Bloody Tourists
( The Destroyer - 134 )
Warren Murphy
Richard Sapir
A-Kickin' and A-Grinnin'
The tiny Caribbean tourist trap of Union Island wants to declare its independence from the U.S. And while baby-faced island leader Greg Grom's "Free Union Island" movement is taken about as seriously as a summer day, good ol' Greg is touring Dixieland's hot spots, from the honky-tonks to the hee-haws, trying to rally support for the cause. And some weird stuff is happening . . .
Ordinary beer-swilling, foot-stomping, line-dancing yahoos are running amok, brawling like beasts on a rampage. Remo Williams -- currently not experiencing a lot of job satisfaction as Reigning Master -- spots the connection between the doofball from Union Island and the redneck killer zombies. And he's pretty sure Greg is slipping something into the local brew, but the why is another matter. No biggie. Remo's not in a mood to make friends, or deal with the Chiun's abuse or CURE's insults. He's here to smoke some bacon. Happily.
Destroyer 134: Bloody Tourists
By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
Chapter 1
Arby Maple began the day a nobody, but by day's end he would be famous.
First the evening news would introduce the world to this unlikely celebrity with the basset-hound face. Within a day all the news networks would hastily assemble their panels of experts to discuss the Arby Maple phenomenon. Their in-depth analysis of Maple's psyche, distilled into twenty-second sound bites, would be the official confirmation of what the people of the world already knew: Arby Maple was completely insane.
Within a week the garish tabloids would be on the racks in the grocery checkout lines, full of gory crimescene photos.
A paperback book entitled Maple the Man, Maple the Mass Murderer, written by a team of crack journalists, would be in the stores in under four weeks-a tremendous literary achievement. Three made-for-TV docudramas would be produced in time to air during sweeps. By then Maple was more than just another mass murderer; he was a trendsetter. Once he started doing it, it seemed as if everybody started doing it.
All the excitement wasn't going to kick off for a good twenty minutes. Arby Maple didn't know it was coming. Fact was, he was bored stupid and there was no relief in sight.
"I can't decide where to go next!" Natalie Maple said as they left the Hank Jones Auditorium, home of The Hank Jones Show.
"How about the airport?" Arby suggested.
Mrs. Maple's enthusiasm dimmed. "You can't say you didn't adore The Hank Jones Show"
"Sure, I can. I didn't adore The Hank Jones Show. I didn't even like it. Have you ever noticed the empty space on the couch at home when you watch The Hank Jones Show on TV?"
Mrs. Maple shoved the slick city map into his hands. "Okay, Arby, then you decide what we should do next."
Arby handed the map right back to her. "There's not a single thing I want to do next."
"You didn't even look at it!" his wife protested.
"Natalie, you've had maps and brochures lying around the house for months, and I've looked at every single one of them. I figured out weeks ago that there wasn't anything of interest for me in the entire town of Bunsen, Mississippi."
When Natalie got angry she stuck out her lower lip and blew air up her face. It made her look like a bulldog. "Maybe you should have informed me of this little tidbit of information when we started planning this vacation."
"Natalie," Arby said wearily, "the very day you came home with all those brochures I told you no way. No way I wanted to waste my vacation looking at a bunch of old washed-up country-music people in Bunsen, Mississippi."
His wife's eyes were as hard as glass. "You said no such thing."
"Twenty, maybe thirty times I said it, but you had your mind made up. I said it anyway, practically every day since then." Arby shrugged. "But you went right on ahead and bought the tickets and booked the hotel and here we are."
"But it's Bunsen. Where country music was born."
"Eighteen years we been married. How come you haven't figured out yet that I hate country music?"
Lips compressed in a bloodless line, Natalie struggled to come up with a zinger that would put Arby in his place. "You are a real wet blanket, Arby Maple," she declared. "It isn't fair of you to ruin my vacation:" So Natalie went her way and Arby went his. Natalie took the map, and within minutes she had immersed herself again in the magic that was the Bunsen Theater District-America's Country Music Main Street.
Arby, Natalie decided, was an idiot. This town was heaven on earth. There were beautiful shops along Main Street. There was every kind of fine country food, and shops filled with delightful gifts. But the boutiques and restaurants were just the sideshow. The main attractions were the many beautiful theaters.
Natalie had fallen in love with Southern culture when she was in nursing school. She and the other girls would sit around watching a country variety show called Yee Haw! and have a great time. Natalie's roommate, Babsie, was a well-mannered young lady from Georgia who loved to talk about the South.
"Everybody has nice manners in the South," Babsie said. "Everybody calls you ma'am." She would giggle and say, "In the South we think this show is a little, you know, wild, but I like it anyway."
Natalie was from Brooklyn. Brooklyn was crude and filthy and she hated it. Anyplace where the mild shenanigans of Yee Haw! were "wild" was where Natalie wanted to be.
She carried around her impression of the South for decades. Now she was really here. In a delightful little park between two gift shops she relaxed on a bench and looked over the schedule of daily entertainment. That's what Bunsen was truly famous for-all the wonderful entertainment! You were never more than a few steps away from a first-rate performance by some of the biggest names in show business.
Natalie Maple gasped in delight when she realized there was a show by a Russian comedian starting in just twenty minutes. He was her absolute favorite! Talk about big-name entertainment.
As she strolled down Main Street, hoping to get to the theater early and maybe snag a front-row seat, Natalie realized Bunsen, Mississippi was everything she had hoped it would be. Polite, friendly people. Clean streets. She didn't feel the need to clutch her purse against her side for fear of having it snatched.
But then there was her nitwit husband. Arby was not what she had hoped he would be. He was too stupid to know he was in paradise.
Natalie Maple decided something right then and there. This was where she wanted to live. This was the life she wanted. What was Arby going to say when she delivered that little piece of news?
Arby would never move to Bunsen, Mississippi. Not in a million years.
Natalie smiled. This little town just kept looking better and better.
ARBY WAS TRYING to explain that arguing with Natalie was like trying to convince a dog not to dig a hole. "I'm very sorry to hear that, sir." The bartender couldn't care less and left.
"I know just how you feel," said the young man a couple of stools over. "My aunt decided this was the place to go for our family reunion. They're all down the street watching some banjo players."
"Banjos!" Arby Maple said in disgust.
The young man went across to the bartender and came back with two drinks, handing one over to Arby. "It's on me."
"Thanks, friend." Maple accepted it gladly.
"The modern-day victims of Yee Haw! must stick together," the young man announced and raised his glass in a toast.
The Scotch whiskey went down all right, but when it was done Arby had some grittiness on his tongue. "You know," his new pal announced, "the worst thing about this place is the people. The people here are very rude."
"Naw
, just the opposite. They're too damn polite," Maple said. "Wait. You know what? You're right. They are rude. They act polite but they're really being rude, right to your face, all the time, and just dressing it up as Southern manners. At least in New York they tell you to your face if they think you're an asshole."
"Drink up, friend," the young man said.
Maple drained the Scotch whiskey and tried to swallow the grainy residue on his tongue. "They can't even wash a glass right."
"You do not like these people," the young man stated.
"You got that right."
"Especially the assholes who work here."
"Yeah, they're the ones who lay it on thick. They're the worst."
"You know who's the worst?" the young man asked. "It's that bartender," Arby Maple growled, rising from his bar stool and clenching his fists.
The young man said quickly, "No, not him! There is somebody much worse."
Maple looked around the small bar, modeled after a quaint gentlemen's tavern that had operated in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the late 1800s. It was empty now. Just the two customers and the asshole behind the bar. The bartender was a miserable piece of dog crap who deserved to get the living shit kicked out of him. But there was somebody Maple hated even more. He just wasn't sure who....
"Who is it?" he demanded.
The young man leaned close and held his mustache in place, pointing with his other hand. Maple looked. Out the front windows, across the immaculately clean Main Street, was a small public courtyard.
"Him," the young man growled. "The guy with the cart?"
"The guy with the cart," the young man said earnestly. "There is nobody you hate more than the guy with the cart."
Arby Maple's lower lip curled. Hot breath stuttered from his nostrils as his body inflated with his passion. The young man was right-Arby abhorred the man with the cart. It was a soul-filling, mind-expanding malevolence. There was no reason why, and this kind of complete hatred needed no excuse. And there was only one thing to do about it.
The Cobbler In A Cup guy had to die.
ARBY MAPLE STRODE from the tavern, crossed Main Street and grabbed the vendor by the collar. The vendor's smile disappeared and his clip-on bow tie landed in the grass.
"Hey!"
But that was all he said before Arby Maple flipped open the lid to the hot-box cart and shoved his head inside. The vendor's face disappeared into the steaming tray of gooey cobbler.
Arby Maple loved the sound of his enemy crying out in pain, but he was disappointed to find that he could only get the man's head and one shoulder through the square opening. He pushed on the other shoulder, then heaved against it and felt a crack of bone as the shoulder went in. The vendor was screaming and kicking his feet.
Maple brought the hot-box lid down, hard, on the backbone of the trapped vendor. Then he brought it down again. The lid was polished stainless steel and was heavy enough to do the job. Maple kept slamming it until he saw the spine give. The legs stopped kicking.
Arby Maple experienced profound satisfaction. His eyes fell on a decorative iron gate, standing permanently open alongside one edge of the park. The crossbar that slid into place to secure the gate was also of solid black iron with a nice hook at one end. Maple wrenched it out of its socket.
He didn't see the people running away from him. He didn't hear the screaming. His hatred would turn on them in a minute or so, but for now he had one thought only: he was going to wipe the floor with that smug son-of-a-bitch bartender.
AS SOON AS MAPLE LEFT the tavern, the young man strolled quickly up Main Street and took cover in the door of a souvenir shop. He was tentatively pleased when he saw the body of the cobbler seller go limp.
Maple wasn't through yet, though. He grabbed a hunk of metal from the fence and went back for the bar. Well, that wasn't unexpected. The man had already been irked by the bartender.
Maple emerged from the tavern with his iron bar dripping blood and matted with hair.
Stop now, stop now, the young man pleaded silently. Arby Maple rushed a crowd of onlookers and began bashing their heads in.
THE YOUNG MAN WALKED despondently through the parklike town, against the flow of security carts and interested visitors heading for the action. His subject was supposed to kill just the one guy. Instead the man was on some sort of rampage.
When he reached his car he started the engine, but paused to pull out his notebook. There were pages of unrelated scribbling inside, but in the middle was a carefully printed chart. At the top of the first column was the entry GUTX-ED-UT1. "ED" stood for Evaporative Distillation, the method used to create this particular batch. "UT" was for Utah, home state of the manufacturing lab, and "1" was the first sample from that lab. Carefully, with his treasured fine-tipped Mont Blanc pen, the young man recorded his findings in the results field.
He wrote just one word: "Imperfect."
Police, fire and SWAT vans were careening into the parking lot as the young man left. A TV news truck was close behind. The young man had to smile when he saw that. Well, at the very least, he thought, this place was going to get some mighty bad publicity and folks would be staying away in droves. And everyone knew what that meant.
Less competition.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he was ordering off the dinner menu, a la carte.
"Meatballs."
"A man like you needs more than meatballs." The waitress chomped her gum provocatively.
"Meatballs," Remo insisted.
"The customer is always right. But why not get the dinner? It comes with pasta and garlic bread and a salad."
Remo considered that, then nodded. "You talked me into it. I'll have the full dinner. In fact, make it four meatball dinners."
Her jaw froze midchomp.
"There will be others in my party," he explained.
"Hope your friends like meatballs," the waitress said, trying to sound witty. She cocked a hip at him, just to be sure he was getting the message.
But the customer in the circular booth looked right past her. "Is that a pie case? I haven't seen one of those in ages."
"We have apple and coconut cream, but I recommend the cherry pie." She leaned at him, thrusting out her impressive bosom.
"I'll take it," her customer said.
"Four slices? Or how about a piece of cherry pie for just you?"
"No, no, bring the whole pie. Two if you've got ' em." She stood up straight, looked at him quizzically and departed, her heels clicking on the linoleum. By the time she came back with four salads, she was prepared to make another go of it.
"Doesn't look like your friends are going to make it," she pronounced. "How about you and I get a room at the Hilton down the street and order room service?"
"Here he is now."
Remo slipped out of the deep vinyl booth and approached the man who was standing inside the entrance, smoothing his lapels and looking displeased. When the waitress saw who it was, she vanished into the kitchen.
"Michelangelo, good to see you!" Remo said with a hand outstretched.
"Good to see me? Good to see me?" The new arrival declined to shake hands. "Buddy, you got some serious balls, I'll give you that much. But you got serious troubles, too, you know what I mean?"
"I have a table." Remo gestured to the huge booth.
"I know you got a table. You think I don't know you got a table? You think I haven't been watching you, trying to figure you out?"
"Please." Remo was conciliatory. "Join me for dinner. We'll talk."
"I don't feel like dinner. I feel like bustin' your ass." Remo kept a firm grip on the smile. He never claimed to be an actor and this good-to-see-you shtick was getting on his nerves. To his amazement, Michelangelo "The Fig" Figaroa slid into the booth.
Remo joined him. They could have fit another five or six human beings into the booth without crowding, and the vinyl backs were so high it was like being in a room by themselves. Here they could have privacy.
"I got two guys with guns watching the place, just so's you know. I also had the place closed up. For added privacy."
"Very efficient of you, Michelangelo."
"You think I'd be here if I thought this was a setup? I had every square inch of this place checked out the minute I got your phone call and my guys been watching it ever since. I know you came here by yourself. I know that. Got it?"
"Clear as crystal. Have some salad."
"I don't eat salad. So whoever it is you're expecting to come through the door, they ain't coming. Got it?"
"Read you loud and clear. Here comes the garlic bread." Remo turned to the waitress. "Thanks very much." The waitress knew Figaroa. She set down the breadbasket and fled.
"Bread, Michelangelo?" Remo offered the basket. "Nice and warm."
Figaroa shook his head tightly. "I ain't getting through to you, am I? This ain't no business dinner, because you and me ain't doing no business. I'm here to find out what the fuck you got and why the fuck you're waving it in my face."
"Oh. Okay, then." Remo put down the basket, looking crestfallen.
"So start talking."
"Okay, then. So, I just happened to know that you're a big man around here. I know you've been having some trouble, too, with people moving in on you, like Boss Jorge and the other Mexicans, and I heard you got muscled out of some parts of town and stuff. Then I heard about somebody putting some bad stuff on the street, and some of the stuff is so bad it's killing people and making them go crazy. And I heard people saying it came from the Mexicans and was really hurting their business, and nobody would buy stuff anymore from the Mexicans and so your business was doing nice. I wouldn't have thought nothing of it except that I found out something else."
"Yeah?" Figaroa demanded.
Remo lowered his voice. "The Mexicans are not too happy."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"Boss Jorge's going after you, I heard."
"When? How?"
"Not with men, you know. He's not gonna start a war. He's got a plan that he says will make you a nonproblem for good."
"Huh. That slimeball Mexican ain't got a prayer. How's he gonna do it?"
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