Righteous03 - The Wicked

by Michael Wallace

  “It’s okay, don’t worry. I know the bottle says take two, but I figure a third won’t hurt this once. You look like you could use something extra.”

  How about three bullets to the head instead? That ought to do the trick.

  But he took the Tylenol and washed them down with water. His empty stomach clenched when they went down and he bent over, feeling ill. Eliza ran to the kitchen and brought back a big bowl, but the moment passed. As he sank into the pillows, she returned with a hot washcloth, which she dabbed against his forehead. She found the bag he’d brought from the hospital and changed the bloody gauze above his eye. David wanted to cry.

  A deep aching loneliness had seeped into his bones since seeing Eliza at the Girlz Club in Mesquite. What was he doing? Did he want to live like this? And now he had this demon with its claws into him, this demon whispering that maybe heroin was the answer.

  It’s okay, it whispered. You’re busted up. Just for now, just to help with the pain. You’ll just dip and dab a little, give it up once you feel better.

  Except he wouldn’t give it up. As broken down as he was, once would be enough. And then the demon wouldn’t just have its claws in him, it would climb into his veins and he’d never get it out. And in spite of knowing that, David also knew that if Eliza were to leave now, and Meth Guy were to show up with the hard stuff, he would happily take that first hit.

  She daubed at his forehead again. “Tell me about Madeleine Caliari.”

  He opened his good eye and squinted up at her. “Who?”

  “Madeline Caliari. She’s twenty years old, from Oregon.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “How about Benita Johnson? How do you know her?”

  David opened both eyes this time and forgot his pounding head. “What? Who are these people and why do you want to know?”

  “That one you do know. I can see it on your face.”

  “Dammit, Liz.”

  “Language, please.”

  “Okay, language. Right. Gosh darn it all to heck. Jumping Judas on a pogo stick. What the flying fetch are you asking all these questions for? There, is that better?”

  “Please, David. I need to know how you know Benita Johnson.”

  “And here I thought this was a mercy mission.” He sighed. “Yeah, I know BJ. Met her at a party. She gave me meth. No big deal. We hung out for a while, then she disappeared. I thought she’d run off with some dealer, or maybe jumped in front of a bus. She’s got a nasty self-destructive streak. Yeah, worse than mine.”

  “Are you really doing crystal meth? I thought it was just marijuana. Oh, David, how could you?”

  “Easy, when you’ve got nothing to live for, you don’t care anymore. But yeah, it was the meth that got me beat to hell last time. Drug deal gone bad, a bit cliché, don’t you think?”

  “And this time? Same thing?”

  “No, that was BJ’s new friends. She’s found a new crowd to run with. No idea who, but they’re some mean SOBs. They robbed my truck, apparently just for the hell of it, then practically beat me to death. I have no idea why.”

  “I do. It’s an eschatalogical religious sect.”

  “Oh, yeah. End-of-the-world nutters. Well, that figures.”

  He told her about the biblical verse on the side of the panel truck.

  “Revelation 8:10,” Eliza said. “That’s the third angel, Wormwood burning from the sky, right?”

  “More or less. Damn, I can’t figure out how BJ got caught up in that. I think she came from a hardcore Baptist family, but she didn’t seem religious to me. More like trying to destroy herself in bits and pieces.”

  “Kind of like you, then.”

  “Funny, I never thought of that before,” he said with a touch of sarcasm.

  And yet, wasn’t it true? Wasn’t half his self-destructive behavior caused by this worm of doubt that he couldn’t cough up? A feeling of despair and failure, worry that he really had caused all the problems in his life, that if he’d only stayed faithful to the gospel he would have stayed in the church. Instead, he’d strayed, been thrust into the Lone and Dreary World as punishment. And it was his own fault. He was damned already, so what did it matter?

  Eliza must have been reading his thoughts. She leaned over and put a hand on his cheek. It felt cool against his burning skin. “You can come back. You know that, right?”

  “There’s no way, not with everything I’ve done.”

  “There’s nothing you can’t repent of,” Eliza said, “and forgive yourself, too.”

  “Really? Nothing? Let me tell you a few things, you’ll see. My first day in Nevada, I met a coked-out hooker. Neither of us had any condoms. I was only sixteen. She—”

  “Please, it doesn’t matter. You made a mistake, you were young. I made mistakes when I was young, too.”

  “Sure you did, Liz. What, you said a naughty word? Drank a Pepsi? Let me tell you what I’ve put in my body, then you’ll see.”

  “I don’t care about any of that,” she said. “Neither does Jacob. He loves you, I love you, we’re your family. Whatever you’ve done, you can turn it around.”

  “And Father? Does he love me, too?”

  “Father doesn’t matter. Jacob confronted him and broke him down.”

  “What?” David blinked. “How is that even possible? Is Father that weak now? He isn’t even that old.”

  “It wasn’t Father, it was Jacob. You haven’t seen him lately or you’d know. Come back, David.”

  “Liz, you have no idea where I am right now. Even if I wanted to, it’s too late, I’m too far gone.”

  “It’s never too late.”

  He didn’t have the energy to continue this argument. “Who is Madeline…whatever her name is?” he asked.

  “Madeline Caliari. She’s been sucked into this religious group and I promised I’d get her out.”

  Eliza explained about the girl’s mother and the other parents who had been searching for their kidnapped—or, rather, brainwashed—children. About the three kids who’d died already. And Eliza’s own plan to find the group. She had printed up a bunch of fundy Christian tracks from the internet and was going to stand on a corner near the UNLV campus, handing them out, until she drew someone’s attention.

  “And Jacob is on board with this scheme?” he asked.

  “More or less.”

  “More less than more, I’m guessing, if he cares about you at all. It’s insane.”

  “It’s a good plan,” she protested.

  “A good plan for getting yourself killed. Besides, if you go to campus, you might stand there for weeks before anyone notices.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Apart from going home and forgetting the whole thing?”

  “If Jacob couldn’t convince me to give it up, what chance do you have?” she asked.

  “Fine, then yes, I have a better idea. I think I know how to find them. You could walk up to their door, knock, and ask to enlist. But look at you, you’re just a girl. I don’t care how smart you are, they’ll eat you alive.”

  She smiled. “Then it’s perfect. If you think that, and you should know better, they’ll be sure to underestimate me. Where are they?”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” He stared at her for a long moment, giving her a chance to back down. She just stared back. Finally, he sank into the pillows and closed his eyes. “Fine. Here’s what you’ll do.”

  As he explained about the ravine and his guess as to their location in the desert, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was sending his sister into serious danger.

  Chapter Eight:

  Eliza felt like a migrant, illegally crossing the Sonora Desert, evading Border Patrol agents to enter the United States. She carried a backpack with a gallon jug filled with water and three protein bars in the side pocket. It was the closest to food David could find in his house and she hadn’t wanted to call a taxi to take her to the nearest mini-mart. Better to get started before she could lose he
r nerve.

  David had insisted she wait until morning, at least. “It could be three hours on foot, for all you know. You don’t want to be out there at night.”

  Reluctantly, she’d agreed. It turned out to be a wise decision.

  She made it fifteen minutes up the wash before she was already drinking from the water bottle. A racer lizard crossed the sand with a jerky walk and a bobbing head, then ran for cover as soon as she started to move again. She startled a jackrabbit, which exploded from the shade in giant, leaping bounds before tearing off. It grew hotter as she continued and soon even the lizards and jackrabbits grew scarce. She heard nothing but the hum of insects from the sage that surrounded the ravine.

  The sun climbed into the sky and then seemed to stand still. It was only the first week in May, but it had to be over ninety degrees. What would it be like in the summer? At least Blister Creek, with its altitude on the Colorado Plateau, didn’t get this hot until June. The Spring Mountains shimmered to her left, snow still covering the highest peaks.

  Another stop for a drink. The gallon was half gone. How long now, two hours? Three? The ground at the bottom of the wash was relatively flat, but the sand made walking an exhausting endeavor. And every step took her deeper into the desert.

  She wondered if migrants felt the same worry as they set off into the wilderness behind some human smuggler, their money already stuffed in his pockets. Everyone knew that coyotes sometimes abandoned migrants to their deaths when things took a wrong turn.

  But at least the migrants weren’t dumb enough to enter the desert alone. Eliza’s only guide was the footprints that continued in both directions up and down the dry wash. David wasn’t wrong. Someone had come down this wash on foot within the last couple of days. She drank more water. Already two-thirds gone. She continued deeper into the desert.

  #

  An hour after his sister set off to search for the lettuce thieves, David left on foot for Meth Guy’s place, two miles away. He stopped for an iced coffee at a 7-11, which woke him up but didn’t do anything for the headache or shakes.

  Meth Guy lived in a basement apartment southeast of the ghost subdivisions. The neighborhood was several years older than David’s, and while real estate signs sprouted in half the yards, it hadn’t been abandoned after the crash. Some of the houses even had landscaping, including a few short trees. Plenty of cars and pickup trucks in driveways.

  David went down to the basement door and knocked. He heard someone behind the door and a minute later it cracked behind a chain. Meth Guy peered out. “Jeez, man, what happened to you?”

  “I was hit by a car.”

  “You look like shit.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Can I come in?”

  “Depends. You got money?”

  “Of course I’ve got money,” David snapped. He felt jittery, angry, and wanted to kick in the door. “What do you think I am?” He pulled a couple of twenties to show.

  Meth Guy opened the door. “I have no idea.” A flash of teeth. “I don’t mean to insult my customers, but you show up on foot, beat to hell, it looks suspicious, know what I mean?”

  David came in. The place was like a cave, with blankets over the windows, an old, moldy carpet, its smell somewhat masked by the strange chemical odor that hung in the air. Meth Guy was a pale, wiry man with eyes that darted back and forth from David’s face to the street and then back again. Cargo pants and a tank top that hugged him tight enough to show his bony ribcage. He shut the door and David’s eyes took a long moment to adjust to the single light bulb in the room.

  “So what happened to Nita?” Meth Guy asked.

  “Who? Oh, you mean BJ?” he asked. “I don’t know. She hooked up with Pedro.”

  “The surfer dude selling the crappy stuff? That shit’ll put you in the gutter. I thought Pedro left town with some Mexicans trying to kill him. Nita, that little slut. She owes me either five hundred bucks or twenty blow jobs.”

  “Those are cheap blow jobs,” David said.

  He shrugged. “Nita’s a cheap whore.”

  David had nothing with Benita, just a couple of crappy, drug-dazed weeks and some equally crappy sex. But he found the fist of his good hand clenching in anger. Meth Dude must have seen the fist, because his hand groped at a side pocket on his cargo pants as if reaching for something.

  David lifted his hand. “No worries, man. She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Of course not, she owes me money, that’s all. You gonna pay it?” The hand left the pocket.

  “What? Why would I pay it? I barely know the girl. But if I see her, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.” He shrugged. “For all I know, she’s dead.”

  Except he did have an idea where Benita had gone and it wasn’t dead and it wasn’t running from gangbangers with Pedro. The lettuce thieves had her. Could she really have fallen in with a cult? He thought about that terrifying incident on the roof.

  About a week after they’d met, David and Benita had been at another party when she said she wanted to go to the roof for some air. She was giggling wildly as they rode the elevator to the twenty-fourth floor and by the time they climbed the stairs to get up the last flight, he was laughing too, though he had no idea why, except that they were both flying high. Benita wore a black skirt and black combat boots. Black shirt, black hair, black lipstick. As she climbed the stairs above him, he saw that her panties were black, too.

  This was late February, and the air outside was crisp. He tried to go back, but she grabbed his arm, still laughing, and pulled him out. “Look at that.”

  Las Vegas glittered with a million lights. Down below, the Strip was a pulsing, neon thing, like something alive. From this height, it was a blanket of lights, beautiful, with only a few larger signs legible. Benita leaned over the railing at the edge of the building.

  “Be careful, you’re freaking me out.”

  She turned and beckoned with a finger and a smirk at her lips. “Come on over.”

  “I’m scared of heights.”

  “No you’re not, you big baby. Come on.” The wind caught her hair and gusted it around her face. “You don’t come over, I’m going to climb over the railing.” She hooked one leg over the bar, caught him looking at her black panties and raised an eyebrow. “You like that, huh?”

  “I’m serious, BJ.”

  “So am I. Come over here, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

  And so he went. For a moment, they stood at the edge together, looking down at the city. Then she climbed over the railing.

  “BJ!”

  “Quit worrying, I’m not going to jump. Hold onto my belt.”

  It wasn’t much of a belt, just a chain of interlocking rings. Two silver skulls dangled off the end. But it was metal, and it was secured tightly around her waist. He grabbed it at the back with both hands as she leaned out with her hands behind her, gripping the railing.

  “You got me?” she asked.

  “Come back over, I’m serious.”

  “I’m letting go. Hold my belt.”

  And before he could protest, she’d released the bar and leaned over the edge, like a rappeler testing his weight on the rope, but there was no rope, just her belt and she was facing forward, away from him and toward the street below. David might have been high a few minutes earlier, but he felt stone sober at the moment. His hands were cold, growing numb.

  “It would be so easy to fall, wouldn’t it?” Benita said. He didn’t answer, just concentrated on holding on. She leaned a little farther. “What would it be like? A couple of seconds, like flying.”

  Benita stretched out her arms, arched slightly behind her, like hawk wings in a dive. And in the light, he saw hatch marks across her arms. Dozens of tiny cuts, like she’d scored her skin with a knife. How had he missed that before?

  The wind caught her hair again, billowed her skirt and flapped it against David’s arms. Her bare, thin legs trembled.

  “I should fly off this building. Maybe I’d soar away like an an
gel. I won’t even land, I’ll just fly to heaven.”

  “You’ll fall to your death,” he said.

  “And what if I do? It will only last a second. I’ll be crushed, there will be nothing left. It’s what I deserve.”

  “Don’t be crazy. Come back over now.”

  “I wouldn’t be mad, you know.”

  “Huh?”

  “I wouldn’t blame you at all.”

  “What are you talking about?” David asked.

  “If you let go of my belt. I’d start to fall and I wouldn’t blame you. It wouldn’t be your fault, I know that. And then I’d try to fly, and maybe I would. Or maybe I’d just fall and that wouldn’t make me mad, either.”

  His arms were aching, muscles quivering from exhaustion. Her words frightened him. His hands wanted to obey, to just let go. He could imagine her tumbling end over end. Would she scream? Would there be a noise?

  He gave a terrific effort and pulled her back to the railing, let go with his right hand, and wrapped it around her chest. At last she relented, and let him help her back over to the safe side of the railing. For a long moment, he held Benita in his arms. He could feel her trembling and her small breasts pressed against him.

  David had almost nothing in common with the girl except for drugs and sex, and a couple of weeks later, when she disappeared with Pedro—or so he’d thought at the time—he was more relieved to be rid of her than anything. But at that moment, with her head against his neck, shivering in his arms and choking down a sob, he felt an overwhelming sense of love and sorrow. He should have said something. Maybe things would have turned out differently.

  But then she had yanked away. “Come on, this buzz is crashing fast. Let’s go get something at the party.”

  There had been something in that talk about angels and heaven that now rang a distant bell in David’s thoughts. And hadn’t she said another time that her parents were strict Baptists? Still, there was a quick shift from dangling over the edge of a tall building, stoned, to member of an end-of-the-world cult living in the desert. And why did she have to run off and leave her dealer looking for his money?

  Meth Guy was staring at him. “So what’re you here for, anyway? You brought money, what do you want?”