by Newton, Nero
Rita laughed. “The closest you came to a coherent sentence was, ‘Epileptic dogs can see the future.’ The rest made even less sense. According to a lot of people on the online forum, that only happens when someone does way too much. If you do a controlled dose, you can sort of communicate, and you remember a lot more of what went on. You got a mega-dose, darling. Dozens of times what people usually take on purpose.”
Stephen left the room for a moment and returned with a plate full of toasted bagels and a few plastic tubs of flavored cream cheese. Surprised at the strength of her appetite, Amy gobbled down two and a half bagels while Stephen filled her in on the rest of what she’d missed in the big basement.
“I’d say you guys are doing pretty good,” Rita said. “You put a bullet into one guy’s ribs up in Oakland, and busted up a couple more of them down in the warehouse district. And the next people to go into that basement are going to get sprayed, unless Blondie and the other guy get out to warn someone.”
“They may not want to leave the basement,” Stephen said. “They might just decide to stay down there and get sprayed and sprayed and sprayed.”
Amy laughed. “Hey, we have fucked up their operation pretty good. If they wanted us dead before, think how they feel now, assuming Vendetti’s figured out who we are.”
“That reminds me,” Stephen said. “Rita’s been researching a few other things besides the effects of boof. She followed up on a pretty smart hunch.”
“You know about that chimp sanctuary Sanderson’s bought out down in San Diego County?” Rita said.
“Yeah.”
“It used to be called the Imperial Rainforest, and most of the same people are still there, taking care of the animals. Sanderson just took over the land lease and bought out the non-profit corporation. I called down and said I was from one of those save-the-primates groups that you work with, and wanted to ask some off-the-record questions. The guy didn’t have anything bad to say about the takeover, but he did mention that Sanderson insisted on hiring a whole new private security company, and that all the new guards are creepy as hell.”
“No way!”
“Now I think we know what Vendetti meant by ‘down south,’” Stephen said.
This news increased Amy’s heart rate a little, and soon the dimly lit room was pulsing with color – but her headache was gone. The boofheads online had been right about painkillers.
Rita gave Amy a hard look. “But you guys aren’t going to go after them yourselves again, right?”
“Of course not,” Amy said dreamily, and altogether untruthfully. “Enough stupid risks for me.”
“That’s good to hear, darling,” Rita said. “And since you both seem to be getting into a good mood with your magic pills, here’s something to stir up a few more giggles.” She grabbed her open notebook from the end table, tapped the touch pad until the monitor came to life, then sat down by Stephen and put the computer on his lap. “Steve says he hasn’t seen the Sensuous Hugh collection yet.”
“Wow,” Amy said. “There are way more pictures than there were. Somebody’s been seriously busy.”
A lot of the new images played off recent ads promoting Sanderson Wild Adventure Land in Southern California. Many of the comics now featured Hugh’s Indiana-Jones hat and lots of cuddly wild animals.
“I don’t see how they think they’ll be able to compete with the San Diego Wild Animal Park,” Stephen said. He began clicking on the images.
“I heard Sanderson tried to get some kind of joint thing going with the San Diego Zoo,” Rita said, “but so far, they want nothing to do with him. Good for them.”
The first two rows of comics got Stephen chuckling. In the first frame, Sanderson was unzipping his fly, the bulge underneath threatening to burst the pants apart before he could complete the task. On the brim of his hat, along with the lemurs and parrots, were three naked female figures.
“Hey, Power Puff Girls!” Rita cried. “They used to be my heroes. You guys remember them?”
Amy nodded and felt herself grinning. Just the small action of smiling sent a wave of sensations through her body – a strong residual effect of the boof. A second later she burst into laughter. On the screen, she saw Sanderson in the midst of sexual acts with numerous familiar cartoon and real-life characters: the Men-in-Black creatures, Yeoman Rand from the old Star Trek, and a bevy of the latest teenage Russian pop idols – all animated with striking realism.
The last frame showed all of the little creatures suddenly fleeing, leaving Sanderson alone, pants down, with a confused expression and his penis beginning to droop. The Michelin Tire man and the Exxon tiger appeared, many times bigger than Sanderson, who looked with horror at their monstrous members. The corporate mascots had Transformer-like machine genitals, while Sanderson’s was a redwood tree, greenery and all, heroically straining heavenward. The corporate giants scornfully declared that Sanderson had betrayed them, and now he would pay the price.
“I can’t tell whether the joke is pro- or anti-environmentalist,” Amy said, “but it’s funny as hell.”
Stephen kept clicking and scrolling. “There’s Hugh again – he and Captain Picard are taking turns diddling Betty Rubble.”
***
The first time Rita left the room, Stephen leaned close to Amy and said in a low voice, “The official grand opening is tomorrow. They’re already allowing visitors into the sanctuary to see the new enclosure. They want to show off all the new authentic jungle plants they’ve imported. Sanderson’s going to be there to cut a ribbon or two.”
“Time for me to call the doctor,” Amy said. “And we need to get more rounds for that 9mm you picked up in the big basement. I know someone right out in the Valley who’ll have all sorts of ammo for us. Friend of Andre’s. We won’t have to show him any permits.”
“You need to get another car. Vendetti knows your Buick inside and out.”
“What’s your plan for when we get there?”
“Watch where the Top Gun Security cars go,” Stephen said. “That’s probably where the v-chimps are. We’ll have to do a lot of slaughter.”
Amy coughed up her swig of bottled water. “You want a firefight with these guys? We might not get lucky this time.”
“No, I don’t mean shoot the goons, although I wouldn’t be above that. I mean shoot the animals. It’s better than letting them suffer in captivity, right? And if we let them go, they’ll just die when the winter comes. I thought your idea was to turn the whole thing into such a big loss that Sanderson’s new pals will just give up on it”
“You’re right. Christ, I feel like all my thoughts are slipping away through cracks in my brain. Just oozing out like raw eggs through a strainer.”
Around mid-afternoon, Stephen went with her to the car dealer. She got a Camry again, a few years older than the last, and black instead of red.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Around noon of the following day, Amy and Stephen were weaving through the hills of eastern San Diego County. Traffic was mostly recreational, SUVs with jet skis on roof racks, or hauling ATVs on trailers.
They zigzagged up a broad mountain face and watched desert scrub fade to creosote and manzanita. By the time they reached a plateau, all the other traffic had turned away, following signs for campgrounds, state and county parks, and tiny towns with unpronounceable names.
“We’re all alone up here,” Amy said. “Either we’re late for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, or nobody’s taken much interest.”
A mile later they saw a cartoon billboard showing Sanderson with a red colobus monkey on his shoulder and a sifaka sharing the brim of his hat with twin Peruvian condors. His left thumb pointed to a turnoff, and a caption along the top read, THIS WAY TO WILD ADVENTURE!
The first hundred yards of the road toward the sanctuary were recently paved. At the end of the pavement, construction vehicles sat empty at the shoulder, and after that the surface was broken and pitted. They went around a long horseshoe to another plateau, and minutes la
ter entered a series of tight, steeply climbing S-curves. On each side of the S-curves was a steep granite embankment topped by boulders that seemed to teeter there. It was like driving through a short, wiggly ravine, and they had to slow to a crawl.
Once past the S-curves, Amy parked on the shoulder. From here the road became a long straightaway that climbed very gradually toward the horizon. Looking back the other way, they could see across the horseshoe to the zigzags that had brought them up the mountainside earlier. A lone vehicle had bypassed most of the turnoffs and was heading for the road to the sanctuary.
“Hand me the binoculars, please,” Amy said.
Stephen opened the glove compartment and pulled a set of field glasses from amid the clutter that Amy had transferred from car to car three times in the past week.
“How long do you think it took us to get here from where the road turned rough?” she said.
“About fifteen minutes. Why?”
“That car over there isn’t a car. It’s an open-top Land Rover. That’s what Sanderson drives when he makes these appearances. And I don’t see anyone coming along behind him.” She gestured behind her to the wiggly ravine. “That’s a perfect trap we just came through. You understand what I mean?”
Stephen paused a moment, then exhaled heavily. “Yeah, I understand.”
“Have you been thinking about what to do if this opportunity came up?”
“I’ve tried not to,” he said, “but yeah, I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Rita found out what time Sanderson was expected to be here,” Amy said, “and I’ve sort of been trying to time our arrival to make this happen.”
“And I’ve sort of been wondering if that’s what you had in mind.”
“You can take the car and head down the hill if you want. I’m not going to push you into this.”
Stephen took another long breath and shook his head. “My family’s been put in danger because of my actions. I’m even more obliged to fix this situation than you are.”
She steered back down through the S-turns and parked. Standing at the top of the embankment, she had a clear view of a lower section of the same road they were on.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “There’s that scenic overlook we passed, and the parking for it is behind those manzanita bushes. I’ll hide the car there now and come back up. When we’re done, we can just go right down the hillside and get the car.”
***
Stephen waited and watched the lower road while Amy drove back down to the overlook. In a few minutes the Camry came into view, then immediately pulled off and disappeared behind the bushes. Seconds later, Amy came racing across the road on foot and easily ascended the embankment to where Stephen waited.
“The bushes grow high on both sides of the parking spot,” she said. “So you can’t see the car from below or from up here.” Handing him Blondie’s 9mm, she said, “Come on,” and led the way up the rocky hillside to where they could look down into the wiggly ravine.
They stopped at a cleft between the rocks.
“Look,” she said. “You can sit on this rock and aim right through the cleft between these two big ones.”
Stephen sat where she’d indicated, test aimed through the cleft, and found that he had a good line of sight and plenty of room to move his arms.
“Windy up here,” Stephen said.
“I’ll wait at another spot up higher,” she said. “Otherwise, if we’re both down here, and we both miss, he’ll floor it around the next curve and be gone. But if I’m up there, and you miss, I’ll have a chance to get him while he’s coming in my direction. If I miss, I’ll still have an unobstructed line of fire for a few more seconds, because it’s a long straightaway up there after the S-turns end.”
“Okay,” he said. “But listen, if anyone’s in the car with him, we don’t shoot, okay?”
“Unless it’s Vendetti or Blondie or Gray-beard,” Amy said.
“Or Elf-beard,” Stephen said, looking at the cast on his hand. “If it’s any of those guys, we shoot them, too. But if it’s anyone we don’t know, or if another car catches up and follows him closely, then no shooting.”
“Okay,” she said. “And if we can’t do this thing here, then we go ahead with the original plan. Find where they keep the v-chimps and see what we can screw up.” She crouched close to Stephen and asked, “Still managing to be more angry than afraid?”
“It’s about an even split.” He set down his gun and squeezed the hand she’d laid on his shoulder.
“If you get him, come and tell me right away, because otherwise I’ll be waiting for him to come up the road. That’ll waste getaway time.”
***
A minute later they saw Sanderson’s Land Rover down on the lower road. There was no one riding with him, and no other vehicle followed his. He would come around and enter the wiggly ravine within a couple of minutes.
Amy clambered around the rocks and up the hillside. She squatted in position, gripping the latte burner, hoping to hear a shot, and hoping not to. In spite of the day’s dose of Vicodin, she was shaking, scared shitless, and figured Stephen was, too, in spite of how cool he’d seemed when she left him.
The wind shrieked against the rocks, past her head and sunglasses, and between her fingers when she tried cupping her ears. Its pitch fell and rose with the fierceness of the gusts. Amy wondered if she would be able to hear the Land Rover’s engine above it.
She stood and looked up the long, straight road that led higher, toward the chimp sanctuary. No cars. She turned and stared for a couple of seconds down into the wiggly ravine, where Sanderson would be coming if Stephen didn’t stop him.
The wind was getting louder, shrieking, its pitch varying in what sounded like a slow rhythm. It distracted her when she should have been concentrating.
That shriek got louder, and it was coming from higher up.
She stood and looked again at the long straightaway that lead further uphill. An angry whirl of dust was getting whipped up at the side of the road, then being blown by the wind into a long, high column, blasted at its top into feathery waft. Someone was driving this way on the shoulder, and coming fast.
The rising and falling shriek, too graceless for the wind, was a siren. The law was coming this way, using the soft shoulder to pass other vehicles. Coming straight to where she and Stephen were waiting with loaded firearms that they had no right to be carrying.
Amy raced back around the hillside and down toward Stephen. She had an urge to just toss her gun down on the rocks, but there was no time to thoroughly wipe it clear of prints. She put it in her pocket.
From the top of a boulder, she saw Sanderson’s Land Rover coming around the bend that would take it into Stephen’s line of fire. It was fifteen, maybe twenty yards from his hiding place. Looking down from the top of a granite wall opposite Stephen, Amy could just see his head and shoulders in the cleft between boulders across the road.
She shouted, but realized there was no way he could hear her over the wind. He didn’t seem to notice the siren yet. The sound was far less distinct down here.
There was no time for her to get around in back of him. Instead, she slid on her ass down into the road seven feet below. She rolled once, then ran into the road, right in front of the Land Rover, and into Stephen’s line of sight, waving her arms over her head like a football referee.
Amy saw him lower the gun half a second before she heard Sanderson sliding sideways as he slammed on his brakes. She spared one quick look to her left and saw Sanderson pull his sunglasses off and stare at her. He was wearing one of the loose, off-white shirts that had become his Green Angel trademark look – the kind with the cuffs that flared out just enough to suggest some kind of robe. His expression was exactly as it had been when he’d driven past her in the mountain pass on the logging road in Equatuer. Then, she’d been covered with mud, and now she was now coated in desert dust from her slide down the hill, but in her split-second glance at Sanderson, she felt she
saw recognition in his face.
The siren was now audible down here in the wiggly ravine, even over the wind. Amy saw Stephen turn his head toward the harsh sound.
She climbed up the craggy wall to him, kicking and grasping at the rock faces, bloodying her fingers, knees, and shins.
“Come on,” she said, and dragged Stephen away from the road, into the cover of rocks and brush. “Don’t drop the gun. Fingerprints.”
The siren was nearly on top of them. A megaphone joined it, letting out the electronic beeps and barks that help nudge unobservant drivers out of the way.
The megaphone howled briefly with feedback, then announced, “This area is under quarantine. Turn your vehicle around and leave the area at once. A Federally mandated quarantine is in effect for this area. Drive in reverse to the nearest wide area and turn around. You must leave immediately. Proceed all the way to the state highway. Do not stop on the way.”
They could no longer see the road, but with no more angry announcements from the bullhorn, Amy guessed that Sanderson wasn’t arguing with whatever law enforcement personnel had just unwittingly saved his life. Then they heard the Land Rover gun its engine and squeal. Sanderson was heading down the curve fast, probably rattled by the twin shocks of seeing Amy and then being ordered to leave.
“Let’s wait until they go by before we head for the car,” Amy said. “Whatever’s happening, we don’t want the cops to see us going down this hill on foot. They might decide to stop and talk to us.”
They lay flat on the ground under a cluster of bushes and watched the lower road. Less than a minute later, Sanderson’s Land Rover went by. In a moment there came a slower-moving line of vehicles led by a sheriff’s car: an unmarked SUV, a news van, several private cars, a small bus that might have held a tour group, then a yellow school bus, maybe kids on a field trip to witness a Hugh-Sanderson moment. Last came a park Ranger and the California Highway Patrol.