“My brain works fine,” Darcy said.
“And everything else?”
Darcy said nothing. Reminding herself now, Maria, Maria Iturralde. More than just a tough broad. A lot more.
Benny said, “Personally, I like a woman, when I bite, she bites back. Know what I mean?”
He was looking funny at her now. Something registering in there. A light coming to his eyes.
She said, “You don’t want to bite this woman, mister.”
Benny swiveled quickly onto her, sitting astraddle her legs.
“I saw you,” he said. “Jesus H. Christ! It was you, wasn’t it? On the highway.” Benny leaned back, closed one eye, staring at her face. “Coming out of that fucking Thorn’s place. Last night. Right? Am I right?”
Darcy was silent. Her stomach had made a fist as she remembered walking home from Thorn’s last night, the Mercedes that had slowed beside her, driven on.
“Well, my, my,” he said. “My, my, my. The Hardy boy and his cunt, Nancy Drew. Pulling tricks. A couple of fucking chain jerkers.”
Benny smiled. His hands going to the snap and zipper on her jeans. And Darcy sat up and seized both his ears and rattled his head back and forth.
He sucked in a squeaking rush of air and slapped her hands away. She sat back against the headboard, drew her right hand back quickly, and punched him flush in the nose. Followed it with a Three Stooges eye poke, fingernails finding wet.
“Jesus!”
As he rubbed the sight back into his eyes, she twisted to get out from under him. But he kept her pinned, bearing down hard against her knees.
And when he could see again, a bitter smile came to his mouth. And he threw his sudden weight behind a right uppercut to her chin. It banged her back against the headboard. A spangle of orange and red brightened inside her eyelids. White spirals revolved.
Her head was heavy, her eyes somehow looking down at this from the ceiling. Down a long numb shaft of time, she could feel her jeans opening. And she wondered if Maria Iturralde knew what was happening to her. Wondered what she would do when she woke up and found this dime store pirate on top of her.
From the ceiling she watched as this man cocked his right arm back, held it there, saying something. And let go of a punch to Maria’s chin.
Darcy, coming back to the surface, saw lights undulating above her. And she broke through to the air, gasping, blinking her eyes.
She lifted her head slowly, her teeth aching as she tried to align them right. She looked down at herself, her jeans at her ankles. Blue panties still in place. Her chin was anesthetized, and her tongue had inflated to fill her mouth.
Someone was banging on her door. Benny, standing at the foot of the bed, was fumbling with the zipper on those pirate jodhpurs. When he had them right, he went to the door, slung it open. A big man in bathing trunks and a short T-shirt stood in the doorway.
“This better be goddamn good,” Benny said.
“Somebody here to see you,” he said.
“I told you, Roger, not to fucking disturb me.”
“It’s Myra something or other,” he said. “Lady used to be with the bureau, so I thought you’d want to see her. Says it’s urgent.”
“OK,” Benny said quietly, glancing back at Darcy. “Jesus, now what do they want?”
They left, and Darcy heard a bolt sliding into place.
She closed her eyes, watched the circus of lights on her eyelids again. She knew it would be better to keep them open. It was always better to get up and walk around. That did something. She wasn’t sure what. But usually you had to have somebody to help you walk around. You threw your arm over their shoulder and they talked to you and led you around in circles while you revived. But she didn’t have anybody. She’d had somebody not long ago, but she’d told him she didn’t need him. She’d been wrong. Now she needed him. Bad.
The lights were so spectacular. She could just watch them for a minute or two. That was a reasonable compromise. Just to keep herself entertained till Benny returned.
31
“You’re not going to die on me, are you?” Ozzie said. He was tying a knot in the yellow nylon cord that held the linoleum roll closed. “Leak to death all over the floor? You wouldn’t do that now, would you?”
He stood up and took the pistol from a wooden stool. He said, “What’s the problem, Thorn? Fucking cat got your tongue?”
Yeah, a whole tribe of cats. They’d crawled into his mouth, devoured his tongue. And they’d stayed in there, looking around for more. Down his throat, up into his cranium.
Ozzie said, “Well, now, I got to go get dressed. Do my thing for the talent show. Anyone asks, I should be back about one, two o’clock. If the groupies don’t steal me off somewhere.”
He picked up a roll of silver duct tape from the workbench and pulled out a couple of feet of it. Tore a gash in its edge with his front teeth. Ripped the piece off and did three tight turns around Thorn’s head, across his mouth.
Trapping the cats inside. All those cats. Or were they wolves? Now he couldn’t remember. Wolves? Cats?
He breathed hard through his nose. Drawing in the sugary aroma of rot.
Ozzie tested the tightness of the cord, then gave the linoleum roll a half turn so Thorn was staring at the concrete floor, an inch away. The gamy scent even stronger.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, dingleberry,” he said. “And if you do, name it after me, you hear?”
Thorn heard the shed door close, the snap of a lock. He stared at the cement. A column of ants was detouring around his nose, carrying particles above their heads. Hurrying back to their burrow. Or what was it, a hive? A nest?
A hive with a tin roof. Made of Far Eastern hardwoods. A nest with an open porch and a view of the sunset, the mangrove islands. Scurrying home with little chunks of meat. To grill, then eat, then lie in their hammocks and consider the prism of sunset, the crepuscular essence.
Crepuscular? Where’d he get that? He’d never heard anyone say the word. He had no idea how he even knew it. Or exactly what it meant. But the ants probably knew. Ants had a very wide vocabulary. He’d read that somewhere. They communicated with wolves. No, no. It was wolves that communicated. With ants? No, that was antlers. Wolves talked to the things with antlers. The things Benny had offered him a chance to shoot.
Crepuscular elk.
“For one thing,” Myra Rostovitch said, “there’re too many citizens mixed up in it.”
She was sitting across from Benny out beside the pool. The wind starting to pick up, sky turning blue-black to the north over Miami. Almost six-thirty. In an hour he had to be over at the Rotary, suit up for the kickoff events, the talent contest, a couple of speeches. Firing the cannons. Yadda yadda yadda.
Myra said, “And number two, it’s an election year. Paranoia’s going around again.”
Benny said, “I bet number three is somebody’s up for promotion and she doesn’t want anybody finding out she was running Murder Incorporated on bureau stationery.”
Myra looked at the six Styrofoam heads Joey had brought out. Toupees on each one. Benny was going to have a head of hair for Old Pirate Days. He hadn’t decided yet which look to go with.
She wore a loose white T-shirt and jeans. Dressed like a boy. Big round sunglasses with white frames. The things covered her up from eyebrows to cheekbones. She had her dark hair tucked up inside a man’s panama hat. The lady didn’t want to get too well known by his people.
She said, “I don’t know how we got into this in the first place, what anybody was thinking about.”
Benny tried on a John Kennedy. Checked himself out in the round chrome mirror. Naw. Made his face too round. Looked like that baby face Beatle, Paul what’s-it.
He said, “I’ll tell you, Myra, exactly how it happened. You came to me, you said, hey, we had an idea. There’re these guys, if we tried to extradite them, forget it, never happen. They’re in their fortresses. They got all the judges in South America pissing their pant
s.
“But somebody thought, why don’t we lure them here with this make-over bullshit? You remember now, Myra, what a great idea you thought it was? Everybody was smiling. This big trick on the dope sultans. Get some positive ink for the FBI for a change.”
She said she remembered that part just fine.
He said, “I like refreshing your memory. It sets this all straight. So we don’t have two different pictures of how this is.”
He tried on a blond wig. Down to his shoulders. Doris Day thing. When he set the black pirate hat on top of it, it didn’t look all that strange. But he could just hear what Roger would say. Going to have to start being careful with Roger. He might be losing the man’s respect. Once that happened, you could have trouble. It started to spread, and before you knew it, your guys wouldn’t squeeze the trigger when you yelled shoot.
Benny said, “Well, when the grand jury released that first cowboy, you knew what I had to do. If I didn’t snip him, he’d fly home and bad-mouth your little scam. Boomerang the whole thing back on me. And then, there, right at that moment, I was up to my nipples in the shit you guys created. So I did him.”
Benny picked up the hand mirror, checked out his profile. No, no, he had the wrong skin tones to be a blond.
He said, “And then I’m motivated. I’m there, forced to do some fast thinking. I figure out a plan. I get everybody together, a roomful of people, you remember those people, I don’t need to say all their names, and I make a new proposal. Bring the cowboys in, same as before, promise them the moon, whatever their weakness is. Say we’re going to set them up in a Manhattan penthouse if that’s what they want. Blonds, redheads, little boys, little girls. Tell them for a hundred thou we can give them the best fucking make-over money can buy. Give them the whole streets-of-gold bullshit.
“I mean, Myra, I thought all this out, very careful. ’Cause I’m running a legitimate business, doing just fine at it, too. I don’t want to endanger that, have some congressional committee chewing my balls. And there I am, finished with my pitch. And everybody’s looking at their fingernails, not saying anything one way or the other, lily livers that they are, so I assume this is the high sign.”
Myra said, “That’s not exactly how I remember it.”
“No?”
“No,” she said. “All we wanted was one of them, a single big fish. It was to be a one-time-only sting situation. You offer one of the czars this identify change deal, work on him slow and easy, court him, get him one foot over the border, and slam, bang, he’s ours. Nobody ever had anything like this in mind. Never, not for a second.”
Benny took off the blond wig and snugged on a red Mohawk. Pulled it tight around his ears. Held up the hand mirror for the side view and squinted. No, too flaky. One of those punk rockers or whatever.
Myra looked off at the water and said, “Did you have Gaeton done?” She turned those glasses on him. “Did you, Benny?”
“I didn’t have him done. I wiped him myself.”
“Jesus Christ,” she said.
“Hey,” he said. “What’d you think? I was going to let him blow the whistle?” He patted the bristly flattop and said, “Anyway, it was strange circumstances. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. I didn’t see a lot of alternatives. Chalk it up to the cost of doing business. One guy on our team for a dozen on theirs.”
“It’s got to stop,” she said. “All of it.”
“OK, the fact is this, Myra,” Benny said, “I’m thinking lately, Jesus, do I really want to be in the asshole smuggling business? Is it worth a hundred K to put myself at this kind of risk? I’m having serious second thoughts here. Considering getting back to basics, just run my company. Diddle around with the politics down here. But if I decide to get out, then I’ll decide when and how. Me, alone.”
Myra said, “It has to stop, Benny.”
“I don’t see you all have a whole lot of leverage. You try to bring this out in the sunshine, Myra, nobody’s going to get promoted, not ever, not to nothing.”
Benny pulled off the punk rocker and tried an early Elvis. Deep black, ducktails. Benny smiling at it.
“My bucket’s got a hole in it.” He sang it, moving his shoulders. “My bucket’s got a hole in it. It don’t work no more.” Then to Myra: “I bet you didn’t know that. Flip side of ‘Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog.’ I heard that first on my old man’s Victrola. Down there in that freezing Chicago basement, cranking up that Victrola. My bucket’s got a hole in it.”
Myra leaned forward, waited till Benny brought his eyes back to her. Got a lock on them.
She said, “Where’s Gaeton now?”
“He’s biodegrading,” Benny said, “evolving into fossil fuel.”
He didn’t like how he’d said that. His voice had sounded thin. But he looked at her, and she seemed to have bought it. Then he considered for a second asking her if she’d ever heard of a guy surviving a shot like that. But Christ, no. He wasn’t so hard up yet he had to ask Myra for help.
Benny shook his head and looked out at his luxurious view. The silver ocean, coconut palms in the dusk, a pelican drifting by. Real postcard shit.
He had to get a fucking hold on himself. This Gaeton thing was starting to spook him, thinking any minute he’d turn around, there the guy would be, a zombie, holding out his arms, saying, oooooh, Benny. Why did you shoot meeeee? I thought I was your friiiiiend.”
He took off the Elvis and put it back on the Styrofoam. He rubbed his slick head and took another careful look at his property. No zombies anywhere. His goose chills dying out. Headache down to a throb.
He said, “Look, Myra, don’t get your bowels in an uproar. Gaeton Richards was inside our long johns for months. It was just a matter of timing when to do him. He was your fucking fault anyway. If I had to wipe him, it was because of you.”
She took off her glasses and scowled at him.
Benny said, “You were banging this guy, what, a year or two?”
She didn’t answer him.
Benny said, “He’s there in your bedroom, the lights are out. Sweet nothings are getting said. You’re both drowsy and maybe there’s some wine in your bloodstream. Maybe you let something slip. Let him get a look at something he shouldn’t have. The guy a little more of a straight arrow than you.”
“That’s not how it was, Benny.”
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Benny said. “I think you were playing this both ways. Having me run your sting operation for you, and then sending Dudley Dooright down to make sure you got an inside view of things. Telling me one thing, Gaeton another, your superiors something else.”
“Think what you like, Benny,” she said. “The point is, we’re calling this off.”
Benny picked up Myra’s white sunglasses, put them on, checked himself out in the mirror. Liked what he saw.
He pulled over another Styrofoam head. Dreadlocks.
He said, “Well, I’ll consider your suggestion, Miss Myra. I’ll think long and hard on it. Let you know soon as I come to some decision. For the moment, though, I think I’ll stand pat. Extradite a few more of these guys. Cash their checks, punch their tickets. You know, this public service stuff grows on you. You should think about it, trying it sometime.”
“I’m evidently not making myself clear enough,” she said, looking off at the eastern sky. “We’re not giving you a choice.” Myra brought her gaze back to Benny. “By Monday things are back to business as usual. Strictly by the rules.”
“Or else?” Benny said.
“That’s right,” she said. “Or else.”
Benny looked into the mirror again. No. Dreadlocks were out. Even Benny didn’t have the balls for that.
32
Thorn was on his back now. He’d twisted and lurched and brought the linoleum around a half turn. His shoulders were hunched forward from the pressure of the roll, arms numb. Probably should be grateful for that.
A bruising wind lashed at the shed. On the workbench the pages of a yellow legal pad
fluttered. He watched a steady strobe of lightning under the door crack. A few raindrops had begun to tick against the roof.
And swaying on its cord, the single yellow bulb washed its ghastly light over the jumble inside the shed.
He tried making his right hand into a fist. But there was no room where it lay, mashed flat against his thigh. By edging it into the cavity between his legs, he could do it. Gripping hard and letting go. Repeating that. Pumping, pumping. Luring the blood back to his veins.
Then he shifted his hip to the left. A very subtle movement. An inch difference at most. But enough to wedge his open right hand back along his upper thigh, inch by inch. The hand with life in it again.
He jimmied it across his thigh until it pressed against his right pocket. And yes. It had not been a fantasy. He had carried it with him, snug and closed and deep inside his pocket. Gaeton Richards’s Buck knife.
He worked his hand upward, nudging the knife with his fingertips higher into the pocket. Straining his shoulder up. When he had raised his hand as far as it could go, his fingers were still a few inches below the brim of the pocket.
He closed his eyes. Concentrated on breathing. He listened to the palms clatter outside, the rush of wind into the shed. He heard something falling over out there. A ladder, a bicycle. Then the rain began its thick muffle.
The knife was there. It was just a few inches away; the right physics would get it out. A slight yoga move inside that unyielding cylinder.
Thorn wedged his hand up to the pocket again, hooked his thumb over the brim. He pulled down, levering his elbow against the linoleum. He grunted and heard the seams give. Curling his fingers up to push the knife higher as his thumb tore down, until the knife slid cool and heavy into his palm.
Yeah, well. Now to breathe. Then to open the sucker.
He slithered his hand back to the gap at his crotch. He knew if the knife slipped from his grip, it would fall between his legs and be lost a few impossible inches away. So with meticulous slowness, Thorn tweezered the blade. First finger and thumb, pinning the casing against his groin, his sweaty fingers slipping on the steel and slipping again.
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