Smith grabbed shotgun. Traci With an I sat in the back.
Kathy stayed behind. Smith thought she hadn't been associated with him yet and she would be safer staying out of this. It was bad enough they had used her apartment as a temporary safe house. He didn't want to get her in any deeper.
Kathy agreed, almost too quickly. She would be safer staying behind. But she wasn't planning to stay out of this business.
They drove toward Spew's house. It wasn't far. When Nunn steered the RV onto Spew's street, he almost hit a white Cadillac heading the other direction. Smith recognized the car. And he recognized the driver. It was hard to miss – a Caddy piloted by Jabba the Hutt.
Nunn saw him too.
"Fat Sam!" they yelled in two part harmony, Nunn taking the high part. Smith feared the worst. He imagined Fat Sam taking out Spew and then doing horrible and perverse things to Grandma. Fat Sam was a horrible and perverse person.
The RV skidded to a stop in front of Spew's house. Smith leaped out and ran to the front door, which was still ajar. He burst through the door, leading the way with his Glock in the traditional two=handed grip.
"Eddie! Are you boys playing cops and robbers?"
"Hello, Grandma Spew, is Shane home?"
"I haven't seen him. He might have taken Buster to the park."
"Mind if I look in his room?"
Smith bounded up the stairs and burst through the door to Spew's room, momentarily having a flashback to the last time he entered without knocking.
Fortunately, he didn't walk in on Spew pleasuring himself while fantasizing about Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, he wasn't there. Neither was the Wonder Woman comic book.
Smith ran out of the house, yelling "Bye, Grandma Spew" as he went through the door.
"Bye, Eddie."
Smith jumped into the RV and told Nunn, "Turn this thing around. I think Fat Sam has Spew."
Three blocks away, Fat Sam had pulled to the curb, wondering whether he should turn around and go after the RV. He was supposed to pick up Wiley, and before that, he was supposed to grab Spew. Papa didn't say anything about going after the RV if he happened to drive past it.
He drummed his thick fingers on the steering wheel. Papa was always saying he lacked initiative. But then again, Papa was also always saying he never followed orders and when Papa wanted something done, Fat Sam was to do it.
It was terribly confusing and he was finding it hard to think what with all of that muffled yelling coming from the trunk.
Fuck it, he thought, and wheeled the Cadillac around.
The RV careened down the street. It wasn't designed for high-speed driving on residential streets and Nunn wasn't the best driver. It was like driving a house down the street. At 70 mph.
Smith knew they were too late. They couldn't catch up to Fat Sam. But maybe, just maybe, Fat Sam was dumb enough to head to The Happy Beaver. He was counting on it.
Nunn whipped the RV around a corner, forcing the vehicle up on two wheels. It landed with a thud. He heard a sharp squeal from Traci come from the back.
"Hang on, Traci!"
He heard some pots and pans crash from a cabinet.
"Don't worry, honey," he said. "I'll get that later."
The RV sped up.
Smith saw it first. Heading toward them was a white Cadillac driven by a 450pound human slug.
The Caddy flashed past them.
"Turn this thing around. Now!" Smith yelled.
Nunn slammed on the brakes and wheeled the RV around. He drove up over the curb and took out a fence, a few mailboxes and a sign that said "Welcome to the Stambaughs."
He gunned the RV, sideswiping a Honda Civic as he pursued the white Cadillac, the engine groaning in protest.
"And you were worried about me driving this thing," Smith said.
Up the street, Fat Sam had slammed on his brakes, throwing Spew against the back seat, and whipped the Caddy around.
He gunned the Caddy, heading toward the RV.
The two vehicles passed each other again.
They both slammed on the brakes and stopped, separated by about half a block. And they sat.
"Well?" Nunn asked.
"Wait here. Let's see if he turns around."
Meanwhile, Fat Sam was watching the RV in his rearview, waiting for it to turn around.
They sat there for about a minute, a vehicular Mexican standoff.
Finally, Smith said, "Put it in reverse."
Nunn slammed the RV into reverse and barked the tires as the RV wobbled backwards down the street.
Fat Sam saw what was happening and threw the Caddy into reverse, heading straight for the RV.
Nunn locked up the RV.
Fat Sam did the same.
The two vehicles were just feet from each other.
Finally, Fat Sam thought, they want to follow me, let them. It'll be easier to keep track of them and he can lead them right to Papa, all wrapped up with a bow.
He gunned the Cadillac, making his getaway. He had to slow to a crawl while the RV turned around.
"What's he doing?" Nunn wondered.
"It looks," Smith said, "like he wants us to follow him.
"So let's follow him."
Chapter Twelve
Wiley was sitting on the curb in front of the liquor store when Fat Sam pulled up. Wiley hoisted himself from the concrete and walked, bent over, to the car. His back had joined the rest of his body in protesting its treatment over the past few hours.
As he opened the door, he noticed the RV, idling about a football field away.
"Motherfucker," he said, straightening up.
He turned to Fat Sam and said, "You know you have a tail? Those assholes in the RV that left me out here."
Fat Sam grunted and moved his head, indicating to Wiley that he should shut the fuck up and get the fuck in the car.
Wiley hesitated. He wanted to get his stuff back from those assholes in the RV. He hoped, at the very least, he could get his badge back and maybe his wallet. He figured he wasn't going to get his gun. Finally, after another annoyed grunt from Fat Sam, he eased himself into the passenger seat.
"So," he asked, "how's your day been going?"
Fat Sam pulled away from the curb and steered toward town. He didn't even acknowledge Wiley's query with a grunt.
"That good, huh? Let me tell you, my day…"
Wiley's voice trailed off and he wrinkled his brow as he concentrated on the muffled voice that seemed to be coming from the trunk. Thank Christ the trunk was occupied, Wiley thought, or he'd probably be riding back there.
"Who's in the trunk? Anyone I know?"
Spew wasn't all that uncomfortable in the trunk. These Caddies, he thought, have very spacious trunks.
He wondered where the fat guy was taking him. He was pretty sure it wasn't the zoo. This kind of trip, he thought, can't end well. The best he could hope for would be a quick end and a shallow grave. Unfortunately, Fat Sam looked more like the draw-it-out-with-excruciating-pain-and-stuff-the-body-in-a-55-gallon-drum-of-acid type of guy.
He needed to get out. He was sure he could figure something out. He was a Marine, for Christ's sake. Sure, he had been thrown out for being a fuckup, but still, once a Marine, always a Marine. Marines know how to do things. Charles Whitman, he remembered, had been a Marine and he was able to shoot a whole bunch of people in Texas before the cops iced him. All it takes is motivation, Spew thought. He had motivation, imagining his body dissolving in a drum of acid.
He rifled through his duffel bag and found the key that would get him out of the trunk.
As he fumbled with it, he uttered a small prayer.
"Please God, don't let me fuck this up. Just this once and I promise I'll stop whacking off to Wonder Woman."
"It's that cop. What the fuck is he doing with Fat Sam?" Nunn asked.
Smith didn't answer. It was pretty obvious.
"Just stay on his tail."
Nunn drove, hanging back a few car lengths, but that seeme
d unnecessary. The fat man knew they were following him and didn't seem to care. It was as if he wanted them to follow him. He was even using his turn signals and slowing down when the RV fell too far behind. Nunn tried to put himself in the fat man's position. He mused on it for a while before saying, "You know, he's got to be wondering: What the fuck are these idiots doing following me?"
Ahead, in the Caddy, Fat Sam watched the RV in the rearview mirror and thought, "What the fuck are these idiots doing following me?"
Wiley glanced back and saw the RV and said, "What the fuck are these idiots doing following you?"
Fat Sam grunted. Wiley interpreted the grunt to mean, "Beats the shit outta me, but it makes my job a shitload easier."
Fat Sam sure had a way with words, Wiley thought.
Kathy reported for her shift at The Happy Beaver, walking into the dressing room as the investment bankers were slapping bacon on each other's breasts.
"Bacon?" Kathy blurted.
One of the investment bankers said, "It's for our new routine, a tribute to commodities trading. Pork bellies."
The investment bankers originally wanted to pay homage to commodities trading by pouring barrels of oil over each other, sharing the idea with Soshi, who put the kibosh on it by informing them they would be responsible for any oil they spilled on the premises. "You ain't Exxon," Soshi reminded them.
They rationalized that pork bellies made the same point and, as an added bonus, guys like bacon. Put bacon on breasts and you have a combination that men would find impossible to resist.
"Very creative," Kathy said.
"Yeah, it took us forever to make these bacon G-strings. This stuff's hard to work with. It kept clogging up the sewing machine."
"Well, break a leg," Kathy said as the investment bankers headed to the stage to the opening cha-chings of Pink Floyd's "Money."
Smith hadn't wanted her to go to work. He wanted her to quit, reasoning that her boss wanted him dead and that could possibly lead to workplace issues for her. She said she would. But the more she thought about it, the more it made sense to report for her shift. Papa didn't know about her relationship with Smith. She wasn't even sure herself whether it was a relationship. She wasn't sure what it was. When all of this blew over, they'd need to talk.
And, she reasoned, she might be able to pick up valuable intelligence at the club, some information that might help Smith stay alive.
And she really needed the money.
As she undressed for work, some movement caught her eye in the hallway outside the dressing room. She looked over and saw two faces in the doorway. They looked identical – round faces framed by straggly hair, like extras from "Deliverance." They were smiling, revealing teeth that had fought a losing battle with meth addiction.
She heard Papa yell, "You morons, get in here. If you wait five minutes, you can see her naked ass out on the stage."
The heads ducked out of the door.
Kathy sat for a moment and then tiptoed to the hallway, taking a quick look toward Papa's office. The door was closed. She crept to the door and pressed her ear against it. She could feel the vibrations of Roger Waters' bass, wiping out anything that was being said in the office.
She returned to the dressing room. The sociologist stormed in a minute later, slamming her bag on the counter and kicking a chair.
"How the fuck am I supposed to follow that?" she asked. "Fucking bacon."
Spew's plan was pretty simple. Working in the dark, he was able to wedge a blasting cap into the trunk latch. He fished a nine volt battery from the bottom of his duffel bag and was poised to detonate the cap when he paused for a moment to think.
It was a rare moment. But he remembered what Smith told him about fucking up all the time and he sure as hell didn't want to fuck this up because if he did, well, he wasn't sure what would happen. All he knew is he would blow the trunk open and then whatever happened, happened.
He braced himself against the backseat, turning his back to the trunk lid. He had found a blanket that smelled like a wet dog – a wet dog that had been dead for several weeks – and pushed it up against the latch.
Here goes, he thought.
And he touched the wires to the terminals on the battery.
"What the fuck was that?" Nunn blurted.
"What the fuck was that?" Wiley blurted.
"What the fuck was that?" Fat Sam thought.
The blast caused the Cadillac to swerve sideways across both lanes of the highway. The trunk had flown open and was gaping. Inside, Spew rolled around the trunk, clutching his duffel bag.
The Caddy slid sideways across the shoulder, slamming against the guardrail. The impact threw Spew from the trunk. He landed in the tall grass beyond the guardrail, still hugging his duffel bag.
The Cadillac spun and came to a rest on the median.
The RV skidded to a halt, the door slammed open and Smith jumped out. Wiley saw Smith and climbed out of the Cadillac to pursue him. He was too slow. Smith had grabbed Spew and dragged him into the RV by the time Wiley was able to stand upright.
The RV took off, almost running over Wiley as it sped away.
The Cadillac threw up a rooster tail of dirt and grass and fishtailed onto the highway, pursuing the RV.
Wiley stood in the middle of the highway, watching the RV and the Caddy disappear around a curve.
"Fuck me."
Kathy knocked lightly on Papa's door.
"What is it?"
She opened the door and peeked in. The two hillbillies were sitting on the couch. They looked at Kathy with expressions of lust and confusion.
Kathy shivered, but tried to ignore their stares. She told Papa, "We have a problem."
After she took care of the stage rental issue and handled the dispute between the Greek doctor and the sociologist, Kathy had become the dancers' de facto representative in issues with Papa.
"We're done here," Papa said to the hillbillies, who continued to stare at Kathy.
"I said, we're done here."
The hillbillies turned their attention back to Papa.
"That means you two can go," Papa said. "Are we clear about what you guys have to do?"
The hillbillies looked kind of confused.
"What?" one of them asked.
Papa gave him a pleading look.
"What have we been talking about here?"
"Oh, that," the hillbilly said. "Yeah, we're good."
He stood and grabbed his twin, pulling him out the door. Kathy stepped aside and let them pass.
The trailing hillbilly tipped his Dale Earnhardt baseball cap and said, "Ma'am. Nice meetin' ya."
She watched them walk down the hallway, the lead hillbilly smacking the other one on the head, knocking his cap off. "Fuckin' dumbass," he said.
"What's with the Joad brothers?" she asked Papa as she sat on the arm of the couch. She didn't want to occupy the space so recently vacated by the hillbillies, fearing she would catch the inbreeding.
"Who?"
"Never mind. We have to talk. The sociologist slipped on a piece of bacon on the stage and bruised her coccyx."
"She has a coccyx? I didn't know she was a tranny."
Kathy closed her eyes and exhaled loudly.
"Coccyx? Tailbone?"
"So what's the problem? Tell her to put some ice on it and get back to work."
"That's easy for you to say. Have you ever tried shaking your ass with a bruised tailbone?"
"Can't say I have."
"Anyway, she wants to call OSHA to investigate this place for violations of federal workplace safety laws. I don't think you want that. I mean, the issues with the pole…"
"What does she want?"
"She's not sure. But the investment bankers are pushing hard for employer-provided health care and disability insurance. You know, they said what happened to Traci With an I could happen to any of them and then what? They'd be screwed."
Papa lowered his head to his desk and started banging his forehead. Not
much longer, he thought. Not much longer. He looked up and said, "Have the investment bankers send me a proposal."
"I'll do that," Kathy said.
Papa thought for a moment.
"Wait a minute. Bacon? Where the fuck did the bacon come from?"
Chapter Thirteen
"She was purty."
"Yep, she sure was."
"Real purty." The Hatfield brothers – Sid and Eddie – discussed the stripper as they rode in their pickup truck toward Green Acres. They figured that was the place to be. They were roofers by trade, but they spent more time pickling their brains with cheap beer at the roofers' bar in town than hammering shingles. The bar was like an employment agency for roofers. Contractors looking for roofers would stop by the bar in the morning and the ones who weren't too drunk and needed the money could get a job for the day. Typically, the Hatfield brothers were too drunk.
Sid and Eddie met Papa when he hired them to put a new a roof on the church. They did the work cheap – mostly because they ripped off the materials from a nearby construction site – and Papa was impressed with them. Well, he wasn't so much impressed as he was enamored with Eddie telling him they'd do anything for money, except certain stuff involving livestock. But if the money were right, he said his brother might reconsider the livestock ban.
Since then, Papa had hired the brothers to do some muscle work, nothing major. He admired their work, how they were able to extract payment from a recalcitrant dentist who had the bad fortune of being an Eagles fan using only a nail gun and a ball peen hammer.
"I think she liked me. Did you see how she looked at me?"
Sid had thought of nothing but the stripper since leaving the club. He was sure she was deeply in love with him.
"Looked to me like she was gonna throw up," Eddie said.
"That's love. Love makes you want to throw up. Sometimes."
"OK," Nunn said, watching the Cadillac. "Now what?"
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