead, his trek back through the evergreens was less dramatic and more direct. He closed in, the glow of the bowling alley’s rear floodlights like a beacon. A check of his watch; eleven thirty. Prime time for some sleazy late-night cruising of the bowling alley bar, looking for his former girlfriend. Yes, he could have used a shower but there was no time for that. Time only to put on some Band-Aids, a change of clothes, and deodorant from his car, and to splash some water on his face in the men’s room. Bowlers and bar patrons alike would be adequately juiced and less discerning. Should be easy pickings.
He reached the front of the bowling alley; the Cadillac had been compromised. Shattered window glass crunched underfoot. He opened the trunk. His clothes were mussed yet otherwise serviceable, but his other gun and ammo were gone. And he did need ammo.
The two drug thugs he croaked and dragged into the woods wouldn’t be needing theirs or their guns. He found their bodies. Back at the Caddy, four flat tires, necessitated a need for new transportation.
Toweled off and deodorized, with a generous splash of cologne and a clean shirt, Randall felt revived. He exited the men’s room and wound his way to a section of the bar patrolled by a particular bartender, one of only two still on duty at one a.m.
Minimal eye contact, hands busy at the sink underneath, his guy struck a bartender pose, cleaned a glass, waited for Randall to say what he was drinking.
“Yuengling lager. A food order too.” Randall glanced at the name stitched on the bartender’s bowling shirt. “You from Philly, Floyd?”
“Look, mister,” Floyd said, drying his hands, “this isn’t how this is going to go. You order things, I get them for you. You leave me a big tip. That’s it. Limited options from the grill this late. How about some deep fried fish and chips? Not much else that’s edible.”
Randall nodded. Floyd topped off a beer mug for his customer. Randall dropped a fifty into Floyd’s hand. “Keep it. Look, the Philly thing: I’m looking for a woman.”
No pushback from Floyd feigning double-entendre familiarity, just a direct stare that was far from friendly. The fifty made its way into a miner’s helmet.
“Name,” Floyd said.
Randall leaned in, said in a casual voice, “Regina Briscoe. Thing is, I figure she’s somehow related to you. Floyd Briscoe, right? She’s owed some money. From a Philly safe deposit box. I’m Howard Isaacs, an attorney.”
Floyd answered without taking his eyes off Randall, no hesitation, no emotion. “Regina was my daughter. She’s gone. Heroin overdose. Excuse me.” He lifted a phone from under the bar to check his texts, began walking and keying, leaving Randall to nurse his beer, unable to offer his condolences.
One of two things had just happened. Randall was either hearing news that should have shocked him, and did—Regina was young, no more than mid- to late thirties if she were alive, and a horrible thing had happened to her—or Floyd was lying.
Plus it was conflicting info. Rosie the dead Greek diner waitress, under duress, had inferred otherwise, sending him here.
Randall scanned the length of the bar. Floyd was AWOL, the bar trough unattended, until the kitchen doors swung open and he returned with Randall’s fish and chips. He dropped the plate front and center for Randall, speaking past him, head-pointing.
“You see those bowlers at those two tables? Tell them about your safe deposit box money. Leave me out of it.”
He eyed the two tables nearest lanes twenty and twenty-one. They abutted each other, round tables pushed together in a figure eight, accommodating six patrons, with room for maybe two more. Tonight’s bowling combatants sat there in cohabitation, still dressed in either garish pink splashed with indigo blue, or in red adorned with a black longhand. Six bowling teammates, five of them women, including one in a wheelchair, and one man, plus slinky Iota Jean, the woman he’d met earlier, the only one not in a bowling shirt. They toasted each other, probably for the tenth time, and judging by the placement of the trophies, the red-shirted team had taken the championship. The smaller trophy sat in front of the tiny woman who dead Stella said was her mother, not that she was awake enough to admire it. Her head was slumped on the table, past her bedtime or passed-out drunk. The second trophy needed to sit on the floor, next to what looked like the oldest geriatric at the table, the one in the wheelchair, the trophy tall enough that it reached her seated shoulder. She was talking to it, her arm draped over it like they were the best of friends.
A server delivered a tray of tequila shots to the bowlers’ tables. Heads turned toward the bar, the server pointing at the benefactor. Randall saluted them by raising his mug of beer. If Iota Jean had blabbed about his sick boasts, it didn’t seem to matter, because after a tableful of stares and some whispered group discussion, they waved him over. He took his food with him.
Six people to talk to. Six people who would either tell the truth about Regina or would need to keep their stories straight while they lied.
52
Counsel was still not back, gone over two hours. The heart wanted what the heart wanted, and it wanted to see her again, but Andy was also worried.
Mr. Tequila Shots—Howard, according to Iota Jean—was on his way to their tables. Andy grabbed a chair to make room. Before he arrived, Iota Jean whispered his resume to her friends.
“Says he’s a lawyer. His rap includes guns, sex, drugs, and murder.” She snickered. “Might as well have said ‘my dick is microscopic.’”
Howard arrived, set his wide-mouthed beer mug down, his double-paper-plated food next to it. Iota Jean officially introduced him but refrained from mentioning the ludicrous tall tales he’d attributed to himself.
“Around the table,” she said, “we have Dody, Penny, and Sleeping Beauty, Myra. The heart of the Concubines mixed senior doubles team. Over there it’s Andy and Charlotte, his mother, of the Fighting Cadavers. This year’s league champions. Not that I pay attention to any of this bowling crap.”
“Admit that you love us, Iota Jean,” Dody said.
“Indeed I do, sweetie. But bowling? No.”
“So. Andy, love,” Dody said. “Your teammates are lightweights. A come-from-behind win like tonight’s was for you, they should all be here, closing the bar down and buying shots like old Howard here just did for us.”
“So saying good night and reading to grandkids, caring for sick pets, tucking in children, that’s all overrated then?”
“Yes, on bowling championship night it is.” Big, blonde Dody downed her shot. “Wowzers, that was good.”
Howard made eye contact with each of them. “Ladies. Andy. So, Andy, let me guess. With a team name like the Fighting Cadavers, you’re a nurse.”
“Psych nurse. Mom here is a surgeon, retired. Fair warning, she struggles some with her memory. Iota Jean is—”
“Yes, also a nurse,” he said. “I met her earlier. Lovely lady. Doesn’t bowl,” he said, raising his mug in salute.
The pre-Howard discussion topics resurrected quickly, degrading from kids and grandkids and pets and aged parents to ex-husbands, boring husbands, dead husbands, deadbeat husbands, boyfriends, big colorful balls of the bowling and non-bowling variety, and the joys of sex with and without a partner. Their guest took a bite from a deep fried fish fillet then stuffed some greasy fries into his mouth, chasing it all wit
h beer.
“I saw you on the lanes earlier,” Howard said to Dody. “Converted a seven-ten split. A wicked left-hand curve.”
“Yes, proud of that one. But it wasn’t enough. Myra, our sleepy anchor here, had an off night.”
He was smooth and witty and charming and humble while the bowlers sized him up. He asked questions that were age and lifestyle and conversationally appropriate for a person sensitive to the local environment and the folks who enjoyed it. He treated them like a gentleman would. Not all of them accepted his shot-glass generosity. Dody intermittently downed the leftovers.
“You’re not from around here,” Dody said.
“Like I told Iota Jean. From Allentown. I’m a lawyer. Here on a case, but also some personal recon. I might relocate my practice here. Looking for good people, clean air. A less worrisome environment. I saw this news story in People about the town. No crime?”
“Yeah, you and everyone else, including the crazies. No crime. That’s us. You a bowler?” Dody asked.
“Yes, many years,” he said, adding, “I carried a two-thirty-two average. Competed professionally in the Midwest while in my twenties.”
“Wow. Married?”
“A widower. She died young.”
“Sorry. Natural causes?” Dody asked.
“Well, no, actually,” he said, surprised at the question. “Blunt trauma. A freak home accident.”
“Goodness.” Dody forged ahead. “Kids? Grandkids?”
“Two kids, four grandkids. Love them all to death.”
How much of his routine was true, Andy had no idea, but the odd comment about his children, and his wife’s death, was unnerving.
The sleeping Myra awakened briefly, re-acclimated herself to her surroundings, showed surprise at seeing Howard seated at the table. She delivered two phrases in drunk Greek, both directed at him. The women snickered. Myra dozed off again; Dody dished. “She’s my aunt, so I can translate. She said, ‘At the diner with Rosie. Big dick.’”