A Cuddly Toy (The Bent Zealots MC Book 5)

by Layla Wolfe

  Delightful little morsel? Where had he learned English? In a British tea room?

  “Don’t do it,” whispered Twinkletoes. “We can take him out. Let’s distract him, then we both shoot him in the head.”

  Twinkletoes shouted, “Dragan! Remember that time you came by when Fremont was being interviewed?”

  “Ja? What about it?”

  From the corner of his mouth, Twinkletoes whispered at me. “One, two . . . “

  And on “three!” we shot.

  Twinkletoes blew off his ear. I made mincemeat of part of his bicep.

  Neither shot was good enough to take him out, just to enrage him. Almost as though he didn’t feel the bullets hit, just became annoyed by them. Sort of the opposite of what we wanted. He tossed Fredericka to the cement and pointed his barrel at her while bawling, “You cowards! You send Fremont Zuckerman over here or I am raping this petite little brunette!”

  He’d have a difficult time with that. I was about to toss my gun down, but now someone else emerged from behind the drive-in wall. Was that Toby Bloodgood? He wore his father’s heavy turquoise necklace, his head wrapped in a red scarf. Hands up in the surrender manner, he was chanting some prayers in Diné. This had the desired effect of confusing Dragan. He didn’t know where to point his barrel. Me, Twinkletoes, Fredericka, Toby.

  “Stand down, Toby!” I shouted, as I did drop my gun. Raising my hands, too, I stepped carefully toward Dragan. He was a loose cannon, unpredictable. I suddenly remembered all the Ambien he’d taken. That stuff took a full eight hours to wear off. He’s sleep-walking. As though punctuating my brain flash, a lightning bolt about ten miles off struck toward earth. Brimming anvil clouds blotted the moon, giving everything a morbid, horror movie cast. “Back off, Toby! Fredericka, get behind that wall again! I’m turning myself in to Dragan!”

  Fredericka was no dummy. She made her run for it, diving behind the wall like a home plate runner. But Toby wouldn’t quit. It was like he was in a trance, chanting this shit, some of which actually sounded familiar to me. Some of it sounded like words Manygoats had chanted when Noel and I had been in the sweat lodge making love. Noel had explained some of them later to me.

  In beauty I walk

  With beauty before me I walk

  Today I will walk out, today everything negative will leave me

  I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body

  I will have a light body, I will be happy forever, nothing will hinder me.

  I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.

  “I’m coming, Dragan,” I yelled, hands up. In fact, Dragan closed the gap, impatient with my slow walk down the gangplank. Each one of his strides equaled about three of my timid ones. He was so close I could practically smell his breath, his bloodshot eyes bulging from his head, his psychosis clear as day. His barrel pressed to my temple.

  He reached for my shirtfront, grabbing a giant handful of it. “Mr. Avery says I am to rub you out no matter what,” he snarled.

  My life didn’t flash before my eyes. I didn’t regret the path not taken. I was simply staring my own mortality in the face. And I hoped I wouldn’t be seeing that face forever, on the other side.

  Through the returning seasons may I walk

  On the trail marked with pollen may I walk

  “Stop! Dragan, take me instead!”

  Everyone turned to face Noel. It was almost as though a collective gasp went up among us all. Although priests sacrificing themselves wasn’t unknown, it seemed more fit for TV or the history books. And my Noel? How was this a fair exchange? How would I live with him dead? Especially knowing I’d been the catalyst for it? No no no, this would not do, and I argued with him.

  “Noel! Get back! I know what I’m doing!”

  “Bullshit!” bellowed Noel, coming forward, his dog collar gleaming. Even a sleepwalking Dragan would remember this sexy priest from the film set. Indeed, he’d lowered his pistol from my brain. It was now facing the ground. “I’m not letting you do this, Fremont! I’m going to reason with this nice fellow from Moscow.”

  “How do you know I’m from Moscow?” asked Dragan. Now he really did sound like he was having tea.

  “Oh, it’s just an educated guess, from your accent,” said Noel, friendly-like.

  For some reason, this caused Dragan to remember his pistol, and he leveled it at Noel’s forehead. “You’re a father, a priest,” he intoned. “Blood defiles the land! I can’t take you instead of him.”

  Was Dragan a churchgoing fellow? Noel and I shared glances. He took three more steps toward the monster. “Sure you can. Just think what Ozzie Avery will say when he discovers you made a priest pay for what we did to U-238. He’ll promote you. You won’t have to sleep in shitty motels like this anymore.”

  “Shitty motels . . . “repeated Dragan, just as another bolt of lightning struck the ground, this one closer. I almost imagined I could see the collision of ice particles and water droplets smashing together from the corner of my eye. It lit up the hitman’s face, showing his pizza face in sharp relief. He was obviously conflicted, as though two personalities battled inside his head. “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword!”

  “Yes, that’s true,” said Noel calmly, reaching a hand up for Dragan’s wrist. Was he really going to try to disarm the strongman?

  “Noel, don’t,” I whispered.

  “Just calmly walk back to Twinkletoes,” he advised me. He was practically smiling as he said it.

  Although it pained me like death itself to break away, I did as he asked. This time I walked swiftly. Twinkletoes urged me on.

  “Come on, Fremont, come on,” as though I were finishing a race.

  Which, in a way, I was.

  Without missing a step, I stooped down with one bent knee to grab my gun and just kept walking in a semicircle. Noel and Dragan were deep in their spiritual communique, their foreheads nearly touching in commiseration. In fact, Noel was smack between me and Dragan, so Twinkletoes and I began sidestepping. Slowly, slowly, so Dragan wouldn’t notice.

  “Get a good shot,” Twinkletoes whispered needlessly.

  With dew about my feet, may I walk

  With beauty before me, may I walk

  I’m not sure which happened first. I do know that Twinkletoes and I shot at the same time. Someone, I like to think it was me, got him smack in the middle of the forehead. His head jerked back and his arms splayed out, his hand releasing his piece to drop to the ground. Someone else got him in the throat.

  I don’t know what the shooting may have had to do with Dragan being hit by a lightning bolt. Did the bullet’s metal penetrating his flesh entice the electricity? But just as Noel stepped backward a few yards, I swear a bolt from an overhead cloud struck the goon directly through his mangled brain.

  Because what little clothes he wore weren’t wet, the electricity didn’t just “flash over” his body. Instead, the current flowed directly through his body, ensuring grave internal damage. It was something to behold, as though he was lit from within like a Halloween lawn decoration. I grabbed Noel and gripped him tightly to my torso as Dragan turned stiff. It was clear he was suffering cardiac arrest by this time. It was weird, but it seemed like the bolt stayed inside him forever. Time slowed down. By the time every muscle in his body contracted and he was blown twenty feet across the parking lot, everyone was oohing and aahing with wonder.

  Had Mother Nature done our dirty work for us? Which came first, the bullets or the bolt?

  Toby continued to chant as though nothing had happened.

  In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk

  My words will be beautiful . . .

  “Sleep is like a dove,” murmured Noel.

  I realized I was clutching Noel like a maniac, like he was a security blanket, probably squeezing the air from his lungs. I forced myself to relax. “What?”

  “Yeah, what?” echoed Twinkletoes, sticking his piece back into h
is jeans.

  Now Noel acted like nothing had just happened. “Sleep is like a dove which has landed near one’s hand and stays there as long as one does not pay any attention to it. If one attempts to grab it, it quickly flies away.”

  “Yeah,” I said, swiping my hair from my forehead. “Good thing Dragan was basically asleep that whole time.”

  “Fredericka!” shouted Twinkletoes. “You okay?”

  She peeked her head around the corner of the drive-in booth. “I think so,” she squeaked.

  “Let’s blaze,” Twinkletoes said. He turned to me, grabbing ahold of my bicep. “Good show, buddy. Turk and Lock are going to be proud of you. You’ll make a Bent Zealots Prospect yet.”

  Prospect? Who said anything about a Prospect? But the idea thrilled me, frankly. The little kid side of me puffed with pride at Twinkletoes’ words. Noel and I slung our arms over each other’s shoulders and walked around the corner of the building.

  “Can you just see me as a Prospect?”

  “Actually, I can. I can teach you how to ride my Fatboy. Then we can get you one of your own.”

  “Ah, Jeez. Where am I going to put all my equipment?”

  “Saddlebags. See mine? You’ve put your detectors in mine before.”

  “True, but . . . ah, hell, who’s got time to be a Prospect? The EPA is going to start sending me out of state as soon as we’re done with the rez.”

  “You need time off to build your new house.”

  “Right. I don’t have time to Prospect. What do they do, guard people’s bikes?”

  “Clean bathrooms. Here, hop on. Take this lid. I almost lost you just now. I’m not losing you again.”

  “Fuck. I almost lost you. What were you thinking with that ‘take me’ bullshit?”

  Noel grinned seductively. “I had a hunch he was Russian Orthodox. He’d never kill a priest.”

  I shook my head with wonder. The mysteries of Father Moloney would never cease.

  EPILOGUE

  NOEL

  “Here, use this nail to measure the gap between the boards.”

  Fremont handed me a spike to insert between deck boards. He was adamant that the last deck he’d had rotted because whoever had built it had put all the redwood boards flush up against each other. “Air needs to circulate between them,” he insisted.

  We were positioning and hammering while Klah and Toby measured and sawed the various lengths of wood needed for a semicircular deck out back. Ormond had designed a landscaping plan of cacti and succulents, which would overwinter just fine in an area that only got into the 40s during the winter. Anson, clad in huge thick leather gloves, was unpotting the plants and dumping them into holes Ormond had dug. As a professional artist, Ormond had designed gullies and cliffs, volcanic boulders next to sandstone monoliths, almost like a miniature Salomé Valley.

  We were stuck outside because inside, craftsmen were installing brand new granite countertops in the kitchen. We left it to the professionals, but of course the geologist Fremont Zuckerman had agonized endlessly over the selections in the showroom. He chose one with a gorgeous blend of sparkling quartz, creamy feldspar, and metallic micas—I knew all this now—where the feldspar made one hungry for a peach pie, the quartz thirsty for ice. New double-paned windows had already been installed, making the kitchen the sunniest and most pleasant one I’d ever seen. My housewarming gift would be a set of pots and pans, yes, so that I could come over and cook. Perhaps a selfish gift, but I brushed it off in the name of love.

  I held the nail while Fremont positioned the board. I wasn’t sure why he’d wanted me to wear my clerical robes on today of all days. Maybe Fredericka would be filming, and he wanted someone who clearly denoted “white priest helping Indians.” Her film Listen to Us, while not winning any big awards at Sundance, had attracted a lot of attention. Robert Redford had spoken to Fredericka. Gael García Bernal and Peter Dinklage had both expressed admiration for what she’d done. She couldn’t wait to graduate from high school and leave the dispensary where she’d been working for Turk behind. Go to Hollywood with Ormond giving her introductions.

  Fremont even got fan mail, bugging the shit out of me to no end. Not many men had figured out he was gay—he didn’t ping on anyone’s radar that way—but each day there were at least a dozen snail letters, emails, and even suggestive comments on LinkedIn. I’d appeared in the film, but only briefly compared to Fremont. Maybe that was why I only got a few suggestive emails, all of them regardless of gender interested in acting out some perverse priest fantasy.

  Sexual harassment? Now I knew how women felt. I shuddered to think what these people looked like “in real life,” as they say, but that wasn’t even the point. The point was that I’d never even met them so why would I want to act out anything with them?

  That’s how I knew I had to tell Fremont how much I loved him.

  I hadn’t, yet, not directly. There was a lot of talk about how much God loved him, a load of euphemisms that I believed indirectly told him how I felt, since God spoke through me.

  In the name of arse, the man had relocated down to a godforsaken Indian rez to continue his good work—and to be near me, I presumed. We’d spent almost every night together in the rectory, even though the EPA continued to pay for a very swank trailer for him, where Twinkletoes usually slept. Galileo had returned to his dog grooming business in Pure and Easy, although he came back for special events like church-wide barbecues and fish fries. We were usually alone in the rectory, free to indulge in the rather mild form of submission/dominance we craved, the role playing.

  Since no one had nailed any netting over the deck yet, everyone worked shirtless in the spring sun. This was a good look for Anson and Ormond, of course, and especially for Fremont, who continued at the gym, without Rover, as I’d instructed. I was a jealous sonofabitch, cancelling the jackoff club because I didn’t want those hungry eyes, those drooling mouths slathering for my man. Fremont was deeply tan from his work in the field. If the sun wasn’t too strong, he went about shirtless with one of those safari helmets on and mirrored shades that couldn’t help but remind me of Dragan, Russian hitman.

  We had of course left Dragan’s burned, bullet-riddled corpse in the middle of that vast parking lot. Two days later, a short article in the Desert Messenger newspaper described the discovery of the body by a hotel guest. No one was sure what to make of it, since Dragan, the only guest missing, had checked in under the name of Mike O’Malley from Indianapolis. The discoverer described his body as a “burnt, giant baby wearing a diaper.” The smell of charred flesh was so bad he didn’t stick around, but he noted that dental fillings or a grill had exploded from the corpse’s mouth.

  Nobody from U-238 ever called Fremont to sniff around about it.

  It was actually cooler wearing my cassock because I could wear shorts underneath it, as opposed to the sweltering 501 jeans most men were stuck wearing. Air circulated around my balls, and I got stiff watching Fremont’s pectorals work when he hammered. His abdominals absolutely shimmered as he worked, and my mouth watered to lay my tongue flat against them.

  I was white as a sheet of paper from wearing these vestments in the desert, but it was required if people were to look up to me. I went over to Sheriff Sinquah, lecturing Ormond and Anson on desert plants.

  “Let me borrow those cuffs, Leroy.”

  Anson and Ormond wriggled their eyebrows knowingly. You could never read Leroy. He seemed clueless as he handed them over, along with the key.

  “Well, sure. Just make sure not to lose the key. Oh, and don’t cuff anyone to a radiator that’s turned on.”

  What? I laughed along with Anson and Ormond when Leroy turned his back to us. For one, it wasn’t cold enough to turn on any heat. Secondly, this was a brand-new house with forced air, not an old-fangled radiator. Maybe Leroy was losing it. He had obviously cuffed someone to a radiator by mistake at least once.

  Sticking the cuffs into the back pocket of my shorts, I tapped Fremont on the shoulder
as he kneeled on the deck. He looked up at me, shielding his eyes from the sun. I toyed with the top couple buttons of my cassock at the neck. I suggested, “Come with me.”

  Fremont needed no explanation. Grinning boyishly, he followed me inside, stepping over the gap in the deck where boards had yet to be laid.

  The kitchen was a whirlwind of noise and dust, so we bypassed that. The living room was quiet, mainly because a TV had yet to be installed, so nobody was lounging around other than a Diné kid who’d been working for hours. I became impatient just walking through the 1,700 square foot house, so I took Fremont’s hand as we broke into a stride toward the bedroom.

  “Hey,” shouted Fredericka, standing atop a ladder. “Not yet, do you get it? You at least need curtains, so you don’t freak out all the upstanding citizens helping you outside.”

  Fremont pointed at her. “Can’t you just, sort of, drape them over the curtain rod for now?”

  Fredericka snorted. “Sure, I could. But unless you want those heavy Japanese swords falling on your head, you’ll let Brick and Merwin finish hanging them up.”

  Brick and Merwin were two more Diné youth who had prospected in to the Bent Zealots, although I believed they were straight. They stood on the frame of the king bed trying to reach a nail in the center of the wall without stepping on the mattress.

  I took control now. “Never mind about the swords. Here. Hand them to us.”

  Everyone got the picture, and soon we were alone with our swords. Smiling devilishly, Fremont unsheathed his. “We could sword fight.”

  He forgot all about sword fighting when I reached under my skirt. It was funny the way all coyness evaporated from his eyes as he watched me fumble around in the vicinity of my crotch. His brow furrowed when he heard metal clinking. Not what he expected. The kitchen workers were blasting some cumbia music, which perfectly highlighted the rogue nature of our new game.

  I dangled the cuffs from my forefinger. Understanding swept over Fremont’s face, and he put the sword on the bed. He held his wrists together before him and bowed his head to me.