“Say, sweets,” Duncan said enthusiastically, “why don’t you drop those panties? Then we can really see what’s what.”
“Duncan!” This time Betty’s tone was not shocked, but stern, threatening.
Jeannie was terrified. She couldn’t move. Who are these people? How can they possibly know about me?
Carlos came around the counter. “Okay guys. That’s it.”
Jeannie looked over her shoulder at him. She was as white as pastry dough, her whole body trembling.
Betty and Duncan looked at each other and burst into laughter.
* * *
Will was in a fenced-in garbage area behind the diner. Stinking metal cans were surrounded by a board fence and chicken wire. The birds taking advantage of the shade under the big clamshell were restless again, the way they had been when he had driven into the lot and gotten out of his car. He quietly turned over an empty aluminum can and then stood on it, looking over the fence.
Below him and close enough to touch, a man with a brush cut and a sun-reddened face was slipping through the door marked EXIT. He was wearing the requisite conservative suit tailored to hide the gun under his left arm. Brushcut paused and nodded over his shoulder.
Will saw the nod returned by a blond woman standing beside a dark blue Pontiac. She was dressed like an executive, matching skirt and jacket, and her hair was up in a tight bun. She slipped a hand into her sensible purse and settled back against the car to wait things out as Brushcut entered the diner. Will was pretty sure she wasn’t reaching into her purse for a roll of Mentos.
Will climbed down and took off his shirt, holster and T-shirt. He put the holster back on, tucked his ball cap and T-shirt into each of his back pockets and slipped the shirt on. Then he lifted the lid of a garbage can and reached into a mess of rotting leftovers which seemed to be melting into one big multicolored stink in the desert heat. He brought up a handful of gleaming rot and smeared it across his shirt and chest.
* * *
Carlos was pissed. The couple in the booth was laughing at his size. They must have thought he was an angry kid. He hefted the cleaver and the laughter stopped. There didn’t seem to be any fear in their eyes, more a look of professional interest. This is way weird, Carlos thought.
“Alright you sick assholes,” Carlos said smoothly, “it’s time to move out. We don’t want your business.”
Betty gave Carlos an indulgent smile. Duncan grinned.
* * *
The woman standing by the car behind the diner heard the gate to the garbage area open and watched a man stagger toward her covered in filth. She caught the odor wafting from him and gagged. Something lumpy and fuzzy, mold maybe, was clinging to his shirt. One hand and arm were covered in a purplish glutinous mass that glistened and ran like soft wax. The other hand was inside his shirt scratching furiously at his chest. Flies buzzed around him, one landing on his lip. He touched it with his tongue and it flew off. “Yum,” he said.
She stepped forward, her hand coming out of her purse with a gun in it. “I never thought a lack of personal hygiene would merit a bullet but in your case I’ll make an exception. No closer.”
Will ignored the Glock in her hand and gave her his goofiest grin. “Hey, lay-dee,” he nearly sang. “You got any change? A doll-ur? I gotta get a buzz ticket. I gotta job innerview.”
“Back off,” she commanded. “Now!”
The man let out a petulant shout. “This is my buzz stop!” He lurched and belched and shambled away from her, veering toward the Pontiac where he began making a liquid hiccupping sound.
“Oh Jesus, not on the car!” She stuffed the gun into her purse and ran to the man, grabbing the arm not covered in crud and trying to steer him in the other direction before he started to puke. She made a dry retching sound and gasped. “God, you stink!”
The man snapped to attention. She only had a moment to realize she’d messed up.
Will clipped her on the chin as she was going for the gun and grabbed her before she hit the ground. He looked at her a moment as he listened to the voices in his head. Hey dickhead! Turn on your titty-radar man! This babe is stacked! Will thought about that, and smiled. “And now ladies and gentlemen,” he said as he yanked off the woman’s jacket and pulled her blouse open, “It’s distraction time!”
* * *
Jeannie and Carlos stood together. The couple in the booth was laughing uproariously. “Okay people, joke’s over!” Carlos was getting steamed. Then he heard a laugh behind him.
“No it ain’t!” a man said.
Carlos turned around. The speaker was another suited white dude, a tall guy with a brush cut. He had the reddest face Carlos had ever seen. Looks like a newborn baby screaming for a tit, he thought. The man was pointing a sleek black automatic at him.
“Good timing, Peter!” Betty said, sounding like a cheerleader during a pep rally.
Peter bowed to Betty. Then he gave Carlos a sorry shake of the head. “How old are you, Man-yew-el,” he asked, as if talking to a child, “Sixteen?”
“Guess again, Pete,” Carlos replied. His bowels were twisting into furious knots. “I’m old enough to kick ass when somebody’s causing a disturbance in here.”
Peter smirked and gestured with the gun. “Drop the blade, Jorge, or I’ll spread your brains across the floor like spilled guacamole.”
Carlos raised the cleaver. Jeannie whispered, “Do what he says, Carlos.”
“Screw that,” he whispered back. “I don’t know what they want with you but it doesn’t look good.”
“C’mon, Cantinflas,” Peter said, gesturing with the gun, the barrel pointing upward. “What are you going to do, cut the bullets in half before I—”
The gun was pointing away from him. Hoping all those years he had spent in little league as a kid had paid off, Carlos threw the cleaver. He was hoping to knock the gun out of the man’s hand. The cleaver sank into Peter’s right shoulder and nearly severed his arm.
“Shit!” Carlos yelled, horrified by he had just done.
Jeannie looked back and saw Duncan and Betty make handguns appear from nowhere.
Carlos watched blood spew out of Peter’s shoulder in an obscene froth. He saw Peter’s eyes roll up, saw the man’s knees buckle, and saw the right index finger twitch on the gun’s trigger. He grabbed Jeannie and pulled her down onto the floor.
The gun fired and the big plate glass window exploded. Betty and Duncan slipped under the table. The trigger was squeezed again as Carlos scrambled forward, the bullet blasting a chunk of plaster out of the wall by the door. Peter collapsed, and Carlos grabbed the gun.
He spun around. Duncan and Betty were pointing identical automatics at him. He kept his gun on Betty, having remembered reading that women were better shots than men because of finer motor control and quicker reflexes. Huddled on the floor between them was Jeannie.
* * *
“No shit,” Will said, checking the unconscious woman’s purse and seeing that her driver’s license identified her as Bonnie Hubbard from Los Angeles. He tore the woman’s blouse into strips and then took off her bra. Her breasts were firm and high, which suited his purpose. They’d be easier to see.
He placed the woman in the driver’s seat of the Pontiac and used strips of cloth to bind her hands to the steering wheel. He clicked her seatbelt into place and then tied another strip of cloth around her neck and the thin metal rods that supported the headrest on her seat. With her head and hands in place he closed the door and stepped back. The effect was good enough. He pried a board out of the fence, went to the car, and started the engine. He took his time working the board into place on the gas pedal, humming a tune and wishing he didn’t stink so much. Then he heard two shots from inside the diner.
* * *
“Freeze, Pancho. Drop the gun.” Duncan kept his own automatic on the cook, irritated by how unnerved the kid was. The cook seemed to be ignoring him for Betty. He and Betty got to their feet, and the cook did the same.
&nbs
p; They all moved with exaggerated slowness. The waitress was between them, kneeling on the floor, every muscle taut, looking like a doe surrounded by wolves.
Duncan grinned when he realized he was getting a hard-on. He imagined the woman on her knees naked and surrounded by the ruined bodies of his fellow trackers, wondered where in the hell that mental image had come from, and realized that it was turning him on.
Carlos wiped sweat out of his eyes with his free hand. On the hottest days he had been able to work the grill, the deep-fat fryers and the ovens at a manic pace without feeling the heat. Now he was pissing sweat out of every pore.
Duncan took a step forward. He felt good. Loose. In control. Horny as hell. Part of his mind played with a very possible scenario. Pancho shoots Betty. He shoots Pancho. The target they were tracking tries to run. He grabs the target, checks the roots of her hair, plucks out a contact, and pulls down her panties. The target is confirmed or denied. And either way he fucks the sweet and ever-loving shit out of her. Up the ass first. Definitely. With an ass like that it’d be like fucking a—
“Duncan?” Betty was looking at him, puzzled. They had been warned that the target might have biological and emotional impacts on men in the tracking parties, and no man could know what might happen until he was in the same room with her. Betty pointed at Duncan’s crotch and raised an eyebrow. “What the hell are you doing?”
Duncan glanced down and cursed. It looked like he had another pistol stuffed in his shorts. In a way I do, he thought, and this one’s loaded. He felt giddy with an overwhelming urge to sink his dick into something. He took a deep breath. “This has gone far enough. Drop the gun, you Mexican bastard.”
“I’m not a Mexican,” Carlos said, clearly annoyed. “I’m an American.”
Duncan made a face. “With an accent like that?”
“In the last forty years we’ve had more Presidents with accents than without. Are you saying they weren’t Americans?”
Duncan fidgeted while he mulled this over.
Jeannie shook her head. That guy has an erection, she thought. Story of my life. She looked at Carlos and thought, be quiet or they’ll kill you! And me! She wanted to say it out loud but couldn’t.
Duncan composed himself. “Listen, you little fuck. I’m going to count to three. If you’re still holding the gun, I’ll put a bullet in your head and let some air into that sun-baked vacuum. Got it?”
“You shoot me, and I’ll shoot your partner, fuckhead.” Carlos said in a tone so casual it amazed even him.
“One.” Duncan said.
Carlos laughed. “You’re losing your boner, man.”
Duncan flushed. It was true. He could feel his erection subsiding along with that wonderful, inexplicable feeling of elation. His face turned mottled red, rage choking him like a pair of invisible hands. “Two.”
“Betty Boop over there is gonna be dead because of you,” Carlos said, steadying his gun hand.
* * *
Outside, Will reached in through the driver’s window and put Bonnie Hubbard’s car in gear. Hanging on to the doorframe, he steered the car around to the front of the diner, the board jammed over the gas pedal allowing the vehicle accelerate at a steady rate.
* * *
“Three!” Duncan said, hoping that whoever was coming toward the diner just drove right on by.
* * *
Will cranked the wheel, straightening the car’s course, and then leaped away from it and out of sight just as it rolled by the big window and cruised across the parking lot toward the highway.
* * *
Betty looked over her shoulder. She gasped and cried out. “Bonnie!”
Duncan wheeled quickly. “Holy shit!”
They stood together before the shattered window watching the Pontiac glide by. Bonnie was at the wheel, apparently naked. The car hit a rut and her breasts bounced up into view. Duncan gawked, eyes wide.
Betty cried out. “Bonnie, what are you doing?” To Duncan she said, “Cover them.” She turned and took a careful step through the shattered window intending to run after the car that careened across the highway and slammed to a stop in a ditch.
Duncan watched Betty go. Cover them? Jesus! He turned quickly. Not quick enough.
Carlos shifted to one side to get Jeannie out of his line of fire and then shot at Duncan. His hands were shaking and his aim was lousy, but at least he hit something.
Duncan’s left kneecap exploded like a rotten tomato. “Christ!” he cried, falling on his ass and dropping his pistol. “Oh my jeeezuz!”
Betty took three paces when an arm came from nowhere and slammed into her forehead like a tree limb. She hit the ground like a sack of laundry, her pistol clattering in the dust.
Duncan writhed and cursed, his hands hovering over the red and white pulp of his shattered knee, afraid to touch it but desperate to stop the pain.
“Bet that smarts, huh?” Carlos asked. He handed his gun to Jeannie, picked up Duncan’s automatic, and squatted beside the wounded man. “Looks real sore.” He poked the barrel of the pistol into the open wound, prodding tissue and fragmented bone and getting a shriek of remarkable vigor from Duncan, who rolled onto his side.
Will came through the broken window carrying Betty. “Hi gang,” he said. He dropped the unconscious woman onto the seat of the booth and opened her purse. “Get a load of this,” he said. “Driver’s license says she’s Betty Crocker.” He gestured to the car stalled across the highway. “That one is Bonnie Hubbard. You think they’re using fake ID?”
Carlos rolled Duncan onto his stomach, grabbed his wallet and flipped it open. “Holy crap,” he said. “Meet Duncan Heinz.”
“Fuck off,” Duncan said in a weak whisper.
Will crossed over to the dead guy with the cleaver jutting out of him, passing Jeannie who was holding a gun like it was a slug. He looked at the cleaver and the man’s nearly severed limb and glanced at Carlos. “I’ve heard of disarming a guy, but this is fucking ridiculous.”
“Man, you really stink,” Carlos said.
Will ignored him. He got the dead man’s wallet. “This guy is Peter Paul.”
Carlos laughed and shook his head. “And I’m Señor Felix,” he said to Will. “What have you gotten us mixed up in?”
Will nodded in Jeannie’s direction. “Better ask her that question.”
Carlos looked at Jeannie, seeing a woman who had been working here almost a year now, a woman who had become his friend. They both lived in East Barstow so they shared a ride in to work every day, and he dropped her off near her apartment every evening, at his insistence. Hitchhiking was too dangerous. She didn’t own a car, and if they split the cost of gas they both saved money. He thought he knew her from the casual conversations they’d had over the last year. She lived alone, not far from his family home. She had no college education, had moved from one menial job to the other and wasn’t seeing anyone. She didn’t make any waves, laughed at all his dumb jokes, never called in sick and during the first few months she worked at In the Shade never once got pissed when she’d caught him looking at her ass in wide-eyed wonder, a habit he’d finally broken.
“Jeannie? Were they after you?”
Jeannie settled onto a stool and put the gun down on the old Formica counter. She looked at the floor and said, “Maybe.”
Carlos looked stunned. “Why?”
Jeannie laughed. She looked like she wanted to cry.
Bonnie stepped through the shattered window and into the booth. She was topless, her hair hung in tangles, and there was a red welt on her chin. She was gripping Betty’s gun in both hands. “Everybody freeze.”
“Shit. I knew I should have picked that up,” Will said.
Carlos sucked in a breath, as wide-eyed as an owl.
“My tits will be the last things you ever see if you don’t drop the weapon.”
Carlos did as he was told. That was a serious pair of tetas grandes, but she looked really pissed off and more than ready to use the gun. It o
ccurred to him that if she said ‘This is a bust,’ he’d lose it.
Bonnie gestured at Will. “Pretty-boy. If you’re packing, lose it now.” Will reached inside his shirt and slowly withdrew his gun.
“Those are nice tits,” Jeannie said, trying to control a rising tremor in her voice. Startled, the topless woman turned to see Jeannie pointing a gun in her direction. “I’d hate to mess them up. Drop it. Now.”
“Be careful with that, sweetie,” Bonnie said. “
“Don’t call me sweetie.” “Jeannie’s body was shaking with fear and she fought it down. “I may not like guns but I know how to use them. Point and shoot, right?” This remark surprised the others. Putting on a brave front, she didn’t look as meek as she had a moment before. “Drop your gun.”
Bonnie looked back at Will. Now he too had a gun on her. She set her pistol on the table and Carlos snapped it up. “What a fucking day,” she said, sitting down beside Betty. She pulled Betty’s blazer off and struggled into it. Exhaling, she buttoned it, the buttons straining when she tried to breathe. She cursed and unbuttoned the blazer again, taking a breath and adjusting it so it covered as much of her as possible. Carlos watched all of this. “Enjoy the show?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Carlos replied. “Who the hell are you people?”
Bonnie didn’t say anything.
Betty sat up, holding her head. “Did we mess up?” Bonnie nodded.
Will prodded Duncan with a foot and saw that the man was unconscious. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The guy who’s holding the cleaver for us is dead. This asshole on the floor is out like a light. That means I’m going to have to ask you ladies some questions.”
Made in the U.S.A.: The 10th Anniversary Edition Page 4