Rovers

by RICHARD LANGE

  I dropped to my belly when a car came down the road and hissed for Sally to do the same. The white Cadillac turned into the driveway of the house, the garage door rose, and a light went on. While the driver, a white boy, waited to pull into the garage, a tall, bald black man got out of the back seat and walked to the front door of the house. He had those scars on his forehead, the kind you sometimes see on African brothers. I passed the binoculars to Sally.

  “That’s him,” he said.

  Beaumont went inside, and the garage door clanked down behind the car.

  I’d learned enough for one night, didn’t want to push my luck. Sally and I crept to the truck and came back to the motel. He kept at me the whole way, asking when I was going to make my move on Beaumont. I told him I hadn’t worked out yet whether making a move was worth my while. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and I had to lock him in the box so I could get some peace.

  That was an hour ago. I’m going to hit my knees here before I go to sleep and ask God for guidance, and hopefully my prayers won’t be snatched out of the air by any devils working to defeat me.

  TODAY’S PASSAGE: To expect the worst is to set yourself up for failure. Prepare for the worst. Expectation is passive. Preparation is active. Always be active.

  —Listen, Respond, Win: A New Path to Success

  by Dr. Christine Pellegrino

  July 2, 1976, Las Vegas

  I got no direction last night, no revelations or commandments. Whether or not I was going after Beaumont, though, my arsenal needed beefing up. So, after a banana and a cup of instant coffee, I went to a sporting-goods store and bought a twelve-gauge shotgun and shells; more rounds, an extra magazine, and a shoulder holster for the .45; and a hunting knife with an ankle sheath.

  Back at the motel I loaded the magazines and put one in the .45. The holster was invisible under my jacket, and after a little practice my draw was pretty smooth. I’ll never again be overwhelmed like I was by the woman and child. Whenever I hunt from now on, I’ll be armed to the teeth and loaded for bear.

  I brought Sally in at sundown and fed him some Kentucky Fried Chicken. The Dodgers were playing the Padres, and I let him watch the game. By the time it was over, I’d resolved to drive out to Beaumont’s again. I locked Sally in the crate for this trip, tired of his constant jabber and wanting to see if I could find my own way. I remembered the route fairly well, made only a couple of wrong turns. Parking in the same spot as last night, I walked up the rise alone. This evening there were lights on in the house, and music played faintly, something classical.

  I started thinking I should go in after Beaumont right then. The .45 was under my arm, the knife strapped to my leg, and Czarnecki’s bag, in the camper, had everything else I’d need. I talked myself out of the notion pretty quickly. I didn’t know the layout of the house and wouldn’t have the advantage of daylight. And what if someone else was with him?

  I watched a while longer but learned nothing new. I won’t say the trip was a waste of time, but I don’t feel the need for any more scouting. If I’m going to do this, I’ve got to do it. And tomorrow’s the day. I’ll storm the house at noon, and if I can’t capture Beaumont, I’ll kill him. Sally will be disappointed if that’s how it goes down, but what are a monster’s tears to me?

  July 4, 1976, Las Vegas

  A blunder, a battle, a deal with the devil. I’m taking advantage of a quiet moment to set down what happened over the past twenty-four hours, and they may well be the last words I ever write.

  As I’d planned, I parked up the road from Beaumont’s house at noon yesterday, guns loaded, knife ready, crowbar in hand. I left Sally chained inside the crate, and snuck to the top of the rise. Lying beside the little tree, I scanned the house through the binoculars. The drapes were drawn, but I was sure Beaumont was inside.

  I said a prayer to steel myself. Dear Lord, you are my refuge and fortress, you are my sword and my shield. Fill me with bravery and strength as I prepare to confront evil.

  Then…nothing. I lay on my belly in the dirt. The fire I’d been stoking all morning had gone out. Five minutes passed, ten, as I tried to will my body to stand and approach the house. I pleaded with myself, reasoned with myself, slapped my face until my cheek throbbed, but it was no use.

  All the way back to the motel I invented fresh excuses: I needed more time to think the plan through. I hadn’t slept well the night before. My back was giving me trouble. The truth is, I’d simply lost my nerve. Beaumont wasn’t drunk like the Mexican in Reno. He wasn’t a woman or a child. According to Sally, he was a powerful figure, king of the rovers, and contemplating that had unstrung me.

  Nervous energy and dumb luck had gotten me through my first encounters with the monsters, but that wouldn’t be enough in the long run. I spent the rest of the day questioning whether I was cut out to follow in Czarnecki’s footsteps. It seemed I lacked the courage to confront evil face-to-face and the savagery to dispatch it with no qualms, and without iron resolve and a killer’s cold heart, I was doomed.

  By nightfall I was exhausted. It was a relief to bring Sally in for dinner and listen to his story about a thief who got caught because he couldn’t stay away from his favorite Times Square dive. He asked for a beer. I said no but made him a second ham sandwich. It was right about then I decided I’d rather spend the night watching Beaumont’s house than torturing myself in the room. Maybe this would be the time I’d discover some weakness that’d give me an advantage.

  I drove out and parked by the side of the road. Sally begged to join me when I went back to the camper for the .45, said four eyes would be better than two. I gave in and let him out of the crate, hoping his chatter would drown out the bickering in my head.

  The first thing I noticed when we got onto the rise was a second car in the driveway, a Grand Prix. Then the sound of someone singing inside the house reached my ears, followed by laughter and applause. It got quiet after that. My eyes were pressed to the binoculars, but there was nothing to see. I was considering sneaking down to peek through the window in the back door when Sally moaned.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “The cuffs are pinching,” he replied.

  I crouched beside him. “Show me.”

  I caught a glimpse of the rock in his hand right before he slammed it into my head. The first blow stunned me, the next laid me out.

  I came to in a world of pain. My brain wobbled when I sat up, and I had to wipe blood out of my eyes. I don’t know how long I was down, but Sally had almost reached the house, going as fast as he could in his shackles. I drew the .45 and set off after him.

  A commotion—yelling and gunshots—erupted inside the house. This didn’t slow Sally. He pounded on the front door, shouting for Beaumont and saying, “It’s Sally Spiotto! I need help!” I didn’t slow down either. Mad as hell, I crossed the driveway as Beaumont ran out the door. He pushed past Sally but pulled up short when he saw me. Without thinking, I shot him in the chest, and he dropped to the ground.

  Sally dashed inside and tried to close the door on me. I put my shoulder to it, forced it open, and stepped into a slaughterhouse, blood everywhere. Sally ran off, but my way was blocked by a body on the floor and a black biker with a short natural and a goatee bent over it with a knife. A redheaded white girl pointed a pistol at me. My hands are shaking now, recalling the scene, but in that instant I fired the .45 with no hesitation and got her in the head. Then the brother charged, and I shot him, too.

  Another biker, a big Mexican, ran at me out of the shadows, and I fired once more, hitting him in the arm. He dropped the knife he was carrying but kept coming. I lost the .45 when he tackled me. He hooked his good arm around my neck, but I grabbed his hair, shifted my weight, and was able to flip him so we were both lying on our backs, me on top. I hammered him with my elbows, then grabbed for the knife sheathed on my leg. He got hold of it before I did and slipped out from under me. Sitting on my chest, he punched me in the face again and again and raised the blade. />
  Before he could finish me off, a gunshot sounded and a geyser of blood spouted from his forehead. He fell on me, dead weight, and when I pushed him off, I found myself looking down the barrel of a pistol held by a young white man, maybe twenty-two, twenty-three, with dark hair and eyes.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “I came for Beaumont,” I told him.

  “Where is he?”

  “Out front. I shot him.”

  “If you want to get out of here alive, we have to work together,” the kid said.

  “I want to get out of here alive,” I said.

  The young man—Jesse is his name, I know now—picked up my knife and said, “Stick this in Beaumont’s heart and bring him inside.”

  Still rattled by the fact that I’d just killed two people and dazed by the beating I’d taken, I was happy someone else had a plan, happy to do as I was told. I grabbed the .45 too, and walked to the front door. Beaumont was already trying to crawl away.

  “Wait,” he said, raising his hand.

  I kicked him onto his back and jammed the knife into his chest. Leaving the blade inside him, I dragged him into the house.

  Jesse was kneeling next to the man I’d almost tripped over when I came in the first time. He helped him—his brother, Edgar—sit up, saying, “Take it easy. You’ll be good as new soon enough.”

  The redhead I’d shot groaned, coming back to life. Jesse found a knife on the floor and stabbed her with it, then hacked at her neck until her head came off and she turned to ash.

  “Rovers?” I said. “All of them?”

  “You didn’t know?” Jesse said.

  My relief—I’d killed monsters, not humans!—was short-lived. I knew I was still in danger.

  “We’ve got to dust them,” Jesse said. “You take care of these two”—he gestured at the bikers on the floor, the Mexican and the black one—“and I’ll do the ones on the patio.”

  I picked up the knife the Mexican had dropped and went to work on him. The wound in his forehead was already smaller than it had been moments before. He opened his eyes and screamed a silent scream, but I kept cutting until he crumbled.

  I was about to do the same to the brother when a glass door shattered, and Jesse backpedaled into the house, firing his pistol. He ran past me and pulled Edgar behind a couch. I scurried to an open door and found myself in a hallway. A blood-spattered blonde and a limping biker came in from the patio, headed for a door on the other side of the living room. A third biker, a short white man, followed, waving a pistol.

  “Any of you still walking, we’re getting out of here,” the blonde shouted.

  Jesse popped up from behind the couch and squeezed off a shot. The short biker fired back. All of a sudden the black one got to his feet and staggered toward the others. I fired at him and missed, but Jesse put a round in his leg. He kept going, the short biker helping him along while pinning Jesse and me down with random shots.

  The gang scrambled through the door and slammed it shut. Over the ringing in my ears I heard motorcycles start up. Jesse ran outside as three Harleys exploded out of the garage and fired after them until his gun was empty. When the sound of the engines had faded, he came back into the house and went to his brother, who was cowering next to the couch.

  I found Sally hiding in a closet in one of the bedrooms. He didn’t struggle when I hauled him out and threw him on the bed.

  “I had to try,” he said.

  “I guess,” I replied.

  I slipped the biker’s knife between his ribs. He grimaced, moaned, and went limp. I cut off his head, shook his ashes from his shackles, and carried them to the living room.

  Edgar was lying on the couch. He sat up when I came in. He was a big man, bigger than Jesse, and looked old enough to be his father. He asked me who I was.

  “None of your business,” I replied.

  “He’s simple,” Jesse said. “Ignore him.”

  “You’re rovers too?” I said.

  “I’m the man that saved your life,” Jesse said, “and this is my brother.”

  He bent and pulled my knife out of Beaumont. I asked what he was up to.

  “He double-crossed me,” Jesse said. “I want him to see my face before I dust him.”

  “I can’t let you kill him,” I said.

  “Try and stop me.”

  I pointed the .45.

  “I’m taking him with me,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “To hunt with.”

  “Hunt?”

  “Rovers.”

  Jesse smirked. “And I should let you?” he said.

  “You owe me,” I said. “Your brother’d be dead if I hadn’t shot those two when I came in.”

  Jesse thought this over, then dropped my knife. “Go on,” he said.

  I told him I’d need help getting the man to my truck.

  “You’ll have to haul me up,” he said. “I took a bullet to the gut, and I’m not quite right yet.”

  He grabbed my arm when I reached out, yanked me off balance, and snatched the .45 out of my hand. Pointing it at me, he stood on his own and said, “Any other weapons you’ve got, drop them too.”

  “I don’t have anything else,” I said, feeling like a fool for letting him get the jump on me.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “I mean to wipe out the rest of those bastards. I can do it myself, but it’d be quicker and easier with two. Fight with me, and you can have Beaumont once they’re dusted.”

  “How much help do you think I’d be?” I said. “It took you all of two seconds to get my gun off me.”

  “You handled yourself okay up to then.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “I’ll kill you and Beaumont right now.”

  I’d lost a lot of blood from the cut on my head, and the adrenaline was wearing off, so, truthfully, at that moment I didn’t give a damn about Beaumont. I was only thinking about getting out of that house alive.

  “What do you want me to do?” I said.

  Jesse pointed at Sally’s chains. “Put those on Beaumont before he comes to.”

  I had him all trussed up by the time he fluttered back to life a few minutes later.

  “What happened here?” he said.

  “Not what you planned,” Jesse said.

  “You have me wrong.”

  Jesse smacked him in the face with the .45 and ordered me to gag him with a biker’s bandana. Then Jesse and I walked up the road to get the truck. I parked in the driveway, and we carried Beaumont out to the camper and locked him in the crate.

  Back in the house, Jesse got a blanket out of one of the bedrooms and took it to the patio. He wrapped up the body of a girl whose throat had been cut and told me and Edgar to take her out. He was holding Czarnecki’s .45 on me, but his gun hand shook as we laid her in the camper next to the box.

  “Where to?” I said when we were all in the cab of the truck.

  “Just drive,” he said.

  I’m going to quit for now, baby, hopefully get to the rest later. It’s 2 p.m. Beaumont’s in the camper, and the brothers and I are in my room. Jesse’s guarding me from the table with the .45, Edgar’s asleep on one of the beds, and I’m on the other, feeling like Daniel in the lions’ den.

  If I die helping this kid go after the bikers, you’ll never see what I’m about to write next, but I want to set it down anyway, say it in my mind, and send it out into the universe: I love you, baby. You’ve always been better than me, smarter than me, stronger than me. Remember the good times, that’s all I ask. Because that’s what I’ll be doing, seeing your sweet smile as I take my last breath.

  24

  W​HEN ANTONIA RETURNS BEAUMONT’S PHONE CALL, SHE’S thinking he has another job for them. People come to him for help, and if it’s a problem the Fiends can solve, he acts as go-between for ten percent of whatever they get for handling it. This call isn’t about a hit or a robbery, though. It’s about something better.

  Unaware of Beaum
ont’s connection to the Fiends, the rover who dusted Bob asked him to contact them to see if there was some way to make amends. What the fool didn’t know is that Beaumont has been harboring his own grudge against him for years, something about a woman they both knew in the past. He’s coming to Vegas to meet with Beaumont, and Beaumont suggests the Fiends travel to Vegas, too, where he and they will settle both their scores at once.

  Antonia agrees to make the trip, and the gang erupts at the news, cheering and punching and hugging one another. They ride for Vegas the next night with a plan to crash at Bull’s motel on the outskirts of town, a ten-cabin motor court so dilapidated it doesn’t even have a sign anymore, just a red neon arrow. Bull isn’t a rover, but he’s fine with accommodating them as long as there’s no killing or feeding on the premises. He’ll even run daytime errands for a price.

  He steps out of his cabin barefoot, shirtless, and wearing Bermuda shorts when they ride up, a big, bald fat man who claims he used to be a mobster in New York.

  “Do you have room for us?” Antonia says.

  “Enough for them,” Bull says. “But you’ll have to bunk with me.”

  “Shit,” Antonia says. “You can’t even see your pecker over that gut.”

  Bull grins around the joint in his mouth. “That’s okay,” he says. “You can tell me if it’s still there.”

  “We need three cabins. We’ll be staying two, maybe three days.”

  There’s no registration book, Bull just tosses them their keys. Only one other cabin is occupied, by a professor from Germany who’s come to the desert to study scorpions.

  “I don’t know how serious he is,” Bull says. “He’s usually fucked up on schnapps by noon.”

  Antonia uses Bull’s phone to call Beaumont. He says the rovers they’re after, a man named Jesse and his retarded brother, have arrived in town, along with the girl who stole the baby. He’s invited them to his house for dinner tomorrow night, and how he’s got it figured is that the Fiends will show up before they get there and lie in wait for them. His only request in exchange for letting the gang exact their revenge at his place is that he be allowed to keep the girl.