“Well, it’s gone, and it happened with you. So, in their world, you owe them.”
The connection momentarily disintegrated.
“I’m losing you,” I said.
“That’s LA,” she said between the interference. “The reception sucks.”
“What should we do?”
“Stay away. Convince them you’re dead.”
“And you? What happens to you?”
Marla laughed. “I’ll be fine. I’m always fine.”
Silence broke our connection. I cradled the phone. She hadn’t asked if I was all right. Stay away, was all she’d said. I owed them, she said. Now I knew.
Back at the counter, Archie waved his massive hands through the middle of a tale. Deer listened and laughed. They’d forgotten about me. They’d returned to their world. The one from before I’d washed up on their shore. The one that seemed so fragile now.
TWENTY-FIVE
Bad Things
I SLUMPED in a booth near the cash and watched Deer read the L.A. Times behind the counter. She moved her forefinger along each line with concentration. Archie was gone to gas the truck with the promise that we’d hit the hardware store after. It sounded more like an excuse to slink off for another drink. I didn’t care. There were other matters to concern myself with, like my violent death.
The aroma of carrot muffins in the oven wafted through the diner. Cambodian country music yowled through the battered wooden speakers. A couple of tourists muttered in German at the menu. The rest of the place was empty. No sign of Trang. If he was around, his disguise was working. I should’ve gone with Archie for a drink.
Deer glanced up. A strand of hair fell across her eyes while I rolled my coffee cup around in my palms. The heat felt good on my scars.
She said, “Everything okay in there?”
“I’m thinking about buying that car from your neighbour,” I said. After all, my health was back, and trouble was around the corner. With Trang already on the scene and Eagle Creek surely coming soon, an escape plan needed hatching. The money from Akinwole was stashed under the floor of the cabin. A few hundred bucks for a getaway car seemed like a smart bet.
She leaned on the cash register. “I know those guys. I can get him for a special price.”
“If I get it,” I said, “could I leave it with you for a while?”
“I charge extra for parking.” Her grin revealed a tiny gap between her front teeth.
“I’ll give you anything.”
“Why don’t you take it to the ranch?”
“It has to be a secret,” I said.
“You’re buying it and not using it?”
“Not right away,” I said. “I’d like to have one standing by.”
“Like a getaway car?”
“Yes, like a getaway car.”
“So, why do you need a getaway car, Paul?”
“I might need to get away.”
She fidgeted with a gold Buddha pendant around her neck. The deep-yellow gold chain glowed off her brown skin.
“You can drive my truck,” she said.
“That might not work out for you.”
“I trust you,” she said. “You bring it back when you’re done.”
“I could be gone a while. I’m unreliable that way.”
“You in some kind of shit?” she said.
Outside, a polished black sedan landed a spot in front of the diner. Tinted windows. Low-profile white walls. My scarred hands went numb. I rubbed them on my jeans to return some feeling. The driver stepped out. His arm muscles strained the seams of his white T-shirt. He adjusted his embossed cowboy belt, its shiny buckle big as a rodeo. His black-opal eyes looked through the diner window right at me. Trang was right: it hadn’t taken long. Eagle Creek had tracked me down.
“Yes, I’m in some kind of shit,” I said.
“What?” She laughed.
I said, “See that man looking at me? He’s a ferocious killer sent here by a drug dealer to kill me.”
Deer laughed again. Eagle Creek pointed a finger at me like a pistol and smiled.
“He looks friendly,” she said.
“They say he once sawed off someone’s head,” I said. “Be careful, he’s not particular who he hurts.”
“Don’t worry.” She mimed a karate chop. “He messes with me, I kick butt.”
The diner door chimed. Eagle Creek stepped in. His body blocked the sun.
“Buddy, you been hiding on me?” he said.
He gave Deer a once-over.
“Hey, doll. How about some of your pie?”
She looked disinterested.
“Apple, peach, or cherry?” she said.
“Cherry. And turn down that shit. That’s not music.”
He tapped the counter with his forefinger. Deer offered no reaction. Deadpan, she killed the music. Eagle Creek slipped into my booth. He pointed to the car outside.
“Like that?” he said.
Clogged with fear, speech was impossible. Instead, I nodded. Sure.
“That’s a Bentley Flying Spur,” he said. “I decided to treat myself to a good ride.”
I nodded again, like I understood.
“Any idea what that car costs to rent?”
I shook my head. No.
“Fifteen hundred dollars a day with insurance and mileage. I figured, what the hell? For a few days, why not. Business is good. I can afford it. Besides, when the locals see me in this, it gives them pause.”
I nodded again. Oh.
“I could’ve gotten the new Porsche Panamera. That was five ninety-nine a day. It’s a nice car. German. But the Bentley’s another level, right? It’s a quarter million dollars to buy.”
I kept my eyes on the car outside. I smelled my own sweat.
“Oh, yeah?” I managed to say. It felt like a hard-boiled egg had lodged in my throat.
Eagle Creek calculated the money. “Fuck, yeah. So, that’s one day in the Bentley or three days in the Porsche. Right?”
He inspected his fingernails and sighed in an apparent attempt to muster the patience to help me through a complicated philosophical argument beyond my intellectual ability.
“It’s like this: I get a call from the rental company in Vegas this morning. They’re wondering when I might be returning their car. I wasn’t sure, I said, so they asked if I could make an installment payment for the rental so far.”
“They called you?” I said. “For an installment payment?”
He nodded. “They wanted I pay them sixty thousand dollars.”
His hands curled into mallets. Silver rings flashed at me. Skulls. Vulture heads. Snakes and lightning bolts. He narrowed his eyes and spoke without moving his lips.
“I’ve been looking for you for forty days. Forty days since you wrecked our car and burned our dope out in the desert. That’s what the car rental company says it’s been. I’ve lost track of it.”
He squeezed my leg under the table until it felt like he might pulverize my kneecap.
“What’s the retail value of the Panamera?” he said through clenched teeth.
“No idea.” I tried to shake my knee from his grip.
“I can buy one for a little over seventy grand.”
“New?” Okay, he wasn’t going to scalp me. He wanted to talk cars.
“Listen, nutsack,” he said, “you miss my point. If I’d known, I’d have rented a cheaper car. I practically could’ve bought the fucking Porsche for what I’m paying to rent the Bentley. You eluded me longer than expected. But now I got you.”
Deer put a plate of cherry pie in front of Eagle Creek. He winked at me and leered after her. He jammed a fork into the cherry pie. Red filling oozed over the plate. He doodled a finger through the mess and licked it off. The bit of cherry stuck to the corner of his mouth might’ve been comic, except he leaned forward and said, “We’re going for a ride. You and me. I’m going to get my money’s worth. My pound of flesh. We’re going to party.”
“That’s not my first c
hoice,” I said.
Eagle Creek wiped his mouth with his hand.
“I’m going to start by cutting your feet off, so you can’t run,” he said.
He took some more pie. He chewed and waited for my reaction. His eyes reflected back my own dumb face. I boxed it up. Sucked it in. I couldn’t outfight or outrun him. Instead, I waited. Prayed Trang would show. Prayed for a crack to open in the floor wide enough to vanish into.
From his pocket, he produced a cellphone. He pushed a number on speed-dial and spoke.
“I finally got him,” he said to someone. Most likely Lover Man. “We’re in Moab, Utah, in a diner called Mom’s.” He nodded. “Yes, I’ll be back tomorrow night.”
On the street, Archie’s pickup truck rolled up behind the Flying Spur. Albert was in the back; his snout drooped over the side. Archie locked the truck and started over to the diner. If he knew, he would bring the shotgun. I tried a silent distress transmission. Only Albert sensed the vibe. His ears twitched around for the source. Pointless.
“Hey, Paul,” Archie said, his voice mellow from the whisky he’d been into down the road. “Saddle up, son. Got to get to the hardware.”
Eagle Creek put the phone away and mutilated the pie some more.
“Tell the old guy to get lost,” he said, low so Archie couldn’t hear.
I stared back and wished for the over-under in Archie’s truck. I pictured Eagle Creek shot in the chest with both barrels. Pictured his chest like mashed cherry pie.
“Hey, Arch,” I said, “we’re having pie.”
Archie came over to the booth. He peered at Eagle Creek from under his ancient yellow eyebrows. He extended a shovel-sized hand.
“Howdy,” he said.
Eagle Creek ignored the outstretched hand. “That your truck out there?” he said through a mouthful of pie.
Archie nodded. “A ’59 International Harvester. B120. Four-wheel drive. They don’t make them like that anymore.”
Eagle Creek said, “I’ve seen that truck around. Your dog always ride in the back?”
“Albert smells bad. You can’t put him up front.”
Eagle Creek looked out the window at Albert, who stared back at us like we were some show on TV he couldn’t comprehend.
“He’s an ugly old hound,” Eagle Creek said.
Archie narrowed his eyes. He said, “That dog’s got sense more than most.”
“Coffee, Archie?” Deer said from across the counter. “Fresh pot.”
“I’ll take one to go,” Archie said. “I got to use the head.”
“How about you, mister?” Deer said to Eagle Creek. “Some coffee with that pie?”
Archie shuffled to the toilet. Eagle Creek looked around. Eagle Creek sized up the situation. Eagle Creek needed to get on with it.
He said, “I’ll take one to go.”
“Not for me,” I said. “I’ll stay here.”
Eagle Creek leaned across the table. “You’re not getting out of this. Give me a hard time, I’ll be back for her. And then I’ll go visit the old man, for laughs.”
To show he meant business, he lifted his T-shirt. A silver-plated Colt was stuck in his jeans. By the counter, Deer dropped a sugar shaker on the floor. Startled by the clatter, Eagle Creek drew the weapon and then with equal speed it was back in his pants when he saw there was no danger. I looked at Deer. She looked at me. We’d both seen it. Now she knew I wasn’t kidding.
“Sorry,” she said. “Butterfingers.”
Eagle Creek didn’t react.
“How’s that coffee coming?” he said.
Deer ducked her head into the fridge.
“It’s coming,” she said. “Milk? I’m getting Archie milk. That’s how he likes it.”
“Black’s good,” Eagle Creek said.
He rose from the booth. Grabbed my arm. Jerked me to my feet.
“Out,” Eagle Creek said. “Let’s go before the old man’s back.” The stuffed mountain lion over the cash register watched with yellow marble eyes. That would be me soon. Dead. Resistance was futile. His threats against Deer and Archie convinced me to go along. This was no longer about me and Marla and Hornsmith and Trang and Lover Man. This had become an oil slick that threatened people who had nothing to do with us.
Eagle Creek took the Styrofoam cup that waited on the counter.
“Thanks for the coffee, sister.”
He tossed a twenty on the counter.
“What’s your name?”
“Deer,” she said. “People call me Deer.”
“Keep the change, Deer. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“I guess we’ll see what happens,” she said.
“Tell Arch not to wait,” I said. “We’re going for a drive in the Flying Spur.”
Eagle Creek moved toward the door.
“Let’s go, kid.”
We stepped into the street. Far overhead, a silent jet cut a thin white streak across the cloudless blue sky. Its vapour trail expanded and dissipated into the atmosphere without a trace. There was no other way this could have unfolded. The inevitability was comforting. I smiled to myself. Calm in the face of it.
Albert watched me get into the Flying Spur. His mouth hung open, a string of sticky drool suspended from his lips down over the side of the truck. He shook his head. You not coming to the ranch? Come with us? No, buddy, I told him, not this time. Numb, I got into the car.
Eagle Creek drove for a couple of blocks. The .45 lay in his lap. He sipped the coffee with one hand, elbow out the window. At the Apache Motel parking lot, he crept to a stop and backed the car into a spot in front of the last door facing the road. He fished a room key off the dash.
“We’re going to get my bags,” he said, “and then we’re going out into the desert. We’ll not be coming back here again.”
He tossed the empty coffee cup out the window and spat.
“Your girl makes lousy coffee.”
I stayed paralyzed in the passenger seat. He nudged me with the gun.
“Out, peckerhead.”
He pushed me ahead of him into the room, where I sat frozen on the bed while Eagle Creek gathered his belongings. A zipped duffle bag. A tool box. A briefcase. When he was in the bathroom, my legs couldn’t agree with my head’s urge to take advantage of the moment and flee. There was nowhere to run that he wouldn’t find me. And kill me. Best to delay that.
CNN was on the TV. At the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, business wasn’t great, either. A lucky shot from a rocket launcher had taken out an army helicopter in some mud village. Drones now shot the place to pieces, brick by brick. Lean dogs and ragged children ran for cover.
Eagle Creek came out of the bathroom with a roll of duct tape in one hand, the Colt in the other. He looked at the TV and shook his head.
“Fuckin’ towelheads,” he said. “I was there. They only respect brute force. We should of set the whole place on fire. Including the Pakis. Just because those assholes have the bomb doesn’t mean we should be scared of them.”
He sat on the edge of the bed beside me. Sweat beaded his face. He rolled his shoulders as if to shake something off. He sighed. Then, almost casually, he pistol-whipped me across the forehead. White light seared through my eyes. I fell back. He wrapped several rounds of duct tape around my ankles in one move, like he was roping a calf. With equal speed and precision, he taped my wrists together behind my back. He slapped a piece of tape across my mouth.
“This’ll make it a lot easier later,” he said.
When he had me secured, he fell backwards onto the bed beside me. He rubbed his eyes.
“Something’s going on here. Something’s not right. Someone’s calling me.”
I rolled away from him and accidentally fell off the edge of the bed. The green shag muffled the sound of my fall. I lay motionless. The pain across my forehead expanded. Blood dripped across the bridge of my nose, slow and thick, into my eyes.
Eagle Creek sat up. He tore off his shirt. He tossed it across the room. He rubbed hi
s face with both hands.
“One of these days,” he said, “the council will judge me.”
He carried the duffle bag out to the car. When he returned, he sat back on the bed. He held his head between his legs. He started to gasp and grunt. He rocked his body. He seemed to hyperventilate, with fast, deep breaths between little moans like a wounded animal. After a bit, he reached for the little trash can under the desk and threw up.
I stayed on the floor. Trussed up tight. A struggle might’ve brought him round and reminded him of my presence. That was the way to get killed. Remind him where I was. So, I didn’t move, my nose pressed into the carpet. Its smell of smoke and socks offered sordid stories. Tired salesmen. Migrant workers. Hitchhikers. Lonely lovers. But not one story reeked like this one. This one was bad.
Eagle Creek sobbed. From my angle on the floor, I watched him pull at his hair. He unravelled his braid. He stood up and took off his jeans. He rolled off his underwear. He peeled off his socks. He looked at his naked reflection in the mirror.
“Yes, Grandfather,” he said, “I am far away, where I do other men’s bidding.”
He climbed up on the desk. With a swoop of his massive arm, he sent the telephone, the lamp, and the local brochures onto the floor. Perched on his haunches, he surveyed the room.
“Those men make me do evil deeds, Grandfather,” he said. “Let me come home.”
He leapt from the desk to the bed, his long hair an angry ink-stained halo around his head. He took his knife from the nightstand, and with both hands high above his head, pointed it down at his chest. Invisible at his feet, I turned away, unwilling to watch. It felt like a ridge had formed across my forehead where he’d hit me with the gun. The bitter taste of the tape filled my mouth. Overhead, Eagle Creek sobbed.
“I see you, Grandfather. I see all of you waiting by the river.”
Then, the knife clattered to the floor, and he stumbled off the bed toward the door.
“Tell them I’m through. If I see them coming for me, I’ll kill the motherfuckers.”
He snorted. Spat. And vanished.
Outside some kids laughed. A church bell chimed.
TWENTY-SIX
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