The Warlord w-1

by Jason Frost

  "We'll just follow the sound," Rydell instructed. The generator hummed loudly, but with all the music and noise it was hard to gauge a direction.

  "Why don't we just follow the wires?" Season suggested, pointing up at the wires running to each trailer and home.

  "Some physicist I am," Rydell said.

  They crawled along the backs of trailers, behind houses, through the dark unkempt yards, their eyes fixed on the wires strung sloppily overhead. Finally they discovered the source. A small wooden shack between two trailers.

  The loud rumbling inside left no doubt and Tracy put her hand against the wooden wall. "I can feel the vibrations. This is it."

  "Okay," Rydell said excitedly. "Let's kill the lights."

  Suddenly a loud click echoed behind them. The unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.

  26.

  Savvy smiled, his feet propped on his desk, twitching in their alligator leather shoes. "You were right. The girl did the trick. No pun."

  "Of course, Salvadore."

  Savvy frowned. "That's Savvy."

  Dirk Fallows grinned. "Of course, Savvy. That's why we let her escape this morning. We knew they'd find her or she'd find them. The rest was easy."

  Cruz lumbered across the floor, his shoulders hunched from the short ceiling. The trailer rocked slightly with each heavy step. He flopped onto the leather couch and the trailer groaned in protest. "But you still didn't get Ravensmith." His tone was mocking.

  "I didn't expect to. That wasn't the plan. Eric is more a student of mine than he realizes. It would have been fatally naive of him to have risked his wife's and son's lives for a girl he didn't even know. Not at these odds. At least now we've separated him from his troops, not that they'd have been much help anyway against my men."

  Cruz snorted. "We'd have stomped the shit out of them."

  "What are you going to do with them now?" Savvy asked.

  Fallows shrugged. "You can keep them. As payment for playing your part so well. The women look fit enough for your kind of work. The man, well, kill him."

  "What about Ravensmith?"

  "I've sent some men south to make tracks for him to follow. In a day or two we'll-"

  "Where'd you get those fairy shoes?" Cruz interrupted, pointing at Savvy's feet. "I knew a nurse who wore shoes like that."

  Fallows was impatient. "What difference does it make?"

  Cruz stared at Fallows, his eyes darkly threatening. "'Cause I want to know. I get tired of hearing you talk about how clever you are."

  Fallows flashed a splendid smile, like a politician who's been drafted to run for the presidency. "Savvy?"

  Savvy smiled nervously, glancing back and forth between the two. "W-well, we tapped into a warehouse for some big department store. The Broadway. Sometimes I send Flex over in a wagon to bring something back."

  Cruz grunted. "Why the fuck would you want sissy shoes like that? They ain't any good for walking."

  "I don't walk much."

  "Yeah, I guess not. You got everything you need right here, huh? If you ever decide to get rid of that faggot Flex, let me know. I might be interested."

  "Uh, sure, Cruz. Right." He avoided Fallows' eyes.

  "Well, Cruz," Fallows said, his smile still intact. "If we've satisfied your sartorial curiosity, maybe we can haul ass out of here."

  Cruz thought it over, nodded his huge head, and rose.

  "I'll walk you out," Savvy said, less to be polite than to make sure they were gone.

  "Goodbye, Salvadore," Fallows saluted from the edge of town as he, Cruz, and Timmy Ravensmith marched into the night.

  Savvy didn't bother to correct him. He just smiled and waved and hurried back to the safety of his trailer.

  When the door closed behind him, he sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. His stomach was fluttering, his heart clattering like a teletype machine. He'd had to deal with some heavyweight executives in his tenure at Bambino Frozen Foods, but nothing like those guys. Cruz was a mean mother, like Flex only a hundred times tougher. But Fallows was worse. Icy stare, dead voice rumbling up from some tomb. Smart enough to plan anything, tough enough to make it work. Like Ravensmith.

  But, hell, so was he in his own way. Salvadore Pascalli from Sullivan Street. Too square to have his own nickname. Now he has a fucking town named after him, And bikers with goddamn tattoos following his orders. He laughed, remembering how he once walked out of a restaurant because the only available seat was next to a man with a tattoo.

  What was that going on between Cruz and Fallows? Something nasty. Cruz had been insulting. And Fallows had let him. It didn't figure. He'd seen Fallows with his men before, seen him break his own soldier's hand because he'd said a wrong word or didn't move fast enough. But what could you do with a man like Cruz? He was like those St. Bernards that are so obedient when they're young, but often go mad when they get older. You'd have to be mad to fuck with Fallows that way. But then you'd have to be mad to fuck with Cruz. The hell with it, he was just glad they were gone. Now they were Ravensmith's problem.

  Savvy opened the drawer and pulled out his tape recorder. He opened the second drawer and rummaged through it, piling objects on the desk while he searched:.32 Remington Model 51, a wad of hundred dollar bills he kept around for laughs, a switchblade that Flex had promised him had killed two people. Ah, there it was, a spare tape cassette. This was going to be the greatest damn autobiography of the century. He couldn't wait to see it in print. Tomorrow he was going to question the girls and see if any of them knew how to type. They might like the change of work, he chuckled. He might even send Flex and Lido out to dig up a typewriter.

  But right now he needed a title. Every day he thought about titles, trying to decide on a good one. One that had vitality and class. How about, Confessions of a Self-Made Man?

  He said it aloud. "Confessions of a Self-Made Man." Shook his head. Too… clinical. Passive. Hmm. "Island King. Island God. No, no. This Man Is an Island. Too Hollywood. Sounds like something starring Vincent Price." He stared at the desk, absently spun the gun like a top.

  Then there was an arm around his neck, a hand clamped over his mouth. Another arm twisting his head.

  "How about, This Man Is Dead?" Eric said.

  Savvy's left hand tried to pull Eric's arm away from his neck. His right hand tapped across the desk top, found the gun, closed around it.

  27.

  Flex sauntered down the street struggling to close the fly on his jeans. Damn things were always getting stuck, but it was hard to find thick Levis like this anymore. Someone had come in a couple days ago with blood in his piss and traded a pair for a visit to the infirmary. But he was a skinny son of a bitch and there was no way Flex would ever squeeze into them.

  He tried to tug the zipper up, tried to yank it down. It wouldn't budge. Damn, if only Savvy hadn't sent him away while Fallows and Cruz were there, then he wouldn't have dropped into one of the whore's trailers for a quick fuck, and he wouldn't be busting his ass trying to close his own zipper. He'd already forgotten which of the broads he'd visited, either the fat one with the mole on her tit or the old one with the gray pubic hair, but he could still smell her on him. He wrinkled his nose. He never had liked the way women smelled, even the clean ones.

  Each step brought another ache to his body. That bastard Ravensmith had really done a number on him.

  Caught him off guard. His nose was swollen, though the bleeding had stopped. But he could barely see out of his left eye. One of his front teeth was gone and a couple more on the side were loose. He was afraid to eat anything chewy for fear one might pop out. Damn zipper, move!

  He looked up just in time to see the flashing light bulb on the roof of Savvy's trailer. Immediately he forgot about his stuck zipper and ran down the street toward the trailer, clutching his gun in front of him. Those were his orders. Sometimes Lido or Greaseball or one of the others would ask how come Flex didn't just kill this Savvy guy so they could take over the town themselves. But th
at's why Flex was the leader of this gang, though Lido had been campaigning for it for years. Because Flex knew that Savvy may be a wop wimp, but he was still smarter than the rest of them. And these weren't the best of times to be throwing a gold mine like this town away just over who's in charge.

  He clattered up the wooden steps, pulled the trailer door open, and rushed in. "Fuck, man. I mean royal fucking A."

  Eric sat in the metal folding chair, his hands behind his back, a rope wrapped around his wrists.

  Behind the desk, Savvy leaned back in his chair pointing his Remington at Eric. "Son of a bitch tried to strangle me." He lifted his head, showed the bruises on his neck.

  "Want me to cut him or kill him or what?" Flex asked.

  "Neither yet. I want you to bring his friends here."

  "What for?"

  "Because they're too dangerous to keep around. I want to kill them all here and now. Except him. Him we trade to Fallows. After all, we're still in business." He laughed, which came out a nasal whine.

  "Okay." Flex started for the door, had a better idea. He walked over to Eric, hacked up some mucus, and spit into Eric's face.

  "Flex!" Savvy said anxiously. "We don't want him hurt. Fallows wouldn't like that."

  Flex thought of Fallows, felt a shiver of fear, nodded. "Right. But when I get back, I'm gonna take it out on your friends. You can watch, Slim." He tipped his cowboy hat and walked out the door laughing.

  Eric waited a few seconds before speaking. "Okay, Savvy, place the gun on the desk top. That's good." Eric shook the rope from his wrist; he'd wrapped it around his wrist, but hadn't tied it. With his hands free, he bent over to unfasten the string that he'd tacked to the bottom of his shoe and which ran to the crossbow trigger, wedged under Savvy's desk and pointing directly at Savvy's crotch. One sudden jerk of Eric's foot and the bolt would have sprung from the bow and into Savvy within the same second.

  Once the string was disconnected, Eric recovered his bow, removed the eight-shot clip from his pocket, and slammed it into the handle of the gun.

  "Now what?" Savvy said, his face suddenly very small and childish under that baseball cap. He looked the way others must have seen him at the office. Timid, conservative, pliable.

  "We wait."

  'Then what?"

  "We'll see."

  The wait wasn't long. Flex's gruff voice barking orders at the others carried crisply through the trailer walls. "C'mon, you scumbags. We're gonna have a little party. A going away party."

  Eric turned to Savvy and smiled. "Mum's the word."

  Savvy nodded, Eric sat in the metal folding chair, arranging it so he was facing the door, his hands hidden behind his back. His knife was gripped in his hand, while his crossbow leaned against the side of the desk, the side that couldn't be seen from the door.

  A shoulder bumped the door and it opened, spilling in Tracy, Rydell, Molly and Season,

  "Move in there, cunt," Flex said, booting Season in the buttocks. She lurched forward into Rydell, who caught her as she fell.

  "Eric!" Tracy's voice was a mixture of relief to see him, despair at his situation.

  Rydell looked sheepish. "Guess you were right, Coach. A sucker play."

  "Shut up, asshole!" Flex said. "Move over to the sofa."

  As they squeezed past him toward the sofa, Flex tilted his gun at the roof to make room. That's when Eric moved.

  The knife was poised waist-high as he dove between Molly and Rydell, elbowing both roughly aside. Flex caught the movement immediately, but his reflexes got the better of his thoughts. Because Eric was almost on top of him, it was a more economical motion to use the gun as a club rather than shoot it. With a loud crack, the barrel smacked into Eric's wrist, knocking the knife out of his hand.

  Eric grabbed Flex's gun with both hands, twisting it counterclockwise until it broke free from Flex's fingers and bounced off the wall. Flex snapped his knee toward Eric's groin, missed, tried again, caught him in the hip.

  Behind them, Savvy was reaching around the desk for Eric's crossbow. But Season and Rydell were on him too quickly. Season bent his arm behind his back while Rydell wrapped his hands around his throat and squeezed.

  Tracy had been knocked to the floor by a punch Flex had thrown at Eric but missed. Molly was scrambling on the floor for the gun, but it had fallen behind Flex and she couldn't reach it.

  "The knife, Molly!" Tracy yelled.

  Eric found it more difficult to fight with so many people inhibiting his movement. A missed kick or punch might kill Molly or Tracy. He felt Flex's stale breath in his face, the stubby thumbs digging at his eyes.

  Then Flex's eyes widened with surprise. His fingers went limp. He staggered backwards, stepped on the gun, tripped, fell against the wall. Blood pumped from the hole in his stomach, soaking through the thick, curly body hair, matting it even more. He put one hand over the hole to stop it. When that didn't work he changed hands, as if there was some fault with the first one.

  He looked down at the wound again, then at Molly's hands. They were empty. Slowly they turned to Tracy's hands. Both her hands trembled as they clutched Eric's bloody knife.

  "You killed me," Flex said as he sagged to the floor, his hands no longer bothering to dam the flowing blood. "You cunt." Then he died.

  "I guess he told you," Molly said, her voice toneless, like a telephone company recording.

  Eric turned to Rydell. "What about Savvy."

  "Passed out."

  "Okay, grab your weapons from over there. We won't have time to find your packs. We've got to get out of here fast."

  They scrambled to the wall next to the sofa where Fallows had dumped all their weapons. Molly slipped into her dart belts, tossed Rydell his quiver.

  "What about him?" Season asked, nodding at Savvy,

  "What do you think we ought to do?"

  "Kill him," Rydell said simply.

  "Now you're learning." Eric walked over to Savvy, frowned, felt the carotid artery for a pulse at the neck. "Except he's already dead."

  "What?"

  "Dead. You killed him."

  "I thought he'd just passed out."

  "Yeah, out of this life into the next. Which is where we'll be if we don't move. You did the right thing, now live with it the way we all do."

  "How?"

  Tracy answered, handing Eric his knife. "With regrets."

  Eric nodded at her, then abruptly turned to the others. "Fallows and Cruz are only forty minutes ahead of us. We can catch them this time."

  Eric opened the door a crack, waited until the road was clear, then hustled them all into the dark. They ducked behind the trailer.

  "We'll take the east road out of town, then cut south. There's too much activity at the south end of town."

  They nodded agreement and followed him around one trailer and onto the road, quickly jogging past another trailer where a crap game was in full swing, and another where someone was loudly demanding to examine the cards. When they finally made it to the edge of town, Tracy gasped suddenly and fell to her knees.

  "What's wrong?" Eric asked, kneeling beside her.

  "My God, Eric," she sobbed, hugging her stomach. "God, no!" Her hand shook as she pointed at the trailer across the road.

  Eric looked to where she pointed, felt an explosion in his stomach as powerful as if he'd swallowed a grenade.

  Pinned to the door was a long mane of dark hair, gathered into a pony tail and swaying in the warm evening breeze.

  Annie's.

  28.

  "Don't argue. Just do it!"

  "But, Eric-" Tracy pleaded.

  He grabbed her arm, his iron grip numbing her skin. "I mean it. All of you. I don't want your help here. I want the four of you to follow Fallows and Cruz. They're so close, I don't want to lose them. They may still have Timmy."

  "Okay, Eric," Tracy said.

  He loosened his grip, sighed. "Sorry. Just go. And don't lose them. And for God's sake, don't try anything with them. Wait for me."

>   "We won't," Rydell said.

  "Good luck," Molly said.

  Season pecked his cheek. "Me, too."

  And they were gone. Eric waited a few minutes before moving. There was a light inside, but a pink pillowcase covered the window. He circled the trailer once, then again, but there was no sound. Maybe he'd been mistaken? But no, as he passed the front door, saw the long, black hair, he knew it was hers. Stringy and dirty now, but Annie's.

  So Fallows had traded her to Savvy after all. That didn't surprise Eric. It was Timmy who Fallows really wanted, because he had never believed that the love between a man and a woman was very binding. Parents' love for children he could understand, "the ego of flesh" he'd called it in Nam. But man and woman? Temporary. "Disposable as toilet paper," he'd laughed.

  Eric readied his crossbow, lifting it to his shoulder with his right hand while his left hand reached for the doorknob. He glanced over his shoulder up and down the road. No one.

  Slowly he turned the knob and he was reminded of the night it all started. The intruder in the house. Eric watching the bedroom door opening. Annie, naked, trying to throw the electric blanket over his head.

  When the handle was turned all the way, he slammed his shoulder into it, somersaulted into the room, and rolled to one knee, the crossbow sweeping the room.

  "Welcome, Lieutenant," Col. Dirk Fallows said.

  "Eric," Annie choked out, her voice raspy and weak.

  He forced himself not to wince at the sight of her. The shaved head so pale like the underbelly of a frog. The sunken eyes, dark with strain. The hollowed cheeks. She sat on a wooden barstool, wrapped in a blue bathrobe.

  Next to her stood a giant Eric figured was Cruz. The short hair, heavy face, lizard's measuring eyes. Always measuring for death. He carried no gun, no bow, though he had a machete strapped to his belt. His arms were folded in a bored, contemptuous stare. Measuring.