by Bob Sanchez
Make that ten or twelve bees, or possibly twenty. They dive-bombed Diet Cola’s face, neck and limbs as he frantically clambered out of the ditch and ran. A bee kamikazed through the gauze on his injured hand, and he crushed it with his fist. He slapped at his ear and got another. The sneaky little bastards bit him everywhere from ass to elbow, ankle to scalp. His eyes glazed over and he began to swoon, but as he fell to his knees he could have sworn he saw an old woman running toward him in her underwear, yelling and swinging a pair of orange pants.
Whap! Whap! Whap! She hit him over and over again, but he sensed through his pain that she was driving the bees away. Then two guys grabbed him and led him around the rock and to the road.
Soon he was sitting sideways inside the car with his feet planted on the ground while the old lady attended to his stings and scratches. She plucked a stinger out of a mountainous welt on his arm. “You should be in the hospital, young man.”
She looked familiar. So did her old man. What the hell were these flipping geezers doing here?
“Hold still,” she said. She swabbed his face with a wad of cotton doused in alcohol.
“Ouch! Stop that!”
“I beg your pardon, dear?” she jabbed him in the eye with the cotton ball, and he fell backwards in pain.
Zippy turned around in the front seat and smiled. “Man, am I glad to see you, D.C. We’ve got that Durgin jerk’s parents. Now he’ll have to give us the ashes.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” the woman asked. “Carrick, darling, what did the young man say?” Her husband’s eyes opened wide.
“Nothing, Brodie. Don’t worry.”
“You’re the bullwhip lady!” Diet Cola raised his bandaged hand. “See what you did to me?” The gauze wrapping was filthy and partly shredded. A dead bee hung from a thread in his palm. He hadn’t had time to change the dressing since that first day when she’d viciously attacked him back in Massachusetts. Of course he never went to the doctor either, and now the hand ached like a bastard. Without thinking, he smacked her in the face with his open hand. Pain ignited in his palm and rocketed through his arm, but he was a man about it. She screamed and fell into Carrick’s arms.
Carrick’s fist came out of nowhere and exploded like a firecracker on Diet Cola’s nose. Blood splattered onto his shirt, and now his fingertips to the top of his skull were one continual river of pain.
“You had that coming,” Zippy said cheerily. “This is a very nice lady. She saved your life.”
“No, my husband did.” Brodie turned and gave Carrick an adoring look. Carrick flexed his fist.
Diet Cola unwrapped the purple gauze and held up his hand. His whole body shook as a nasty gash with yellow gunk oozed from the base of his pinky to the base of his thumb. “This is what you did to me!” he said to Brodie.
“When did I ever hurt you, you vicious bully? We’ve never—Wait. You’re the hooligan who broke into our house and attacked my husband!”
“He’s a who what?” Zippy asked.
“A hooligan, a common criminal, a low-life.”
“Hoo-o-o-oligan. Hoo-o-o-oligan.” Zippy enjoyed the sound of the new word. “D.C., you’re a low-life! Hee-hee! Hoo-o-o-oligan!”
Diet Cola decided he’d had enough abuse. He closed his watery eyes and found a reserve of strength from somewhere deep within him. Then he reached out with his left hand and clenched Zippy by the throat. Zippy struggled but couldn’t release himself from the powerful grip. His face reddened and his eyes bulged like he was staring at death. After a minute he passed out, fell to his knees and collapsed onto the ground. “Better a low-life than a no-life.”
“You killed him!” Brodie said.
“Nah, but I could’ve done it easy.” Diet Cola gave Zippy a half-hearted kick in the chest. “See, he’s breathing.” Zippy sounded like a kazoo had stuck in his windpipe, but he was definitely breathing.
Diet Cola saw that his car hadn’t gone anywhere, but the Durgins’ rental car was better. Now confident of his strength, he grabbed Carrick by the arm and took his car keys, then went back and found his gun. He tucked it inside his belt, figuring it might come in handy even without ammo.
Chapter 40
What would the King do? Elvis felt faint as he pondered the question. Buried up to his shoulders in sand, he couldn’t even wriggle his hips. Elvis the Pelvis. He tried to smile, but the effort hurt too much. The sun was white hot, but Diet Cola had put a hat on him, saying that way he’d cook slower. Thank goodness for his wraparound Ray-Bans and his memories of Nashville. He would have won that contest for sure if he’d remembered to pull up his zipper. Or if it was a different kind of contest. The tickle on his neck wasn’t sweat, because it was traveling up toward his chin. He looked down at the ground a few inches away where a battalion of ants marched in his direction, hup-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight, coming right after the syrup on his face. When they started biting, he screamed and shook his head so hard his Ray-Bans came loose and dangled from his left ear. The light was like a big flood lamp stuck right in his face, so he closed his eyes tight and kept them that way. The ants climbed and sank their pincers as they went along, like climbers sinking spikes into the side of a mountain. Some went for the syrup, and some went for his tears.
If there was an upside to all this, it must have been the visions that made him forget his pain. A big part of that vision involved a blinding light, and then his maker appeared from the sky, complete with angry face, white beard, and lightning bolts in his fist. Cal was an angel beside him, more out of reach than ever. Elvis was lower than dirt. He knew that now. If you hadn’t obsessed on Ms. Vrattos, you wouldn’t be in this hole, the heavenly voice said. Give her up or give up hope.
“Oh, I will,” Elvis said out loud. “I’ll never bother her again.” He was in no position to cross his fingers as he made his promise, but it didn’t matter much anymore. No woman was worth this suffering. Not even Calliope Vrattos.
Nearby, Poindexter was enjoying another day in the desert sun, rooting up and munching prickly pear cactus, breaking down much of the vegetation in its stomach and passing the rest through his system without a care.
Then gunshots startled Poindexter and made him scurry away from the sounds, but a mutation in his genes had left him curious. He stayed away as long as he heard voices, crouching in the shade while his brain clamored for sex and food. Soon he heard only whimpering, so he scuffled back to where he could catch a look at the source of this strange sound.
Through the clearing, Poindexter saw something entirely new, a disembodied human head bobbing, shaking and blubbering. Was it going to attack him?
A wild pig slurped the cherry-flavored ants on Elvis’s face. It was the ugliest, smelliest creature Elvis had ever encountered except for Diet Cola. There were long, curved tusks and bristles on its face that would break a razor blade. It grunted soft, sweet nothings, then stuck its raspy tongue into Elvis’s ear. The gesture had a calming effect on Elvis, who thought this was the most gentleness he’d felt in a long time, even if the creature only liked him for his syrup. But when it bit his earlobe, he thought for the first time of his mortal soul and how he didn’t want his last act before dying to be romanced by another species. So he screamed, making the pig scurry backward and trip on its hind legs. Then it stood back up, shook its body and took a tentative step forward.
He screamed several more times until his wired-shut jaw ached from trying to open it. Ants were still stinging his face, and now he wished the pig would come back and finish the job. “Come here, sweetie. Come on.”
This time the pig rubbed its rump on his face.
Chapter 41
Ace and Frosty had no idea where they had wandered off to, but sticking around to dig a hole had been Ace’s idea of stupidity. Then when Frosty whispered his suspicion that Diet Cola might not mean well, they left the job to Elvis.
They weren’t fools, after all.
So they’d headed into the desert, thinking to circle back
to the road after a while. After a half hour they stumbled along, no longer sure they were headed in the right direction. They came to a dry river bed where Ace discovered a snake skin that on closer inspection had a live snake inside. It had diamond shapes on its back and beads on its tail. Ace and Frosty stood there and debated whether it was a rattlesnake, but the creature wanted no part of the conversation. It slithered over to the nearest shady spot, which struck Ace as a very sensible idea. Then they both heard a blood-curdling scream that could only come from an animal being torn apart, chunks of bloody flesh dripping from the mouth of a vicious predator. Ace felt sick for the poor creature and decided then and there to become a vegetarian.
“I think it’s Elvis!” Frosty said. They headed in the direction of the cries.
Ace and Frosty couldn’t see Elvis yet, but they were within earshot, maybe three or four saguaros away. “Come on, baby,” Elvis said, his tone urgent. “Come on. That’s right, lick me. Oh. Oh, that’s good. Yes!”
At that, Ace and Frosty stopped and looked at each other. “He doesn’t need us anymore,” Ace said.
“We shouldn’t look,” Frosty said. “This is a private moment.”
“Yeah. Let’s check it out.” They advanced until they saw the pig and the head. Ace thought it looked like a broken bobble-head doll.
“Elvis lost his head!” Frosty said. Pig and head turned and looked at the same time, then the animal hooked Elvis’s jacket with its tusk from the cactus it was hanging on and disappeared quickly into the underbrush.
Out by the roadside, Diet Cola’s nose kept bleeding. He wiped it with his shirt while he tried to refocus his eyes. Carrick looked at him with folded arms and an eat-shit-and-die scowl. Brodie sat on a rock and talked to Zippy in a whisper you could hear all the way to Phoenix. She touched his arm, doing her Nurse Nightingale thing. Diet Cola pretended not to listen.
“Mister Zippy,” she said, “what’s your real name?”
“Zippy’s good enough,” he said.
“I’ll bet your parents gave you a nice name.”
“I’m kind of embarrassed. Just let it go.”
“When I was a child, I hated my name, Brodie McGee. But one’s name should be a source of pride.”
Zippy stared straight ahead. “Yeah.”
“Hey, lady,” Diet Cola said. “Help me clean up my face.”
“Take our son, Mackenzie. We gave him a name with great character.”
Zippy grunted.
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Did you hear me? I need some help here!” Diet Cola’s nose felt like he’d stuck it in boiling water. Drops of blood fell onto the sandy soil.
“I’ll bet you have a wonderful name.”
“Juanita thinks so, but she’s the only one.”
“Ah, you have a lady friend. I knew it. I just knew it!”
Diet Cola walked up to Brodie and let his blood drip on her orange pants. She stood up, startled. “Yes, young man?” He thought her voice was harsher than necessary, since he was the one in pain here.
“I’m bleeding. Make it stop.”
“We have a first aid kit in our car. Help yourself.”
“You go get it. You fix me up.”
“I’m afraid not. I have no desire to help you.”
Diet Cola pulled out his gun and waved it at her head. Her eyes widened at first, but then calmness seemed to fill her face. “I’ll spread your brains on the rock,” he said. She wouldn’t know he couldn’t follow through.
“Hades is filled with your kind. You must look forward to seeing them.”
“What did you just say? Repeat it in English.”
“I’m at peace. You can go to—”
“Here it is! Here it is!” Carrick ran toward them with the first-aid kit. “Mister Cola, let me clean that up for you.”
“No, your wife will do it.” The gun barrel pressed against Brodie’s forehead.
“I will not, you horrid man.”
“Brodie darling, please! Do as he asks.”
“I will do as you ask, Carrick. Put your weapon away, sir, and I will clean you up.”
Diet Cola tucked his gun back under his belt and sat cross-legged on the ground. Brodie held his nose gently but firmly. “Hold your nose like this,” she said.
“You do it for me.”
She took his left hand and guided it to his nose. “Hold your own nose. I need both hands.” He complied. She daubed his face with a cotton swab soaked in alcohol.
“How log?”
“As long as I say. Sit still.” She reached for a pair of tweezers and pulled thorns and stingers out of his arm. Then she turned her attention to the gash in his hand. “This is beyond my skill except to clean the wound and re-dress it. Then you need professional medical help, not the ministrations of some little old lady.”
“Shuddup.”
“How did you get this injury, anyway? Oh yes, I did it. My Carrick and I took square-dance lessons a few years ago. You know, it bored him silly, but he was such a gentleman about it. So we went out to Wyoming and I had the brilliant idea that we both might enjoy an activity with some snap to it. Well, besides our sex lives, which I’m certainly not going to talk about. Have you ever been to Cheyenne? The rodeos, my goodness!”
Brodie blabbered on like this while she carefully cleaned his hand, unrolled fresh gauze and applied new dressing. “—and so that’s how we both got to taking bullwhip lessons,” she said about a thousand years later. “You’re lucky Carrick didn’t whip you. He could separate your head from your shoulders.”
She gave him Tylenol and ordered him to rest. Zippy drove with Carrick in the front passenger seat, while Brodie sat behind Zippy and Diet Cola sat next to her, his hand feeling a bit better. He checked a map and found Sedona a few miles off the main highway. Zippy headed that way.
Chapter 42
Mack’s cell phone chimed to the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which reminded him that he hadn’t sat down quietly and just listened to classical music since Mary died. He flipped the phone’s cover and heard commotion before he could say hello. Over the airways came familiar voices of Mom and Dad followed by Zippy and Diet Cola. Mack looked at Cal and put a finger to his lips. She nodded. He pulled his Dodge to the side of the road and turned off the ignition.
“Ford Mustang.” Zippy’s voice.
“That’s a very strong name. Very manly.” Mom’s voice.
“My Dad is a maniac. He named me after his favorite car.”
Laughter. Diet Cola’s.
“What happened to the Presley boy?”
“Dead and buried.” Diet Cola’s voice, low and threatening. Mack guessed that Dad had speed-dialed him from the cell phone in his pocket.
“Oh, dear God. How about—oh, their names. Mutt and Jeff? No—”
“Ace and Frosty, lady. My guess, they’re miles down the road, thumbing a ride back east.”
“You’re hurt, Mister Cola.” Dad’s voice. “We should find you a clinic.”
“No time for that. Where’s your son?”
“What do you want from him?”
“A hundred million bucks.”
“On his police department pension? You’re not serious.”
“Where is he?”
“I think he’ll be in Sedona.”