"You know, detective, the gun's not helping much."
"It's helping me. Shut up and drive."
"Where're we going?"
"Just shut up and drive. I'll tell you where to go."
"Just trying to make conversation here. We're going for a nice drive out in the country, might as well be sociable."
It was a weird goddamn thing to say to a guy holding a gun to your head. But Nunn thought the more he talked to the guy, the less likely he was going to put a hole in his head. It seemed like a long a shot, but it was all he had.
"You do this kind of thing often? I mean, this kidnapping and murder thing. Me? The opportunity never comes up. I guess if I had to, I could pull it off. But it seems very stressful, especially if you're a cop too. Would you like to sit down? How about something to drink? There's some beer in the fridge."
"Shut up."
So much for trying to get him to talk. Nunn drove in silence.
The detective pointed with his pistol and said, "Take the next exit."
It was the last exit before the bridge over the river. Nunn eased the RV off the highway and they drove through a small town on the river bank. Wiley told him to drive south.
Nunn did, driving down a winding road along the river.
The destination was a bluff overlooking a sharp bend in the river. By the time anyone found the RV in the drink, Wiley figured he'd be long gone and Nunn and the woman with the lopsided tits would be the victims of a tragic accident.
"Turn here," Wiley said. "Across that field."
Nunn drove slowly over the grass, stopping when he reached the edge of the bluff.
Fuck, he thought. This looked like a very good spot to dispose of a couple of bodies.
"Hell of a view from here," Nunn said, looking out over the moonlit scene, the river cutting through the countryside. "It really is pretty. This is a great spot. I can see why you brought us here. That over there, that's called Turkey Hill. I don't know why. Turkeys live there, I guess. Sure is pretty…"
"Would you shut the fuck up," Wiley said.
"Just trying to make conversation," Nunn said.
"It's not doing you any good," Wiley said. "In fact, it's pissing me off."
Nunn thought that perhaps trying to talk to the cop wasn't such a good idea. Some people just don't like small talk.
Smith killed his lights and kept his distance as the RV stopped by the cliff. He parked on the side of the road and got out of the car, watching the RV. Something was very wrong. He held his Glock 9mm tight against his thigh while he crept toward the RV. When he was close enough to see inside, he spotted a figure standing over the driver's captain chair. Nunn was sitting in the chair. He couldn't make out who was standing over him, but he could see the gun. That complicated things.
Smith made his way to the RV's door and leaned against it, holding his gun in both hands, breathing deeply and steadily. He'd had the gun for years, but never had had the opportunity to use it. He had hoped he never would have had to use it. He didn't relish the idea of going Rambo on someone's ass.
He had no idea what to do. Something would come to him.
He pressed his ear to the door. He heard voices, but couldn't make out what they were saying.
Didn't matter. Nobody was talking his way out of this.
Nunn gave it one more shot.
"I don't think this is such a good idea," he said. "I'm sure something like this, it'd be a black mark on your record. I'm sure it'd go into your permanent file. I would think your bosses would frown on this kind of shit. I mean, really, this is not exactly what you'd call serving and protecting."
Wiley was still thinking his plan through. He'd knock the guy out. The woman was out so he didn't have to do anything to her. He'd slip the RV into gear and leap out the door as it plunged off the cliff. The cops would chalk it up to a terrible accident. The guy whose house had been bombed was trying to flee and drove off the cliff by accident. Nice and neat.
Then, after the RV plunged into the river, Wiley would…he would…what the fuck would he do? He was in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, and he didn't have a car.
Shit, he thought.
He was deep in thought when Nunn interrupted.
"Didn't think it through, eh?"
Jesus, this guy was really starting to bug him.
"I mean," Nunn said, "we're out here in East Jesus or some shit and you have no way home. You can't just dump us out here and take off in the dead guy's RV. It's not the most inconspicuous vehicle in the world. Hell, it's the size of a house. Someone will see it. I've got to tell you, this is some nice fucking plan you came up with here. If you'd asked me before, I might have said something, might have tipped you off, given you some ideas, you could have changed plans, but no, it's too late. You're fucked."
That was it. Wiley couldn't think with this guy jabbering. He whacked the back of Nunn's head with butt of the .38.
"Fuck!" Nunn said, rubbing the back of his head. "What the fuck did you do that for? That really fucking hurt! Asshole!"
Jesus, Wiley thought, every time they pistol whip people on TV or in the movies, they lose consciousness immediately. What was wrong with this guy?
He pistol whipped Nunn again.
"Goddamn it, asshole! Shit! What the fuck?" This was a lot harder than TV or the movies led him to believe. The third time was a charm. Nunn saw starbursts and then everything turned white, eventually fading to black.
Wiley stuck his gun in the waistband of his pants and started dragging Nunn from the captain's chair. He was so occupied by the task, he didn't hear the door open behind him.
"Jesus, this fucker's heavy," Wiley said.
He felt the barrel of a gun pressing against the back of his neck.
Fuck, he thought.
He dropped Nunn, who slid off the chair and under the wheel.
Wiley started to speak. But before he could get a word out, the butt of the Glock came down hard on the base of his skull.
Starbursts and then everything turned black.
Nunn awoke to Smith slapping his cheeks. He thought he was dead and that Elvis was slapping him back into consciousness, that he had finally gone to see The King. He had expected his life to flash before his eyes, but it didn't. He was glad for that because there were large parts of his life he really didn't want to see again.
Smith looked at his eyes. A little glassy, but otherwise, Nunn seemed OK.
Nunn blinked. It wasn't Elvis. It was that Smith guy. He was alive and would have felt more grateful for it if it weren't for the throbbing in his head.
Smith asked, "Who the fuck is this guy?"
"Some cop."
"A cop? Are you serious?"
"Yeah," Nunn said, rubbing his head. "Some detective. I forget his name."
Papa was feeling pretty good.
Nunn was dead, finally. Before the night was up, Smith and Spew would be gone. That just left Wiley on his list of loose ends. He was already working on that. Within 24 hours, he figured, his life would be a lot simpler. Then, it would be just a matter of time. The money would roll in and he could blow this shithole of a town.
Maybe move to the Cayman Islands. Or Costa Rica. Someplace warm. With a beach.
He walked into The Happy Beaver and smiled at Santonio Roethlisberger Polamanu and said, "Good night?"
Polamanu had never seen Papa smile before. He was a little scared. He tried to say something, but all that came out was a high-pitched croak, a noise that sounded like someone stepping on a mouse.
Papa gave him a quizzical look and kept walking, past the bar and down the hallway to his office. He walked around the desk and gently lowered himself into his chair. Damn, he said, he'd have to tell Mistress Teresa to take it easy with the riding crop next time.
There was a knock on the door and Soshi entered.
"Just wanted to let you know I had to send the sociologist home early because she got into a fight with the investment bankers. Something about her dis
respecting her breasts."
Even that couldn't harsh Papa's buzz.
"So it's been handled?"
"I suppose. You might want to talk to the investment bankers about making snide remarks about other dancers' tits. It's poor manners."
"OK."
Soshi was halfway through the door when she turned and said, "Oh, and by the way, Walt stopped by earlier. I think he was looking for you."
Papa froze.
"Walt? He's supposed to be dead."
"I guess he didn't get the memo."
Papa slid down in his chair and looked at the ceiling.
"Fuck me."
A few hours later, Wiley woke in the grass by the cliff. His head felt like he had been skullfucked by a rhinoceros. He sat up slowly and rubbed his neck. He looked around. The RV was gone.
"Fuck me."
He reached for his cell phone to call a cab or, failing that, some cop who owed him a favor, to take him back to the city. His phone was gone. He patted all of his pockets. His wallet, gun, badge, car keys – all gone.
He fell back onto the grass and closed his eyes.
"Fuck me."
Smith stopped at a convenience store outside of town. Nunn pulled in behind him. He needed to think. But first, he needed to find a place where they would be safe. Nunn's house clearly wasn't safe and he had to assume his house wouldn't be either.
He went to the pay phone mounted on the wall and dialed a number. He had already memorized it. Kathy answered on the second ring.
"Hi."
"Hi, yourself," she said, her voice groggy.
"Can I come over?"
"Do you know what time it is?"
"Uh, no. It's late. Or early, depending."
"What's going on?"
"I'll tell you when I get there."
"OK. My apartment isn't much to look at, though."
"It'll be fine. And if you don't mind, I have some people with me."
"Of course you do."
"See you soon."
"I hope so."
Chapter Eleven
It always looked so easy in the crime novels and the movies, coming up with a plan, an elaborate scheme to extricate your sorry ass from a doomed situation. At this moment, in Kathy's living room, with Kathy, Nunn and Traci looking on, that's what Smith had to come up with.
"OK," he said, "here's what we're going to do."
Kathy, Nunn and Traci leaned forward.
"When Spew gets here."
"Yes," Nunn said.
"We get in the car."
"Uh huh," Traci said.
"And we get the hell out of here."
"OK," Nunn said.
Kathy, Nunn and Traci remained leaning forward, paying rapt attention to Smith. "And?" Nunn asked. "And what? That's it. That's the plan," Smith said. There was a beat of silence.
"Are you serious?" Nunn asked. "I mean, I had a fucking cop trying to kill me. A fucking cop! And I remind you, we have Papa after us. He can call up a goddamn legion of badasses to come after us, the kind of people who will rip our arms off and beat us to death with them. Christ, have you ever watched Fat Sam eat? Imagine what that fat ass is going to do to us. Jesus, he's eaten people. Papa is going to hunt us down until he draws his last breath, or the end of time, which will probably come first. And that's the best you can come up with?"
Smith was a little embarrassed. He should have been able to come up with a better plan, one that involved taking vengeance on Papa for trying to kill them and ended with everybody living happily ever after. And unicorns and rainbows were going to flow from his ass, he thought.
"I didn't say it was a great plan," Smith said. "It'll get us out of danger, for the time being. Then, we can figure out what to do."
"That's a hell of a plan, dumbass," Nunn said. "Jesus, you're the career criminal here. Can't you come up with something better than that? I mean, Jesus…"
"I may work for the guy," Smith said, "but I'm no career criminal. Hell, you're the first guy Spew and I ever tried to kill."
"And how'd that work out, Einstein?" Nunn asked.
"Pretty good for you, I'm guessing."
Nunn's anger deflated. Smith had a point.
Kathy interrupted, "You boys can argue all you want later. Right now, let's try to focus."
She turned to Smith and said, "So what you're saying is the plan is to leave here, go somewhere else – we don't know where – and come up with a plan when we get there, wherever that is."
Smith thought about it a second.
"Well, yeah, I guess so."
"All righty then," Traci said. "It sounds like we have a plan."
Spew packed some things in his duffel bag – a coffee can full of homemade plastic explosive, his last few sticks of dynamite, a handful of blasting caps, a timer, some fuses.
He moved quickly. The clock was ticking.
He gazed around the room, trying to think of anything he might have forgotten. He looked on the floor next to his bed, thought about it for a second, and then snatched up the Wonder Woman comic book and shoved it into the bag.
He slung the bag over his shoulder and crept downstairs.
"Shane, is that you?" Grandma Spew called from her bedroom.
Spew froze on the steps. Busted.
"Yes, Grandma. Go back to sleep, OK?"
"Will you let Buster out? He's been scratching at the door."
"OK, Grandma."
He continued down the stairs and headed straight for the front door. He already had an escape plan. Stick to the alleys. Stay out of sight. He was wearing his camo. He wished he still had his night vision goggles.
He opened the front door and stepped onto the porch, where he came face-to-face with the fattest human being he had ever seen.
"What the fuck…" he started to say.
The fat guy had a gun, a .38 that looked like a toy in his ham sized fist, pointed at Spew's face. He nodded toward the curb, where a big, white Cadillac sat.
The fat guy pushed Spew toward the car. Spew started toward the passenger side door. The fat guy poked him with the .38 and pointed the gun toward the back of the car.
"Not the fucking trunk," Spew pleaded.
The fat man nodded. A smile crept across his face.
Yes, the fucking trunk.
Sunrise was still merely a rumor when Wiley began trudging to the closest town. He had thought briefly about knocking on the door of one of the farmhouses or trailers or country-fried shacks that looked like the world headquarters for some white trash neo-Nazi organizations. They all shared one unifying trait; they all flew Confederate flags and had "No Trespassing" signs that had either a silhouette of a double-barreled shotgun or a dog with teeth dripping blood.
It was a long walk, but the journey would be much more difficult with a face full of buckshot or a chunk of his ass digesting in the belly of a pit bull.
So he walked.
It gave him time to think. He was fucked. He was seriously fucked. He was stupendously fucked. He was fucked to the point where getting unfucked was beyond any human comprehension. Albert fucking Einstein could not unfuck him.
Having time to think, he thought, was vastly overrated.
He made it to the small town by the river as the sun was starting to burn off the morning fog. His feet hurt. His legs hurt. His head hurt. And those were the least of his problems.
He found a convenience store and looked for a pay phone. Finding none, he walked to a gas station by the onramp to the highway. No pay phone there. Finally, he found one on the wall of a strip mall, between the liquor store and a payday loan joint.
He dialed a number, calling collect. The person answering the phone paused before accepting the charges. His luck, the asshole would have refused the call and hung up. That would have been consistent with how fucked he was at this moment.
"We got a problem," he said when the call went through.
"No fucking shit," Papa bellowed. "You wouldn't believe how fucked we are."
"I thin
k I have a pretty good idea."
Smith paced the living room, glancing at his watch every few seconds as if his gaze had the power to speed up time. Where the fuck was Spew?
Nunn and Traci were sleeping on the couch, leaning against each other. Kathy was curled in an oversized chair. She was wide awake. She marveled at Nunn and Traci. How the hell could they sleep at a time like this?
Smith paced. He glanced at his watch. He paced some more. He glanced at his watch. He paced.
"Will you sit the fuck down? You're driving me crazy."
Smith stopped. He looked for a place to sit. Finding none, he sat on the floor.
A long minute passed. Smith could hear the ticking of his watch. He was counting the ticks.
"OK," he said, getting up and resuming his pacing, "new plan."
Kathy raised an eyebrow.
"I hope it's as good as the old one."
Smith ignored the crack and continued, "Here's what we do: We all get in the RV and go find Spew."
"And?"
"That's it. That's the plan."
"Have to hand it to you, that beats the hell out of the old plan."
Fat Sam had just pulled from the curb when his cell phone rang.
He flipped it open and grunted into it.
"Sam, I need you to head out toward the river and get Wiley."
Fat Sam grunted.
"When I say, 'Get Wiley,' I mean pick him up."
Fat Sam grunted again.
"OK? Pick him up and bring him back here."
Fat Sam grunted quizzically.
"I mean…" Jesus, Papa thought, I'm surrounded by retards. None of these fucking people know what the hell they're doing. It was discouraging.
"What I meant, Sam, was pick him up and give him a ride here. OK?"
Fat Sam grunted.
Spew, wedged in the trunk behind his duffel bag, heard Fat Sam grunting. It sounded like the guy was taking a dump in the car.
Maybe he was better off in the fucking trunk.
They piled into the RV. Nunn sat behind the wheel. Smith wanted to drive, but Nunn insisted since Smith had never driven an RV.
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