The Exterminators

by Bill Fitzhugh

  Bob, Mary, Klaus, and Agent Parker were sitting around the room, eating pizza off paper plates.

  “We placed all five hundred traps,” Bob said to Mary. “Probably covered a hundred square miles. Oh, and we saw Gene Hackman’s house.”

  “Really? That’s pretty cool.” She wiped some tomato sauce from her cheek.

  “Yeah,” Bob said. “I bought one of those Maps to the Stars homes.”

  “What we saw,” Klaus said in a clarifying tone, “was a tall hedge purporting to be in front of Mr. Hackman’s estate.”

  Bob held out his hands and said, “Why would they lie?”

  Klaus just shook his head and looked toward the ceiling.

  Mary said, “So what’s next?”

  “Tomorrow,” Klaus said gravely, “we will go back out, risking our lives to check fifty randomly selected traps. If they have worked, and if we do not get killed in the process of checking them, we will remove the old ones and replace them with fresh traps.”

  Mary smiled and said, “Oh, that reminds me.” She jumped up and went to the kitchen, returning with a paper sack which she tossed to Klaus. “I got you something.”

  Klaus pulled the Groucho Marx glasses from the sack and flashed a narrow, sarcastic smile in Mary’s general direction.

  “No need to thank me,” she said, holding up her hands. “I just hate to see you worry so much about being recognized.” She wiggled a finger at him. “Go ahead, see if they fit.”

  Klaus put them on just as Katy walked into the room, carrying some papers. She skidded to a stop, looked at Klaus, and said, “Yeah, that’ll work.”

  “Hey, Doodlebug,” Bob said. “Whatcha got there?” He reached for the papers but she pulled them away.

  “Okay,” Katy said. “I’ve got it all figured out.”

  “What?”

  “How to con Riviera.” She looked at her dad. “And you’ll be glad to know there are no teeth or fingers involved. In fact there’s no dismemberment of any kind.”

  Agent Parker set his pizza down and wiped his hands, saying, “So, talk to me.” After a moment of silence, he noticed the other adults looking at him in a damning fashion. He seemed unfazed. “Hey, outta the mouths of babes and all that,” he said, turning to Katy. “So, give.”

  Katy shook her head. “Not until I get a number.” She pointed at Agent Parker, then Bob. “From both of you.”

  “A number of what?”

  “And I want it in writing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My cut,” Katy said. “I figured if I came up with a workable plan, I should get a cut of the proceeds from both sides. It seems fair. And I’m not talking about some lame increase in my allowance.”

  Although no one noticed, Father Paul had turned his head slightly, as if to listen.

  Figuring there was little chance that Katy had actually conceived of a viable plan, they cut her in for a million each. After getting it in writing, Katy held up the documents and said, “Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking…”

  Chapter Eighty-five

  “Are you crazy?” Mary sputtered for a moment before she blurted, “That would cost a fortune!”

  “Well, duh,” Katy said, having anticipated her mother’s objection. “There’s always costs involved. But you gotta spend money to make money. Somebody said that once.”

  “And where is all this money coming from?”

  “The back end,” Katy said.

  “The back end of what?”

  “Guh! Back end points,” Katy said. “Don’t you guys ever watch Entertainment Tonight? Profit participation, like they do in the movies. Instead of paying some big star twenty million up front to be in your movie, you promise a percentage of the box office. Points,” she said. “You can get people to do anything in this town for points.”

  Agent Parker shook his head. “I hate to be the one to say this, but it just might work.”

  Katy did a little two-million-dollar dance.

  “Plus I can provide a helicopter,” Parker said. “No charge.”

  “Don’t encourage her,” Mary said. “She —” Out of the corner of her eye, Mary noticed Father Paul moving. He was standing up very slowly as if being lifted by a power other than his own. She said, “Father? You okay?”

  Father Paul’s head tilted back as he raised his hands to the heavens and said, “Behold, I will send Elijah before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

  God’s instructions, it turned out, had finally been revealed to Father Paul. He staggered forward, reaching for a side table for support, knocking it over, shattering a ceramic lamp on the floor. He began to tremble and choke and his hands went to this throat.

  Bob and Mary got to him just before his legs gave way. They eased him to his knees, brushing the ceramic shards aside. They laid him down on the floor where he lapsed into a sudden and violent seizure. Mary saw blood where the nylon cord was tearing his skin. She looked up at Katy. “Get something to cut this.”

  “Be careful,” Klaus said. He and Agent Parker watched with misgiving as Katy came from the kitchen with a knife.

  “Hold him still,” Mary said. “I don’t want to cut his wrists.” Bob tried to steady him as Mary worked carefully to cut the nylon.

  Father Paul’s eyelids fluttered like a pair of moths and he began smacking his lips.

  “Maybe it’s epilepsy,” Bob said, trying to pin him down as the seizure grew more intense.

  “Got it!” The cord cut, Father Paul’s arms flailed wildly, catching Mary on the side of the head, causing her to drop the knife and careen backwards.

  Klaus and Agent Parker went for their guns but, by the time they were drawn, Father Paul had the knife at Bob’s throat. “Drop the guns,” he said. “Everybody calm down. I don’t want to hurt him.”

  Klaus and Agent Parker eyed one another, then slowly laid their guns on the floor.

  “Katy, you too,” Father Paul said softly.

  She seemed embarrassed, looking at her feet, she said, “I left mine in my room.”

  “All right everybody, hands up,” Father Paul said. He pressed the knife slightly to Bob’s throat. “Stand.” The two of them got to their feet.

  Klaus said, “What do you want?”

  “Three things,” Father Paul said. “First, let me help. Second, I want a cut of the proceeds. Third, I want a slice of that pizza.”

  “Okay,” Agent Parker said. “And exactly how do you propose to help?”

  “If you want to do this right,” Father Paul said, “you’re going to need a prophet.”

  Chapter Eighty-six

  “Be sure to tune in tomorrow,” Winston Archer said. “We have a very special guest coming in. An embattled defender of this nation, Mr. Joshua Treadwell will be joining us. We’ll be talking about everything that’s been going on in Los Angeles, the bugs, his work with the Department of Defense, and his fight with the lib-brull media which has attacked him on the issue of his faith.” Winston shook his head, pressed his hands together, and looked to the ceiling.

  He then turned to camera two and said, “Now let’s talk about this most recent business out in Holly-weird. Last night, a sound stage at one of the film studios burned to the ground.” He paused a moment to give an exaggerated frown.

  “Awwww,” the audience said.

  Winston dabbed the corner of his eye with a tissue. “Naturally, the lib-brull press blamed it on—can you guess?—that’s right, they blamed it on Christians who have gathered there lately in response to everything that’s going on.”

  “Booooo.”

  Archer nodded like a bobbl
e-head before continuing. “Now, were there eyewitnesses? No. Did anyone confess? Of course not. It’s as if these people want to give us even more evidence of their lib-brull bias,” he said.

  “Amen, Archer!”

  “It’s no big loss, if you ask me,” he said. “It’s just a building. But here’s the question: Is the lib-brull media looking into the possibility of insurance fraud?” He shook his head. “I doubt it, not when they have their favorite villains to blame. Seriously, friends, if you ask me, it seems far more likely that the liberals burned it down themselves so they could blame their enemies. It’s a common tactic. But is the lamestream press exploring that angle?” He shook his head somberly. “No. And why? Because they’ve got to stay on message, and the message is, Christians are dangerous.”

  “Amen, Archer!”

  He held his hand up to quiet the audience. “Now, I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: what’s dangerous is Holly-weird. The whole lib-brull entertainment industry—everybody from the music industry to television to film are all out there pushing the radical homosexual agenda—they’ve infected this nation for too long.”

  The audience broke into fevered applause, as if they believed they could resurrect the Pax Network by slapping their hands together hard enough.

  “Holly-weird has always been anti-Christian,” Archer said. “Well, except for our buddy Mel Gibson.” His wink drew more laughter from the audience. “These are the same limousine liberals who have been waging the War on Christmas, forcing all that ‘Happy Holiday’ crap down our throats like Aunt Lulu’s fruitcake! Well, I tell you what, if they want a war, somebody should give it to them. I mean, wouldn’t it be something if Holly-weird was simply torn down and remade in His image? Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “Amen, Archer!”

  Chapter Eighty-seven

  They stayed up past midnight poking and prodding at Katy’s plan, looking for weak spots. But aside from the pure nuttiness of the thing, they couldn’t find a good reason not to try it. Klaus got in touch with Audrey, the Hollywood costume designer, and asked her to help. She said she knew exactly who to call. Bob spoke to Traci Taylor who also got on board.

  The next morning Mary and Agent Parker were on the phones, telling vendors what they needed and negotiating the terms.

  Father Paul nibbled cold pizza and worked on the script.

  Klaus was waiting for Bob, standing at the door in his Groucho glasses. Bob kissed Mary on the top of her head and said they’d be back as soon as they finished checking the traps. He slipped a vial of the Rapture into his shirt pocket in case any of the traps needed more bait. He was reaching for a piece of the pizza when his cell phone chirped.

  It was Professor Lang.

  Bob listened for a minute, his expression growing serious. “You sure? Okay, we’ll check it out.” He paused. “Yeah, I’ve got something in my truck. I’ll call you when we get there.” He flipped it shut and said, “They got a call on the hot line. Some guy walking his dog on a fire road near Stone Canyon says he saw what looked like a nest of the bugs.”

  “A nest?” Klaus seemed dubious.

  “That’s how he described it,” Bob said. “Like a breeding colony.”

  “Does that seem possible?”

  “First time in the wild, who knows? But I figured we’d bring some ethylene chlorohydrin just to be safe,” Bob said on his way out the door.

  Twenty minutes later, Klaus was steering the rented cargo van along a winding road in the hills above Los Angeles. Bob was consulting his map, occasionally looking out the window for landmarks. They passed a paver-stone driveway with a double gate. Bob pointed excitedly and said, “I think that’s Ben Stiller’s house.”

  “You mean his driveway,” Klaus said.

  “Okay, fine, the whole thing is one big fraud.”

  “No,” Klaus said. “Just a small one. Katy’s is a big fraud.” He smiled like a proud uncle, thinking about her crazy plan. “Now, where is this fire road?”

  “Keep going,” Bob said. “About a quarter mile up, take a right.”

  They turned on the wide dirt road and stopped at the Park Service gate. Bob hopped out and found it was open. Klaus drove through, and Bob got back into the van. “Looks like somebody cut the lock,” he said. “Probably kids on dirt bikes.”

  Half a mile later they came to a bend in the road. Ahead they saw a man, Hispanic, wearing jeans, a white guayabera, and a two-tone straw cowboy hat. He was leaning against a car parked in the shade. He held up his hand as if expecting them. “I guess that’s our guy,” Bob said.

  And in a sense, it was. Several days ago Sergio Esparza had to make a choice. He could stand for hours in airport security lines while his fellow travelers argued about whether their hand lotion should be X-rayed or confiscated, then face more delays and hassles with U.S. Customs agents at LAX before having to go out and find someone in Los Angeles willing to sell him a gun. Or he could sashay across a virtually unguarded border carrying the weapon of his choice.

  After arriving in San Diego, Sergio rented a car and drove to Los Angeles. Once there, however, he didn’t have much luck. It was one hell of a big city, and none of his contacts had a clue where to look for Bob and Klaus now that they’d been declared fugitives.

  But two days ago, while standing in line at Pink’s Hot Dogs reading La Opinión, Sergio caught a break. An article about his targets, the killer insects, and the recall of the Rapture. It said an entomologist from UCLA was working with a couple of local experts to trap the deadly bugs. Having followed the bug story since the attacks at the after-parties, Sergio was willing to bet that Bob and Klaus were the experts. He called the hotline several times to report bug sightings, but they always sent college kids to deal with it. So Sergio decided to up the ante, concocting the story about a colony of the things.

  Klaus parked behind the man’s car and got out, dust swirling all around. A couple on horseback moseyed by as Bob and Klaus stood there, taking in the view. It was a clear day. From their vantage point, they could see most of the L.A. basin. They could see smoke rising from a sound stage burning in Hollywood and another one down in Culver City. A talent agency was going up in flames on Wilshire Boulevard. The office of a record label in Santa Monica smoldered.

  Bob walked to the back of the van and took the stainless steel spray tank. He pumped up the pressure, attached the long spray wand, then strapped the tank to his back. He grabbed a few traps and the small glass tube containing the pheromone. He handed the traps to Klaus and approached the man in the hat. “You called about the bugs?”

  “Sí.” Sergio nodded and pointed down a path. “Down there,” he said. “I will show you.”

  As they followed him down the slope Klaus got a funny feeling. He looked over his shoulder at Bob and said, “Why would the bugs be this far from a residential area?” The nearest houses were half a mile down the hills.

  Bob thought about it and said, “Maybe somebody wearing the fragrance jogs up here or, better, maybe someone came up here to throw theirs away. Just chunked it into the weeds, hit a rock. Two ounces on the ground could draw a bunch of bugs, might look like a nest.”

  “Maybe,” Klaus said, but he didn’t believe it. A couple of things still bothered him. First, Klaus had noticed a bar code on the window of the man’s car, marking it as a rental. Second, the man who called the hotline said he had been walking a dog. So where was this mutt?

  “Over here,” Sergio said, leading them further into the scrub where they couldn’t be seen by anyone on the fire road. He pointed down the path, behind a fallen tree. Then he stepped aside so Klaus and Bob could pass him.

  Klaus stopped and shook his head. He didn’t like the idea of a stranger behind his back. This was a trap.

  “What’s up?” The moment Bob asked the question, he sensed the sudden change in everyone’s body
language. He tensed, knowing something bad was about to happen. He just wished he knew what.

  Sergio didn’t like the look in Klaus’ eyes. That’s what set him off. He could see the man was suspicious, and he knew he was dangerous. Sergio decided it was now or never. He took another step backwards while making the telltale reach, his elbow going up and out while his hand went for his waistband.

  Klaus shouted, “Gun!”

  The three men drew their weapons at the same time. Two pistols and a spray wand.

  Sergio didn’t have time to think about it, all he could do was react. He could tell Klaus was reaching for a gun so he decided to shoot him first.

  The two guns fired simultaneously as Bob brought the spray wand up and let fly with a full blast of the ethylene chlorohydrin.

  Klaus staggered backwards, eyes wide in shock. He pitched awkwardly down the hill, tripping over, and disappearing behind, the fallen tree.

  Sergio turned, firing a second shot at Bob. But, blinded by the powerful pesticide dripping into his eyes, his aim was nothing to brag about. Sergio spit and sputtered as he squeezed off a couple of a wild shots before stumbling into the chaparral, stabbed by the sharp leaves of the yucca plants that seemed to grow everywhere. He groped his way past manzanita and greasewood, hoping to find cover. By the time he squatted behind a large scrub oak and pried one of his red eyes open, neither of his targets was anywhere to be seen.

  By now Bob had unstrapped the spray tank from his back and was pressed to the trunk of a mountain-mahogany. In the flash of chaos he hadn’t seen whether Klaus had been hit. He yelled for him, but there was no reply. Bob didn’t know if that meant the worst or if Klaus just didn’t want to give away his position. He could hear some movement in the scrub but he didn’t know who it was or where they were going.