The Mayor was gone. He had said he’d be gone. He’d also said Budge would come back, but Budge never believed him.
He announced to the empty house: “Well here I am.”
There was no answer save the humming of the refrigerator. It was plugged in, running. Budge tried to pretend the detail was unimportant. He crossed to the fridge and opened the door.
Three cans of Blatz inside, chilling. Nothing else. His brand. Theo’d said the next round was his, but that was in a dream.
The beers were real, though.
The smart thing to do was run for it.
Budge took one can out and popped it. He moved to the sofa in the front room, and waited, drinking deep. It wasn’t much of a house, but he wanted to stay. He was half way through the beer when he noticed a smear of darkness under one of the low cabinets, a razor edge defining the swipe of a mop. Whoever cleaned up had missed it.
He assumed it was blood. No reason not to.
Budge put the beer on the table where it started to sweat a dark ring into the wood. Blood and Blatz.
My souls, Theo said. What if they were? A cemetery that no one gave a damn about would be useful to a bad, bad man. Maybe he’d just finished burying what was left of the Mayor.
Budge grabbed a second beer.
Theo had been here while Budge slept, and he was coming back, too. If not tonight then the next. Theo was an inevitability. Theo was fate.
* * *
By the time Budge finished the beer, the door creaked open. Theo’s steps were heavy and slow.
“Sorry. Drank the last one.” Budge held the third Blatz can aloft and wiggled it, proving that it was empty.
“That’s all right,” said Theo. He angled towards the sofa, stepping, not walking. Budge could smell the dust coming from Theo’s boots. Theo took a place on the sofa, leaving a manly distance between him and his host. He leaned an elbow on the arm of the sofa in a strange but familiar angle.
Budge asked, “You got back pain?”
“I’m a working man.”
“I believe the Mayor left a dose or two of laudanum behind.”
“You some sort of beep-nick dope fiend?”
“‘Beatnick’ is the term you’re after. And no, it’s just all I have to offer.”
Theo moved his hand across his stomach and chest. It looked as if he was confirming that his body was still where he’d left it, under his head. He flexed his fingers, remembering them as well.
Budge said, “I need a drink of water. You mind?”
Theo nodded slightly, and his smile tipped like sand in a sack. Budge walked through the lantern light into the shadows of the kitchen, locating a tin cup in a cupboard. He tried the tap. It gurgled before it gushed. In the darkness Budge couldn’t tell if what came out was clear enough to drink, but he didn’t care.
The water was sour. Or maybe that was the poison of his nerves. He sought his reflection in the window over the small dining table, but there were two. One, slow with fear. The other, shifting, fidgety.
The second figure was not Budge but someone else out there on the rocks looking in.
Jub. Damn it.
Budge turned away, trying to pretend that he hadn’t spotted the kid. Now he stared back at Theo. The bad man was where he’d left him, but now he cradled a large, gleaming hunting knife on his lap.
Theo said, “Look at this here,” and he tilted the blade to catch the lantern light that he then bounced across the ceiling and wall. “It’s just light, but I can make it move like an animal.” He held the reflection steady and moved it across Budge’s body. Then he stopped. “My Momma used to play with the candles and a little hand mirror to make the light crawl across my bedroom wall at night. She said it was a tiger’s ghost to keep me in my bed. She was fun like that.”
“I only came here looking for the Mayor.”
“And I wonder why that is. I wonder what you want with the Mayor of shit.” Theo scooted forward on the sofa so that Budge could see his eyes. They were so pale they seemed golden. “Caught him messing in that whore’s grave you’re so fond of.”
“That was his wife.”
Theo tilted his head.
Budge understood. “The boy told you.”
“Of course he did. He’s mine.”
Jub had spilled his guts about The Juliet.
“You thought the Mayor took the stones.”
“I saw him at the site, and when he went crawling up that hill like a rat, I followed.” Theo settled into the memory. “We had little chat.”
“And what did you find out?”
“That he didn’t have the emeralds, but he was expecting them by and by.” Theo thought that was funny. “I didn’t quite understand what he meant until you came through today. Didn’t connect you to the scam.”
Budge tried to look relaxed. “I’m not reading you loud and clear. Are you saying the Mayor didn’t—doesn’t have them?”
“That’s what he said.”
“You believed him.”
“I did. Because I asked and I asked. Real hard.”
A bolt of nausea shot through Budge’s gut as he tried not to imagine the Mayor’s last hour. The important detail was this: even though the Mayor did not have The Juliet, he was most certainly dead. Budge didn’t like his odds. “Mind if I have a smoke?” Budge pulled out the rumpled pack. He didn’t need the nicotine as much as he needed the routine of stage business to steady his mind. He lit up, used the sink as his ashtray.
Theo was losing patience. “The rocks.”
Budge couldn’t fight, couldn’t run. So he went to his only strength: let the lies come like water. It didn’t matter if they made sense or not. “I don’t know where they are. I’m here just like you, looking for them.”
Theo stood up in a single quick movement, stepped over the table, and in one more stride shoved Budge up against the Frigidaire, holding the knife under his throat. The tin cup clanged to the floor, but Budge managed to keep his cigarette. Theo’s face was too close and Budge tried to turn his head, but the blade tilted into his flesh.
Budge still had balls. Balls were easy when you thought failure was certain. He brought up his cigarette and took a sideways draw, then exhaled slowly, right into Theo’s eyes.
Theo didn’t blink.
Budge whispered, “You believed him.”
“Your Mayor was waiting on you to bring the goods.”
“I meant the boy. You believed the boy.” He glanced sideways to the kitchen window. “Does he always follow you?”
Theo’s pupils dilated. He looked to the window but never loosened his hold of the knife. By now Jub had come all the way up to the house. Perfectly framed, he was wearing those ill-fitting pajamas and his wild hair formed a wedge that pointed to the stars. He looked like a gingerbread man come to life, confused but ready.
Theo hadn’t expected to see the boy, but he was more annoyed than worried, acting like a man whose wife has just shown up at his favorite tavern to spoil his fun. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
“I don’t have the rocks. I was waiting on the Mayor to set me up. And the Mayor was waiting on…” Budge attempted a shrug.
Theo released Budge and moved towards the window. He got very close and bent down, nearly putting his face against the pane. Jub came forward on the other side, just as close. He put his palms on the glass.
Father and son.
Theo showed the boy the hunting knife. Jub just blinked at it. He’d seen it before, a thousand times. In use and at rest.
Finally Theo stood straight and said, “He’s simple.”
“We all like pretty things,” Budge said. He dropped the cigarette butt into the sink.
“You’re trying to tell me he has the stones.”
“Who would you trust?” A plot had bloomed in Budge’s mind, no doubt lifted from a film. He was betting his life that Theo wasn’t a regular at the Bijou. Betting Jub’s life too. “Aft
er Florian divested himself of his burden, it was just me, Skinner, and your boy.”
Theo wasn’t buying it. “My kid doesn’t know a damned thing about it.”
“He’s simple, as you say. Mostly.”
The county man was fed up with the conversation. “I’ll show you how simple.” Something sick and definitive lit his eyes as he crossed the room, knife held at his side. He was out the door, leaving it swinging before Budge could figure out what was going on. He heard the boy yelp and he turned back to the kitchen window, only to see the smudges of Jub’s handprints on the glass.
Budge ran out after the kid. Theo’s truck was parked across the front of the house, and by the time Budge got around it, Theo was already in position, glowing under a waning moon. He stood at the bluff’s edge, dangling Jub over it by his hair. Jub was mostly silent except for a few unavoidable sobs. The boy’s bony arms and legs struggled with the night, as slow as a spider’s.
Budge stepped closer. The boy’s eyes were closed. The kid didn’t want to see where he was going.
Theo said, “Why don’t you ask him where the stones are? He’s probably in the mood to be forthright.”
“He doesn’t know, all right?”
Theo lowered the child until his toes brushed the very edge of the cliff. Jub started kicking, scrabbling at the soft dirt.
“It’s like when you hold a puppy over water,” Theo said. “Starts swimming in the air.” Theo brought his son back and set him on firm ground before releasing his grip on the kid’s hair. Jub collapsed into an egg shape and began to cry into the dirt. Theo looked interested in the result of his torture. “Wasn’t even sure that’d work.”
He took a step towards Budge, leaving his boy in a heap. “Now we know each other a little better, I think.”
“We do.” Budge was trying to get used to the idea of dying. “The Juliet is in my saddlebag.”
Jub stopped crying. The child was as much animal as anything else, and no doubt he’d been trained that way. He unfolded from his fetal coil, and soon he was on his hands and knees like a cat.
Theo tucked his knife back into his belt and walked over to where he could tower over the boy. “Get up, kid,” he ordered, and when the boy was too slow, Theo pulled his leg back for a kick.
Budge begged the stars for motivation.
Jub skittered out of range of his father’s boot, and Theo laughed at him. “Go on and fetch the rocks out of that saddlebag.”
The boy stood and walked backwards, holding himself as if he had been kicked after all, sort of bowing out into the shadows. Budge knew there was muscle memory, but was there gut memory? Or maybe this was just plain old memory memory.
When the boy returned, he held the single stone in his hand. He offered it out to Theo, but there was a distance of yards between them. “There’s only one,” Jub said.
Budge said, “He’s telling the truth.”
“Is that a fact? Well, I’m sure you know I prefer both parts.” Theo put his hand on the hilt of his hunting knife.
Budge nodded. He wondered how long he’d hold out under torture before he blurted out Aunt Audrey’s address. And it wouldn’t even matter. Either way, he’d be dead soon. Meeting the Mayor, if not his maker.
“It’s cursed,” Budge said.
Theo smiled, showing his lower teeth. He was a curse all on his own. “Bring it here, boy.”
Jub was slow to move, and Theo was disgusted. He lunged to grab the boy’s arm, but Jub pulled back, holding the emerald up high. Then he sidestepped towards the edge of the bluff, right where his father had held him only moments before.
As Jub reached the edge he thrust the stone out. If he dropped it onto the rocks below, it would shatter to pieces.
“Why do you want to die, son?”
Budge admired the boy’s raw stupidity. “He doesn’t want to, but he’s ready.”
Theo focused on the emerald. He stood hard in front of Jub as if he could will the stone out of the boy’s skinny fingers.
Budge knew there would never be a better moment. He wanted to run back to the bike and take off into the desert night, leaving Jub and Theo locked in this father-son moment, but that meant leaving everything he’d just decided was everything: The Juliet, Centenary…and the house. The Mayor’s strange little house. He decided he wanted that too.
He rushed at Theo, slammed against the man’s tree-like rigidity. Budge had been in fights before, both real and performed, and he lost every single one. He and Theo toppled together, squirming like snake men, swapping turns in the superior position. Of course, Theo was an expert at human destruction, and Budge was merely a pretender. He felt the knife tip open the skin across his ribs. He leaned into Theo and managed to close his fingers around the fist that gripped the hilt.
The thing was the knife. Even confined between their torsos, it rocked, carved, and cut, releasing blood to lubricate the flesh and free the blade. Both men were becoming one, laced together by their wounds like paper dolls. On his back, Budge hooked his legs around Theo’s and tried to lock them at the knees and ankles to make sure there was no space between them. It was the most counter-intuitive thing he’d ever done.
Perhaps in some sideways part of his mind, a pocket brain that kept track of the things he couldn’t afford to understand yet, he knew the boy was waiting for an opportunity. And indeed, Jub had gone to his father’s truck and pulled the shovel from the bed. He brought the shovel down on his father’s back twice, possibly the least effective area he could choose.
Theo grunted and Jub changed his angle, swinging at the back of his father’s head like it was a low-thrown baseball. Theo howled this time, but the blow was insufficient; the boy hadn’t an athletic bone in his body.
Budge said, “Again kid,” knowing that the next swing was their last chance. He could not hold Theo in place much longer.
Theo bounced into Budge’s torso with all his weight, using his entire body like the knife in his grip. Jub brought the shovel down again, and closed his eyes. This time he led with the blade edge.
The mark was hit, and a line was torn across Theo’s scalp. The blow was still not heavy enough to kill the man, but he was out, sprawled and bleeding over Budge’s body.
Jub gasped for air.
More and more blood poured down onto Budge. Theo’s head wound was pulsing, soaking then both. Budge thought he heard the man groan from deep inside.
He began to push Theo away, and Jub’s sobbing gasps halted long enough for him to say, “Wait.”
Budge ignored the kid. He shoved Theo aside, surprised by how easily the man’s body yielded.
Theo simply flipped away, propelled by gravity. Budge had inadvertently pushed him over the edge of the bluff. Theo’s body thudded across the rocks, creating a cascade of rubble in his wake.
Jub dropped to his knees and crawled forward. He lay on his stomach to peer over the edge.
“Dad.”
Budge’s torso was crisscrossed with slashes weeping blood. His shoulders were soaked, and the night smelled like raw meat.
When he eased up, he was astounded by how far he and Theo had traveled during their battle: rolling up to and almost over the edge.
Jub remained on his belly looking over the bluff and holding on to the surface of the earth as if it might hurl him down there too.
“What’s it look like?” Budge asked.
“He’s dead.”
“Probably,” Budge agreed. Still, they’d have to check. “You still got the green bean?”
“I put it in the truck.” Jub looked up at Budge with wet, black eyes. “I thought Daddy would win.”
* * *
Zipped up tight, Budge’s leather jacket worked as a kind of body bandage, but he didn’t see the night ending without a visit to a drugstore or a hospital. Did they even have those way out in the desert? There was a lot more to learn about the life he wanted to live, but in the meantime he had some tidying to do. With
Jub’s help, he loaded his bike into the back of Theo’s truck, and soon they were winding down Goud’s Trail, as slowly as possible. Budge could feel each rut tearing him open, little by little.
There were pills in the glove box. Budge ate a couple. He didn’t care what they were as long as they made him feel different than he felt without them.
Jub sat in the passenger seat, his pajamas filthy. A trickle of dirty blood stained his neck where Theo had ripped away a clump of the kid’s crazy hair.
It took hours to travel three miles to Centenary, and once there, they pulled down the almost indiscernible path that was Penance Road. Budge let the vehicle roll down the slope with his foot on the brake the whole way. At the jailhouse they left the vehicle to proceed on foot.
They knew what was ahead of them. Budge spotted a man-sized void, and he pulled out his flashlight. Theo was stuck sideways on the bluff wall, one arm snagged on a slim jutting shelf of rock, and the opposite leg caught on an old iron pipe jutting out near the bottom. Something the miners had left behind.
He looked pretty dead.
“We gotta get him in the truck,” Budge said.
The boy didn’t question him. He started scrambling up the rocks to release their hold on his father’s body. Like he did this every day.
Budge found the hunting knife in one of the shallow gullies. The dried blood made the blade thick, unrecognizable.
Together, Budge and Jub dragged Theo’s corpse back to the truck where they dumped it next to the bike. Jub threw an old blanket over the body. The kid was cool, obedient. Ready for the future.
Budge wished he knew more about Death Valley, but his was a tourist’s understanding at best, and not a very attentive tourist either. They drove 190 until they reached the juncture with Scotty’s Castle Road.
“You ever been to the Ubehebe Crater?”
Jub didn’t understand the question.
“It’s like a big basket in the ground. Where the water turned to steam for some reason and blew up.”
The Juliet Page 27