Tijuana Donkey Showdown

by Adam Howe

  When Walt had finished, Gooch was silent for several long seconds.

  Finally he said, “Run that past me again.”

  “What part?”

  “The part where Reggie’s hanging hold of a donkey’s cock.”

  “I know how it sounds, Randy-Ray.”

  “Nope, I don’t think you do.” Gooch said, “So let me get this straight …

  “Old man Grabowski’s dead, and the fellas what done it, they’re holding Harry Muffet hostage at his car dealership, say they’ll kill him if they don’t get back the drugs that they smuggled inside a sex mule.”

  “Donkey,” Walt said.

  “I stand corrected.”

  “But that’s about the size of it, yeah. Fucking Reggie, huh?”

  “Yeah, fucking Reggie …” Buoyed, no doubt, by the capture of his nemesis, Gooch announced, “Alright. Here it is. Walt, you and Reggie can breathe a big of sigh of relief, because the lawman’s back in town and he’s on his fucking way.”

  2.

  * * *

  Shelby floored the truck through town towards Harry’s Pre-Owned American Auto. Riding bitch, I emptied Shelby’s Gladstone medicine bag and replaced her tools with the bricks of coke from the grain sack. Gizmo was down in the footwell, nuzzling my ankles like he was trying to decide which foot to start humping first. His ordeal had done nothing to dull his libido. Maybe I was wearing provocative socks? Before his foreplay went any further, I fetched him from the footwell—he gave a thwarted yip!—and put him in the medicine bag on top of the coke. He bared his snaggleteeth and snarled at me. I shoved his head down inside the bag and snapped the clasp shut. His muffled yipping echoed from inside the bag.

  Shelby gnawed her bottom lip. “This goes against all my principles.”

  “He’ll be fine,” I assured her. “By now he’s probably getting used to it.”

  And as if on cue, the dog stopped yipping. “See?”

  But I could tell she still wasn’t sure.

  “You know you don’t gotta do this, Doc. You could just drop me off.”

  My heart skipped a beat as she actually considered my token gesture.

  Then she shook her head. “And have your death on my conscience?”

  I grinned at her. “Hell, there’s no sense in us both dying.”

  “Let’s leave the pep talk there, shall we, Levine?”

  She’d dropped the ‘Mister.’ I called that making progress.

  “You looked pretty handy with that pistola back there,” I said. “Is that something they taught you at—what’d you call it—Vets Without Borders?”

  I wasn’t about to embarrass myself by attempting to say it in French.

  “Something like that.”

  “What is that exactly?”

  “You’ve heard of Doctors Without Borders?”

  “Of course,” I lied. What can I say? I read Ring magazine, not Newsweek.

  “Well, it’s similar.”

  That left me none the wiser; fortunately she clued me in.

  “We were stationed at a village in Kenya—”

  “Africa,” I blurted out.

  Like a fucking idiot.

  As if to a child, she said: “Kenya’s in Africa, that’s right.”

  I needed to claw this one back. “They gotta lotta pets out there, huh.”

  “They’re starving, Levine. We were helping farmers raise sustainable livestock.”

  I decided to keep my fucking mouth shut.

  “One day, we received word a motorist was stranded on the plains. My team leader and I went out there with gas and tools, and a gun, because you never knew. It turned out the ‘motorist’ was an ivory poacher. His 4x4 had crapped out under the weight of the load he was carrying. The back of the truck was piled high with bloodstained elephant tusks, some of them hacked out of babies, no bigger than walking canes.

  “The sonofabitch knew who we were, and that it wasn’t in our remit to do a damn thing to stop him. He leered at me like I imagine the men at your club leer at the dancing girls, and said: ‘Have I died and gone to heaven?’

  “Not quite. I laid into him with the butt of my pistol. By the time my team leader dragged me off, I’d knocked out nearly all of the bastard’s teeth.”

  She sounded like she regretted having missed a few.

  I said to Shelby, “Poached a little ivory your ownself, huh?”

  That earned me my first genuine Shelby smile. It was so beautiful, I almost forgot about Coogler waiting for me in Harry’s rusting automobile graveyard.

  “By mutual consent,” Shelby said, “it was decided I should come home to the States.” She paused. In a softer voice, said: “We didn’t do a damn bit of good out there.”

  “Well …” I said, “maybe we can do some good tonight.”

  Shelby gave me a steely nod.

  Then she glanced at the literal doggy bag in my lap, frowned, and continued driving in silence.

  3.

  * * *

  Arriving at the dealership, Shelby pulled the truck through the front gate, and we proceeded at a crawl towards Harry’s office at the back of the lot. On either side of the wide central lane were banks of used-cars. On every car windshield was a sales sticker with a smugly smiling caricature of Harry. A battalion of smirking Muffets watched as we continued towards the Airstream trailer. The web of tacky plastic pennants, roped above the lot, rasped eerily in the wind like playing cards in cycle spokes. Moored to the roof of the trailer, the balloon Harry loomed above us like an inflatable giant, slowly nodding his head in the breeze. The only light came from Shelby’s headlights, and the gleaming guillotine of the waxing moon in the starry night sky.

  Coogler and Billy were waiting for us on the court outside the trailer. I should’ve known better than to hope Billy would still be comatose. The black Toronado was tucked alongside the trailer. The horsebox had been removed from the back of it. Coogler and Billy didn’t need it anymore. They hadn’t wanted Enrique, only what was inside him.

  “What’s wrong with the little guy?” Shelby asked me.

  “Oh, I shot Billy in the eye with a tranq gun loaded for tiger.” She looked like she regretted asking. “It was after they’d killed Grabowski. Self-defense, Doc. Scout’s honor.”

  We climbed from the truck. I left the medicine bag on my seat, praying Gizmo wouldn’t start yipping and give the game away. I propped Walt’s shotgun in the footwell, and then stood near the open door where it was within easy reach.

  Billy was clutching his revolver by his side, giving me the hairy eyeball with the eye he still had left in his skull. A crude cotton patch covered his right eye. The right side of his face, where I’d shot him with the tranq gun, was drooping as if he’d suffered a stroke. A rope of drool dangled from his twisted lips. His right arm was gimped, the hand a gnarled claw.

  Looming beside Billy, Coogler had his stumpy shotgun threaded through the front of his belt. The chrome death’s head belt buckle grinned above his crotch. He was holding a lighted road flare in his fist, spewing smoke and red sparks as he waved it about like a kid with a sparkler.

  A few paces from Coogler, Harry stood imprisoned within a tower of tires that were stacked from his feet to his chin, the cream filling in a Swiss roll. Empty jerry cans lay around the base of the tires. Harry and the tires had been drenched with gasoline. Fuel pooled around him like a flammable moat.

  Harry’s face was battered and swollen. His mustache was matted with so much blood it looked like a giant scab above his lip. A cotton patch covered his right eye, matching Billy’s; it was as if they were starting some strange new fashion movement. Coogler and Billy—the sonsofbitches—must’ve gotten Old Testament on the poor bastard, took an eye for an eye.

  Harry saw me and started sobbing. He was just about the sorriest sight I’d ever seen in my life. With a surge of anger, I said to Coogler: “What the hell, man! We’re here ahead of time. You said you wouldn’t hurt him.”

  “I don’t remember saying that,” Co
ogler said. “I do recall telling you to come alone.” His eyes flicked to Shelby. “Who’s the cunt?”

  To her credit, she didn’t flinch. “I’m a doctor,” she said. “Does anyone need medical attention?”

  Billy motioned with his clawed hand to the palsied right side of his face.

  “Wugga fugga dink?” he slurred, saliva slopping from the side of his mouth.

  I glanced at Coogler. “What was that?”

  “Damned if I know,” Coogler said. “I’m still getting used to it.”

  Billy took a deep breath and tried again.

  “What. Do. You. Fuck. Ing. Think?”

  Shelby took a step towards him. “I could take a look—”

  “Uh-uh!” Coogler said. “Let’s just everyone stay where they are for now.”

  I said, “How about you, Harry? You okay?”

  Harry sobbed, “They scooped out my eye with a fucking coffee spoon!”

  Coogler winced at Harry’s shrill voice. “Kinda wish we’d taken his tongue.”

  Then he said to me, “You got something belongs to me.”

  “In the truck.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  I threw a here-goes-nothing glance Shelby’s way.

  Then I started reaching inside the cab—

  “Nice and slow,” Coogler said, inching the flaming flare towards Harry.

  With a glance at the shotgun in the footwell, I gripped the Gladstone medicine bag by the handle, trying not to betray the extra weight it contained as I lifted it off the seat, and then held it up for Coogler to see.

  “Walk it over here,” he said.

  “Let Harry go first.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, palooka! Walk it over here!”

  Coogler thrust the lighted road flare towards Harry.

  Harry’s eye bugged in terror and he turtle-tucked his head inside the gas-soaked tower of tires. “Reggie!” His voice echoed from inside the tires. “Do what he says, man!”

  I dropped the bag at my feet, crossed my arms in defiance.

  Coogler shook his head in exasperation. “You are one stubborn sonofabitch.”

  “Stubborn as a mule …” I said. “Or a jackass.”

  A smile cracked Coogler’s lips. He drew the flare away from Harry and the tires. “How is the jackass?”

  “He’ll live,” Shelby said.

  “You know, I’ve never seen that before,” Coogler said. “I mean, I’ve seen some fucked-up shit in my time, but I ain’t never seen a man get dragged by a donkey-cock before.”

  I shot a sheepish glance at Shelby.

  “What’s he talking about?” she said.

  “Nothing,” I assured her. “He’s crazy—”

  “Reggie Levine …” Coogler crooned in a low, purring voice.

  When someone says your name like that, like he knows your deepest darkest secrets, it’s never good.

  “Harry here’s been telling us all about you, Reggie …

  “But I knew I recognized your dumbass face from somewhere. When Billy and me was back in the pen—” Somehow I doubted he meant Penn State. “We read all about that skunk ape thing.” He cackled. “Tell me something: What kinda fucking moron mistakes a monkey for a monster?”

  “You had to be there,” I said. “While we’re pointing fingers, reminding me what a dope I am—not that I’m arguing—you mind if I ask you a question?”

  He gave a let’s-humor-this-asshole smirk. “Shoot.”

  “Dude …” I chided him. “Who mules drugs in a donkey? Really?”

  To Coogler’s credit, he looked a little embarrassed.

  “Yeah, well. That’s what happens when you delegate. I left it to Billy to arrange the mule. I figure, how hard could it be? Turns out, real fucking hard. Cuz Billy took what I said a little too literal. Next thing I know he’s arranged for this veterinarian we met at a Brotherhood dogfight—one of your local boys, Edgar Dubrow—to have the jackass freighted from T.J. to Grabowski’s. Billy says he’s sorry; he tried, but he couldn’t find a mule. I say to him, ‘Billy, you dumb shit! I meant we use a beaner to mule the coke, someone no one’s gonna miss when we cut him outta the deal!’” Coogler glared at Billy. “I didn’t know better, I’d think Billy didn’t want his operation, tried to screw the deal on purpose.”

  “Operation?” I said.

  Coogler scissored his fingers, snip-snip.

  Billy winced, shuddered, bowed his head.

  “We’re back in the straight world,” Coogler said. “Ain’t like the joint. Feels kinda faggoty I keep fucking Billy in the ass.”

  “So you fellas are jailhouse sweethearts?”

  “Gotta problem with that?”

  “Hell, no. It’s the twenty-first century. You’re both consenting adults.”

  Billy stifled a sob, and I wondered how consenting he really was.

  “Soon as Billy has his operation,” Coogler went on, “I’m gonna make an honest woman outta him.”

  “And they say romance is dead.”

  “After that, the two of us are gonna fly straight,” Coogler said. “I always wanted to own my own coffee shop,” he admitted with a wistful smile. Then the smile disappeared: “But now thanks to you, Billy’s operation’s gonna have to wait. The money we make on the coke’s gonna pay to get Billy’s face fixed.” He looked at Billy and shuddered. “I mean: Would you fuck that?”

  “If I’m honest,” I said. “I’ve done worse.”

  Coogler laughed, despite himself.

  “Alright …” he said. “Billy. Go get the bag.”

  Billy hesitated. “Whumee?”

  “Bitch,” Coogler hissed at him. “You’re making me look bad—Go!”

  Billy gave a heavy sigh and started hobbling towards me like a pistol-packing zombie. “Gunk goo fugga moob,” he warned me, or gibberish to that effect.

  I toed the medicine bag across the ground towards him.

  Thinking: Alright, Gizmo … Showtime. So far the dog was playing his part to perfection; I hadn’t heard a peep from inside the bag.

  Billy crouched down awkwardly in front of the bag. He frowned. Couldn’t figure out how to unclasp the bag with his claw, while keeping his gun trained on me with his able hand. He slapped his claw at the bag pathetically.

  “I could hold the gun for you?” I offered.

  “Shuggafuggugg!”

  “Billy,” Coogler called impatiently. “We good?”

  Billy set the revolver on the ground by his feet. Using his claw to hold the bag still, he undid the clasp with his able hand, and then wrenched the bag open—

  Gizmo sprang from the bag like a snaggletoothed jack-in-the-box, sinking his fangs into Billy’s nose. Billy screeched, the dog dangling from his nose like a monstrous wriggling booger. It was all the distraction I needed. Snatching the shotgun from the truck, I scythed the stock across Billy’s jaw, dropping him cold to the ground. Before Coogler torched the tires and roasted Harry alive, I fired the shotgun. The blast struck him in the chest, hurled him back against the Airstream, still clutching the flare in a death grip. Coogler crumpled to the ground, smearing blood down the trailer, a look of sheer disbelief on his face. I ditched the shotgun, and then I slung my arm around Shelby’s dainty waist and pulled her roughly towards me. “Oh, Reggie …” she gasped, melting in my manly embrace. I mashed my lips against hers and her sensuous tongue pushed into my mouth and we kissed; long, deep and hungry.

  That’s how I’d pictured things panning out.

  Especially the bit about Shelby’s sensuous tongue.

  Instead, what happened was Billy opened the bag and cried, “Ew! Whugga fugg!” He flailed with his claw and knocked the bag on its side and an avalanche of white powder spilled across the ground. The plastic wrapping around the bricks of cocaine was torn to shreds. Gizmo fell stiff-as-a-board from the bag. His snout was bloody. His eyes were big as hubcaps. His teeth were bared in an insane rictus. The dumb mutt had chewed through the plastic, devoured five bricks of uncut cocaine like it was
powdered Scooby Snacks, and OD’d.

  Shelby let out a cry of horror.

  I stammered: “Doc, I had no idea—”

  Coogler shouted at Billy, “What the fuck’s going on?”

  “Degg ragg!” Billy shouted back.

  “What?”

  “Dead! Rat!”

  Then Coogler saw the spilled cocaine, and he roared: “Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em both!”

  4.

  * * *

  Billy lurched for the revolver. With a sweep of my foot, I kicked the pile of coke in his eye like a bully at the beach kicking sand in the face of a wimp. Now blind in both eyes, his face frosted with white powder, Billy let out a cry and staggered back, choking and spluttering. I jacked an uppercut to his jaw. He collapsed in a jellied heap, cracking the back of his skull against the asphalt as he landed next to Gizmo’s corpse. He was out cold—hell, maybe even dead—but I wasn’t taking any chances; I kicked the revolver beyond his reach and it skittered away across the court.

  “Billy!” Coogler cried.

  He wheeled towards Harry to fling the flare—

  Shelby drew her pistol from the back of her jeans and fired, striking Coogler high in the shoulder and spinning him like a top. The flare dropped from Coogler’s hand and landed dangerously close to the gasoline moat around the tower of tires. Coogler pulled his shotgun and fired back at Shelby. She took cover behind the open driver’s-side door of the truck. Coogler’s shot peppered the metal and shattered the glass. Shelby was knocked to the ground as if yanked by an invisible rope, falling from view behind the truck.

  Then Coogler whipped the shotgun towards me. I leapt for cover behind the bank of cars to my right. Unable to vent his fury on me, Coogler kicked Harry’s tower of tires over. The tower toppled to the ground with a heavy thud. Gasoline sprayed from the tires and splashed across the lighted flare. The moat of gas ignited with a woof of flames. But the tower, with Harry still trapped inside it, was already rolling away down the sloping court, and fast gathering speed. A shark fin of fire sizzled behind it, pursuing the tower as it rolled down the lot, spraying gasoline in its wake. Harry’s head poked from the end of the tires. “Reeeeeeeeeeggieeeeeeeeee!”