This Wicked World

by RICHARD LANGE

Taggert reaches into his pocket for a cigarette lighter.

  Holding the Polaroid by one corner, he sets fire to it and watches it blacken and curl before dropping the charred remnants to the floor.

  So much for talking my way out, Boone thinks. On to plan B. Two guns, twenty-five feet to the door, half a mile or so to the car in the dark, no flashlight. It isn’t going to be easy.

  Taggert stands, raises a booted foot, and slams it into Boone’s chest, knocks him over backward.

  Boone’s head bounces off the floor, and his vision blurs. Three Taggerts stand over him, three boots move toward his throat. Taggert presses on his windpipe just hard enough to make breathing difficult and trigger a panic reaction in Boone when it seems like he won’t be able to draw enough air into his lungs.

  “I don’t have time for this shit,” Taggert growls.

  He lifts his boot from Boone’s throat and motions to his two goons, who each grab an elbow and yank Boone to his feet. Boone takes a deep breath and winds himself up. The next opportunity for escape that presents itself, no matter how crazy, he’s got to go for. It’s either that or die here tonight. He sees that now.

  Taggert jerks his head in the direction of the pit, and the goons drag Boone toward it.

  “Miguel, bring the dogs,” Taggert says.

  When the goons and Boone reach the pit, Taggert opens the gate so the goons can walk Boone into it. They all stand inside, on a square of bloodstained carpet.

  “Give Miguel a hand,” Taggert says to the goons. The black dude passes Taggert his Glock on his way out, and Taggert holds it at his side, ready to swing it up should Boone make a move.

  “Really, man,” Boone says. “I meant you no harm. Don’t make this uglier than it has to be.”

  Over at the cages, Miguel leashes a fawn pit bull and hands him off to the redheaded turd. The animal strains at the tether as the turd walks him to the pit. The black dude is close behind with a second dog.

  “Oscar died?” Taggert asks Boone.

  Boone nods. “Infection, dog bites.”

  “He should have put that cur down when I told him to,” Boone says. “Biggest mistake of his life, I guess.”

  “I guess,” Boone says, sounding more angry than he meant to.

  Taggert glares at him.

  The dogs enter the pit, and Taggert takes the leash of the third one from Miguel. He’s a big red one-eyed monster with fresh cuts on his muzzle that are still oozing blood. Taggert kneels beside the animal and strokes his flank.

  “The difference is, I liked Oscar,” he says to Boone. “I called the dogs off him after a while. I even let him take the dog he saved with him when he left. You, on the other hand, I don’t give a flying fuck about.”

  Boone twists his wrists, desperately trying to free himself from the tape as Taggert unclips the leash from the red dog’s collar and hisses, “Sic, sic, sic.”

  The dog charges, and Boone backs away until he’s stopped by the plywood wall. The dog grabs his thigh, and the animal’s teeth tear through the denim of his jeans to sink into his flesh. Boone grunts as he kicks once, twice, and manages to dislodge the animal, which immediately makes another run at him, this time latching onto his ankle. The sensation of teeth grinding against bone almost makes Boone puke, but he kicks again until he breaks the dog’s hold.

  The goons release the other dogs, and they bound across the pit to join in the attack. Boone deflects one by jamming his knee into the animal’s head, but the other slips past and leaps up to bite him in the stomach, ripping away a chunk as it drops to the carpet.

  The red dog suddenly collapses, his head a stew of blood and brains and bone. A gunshot rings in Boone’s ears, and the other two dogs, spooked by the sound, flee the pit and scamper to their cages. Boone again works his wrists against the tape binding them, and it gives way at last.

  Taggert and the goons are transfixed, their gazes locked on two figures standing in the doorway. Boone is on the redheaded turd in a flash. He punches him in the face, then slips behind him and throws an arm lock around his neck in order to use him as a shield. With his free hand he snatches the man’s pistol from his belt and points it at Taggert.

  “Everybody stop where you are!” a woman’s voice shouts.

  Boone turns to see a blond girl with a Glock and a kid with a sawed-off walking toward the pit. His injured ankle is about to give way, so he shifts all his weight to his other foot. He’s doing his best to keep a clear head, but the pain from his injuries is making it difficult. Blood seeps from the bite in his stomach, soaking his T-shirt.

  “Throw your guns over here,” the girl says.

  Boone waits for Taggert to toss the Glock before he under-hands the turd’s Hawg toward the girl. He keeps his arm tight around the turd’s throat.

  “You too,” the girl says to the black guy.

  “I got nothing,” he replies. He lifts his shirt and turns around to show her.

  “Make Miguel lock up the dogs,” the kid with the shotgun says, sounding scared.

  “Do it,” the girl says.

  The Mexican boy scurries to obey as Taggert opens his arms wide and says, “What the fuck are you doing, Olivia?”

  “What the fuck I’m doing is leaving, Bill,” Olivia says. She and the kid stop ten feet away, guns trained on Boone, Taggert, and the goons.

  “Great,” Taggert says. “But you didn’t need to make this kind of mess — kill my dog, put a gun on me.”

  Olivia points her pistol at Taggert’s face. “Oh, yeah?” she says. “What happened to Eton?”

  Taggert shoots the kid a murderous glance, then drops his arms and shakes his head. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “You never would’ve told me, would you?”

  “There was gonna be a right way, a right time.”

  “How much did he owe you?” Olivia says.

  Taggert smirks. “None of your business.”

  “Come on, I want to know how much you killed my friend over.”

  Taggert raises a warning finger. “Whoa, baby, back it up. I didn’t kill anybody. Your boy brought it on himself. He pulled a gun on Spiller and T.K., and they were just covering their asses.”

  “You could have sent me,” Olivia says. “I’d have got you your money.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Olivia,” Taggert growls. He tenses up like he’s thinking of rushing her.

  Olivia turns to Boone. “How much do you owe him?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” Boone replies. It hits him that he’s seen the kid before. At the Tick Tock. The dope dealer they rousted last week. “Someone hired me to look into the death of Oscar Rosales, a boy who used to work here,” he continues. “I came to talk to Taggert about him.”

  “Jesus, Bill,” Olivia exclaims. “You killed Oscar too?”

  Taggert jerks his thumb at Boone and says, “This scumbag is full of shit. We caught him —”

  Boone interrupts. “He put the dogs on Oscar just like he did me, and they tore him up. Oscar made it back to L.A., but the bites got infected. He didn’t go to the hospital because he thought these guys were after him.”

  “We weren’t after him,” the turd says, wriggling in Boone’s hold. “We let him go.” Boone punches him in the ear and squeezes his neck tighter.

  “That’s enough,” Olivia says. She points at the turd. “Let Spiller loose.”

  Boone pushes the turd away from him hard enough that he falls to the carpet. The guy gets to his feet and moves over to stand with Taggert and the black dude. Olivia calls the Mexican back from the kennels.

  Boone recalculates the odds of a successful escape. Olivia and the kid are between him and the door. They’re both armed, but there’s a chance he could outrun their aim. It’s risky, though, dizzy as he is, and on a bad ankle.

  “What are you gonna do now?” Taggert says. He steps out of the pit and creeps toward Olivia and the kid. The kid tenses up, unable to conceal his fear of the man. “Kill me?” Taggert says. “Kill all of us?”

 
Olivia fires the Glock. The round throws up dust as it hits the floor a few inches in front of Taggert’s boot, stops him in his tracks.

  “I can’t even tell you how bad you’re fucking up,” he says.

  “On your bellies,” Olivia says. “Everyone except you.” She points her gun at Boone.

  Taggert, Spiller, and the black dude obey reluctantly, stretching out facedown on the floor. The Mexican too.

  “Think fast,” the kid from the bar says as he tosses a roll of duct tape to Boone.

  “Tie them up, hands and feet,” Olivia says.

  Boone approaches Taggert and kneels beside him. He unrolls a length of tape and wraps the man’s wrists behind his back, then binds his legs together, from ankles to midshin. Next is Spiller, then the black dude, then the Mexican boy.

  The kid from the bar picks up Spiller’s Hawg and the Glock, shoves them into the pockets of his hoodie. Virgil. Virgil Cherry. Boone can still picture his ID. The dickhead doesn’t seem to recall him though.

  When Boone is finished with the tape, he stands and raises his hands.

  Olivia lowers her Glock, more relaxed now. She walks to Taggert and flips him over so that he’s on his back. Straddling him, one foot on either side of his chest, she squats until they’re face to face and says, “Take a long last look at the best thing you ever had.”

  “Listen, baby,” Taggert says.

  “Nope, baby, nope, nope, nope.” Olivia holds out her hand to Boone for the tape, tears off a piece and slaps it over Taggert’s mouth. “No more bullshit.” She dangles a set of keys. “We’re taking the Ford,” she says. “You owe me that much.”

  Taggert glares at her as she turns and struts toward the door.

  “I guess you want to get out of here,” she says to Boone.

  “That’d be nice.”

  “Well, hurry your ass up. The last bus is leaving.”

  “Spiller has my wallet and keys.”

  “Get ’em,” Olivia says.

  Boone bends over Spiller, digs his stuff out of the guy’s pocket.

  “Be seeing you, dog,” Spiller says, giving him a crazy smile.

  “Can’t wait,” Boone replies. He limps over to join Olivia and Virgil. They walk out of the barn, and Virgil slides the door shut and secures it with a padlock. The three of them set off down the dirt road leading to the main house, Boone doing his best to keep up.

  “What’s your name?” Olivia asks him.

  “Jimmy Boone,” he replies.

  “This is your lucky day, huh, Jimmy Boone?”

  “Proof everybody gets one now and then.”

  A black F-150 is parked next to the ramshackle house. They put Boone in the backseat, Olivia slides behind the wheel, and Virgil rides shotgun. The truck starts with a roar, and Olivia backs up at high speed, barely missing the propane tank. A cloud of dust billows as she wheels around and steers for the main road.

  She’s driving too fast. The headlights bounce crazily over the scrub, the world beyond their reach as good as gone. A sudden dip lifts them all out of their seats and slams them down again. Boone feels like he’s full of broken glass.

  “I’m free!” Olivia yells with mock exuberance. “I’m free!”

  A few minutes later, when they reach Amboy Road, Boone calls out to her to stop.

  “What?” she says as she hits the brakes.

  “My car’s over there.”

  “Oh,” she replies, a bit confused. “Okay.”

  Boone steps out and thanks them for the ride. The truck squeals onto the asphalt and speeds away.

  Boone walks as fast as he can along the shoulder to his car. It won’t take Taggert and his crew long to free themselves, and then there’s always the chance the local cops might happen by and demand an explanation for his bloody clothes and bruises.

  He lifts his T-shirt to check the bite on his stomach, but it’s too dark to see much.

  The pavement in front of him sparkles, and a roadside reflector flares to life. Not the moon. Too bright. He turns to look behind him and spies headlights. He’s only twenty yards from the Olds, can see it there, on the side of the road, but he’ll never reach it in time. With the sound of the approaching vehicle’s engine growing louder, he veers into the chaparral and dives to the ground.

  Taggert’s truck races past and screeches to a stop next to the Olds.

  “Jimmy,” Olivia yells out the window. “Hey, Jimmy Boone.”

  Virgil hops down and runs around the truck to try the door of the car.

  “Locked,” he calls to Olivia.

  “Where the fuck’d he go?”

  Boone decides to show himself, find out what’s going on. He stands and steps into the road.

  Virgil points and says something to Olivia. She puts the truck in reverse and backs up to meet Boone, sticks her head out the window. “Were you hiding from us?” she says.

  “I thought it was Taggert,” Boone replies.

  Olivia pushes her wispy blond hair out of her eyes and says, “This truck is going to be a lot more hassle than it’s worth. We need a ride to L.A.”

  Boone hesitates. These two are clearly trouble, and this is nothing he needs to be mixed up in.

  “Come on, dude,” Olivia says. “We saved your ass.”

  “A ride,” Boone says. “That’s all. No fucking around.”

  “A ride,” Olivia repeats, a little offended. “Meet me at the turnoff.”

  While Boone walks the rest of the way to his car, Olivia executes a three-point turn and heads back to the intersection with Cholla. Virgil is waiting for Boone, leaning on the hood of the Olds when he reaches it.

  “You’re taking me and my sister?” Virgil says.

  “Looks like it,” Boone replies.

  “So everything’s cool.”

  “And let’s keep it that way,” Boone says.

  The car starts right up, and he and Virgil drive to the turnoff. Olivia has wedged the F-150 sideways across the dirt road, blocking it. She’s waiting beside the truck with a couple of suitcases and a gym bag at her feet, the shotgun and Glock in her hands.

  She calls Virgil out of the Olds and passes him the sawed-off. Boone can’t hear what they’re saying to each other, but all of a sudden they raise their weapons and begin firing at the truck. Muzzle flashes light up the night as shotgun blasts shatter the windshield, the rear window, the headlights. Olivia puts a few rounds through the grill into the engine, then walks around and shoots all the tires.

  Before the echoes of the shots bounce away, Olivia and Virgil have scooped up their belongings and piled into the Olds, Olivia in back high-fiving her brother in the passenger seat. They’re sweaty and breathless as Boone pulls away.

  “We fucked his shit up!” Virgil crows.

  “Between his truck and his dog, that motherfucker’s ruined for life,” Olivia says.

  Boone flicks on his brights. He should have stayed hidden by the side of the road. There’s too much pent-up anger in these two, and not enough sense.

  Virgil notices the supplies Boone purchased earlier. He reaches into a bag, comes up with a Snickers bar and says, “Can I have this? I’m fucking starving.”

  “Sure,” Boone says. “Eat whatever you guys want.”

  He checks the rearview mirror every few seconds until they get through Twentynine Palms. By the time they hit the 10, Olivia and Virgil are sound asleep, her lying across the backseat, him crumpled openmouthed against the window, the Glock nestled in his lap.

  19

  TAGGERT IS SLUMPED IN A RECLINER IN HIS LIVING ROOM, NO television, no music, just silence and darkness, the drapes keeping out the morning. He can’t sleep. Every time he starts to doze off, something twitches inside him and jolts him back to wakefulness.

  He and Spiller and T.K. drove down to Amboy Road after they freed themselves last night and found the Ford shot full of holes but no sign of Olivia, Virgil, or Boone. Took them almost until dawn to tow the truck back to the ranch.

  It hurts like hell, O
livia leaving. He can’t believe it, but it does. His whole life he’s laughed at guys who talked like this, but here he is with tears in his eyes over a woman. He chews his thumbnail and stares at a stain on the carpet. He should have told her about Eton right when it happened. If he’d played it that he was as broken up about it as she was, she might have gone for it. Instead, she busts in while he’s dealing with Boone, and he looks like a lunatic.

  She’s probably halfway back to Florida by now, putting as many miles between him and her as she can. After the deal with the Mexicans is done, maybe he’ll fly out and track her down. Fuck the truck, he’ll say, fuck the dog. That’ll surprise her. She knows how he usually handles those who cross him, so she’ll realize how much she means to him. And then he’ll surprise her even more. He’ll say, “Let me make things up to you.” God knows she’s the kind of girl who’ll let him try.

  As for Boone, the guy can’t prove anything about anything. If some heat does come down, the story is that he got bit while trespassing, while breaking and entering. He’ll have Miguel take down the pit today just in case, then send him on a long trip to visit his family in Michoacán to get him off the property for a while. He can’t trust the kid to keep his mouth shut if they put the screws to him.

  He stands and stomps the feeling back into his feet. Time to pull his head out of his ass, take the wheel again. Drawing a glass of water in the kitchen, he walks out onto the patio. The sun is already high in the sky. Heat shimmers off the hard-packed earth of the yard, and insects sizzle in the chaparral. He strolls out to the gut-shot F-150 and runs his fingers over a bullet hole in the fender. The metal is warm to the touch.

  Down the hill at the bunkhouse, T.K. and Spiller are preparing to drive back to L.A. They’re supposed to stay at their places in town tonight, then drive back tomorrow evening, but Taggert’s having second thoughts about that now.

  As he’s walking over to talk to them, the muffled boom boom boom of distant artillery drifts up from the Marine base. Live-fire exercises. They’re almost constant these days, the corps busy turning out grunts for Iraq and Afghanistan. Poor bastards. The sound disturbs a raven perched on a nearby boulder. The big black bird croaks twice, then lumbers into flight with long, lazy flaps of its wings.