“Deborah,” I said, and she whipped around to look at me.
“What?” she said.
“Remember the Steeplechase?” I asked her. “You used to love that ride.”
She stared at me as if I had asked her to jump off the tower. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “We’re not here to walk down memory fucking lane.” And she spun back around and stalked away to the far side of the gate.
Obviously, my sister was not quite as overwhelmed by fond recollection as I was. I wondered if she was becoming less human while I became more so. But of course, there was the strange and very human moodiness that had been afflicting her lately, so it didn’t seem likely.
In any case, Debs clearly thought that pacing and grinding her teeth was more fun than sharing happy memories of our youthful frolics in Buccaneer Land. So I let her stomp around while I looked through the fence for five more long minutes until Chutsky arrived.
And he finally did arrive, steering his car up behind Deborah’s and climbing out holding a metallic briefcase, which he put down on the hood of his car. Deborah stormed over and gave him a typically warm and loving greeting.
“Where the fuck have you been?” she said.
“Hey,” Chutsky said. He reached to give her a kiss, but she pushed past him and grabbed for the briefcase. He shrugged and nodded at me. “Hey, buddy,” he said.
“What have you got?” she said, and he took the case from her and popped it open.
“You said hardware,” he said. “I didn’t know what you were expecting, so I brought a selection.” He lifted out a small assault rifle with a folding stock. “Heckler and Koch’s finest,” he said, holding it up, then laid it on the hood and reached back into the case and came out with a pair of much smaller weapons. “Nice little Uzi here,” he said. He patted one affectionately with the steel hook he had nowadays instead of a left hand, and then put it down and took out two automatic pistols. “Couple of standard service models, nine-millimeter, nineteen shots in the mag.” He looked at Deborah fondly. “Any one of ‘em a whole lot better than that piece of shit you carry around,” he said.
“It was Daddy’s,” Deborah said, lifting up one of the pistols.
Chutsky shrugged. “It’s a forty-year-old wheel gun,” he said. “Almost as old as me, and that ain’t good.”
Deborah dropped the magazine out of the pistol, worked the action, and looked in the chamber. “This isn’t the siege of Khe fucking Sanh,” she said, and she slammed the magazine back into the pistol. “I’ll take this one.”
Chutsky nodded. “Uh-huh, good,” he said. He reached past her into the case. “Extra magazine,” he said, but she shook her head.
“If I need more than one, I’m dead and fucked,” she said.
“Maybe,” Chutsky said. “What are we expecting in there, anyway?”
Debs shoved the pistol into the waistband of her pants. “I don’t know,” she said. “We were told he’s in there alone.” Chutsky raised an eyebrow at her. “Twenty-two-year-old white male,” she explained. “Five-foot-ten, a hundred fifty pounds, dark hair — but honest to God, Chutsky, we don’t have a clue if he’s really there, or if he’s alone, and I sure as shit don’t trust the bitch that gave us the tip.”
“Okay, good, I’m glad you called me,” he said, nodding happily. “Old days, you would have gone in there alone with your daddy’s popgun.” He looked over at me. “Dex?” he said. “I know you don’t like guns and violence.” He smiled and shrugged. “But hey — you don’t wanna go in there naked, buddy.” He tilted his head at his little armory, spread out on the hood of the car. “How ‘bout joo say hello to my little fren?” It was the worst Scarface impression I’d ever heard, but I stepped forward for a look anyway. I really don’t like guns — they’re so loud and messy, and they take all the skill and pleasure out of things. Still, I was not here for the fun of it.
“If it’s okay with you,” I said, “I’ll take the other pistol. And the extra magazine.” After all, if I needed the thing at all, I would probably really need it, and nineteen extra bullets don’t weigh that much.
“Yeah, great,” he said happily. “You sure you know how to use it?”
It was a small joke between us — small mostly because only Chutsky thought it was funny. He knew very well I could handle a pistol. But I played along anyway and held it up by the barrel. “I think I hold this end and point it like that,” I said.
“Perfect,” Chutsky said. “Don’t shoot off your balls, okay?” He picked up the assault rifle. It had a strap that he slid over his shoulder. “I’ll take this little beauty. And if it turns into Khe Sanh after all, I’m ready for Charlie.” He looked at the weapon for a moment with the same fondness as I had looked at Roger the Pirate — clearly there were some happy memories there.
“Chutsky,” Deborah said.
He jerked his head up to Debs as if he had been caught looking at porn. “Okay,” he said. “So how you wanna do this?”
“Through the gate,” she said. “Fan out and head for the far side of the park. That’s where the employees’ area used to be.” She looked at me, and I nodded.
“I remember,” I said.
“So that’s where the caretaker’s place is,” she said. “Where Bobby Acosta ought to be.” She pointed at Chutsky. “You come in from the right and cover me. Dexter from the left.”
“What,” Chutsky said. “You’re not gonna just kick down the door and charge in there. That’s nuts.”
“I’m going to tell him to come out,” Deborah said. “I want him to think I’m alone. Then we see what happens. If it’s some kind of trap, you guys got my back.”
“Sure,” Chutsky said dubiously. “But you’re still out there in the open.”
She shook it off, irritated. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “I think the girl is in there, too, Samantha Aldovar,” she said. “So be careful. None of your Rambo shit.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “But this kid, Bobby, you want him alive, right?”
Deborah looked at him for just a moment too long. “Of course,” she said at last. It wasn’t very convincing. “Let’s go.” She turned away and marched for the gate. Chutsky watched her for a second, then took two extra clips from the case and slipped them into his pocket. He closed the case and tossed it into the car.
“Okay, buddy,” he said. And then he turned and looked at me, a long and surprisingly damp look. “Don’t let anything happen to her,” he said, and for the first time since I had known him, I saw what seemed like real emotion on his face.
“I won’t,” I said, slightly embarrassed.
He squeezed my shoulder. “Good,” he said. He looked at me a moment longer, and then turned away and lurched after Deborah.
She was at the chain-link gate, reaching through the mesh for a padlock. “Shouldn’t somebody point out that you’re about to illegally enter the property?” I said. And even though that was true, I was really more worried about finding Samantha again and turning her loose on a world that was far too eager to listen to her lurid tales.
But Debs pulled at the lock, and it fell open in her hand. She looked at me. “This lock has been opened,” she said in a voice meant for the witness stand. “Somebody has gone into the park, possibly illegally, and possibly to commit a felony. It is my clear duty to investigate.”
“Yeah, hey, just a second,” Chutsky said. “If this kid is hiding out in there, why would it be unlocked?”
I managed to stop myself from hugging him and instead merely added, “He’s right, Debs. It’s a setup.”
She shook her head impatiently. “We knew it might be,” she said. “That’s why I brought you two.”
Chutsky frowned, but he didn’t move forward. “I don’t like this,” he said.
“You don’t have to like it,” Deborah said. “You don’t even have to do it.”
“I’m not letting you go in there alone,” he said. “Dexter won’t, either.”
Normally I suppose I would have felt like kick
ing Chutsky for offering up Dexter’s tender skin on the altar of unnecessary danger. But as it happened, I agreed — just this once. It was clear to me that someone with a little bit of common sense should tag along, and looking around our gathering, counting everyone, that left me. “That’s right,” I said. “Besides, we can always call in for backup if it gets sticky.”
Apparently, that was exactly the wrong thing to say. Deborah glared at me, and then marched over to me and stood one quarter of an inch away from my face. “Give me your phone,” she said.
“What?”
“Now!” she barked, and she held out her hand.
“It’s a brand-new BlackBerry,” I protested, but it was very clear that I was either going to hand it over or lose the use of my arms under a barrage of her arm punches, so I gave it to her.
“Yours, too, Chutsky,” she said, stepping over to him. He just shrugged and handed over his phone.
“Bad idea, babe,” he said.
“I’m not having one of you clowns panic and fuck it up,” she said. She trotted back to her car and threw the phones into the front seat — hers, too — and came back to us.
“Listen, Debbie, about the phones — ” Chutsky said, but she cut him off immediately.
“Goddamn it, Chutsky, I have to do this, and I have to do this now, my way, without worrying about Miranda or any of that shit, and if you don’t like it shut up and go home.” She yanked at the chain and it fell open. “But I’m going in and I’m going to find Samantha, and I’m going to take down Bobby Acosta,” she said, and she yanked the lock off its chain and kicked at the gate. It bounced open with a tortured squeal and my sister glared at Chutsky and then at me. “See you later,” she said, and she whipped away through the gate.
“Debs. Hey, Debbie, come on,” Chutsky said. She ignored him and marched on into the park. Chutsky sighed and looked at me. “Okay, buddy,” he said. “I got the right flank; you got the left. Let’s move out.” And he followed Deborah through the gate.
Have you ever noticed that no matter how often we all talk about freedom we never seem to have any? There were few things in the world I wanted to do less than follow my sister into the park, where a very obvious trap was set for us and, if everything went really well, the best I could hope for was having Samantha Aldovar ruin my life. If I truly had any freedom at all I would have taken Deborah’s car and gone down to Calle Ocho for a palomilla steak and an Ironbeer.
But like everything else in the world that sounds good, freedom is an illusion. And in this case, I had no more choice than a man strapped into Old Sparky who is told he’s free to stay alive as long as he can when they throw the switch.
I looked up at Roger the Pirate. His smile looked kind of mean all of a sudden. “Quit smirking,” I told him. He didn’t answer.
I followed my sister and Chutsky into the park.
THIRTY-SEVEN
I am sure we have all seen enough old movies to know that sensible people avoid abandoned amusement parks, especially when the sun is going down, which it was. Terrible things lurk in these places, and anyone who wanders in is only setting himself up for some kind of dreadful end. And perhaps I was being oversensitive, but Buccaneer Land really did seem spookier than anything I had ever seen outside of a bad movie. There was an almost audible echo of distant laughter hanging over the dark and moldering rides and buildings, and it had a mocking edge to it, as if the long years of neglect had turned the whole place mean and it just couldn’t wait to see something bad happen to me.
But apparently Deborah had not done her due diligence in the old-movie department. She seemed quite undisturbed as she drew her weapon and strode into the park, looking for all the world as if she were headed into the corner store to shoot some bacon rinds. Chutsky and I caught up with her about a hundred feet inside the gate, and she barely glanced at us. “Spread out,” she said.
“Take it easy, Debs,” Chutsky said. “Give us time to work the flanks.” He looked at me and nodded to the left. “Go nice and slow around the rides, buddy. Go back behind the booths, sheds, anyplace somebody could be hiding. Sneak and peek, buddy. Keep your eyes and ears open, keep one eye on Debbie, and be careful.” He turned back to Deborah and said, “Debs, listen…” But she waved her gun at him to cut him off.
“Just do it, Chutsky, for God’s sake.”
He looked at her for a moment. “Just be careful,” he said, and then he turned away and moved out to the right. He was a very large man, and he had one artificial foot, but as he glided off into the dusk the years and injuries seemed to melt away and he looked like a well-oiled shadow, his weapon moving from side to side automatically, and I was very glad that he was here with his assault rifle and his long years of practice.
But before I could begin to sing “Halls of Montezuma” Deborah nudged me hard and glared at me. “What the fuck are you waiting for?” she said. And so even though I would much rather have shot myself in the foot and gone home, I moved out to the left through the growing darkness.
We stalked carefully through the park in best paramilitary fashion, the lost patrol on its mission into the land of the B movie. To Deborah’s credit, she was very careful. She moved stealthily from one piece of cover to the next, frequently looking right to Chutsky and then left at me. It was getting harder to see her, since the sun had now definitely set, but at least that meant it was harder for them to see us, too — whoever them might turn out to be.
We leapfrogged through the first part of the park like this, past the ancient souvenir stand, and then I came up to the first of the rides, an old merry-go-round. It had fallen off its spindle and lay there leaning to one side. It was battered and faded and somebody had chopped the heads off the horses and spray-painted the whole thing in Day-Glo green and orange, and it was one of the saddest things I had ever seen. I circled around it carefully, holding my gun ready, and peering behind everything large enough to hide a cannibal.
At the far side of the merry-go-round I looked to my right. In the growing darkness I could barely make out Debs. She had moved up into the shadow of one of the large posts that held up the cable car line that ran from one side of the park to the other. I couldn’t see Chutsky at all; where he should have been there was a row of crumbling playhouses that fringed a go-kart track. I hoped he was there, being watchful and dangerous. If anything did jump out and yell boo at us, I wanted him ready with his assault rifle.
But there was no sign of him, and even as I watched, Deborah began to move forward again, deeper into the dark park. A warm, light wind blew over me and I smelled the Miami night: a distant tang of salt on the edge of rotting vegetation and automobile exhaust. But even as I inhaled the familiar smell, I felt the hairs go up on the back of my neck and a soft whisper came up at me from the lowest dungeon of Castle Dexter, and a rustle of leather wings rattled softly on the ramparts. It was a very clear notice that something was not right here and this would be a great time to be somewhere else; I froze there by the headless horses, looking for whatever had set off the Passenger’s alarm.
I saw and heard nothing. Deborah had vanished into the darkness and nothing moved anywhere, except a plastic shopping bag blowing by in the gentle wind. My stomach turned over, and for once it was not from hunger.
My pistol suddenly looked very small and inadequate and I wanted to run out of the park more than I wanted my next breath. The Passenger might be peeved with me, but it would not let me walk into danger, and it was never wrong, not when it spoke this clearly. I absolutely had to grab Deborah and get us out of here before whatever it was hit us.
But how could I persuade her? She was so determined to free Samantha and collar Bobby that she would never listen, even if I could think of a way to explain how I knew that things were about to go terribly wrong. And as I clutched my pistol and dithered, the decision was taken out of my hands. There was a kind of giant thunk sound, and lights began to come on all over the park, and then the ground trembled, there was a terrible screech of rusty metal
, and I heard a raspy groan —
And overhead, the cable cars lurched into motion.
I spent one long and precious second gaping upward and picturing all the awful things that might rain down on me from someone riding past over my head. Then I had another truly horrible moment in which vile altruism took over, and I looked to my right to see if Deborah was okay; there was no sign of her. And then from one of the cable cars swinging by overhead I heard a gunshot and a savage and happy screeching sound, the cry of a hunter who has spotted its prey, and I recovered my precious self-interest and dived for cover into the darkness under the canopy of the merry-go-round. In my haste to bury myself under one of the horses I banged my nose into a large and hard lump that turned out to be one of the severed fiberglass horse heads. By the time I scrabbled my way past it and shoved it uphill toward the outer rim of the merry-go-round, the screeching from above had stopped.
I waited; nothing happened. There were no more gunshots. No one opened fire with a howitzer. No napalm bombs whistled down from the cable cars. There was no sound at all except the dysfunctional thumping of the old and rusty cable running through its stanchions. I waited a little longer. Something tickled at my nose and I rubbed it; my hand came away with blood on it and for a very long and frozen second I stared at it, unable to think or move or see anything except that awful red smear of precious Dexter fluid. But happily for me, my brain came back online and I wiped my hand on my pants leg and put it out of my mind. Clearly, it had happened when I dived for cover and bumped my nose. No big deal. We all have blood in us. The trick is to keep it inside.
I wiggled carefully around into a position where I was still safe but I could see out, and I pushed the big horse head farther up the slope in front of me for cover and rested my pistol on top of it. Off to my right, above the last place I had seen Deborah, a shattered cable car went by on the wire. There was nothing left of it except the piece that attached to the cable and one small chunk of metal tubing that had been part of the seat, and it bobbed and wobbled crazily past. The next car lurched into view, and although there was more of it, the side panels were gone and it, too, was empty.
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