This Wicked World

by RICHARD LANGE

  Olivia nods.

  “Now, come Tuesday, there’s two cars, ours and theirs,” Taggert continues. “Two cars, two people in each, no guns. That’s the setup. They’ve got one million in funny money, we’ve got $150,000 of the real stuff. They come down from the 15 on the dirt road, we come up from the 40, and we meet in the town.” He taps the dot. “An old post office, a couple of abandoned houses. No people, not for years. Just snakes and shit. So we meet there, make the exchange, then they drive out the way we came in, and we go out the way they came in. Done deal.”

  Olivia examines the map. She can’t believe that Taggert is giving her so many details and wants to come up with something that’ll show him she’s on the ball. “What’s to stop them from coming in with twenty guys and a whole bunch of guns?” she says.

  Taggert smiles. “Aha!” he says, then leans over and makes two new dots at both ends of the dirt road, where it intersects the freeways. “We’ll have a guy here, where the road meets the 15, to check their car, and they’ll have someone down at the 40 to inspect ours. If everything’s cool, our guy calls to let us know. Same with their guy and them.”

  He sits up and rubs the dirt off his finger with his thumb, then sips his Dr Pepper.

  Olivia continues to stare down at the map. The plan seems awfully complicated. “What’s wrong with meeting in a parking lot somewhere?” she says.

  Taggert shrugs. “Benjy said they’re paranoid as shit about surveillance cameras and that this is the way they do things in Mexico. He said if I want in, it’s how it’s got to be.”

  “Well, I don’t like it,” Olivia says.

  “The way I look at it, they’re taking as big a chance as I am,” Taggert says. “They don’t know me from Adam either. We’re all going into this with our dicks hanging out.”

  “Is it worth the risk?” Olivia asks.

  Taggert nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. I’ve tucked my tail too many times, missed out on big scores because I was too goddamn cautious. This one’s mine. I want it, and I’m going to get it. Now that doesn’t mean I’ve got my eyes closed. At the first sign of anything fishy, I’m out. These guys seem like the real deal, though, and you know what, fuck it, I’m the real deal too.”

  Olivia picks up the blouse from her lap and begins sewing again. Her mind’s not on the task though; it’s just something to get her hands moving. Her heart is pounding as she says, “So what’s my part in it?”

  “Not this one,” Taggert says.

  “But you promised.”

  “I did not.”

  “You said —”

  “I said I’d see if there was somewhere we could use you, and I’m sorry, but there isn’t.” He reaches over and squeezes her knee. “Something’ll come along soon, though, I promise.”

  Olivia’s disappointment instantly, uncontrollably swells into rage. She digs her nails into her palms and swallows hard.

  Taggert sits there drinking his soda and staring out at a dust devil whipping across the yard. All kinds of junk is caught up in it — a Doritos bag, newspaper, part of a NO TRESPASSING sign. Olivia watches him watch the swirling column.

  When the dust devil passes, Taggert turns to her and says, “What’s that you’re doing there?”

  “Fixing a rip,” she replies.

  Holding out his hand, he says, “Let me see.”

  She passes him the blouse. He squints at her handiwork, then remembers his glasses on the chain around his neck and puts them on.

  “This is all fucked up,” he says. “Didn’t your mom teach you anything?”

  Olivia doesn’t reply. She’s got to hold back, not come at him with her claws out. Taggert reaches into his pocket for his knife and uses it to tear away her awkward stitches.

  “Gimme the thread,” he says. She hands it to him, and he unspools a length, runs the end of it through his lips and rethreads the needle in nothing flat. “Amazing, the shit you pick up in the joint,” he says as he sets to work on the blouse.

  When she can’t control herself any longer, Olivia says, “I could go with you to the ghost town. All that’s gonna happen is a few bags changing hands.”

  Taggert looks at her over the top of his glasses and says, “It’s not gonna happen, babe. These Mexicans are macho motherfuckers, and they don’t let their women get involved in their business. They’re just waiting for me to fuck up, and I can’t be throwing curveballs our first time out. Maybe later, when they trust me more, you can ride along, but not this time. No way. Put it out of your head.”

  He resumes sewing.

  Olivia is so angry, she has to work hard to draw a breath.

  The man’s such a fucking liar. Tears sting her eyes, and she barely manages to get out, “It’s always going to be something, isn’t it?” without sobbing.

  “Look, if this is about you having your own money, I’ll start paying you for all the stuff you do around here,” Taggert says. “Cooking and cleaning and everything.”

  Olivia springs to her feet and says, “I don’t cook, Bill. I don’t clean. All I do is fuck you. Is that what you’re going to pay me for?”

  Taggert looks up at her pleadingly. “Please, babe, not tonight,” he says. “I got all these people coming and everything.”

  Olivia can’t stand looking at his ugly face any longer, can’t talk to him. She runs into the house, slamming the door so hard, the window in it cracks. Across the kitchen she goes, down the hall and into the bathroom, where she presses a towel to her mouth to muffle her screams of frustration.

  16

  BOONE WORKS THE DAY SHIFT AT THE BAR, THEN GETS on the road about six, headed east on the 10, after throwing an extra shirt and a toothbrush into a backpack and leaving the key to his bungalow with Amy so she can feed Joto. Off to visit an old Marine buddy, he tells her. The real deal is, he’s going to find Taggert’s place this evening, sleep somewhere in the Olds, then approach the guy tomorrow morning, have a little chat about dogs and such, see if he can shake anything out of him.

  Traffic is heavy all the way to Pomona. Boone watches the sun sink lower and lower in the rearview mirror and listens to what passes for country music these days on the radio. He’s nervous about what lies ahead, can’t stop tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

  L.A.’s sprawl dries up somewhere past Banning, giving way to ugly scrubland and wind-scoured hardpan. Boone pushes the Olds to eighty-five as he zips past the outlet malls, the Indian casino, then drops into the Gorgonio Pass. The two tallest mountains in Southern California rise straight up from the desert to scrape the purpling sky on either side of the freeway, San Gorgonio to the north, San Jacinto to the south.

  The hundreds of towering high-tech windmills arrayed in martial ranks on the surrounding hillsides and plains whirl silently, transforming the energy of the ceaseless wind into electricity. They’re ominous in the half-light of dusk, a new species freshly risen from the sand pausing to gather strength before marching to the sea.

  A mile or so past the turnoff for Palm Springs, Boone leaves the 10 and drives north on the 62, which passes through Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree before becoming the main street of Twentynine Palms. The little town is sandwiched between Joshua Tree National Park and the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, the largest Marine base in the world, home to ten thousand jarheads and their families. It doesn’t look to Boone that it’s changed much since he and his unit came out here for war games when he was a grunt: the same barbershops offering cheap high and tights, the same tattoo parlors, the same fast-food restaurants, the same joyless cinderblock bars.

  He pulls into a gas station to buy provisions for his car camp-out. A chime ding-dongs when he walks through the door, and the clerk, a ravaged old speed freak with a homeless tan and no front teeth, waves and calls out, “Hi, howdy, how you doing?”

  The only other customer is a heavyset Indian woman pushing an empty baby stroller and wearing a T-shirt with the American flag and an eagle on it. She and the clerk talk about someone
named Dodo, who just went to jail, while Boone picks up a bottle of water, two cans of Red Bull, a couple of Snickers bars, and two tuna sandwiches sealed in triangular plastic containers. That should get him through the night.

  “And I’m gonna fill up on pump eight,” he says to the clerk after the man rings up his purchases with trembling hands.

  “Going rock climbing?” the clerk asks. A red USMC baseball cap is perched atop his greasy gray hair.

  “Not this time,” Boone replies.

  “They got great rock climbing in the park,” the clerk says. “Folks come from Germany, Japan, San Francisco.”

  “Fucking idiots,” the Indian woman says. “You got a dollar for me, man? Something?”

  “Goddamn it, Martha!” the clerk shouts. “Do not beg from the customers!”

  Nope, things haven’t changed much. Boone picks up the bag containing his supplies and says, “You two have a good evening.”

  The chime sounds again when he walks outside. The first stars are blinking in the sky. He flinches as something flits past his face. A bat, on its way to feed on the insects swarming around the station’s lights. Martha comes out of the store while he’s pumping his gas. She walks to the side of the building, hikes up her dress, and squats to pee.

  THE MEN BEGIN arriving for the dogfights, their trucks and SUVs throwing up rooster tails of dust as they haul ass on the dirt road leading to Taggert’s spread. Taggert sits on the patio with T.K. and Spiller and greets his visitors with handshakes and backslaps. A bunch of rednecks mostly, a few Mexicans, one black dude.

  Before they showed up, Taggert pulled Virgil aside, pressed a couple of hundreds into his hand, and said, “You’re working tonight. Miguel’s going to be busy with the dogs, so you’ll be making drinks and anything else I need you to do.”

  Virgil felt like telling him he was nobody’s nigger but held his tongue. He doesn’t want any trouble on his last night here.

  “Virgil,” Taggert calls now from the yard, where he’s admiring a dog in a portable kennel in the back of a pickup. “Bring old Stank a beer.” Stank, a fat, red-faced man in a cowboy hat, is the dog’s owner.

  Virgil gets up from his chair on the patio and walks to the cooler. Spiller is flipping burgers on the grill. “When you’re done with that, I need more buns,” he says.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Virgil replies.

  T.K., sprawled on the car seat, says, “And then you can come over here and scratch my balls.” He and Spiller laugh uproariously.

  Virgil ignores them. He wonders what’s wrong with Olivia. He hasn’t seen her since this afternoon. When he asked Taggert about her, he said she was asleep, not feeling too good. They must be fighting again, because she was fine earlier.

  Virgil claws a can of beer out of the ice and carries it to Stank.

  “Thanks, son,” the cowboy drawls around a mouthful of Red Man.

  “Look at this dog, Virgil,” Taggert says, motioning him to the truck bed. “What’s his name again?” he asks Stank.

  “Super Trooper.”

  Virgil bends to look into the cage. Inside, a tan pit bull with a black muzzle chews contentedly on a dried pig’s ear.

  “He’s in the first bout tonight,” Taggert says. “You should lay some of that cash I gave you on him. He’s pretty much a sure thing.”

  “Maybe I will,” Virgil says. It makes him uneasy, Taggert being so nice to him now after ignoring him completely since lighting him up with the laser sight.

  Stank spits a big brown gob and scrapes dirt over it with his boot. Another man in a cowboy hat walks up and says, “Bill, where you keeping the whores tonight?”

  “You’re shit out of luck,” Taggert says with a laugh. “Your sister never answered the phone.”

  Someone turns up a car stereo, blasting Guns N’ Roses.

  “Put some real fucking music on,” Stank yells.

  Virgil walks to the patio and is about to sit down when Spiller says, “Hey, man, I told you I need buns.”

  “Sorry,” Virgil replies. He lets the screen door slam behind him on his way into the kitchen.

  EVERYONE MOVES DOWN to the barn a little before eight. It’s hot inside, steamy, even with a pair of big industrial fans going full tilt. Sounds are amplified in the cavernous space — the raucous banter of the men, the barking of the dogs — and Virgil has to strain to catch the orders shouted at him at the makeshift bar. He hands two beers to a couple of heavily tattooed bikers. The drinks are free and nobody’s tipping, so he’s not working too hard.

  There are four bouts tonight. The first is between two forty-pound dogs, Stank’s Super Trooper and Buck, a grizzle mix breed. The spectators gather around the plywood pit, and an old man in sunglasses and a Cubs cap works the crowd, taking bets.

  “Who’s next?” he shouts.

  “Fifty on Buck,” someone shouts back.

  “You got it, baby. At three to two.”

  Virgil waves to attract the tout’s attention and bets one of Taggert’s hundreds on Super Trooper at two to one. Easy come, easy go. He stands on the workbench to get a better view as Stank carries the dog into the pit and sets him in his corner, facing the wall. Buck is brought in next, and men in the crowd shout for their favorites.

  The referee, a Mexican with a long white goatee, stands next to the pit and yells, “Face your dogs.”

  Stank and the other handler turn the dogs so that they can see each other, gripping the animals tightly with their knees.

  The dogs struggle to break free, eager to get to it. A high-pitched scream rises from deep in Buck’s throat, and Super Trooper barks once.

  Virgil leans in as the referee shouts, “Let go!”

  The handlers release the dogs, and both animals charge hard to meet in the center of the pit in a tangle of teeth and fur. Buck clamps onto Trooper’s ear and shakes hard, but Trooper ducks and manages to get a hold on Buck’s front leg and flip him onto his back.

  The dogs remain in this position for a minute or more — Trooper on Buck’s leg, Buck on Trooper’s ear — not making a sound, not moving except to tighten their grips. The crowd yells at them to fight, fight, for fuck’s sake fight.

  Buck makes a sudden grab for Trooper’s nose and bites down on it. Trooper releases Buck’s leg, which allows Buck to spring to his feet. He moves from Trooper’s nose to his throat, gets a mouthful of loose skin, and Trooper takes hold of his ear. The dogs roll over and over joined this way, like some broken beast sprung from a nightmare.

  Buck winds up pinned on his back against the wall of the pit. Thrashing wildly, he’s able to grab Trooper’s hind leg and take him to the carpet. Trooper, on his back now, clamps down on Buck’s hind leg, up in the thigh area.

  Again the dogs are locked in a stalemate. Buck gnaws on Trooper’s leg, and Trooper gnaws on Buck’s. Both dogs are breathing hard. Their eyes roll, and thick strands of bloody saliva dangle from their quivering jaws.

  “Come on, Trooper,” Stank yells, clapping his hands to encourage his dog. “Come on, boy.”

  A minute passes, three, five. The crowd grows more boisterous. Supporters of both dogs trade insults, and two men come to blows at the edge of the pit and are quickly separated. Dust kicked up by the spectators rises into the air, which has the primal tang of blood and whiskey. It’s both thrilling and terrifying to watch the dogs act on savage instinct, a heady brush with an earlier time, a rawer state. Virgil feels like he’s buzzed on some new drug. He stomps the workbench and whistles as someone yells, “Fight, you fucking curs.”

  Men drift to the bar for drinks during the lull, and Virgil hops down from his perch to serve them. Then a shout goes up, and all eyes swing to the pit. Virgil climbs onto the workbench again to see that the dogs have finally separated. Buck charges in and bites Trooper’s chest, but Trooper wriggles out of it and takes Buck’s hind leg again, shaking him hard, punishing him. Buck quails and tries to pull away.

  In his attempt to flee, Buck turns his head and shoulders away from Trooper, and th
e ref shouts, “Turn! Handle your dogs.” Stank and the other handler rush to the combatants. The men scoop up their animals, carry them to their respective corners and face them to the wall. Stank pours bottled water into Trooper’s mouth, and the dog’s tongue flaps greedily.

  After a twenty-five-second rest, the ref calls for the handlers to bring the dogs around so that they’re once again facing each other. The animals aren’t as fiery as they were at the start of the bout. Both look tired, and Buck is bleeding from a wound on his hind leg and another on his snout.

  Because he turned, Buck must now prove that he’s still willing to fight, or the match will be stopped. A strip of duct tape on the carpet — the scratch line — divides the pit diagonally in two. In order for the bout to continue, Buck must cross this line within ten seconds on his way to engage Trooper.

  “Let go!” the ref shouts, and Buck is released. The dog races across the pit without hesitation, favoring his injured leg only slightly. As soon as he passes over the line, Stank releases Trooper.

  The dogs slam into each other and swap holds, Trooper grabbing Buck and Buck shaking him off, Buck grabbing Trooper and Trooper shaking him off. The exchange continues for some time, triggering a new round of betting, the favorite being whichever dog is on top at that particular moment.

  Suddenly, Buck is down with Trooper clamped to his throat. Trooper shakes his head, tearing through flesh and muscle. A jet of bright red blood shoots into his eye as he hits an artery, but he doesn’t let go.

  Buck’s handler hurries over and kicks Trooper in the ribs in an attempt to back him off.

  “Foul!” Stank bawls.

  “Foul!” the referee echoes.

  Stank charges Buck’s handler head down, like an angry bull, and knocks him on his ass. A spectator leaps over the plywood wall into the pit to swing at Stank. The two men square off and exchange awkward, flailing punches to the delight of the crowd. Virgil adds his shouts to the chorus and flings his half-empty beer into the pit.