What the hell!? Lydia thinks.
She looks at the stranger, who’s mumbling to himself, his lips moving soundlessly.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Lydia says. “But I’ve got to stop at the house. You can have a cold drink.”
17.
From Carl’s Tap, Zeke makes his way two blocks up and two over to the Double Bubble Lounge, an oblong cement-block bunker painted burnt umber. Against this background wasabi green bubbles effervescing from a wasabi green champagne glass spell out the bar’s name.
Inside, the action is slow, the barman sullen. A couple of aging goodtime gals sporting frizzy perms and freeze-dried facelifts are entertaining two off-work truckers, the four of them tucked away in a maroon-vinyl booth near the toilets. Shrieks of inebriant laughter ricochet off the stained ceiling tiles like the bleating of sheep bound for the abattoir.
All Zeke can think about is Lydia lying beneath the grotesquely heaving flesh of some anonymous male with a JD degree and an uncircumcised dick.
He chugs his beer and leaves.
Outside the light and heat assault him like a two-by-four across the brow. He shields his eyes with one hand. Suddenly, his nerve-jangled stomach retches and he spews sour beer into the weeds of the vacant lot next to the Double Bubble.
Recovering his composure, Zeke heads for the sanctuary of the Elks Lodge, one flight up in the Elk’s Block. A poker game’s starting up in the front room, but he declines an invitation to join. He has no interest in cards, even when he’s sober.
But the well drinks at the Elks are cheap and he settles in, hunching over the bar in savage silence. Merle, the 74-year-old barman, keeps up an incomprehensible banter. Something about a nephew down in Beaumont born with six toes. Or is it a frog with wings?
The shots of Tullamore Dew go down easy, pumping up Zeke’s anger, until he wants to rage on home and beat the shit out of Lydia ’til she begs for forgiveness. For that, he needs a ride back to his truck.
As luck would have it, Reardon Greene, ex-fire chief and ex-mayor, humps onto the next stool and orders a vodka tonic with a twist. He puts a hand on Zeke’s shoulder.
“How’s it hangin’, Zeke, old buddy?”
“Get your paws off me, man,” snarls Zeke.
“Touchy. Touchy,” mocks Reardon. “You never could hold your booze like your old man.”
“Fuck my old man. And the horse he rode in on.”
“My, my. We are having a bad day.”
“Reardon. There are eight bar stools and five tables in this room and all a them are empty except the one I’m sittin’ on and the one next to it. I’d be obliged it you’d plant your butt somewhere besides in my face.”
“No way, José am I moving one lousy inch. This is the last free country in the world. So I’ll sit where I damn well please.”
Reardon grins and takes a long gulp on his drink. Though he’s sixty-five, he’s still as mean as a stud bull and always ready for a scuffle. He looks sideways at Zeke, considering his bleak and furrowed gaze.
“If I was to take an educated guess, I’d say your rat shit disposition is due to one of two factors. Either you’re short of cash or that wife of yours is actin’ up. A wild Irish girl, if there ever was one.”
“If you don’t leave it be, I’m going to cram this stool down your throat.”
“An idle threat, if ever I heard one.” Reardon downs the dregs of his drink and nods to Merle for a refill. “Listen to me, young Floodway. In my day I’ve had my share of gash. When the heat gets ’em restless, the best you can do is beat the crap out of ’em.”
“Thanks for the advice, daddy-o.”
Suddenly Zeke wants to be home before Lydia comes in from work, waiting for her in the musty shadows of the old family kitchen. Fuck her right there on the kitchen floor, ripping off her clothes and plunging his love pump deep inside her ’til his seed spews out like a river and she screams for him to never stop.
The infusions of eighty proof pot-distilled whiskey racing through Zeke’s capillaries make him stagger as he dismounts from the barstool. For an instant the floor races upward to smash into his face. Or is it the other way around? When he puts one hand on the bar, the room stops gyrating.
“You gonna be alright?” asks Reardon.
Zeke draws his face back and tries to focus on Reardon.
“Be fine,” he says. “Just need to get to my truck. Out on the Old Dixie Road.”
“I’ll give you a lift,” Reardon says. “Got nothin’ better to do than take care of wayward drunks.” He winks at Merle.
18.
Deputy Ned Ritter shuts off the Impala’s engine and, reaching for the six-pack of Tecate in the passenger seat, pulls a can free from its plastic holder. Beyond the open car windows, the road dust is already settling. When he presses open the beer can’s spout, carbonation fizzles forth like a miniature fart.
Ritter takes a deep drawdown on the 12 oz. The taste is ice cold and bitterly refreshing. Draining the can, he tosses it on the passenger-side floor.
From where he’s parked, the land tilts down to a mud embankment above the sluggish channel of the Upper Big Sandy River. An ecosystem of pickerel weed, coontail and giant bulrushes rambles along the water’s edge.
No way, José, am I getting involved in a shootout with a pair of mass murderers, Ritter thinks. They’re all yours, Sonny. He hoists his second beer in mock salute to his boss. Hope they don’t blow your pecker off, like in that Hemingway book.
Exiting the police cruiser, Ritter moseys down the shallow grade to the river’s edge, holding the remaining four beers by an empty plastic ring. He halts in the shade of a hackberry. A dragonfly flits by like a pinprick of blue neon light.
The rumble of a souped-up car engine coming up the river road devours the stillness of the declining day. From out of a dust cloud, a white Camaro with a blonde female driver heaves into view, bouncing like a jack-in-the-box on the rutted road.
Parking next to the Impala, Brandy St. Pierre, buxom and blowsy in a white tube-top and pink short-shorts with the word juicy spelled across her butt, bounds forth and makes a beeline for Ritter. Ritter already has a hard-on.
19.
A wad of cigar phlegm floats in the back of Dietz’s throat like a wet Go stone, but there’s nowhere to spit cruising 80 m.p.h. on the southbound Interstate. Dietz squirms sideways and extricates a cloth handkerchief from his back pocket. Cupping it in front of his mouth, he gags up the glob of mucus.
Jimmy Cuervo, in the passenger seat, makes a face. Jimmy is Dietz’s neighbor in the one-bedroom across the hall. Four days a week Jimmy works as a security guard at Northpark Mall.
“Hey, Jimmy,” says Dietz. “Gimme the pint of Dickel in the glovebox.”
No way, José, Jimmy wants to say. Drinking and driving just isn’t cool. Instead he complies with Dietz’s request.
Dietz takes a swig. His lips purse with satisfaction.
Jimmy re-stows the bottle on top of the .38 caliber police special and stares out the side window at the monotony of pastureland and scrub windbreaks whizzing by. Dietz shifts back into a comfortable driving position, one elbow thrust through the open window of the ancient Volvo. A warm wind blows through the interior, scurrying among the old magazines and other crap strewn in the back seat. The air-conditioning is history. A passing sign reads: Defoeville Next 4 Exits.
Swinging off at the second exit, they pass through a mixed neighborhood of shacks, trailers, and prewar brick cottages. At a blind intersection, a gravel truck bounds around the corner at high speed, airbrushing the front bumper of the Volvo. The truck driver waves.
“Fucking maniac!” screams Dietz. He leans across and flicks open the dash-box. For a moment Jimmy thinks Dietz intends to grab the .38 and let loose with a barrage of lead. But he only wants the bottle of Dickel. The spinning sound of the metal cap unscrewing echoes loudly in the aftermath of the almost collision.
When Dietz hands the hip bottle back to Jimmy, there’s maybe a shot lef
t in the bottom. Jimmy finishes it and throws the bottle out the window.
They enter Defoeville’s old business district, looking for the Sheriff’s Office. Again Dietz dials Ned Ritter’s cell number. For the umpteenth time, the call jumps directly to voice mail.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Dietz interjects.
A plate-glass window catching the last blistering waves of sunlight announces:
Sheriff’s Office. Inside, a uniformed female bull holds sway.
“Gents. How may I help you?” Annabel Lee inquires, leaning back in a standard issue gray desk chair, New Balance-shod feet at rest on the desktop.
“Tryin’ to hook up with Sheriff Troop…or Deputy Ritter. Can’t seem to raise him on the blower.”
“For starters,” she replies, “there’ll be no hookin’ up around here. Cause this ain’t no Turkish bath. Second, Ned Ritter’s AWOL, as usual. Third, the Sheriff’s cell phone is turned off, as usual, so I have no f-ing idea where he is.”
“Can’t you go through the phone company, trace him somehow. It’s a FUCKING EMERGENCY!”
“It’s a felony to threaten a police officer.”
“Okay, okay. Deputy Ritter called me earlier today about two fugitives traced to your jurisdiction. The same ones who murdered my mom last night up in Dallas. Drove a letter opener into her brain. I busted ass to get down here to give a hand in apprehending these armed and dangerous dickwads. If Sheriff Troop thinks he can take these two down by himself, he’s likely to get his ass in a sling. So Jimmy and me…” He grips Jimmy with one arm and draws him close. “So Jimmy and me need to hook up, excuse me, meet with Sheriff Troop ASAP.”
“Best I can do is leave a message for the sheriff in his in-basket. What motel you stayin’ at?”
Dietz stares at her in disbelief. Then twirls and walks out.
On the street Jimmy catches up to Dietz and pulls on his arm. “What’re we gonna do now.”
“Fuck if I know.”
20.
For an instant Maud’s eyes meet those of her mother passing by out on the road, staring up at her from the Bronco’s open driver’s side window.
“Holy shit, piss, and fuck,” Maud says.
Behind her Mr. Bates sprawls across the bed, naked except for a pillow pulled over his face. His thing is red and distended. A scrunched-up condom lies at the edge of the bed like a crushed flower. A hog-like snort escapes from beneath the eiderdown bolster.
Maud leaps onto the bed, shaking Bates wildly. When she yanks the pillow away, his sex-besotted gaze falls upon her with the weight of a lead-lined x-ray apron. Desperate, Maud grabs a flower vase from Lydia’s vanity, drops the bouquet onto the floor and throws the algae-ous water on Bates. He explodes from the bed.
“What the hell!”
“My mother’s home,” Maud says from a bent-over position, as she ties her Pumas. Otherwise she’s still naked. Mr. Bates laughs. Ha, ha.
“No way, José.”
“I shit you not.”
Like some religious zealot touched by god, Mr. Bates eyes glaze over. He starts to nod, slowly, then faster and faster. On the bed behind him, snake-like, the heavy end of the condom eases over the edge and falls to the floor with a tiny plop.
Maud grabs Bates’ clothes and pushes him out of the bedroom and down the hall to a large tumbledown bathroom with wintergreen and mauve tiles dating back to the time of Bonnie and Clyde. Maud longs to surrender to her hopelessness, drop to her knees before the antique toilet bowl and puke her guts out. Instead she takes two deep breaths and slaps Bates across the cheeks.
Be of good cheer, she thinks. Things are bound to get better.
“Get dressed and come down stairs,” she orders Mr. Bates. “I’ll tell Lydia you came by to help me with my science fair project. You were just using the bathroom, while I went to change out of my school clothes.”
“She’ll never believe you.”
But Maud is already racing down the stairs, two steps at the time.
21.
The man calling himself Alberto follows Lydia up the back steps, through the enclosed rear porch, and into the kitchen of the rambling Floodway homestead. Her impromptu invitation recalls to Alberto the image of Americans from school: brash, open, uninhibited. For an instant he doubts that Lydia is a murderer.
Quickly he brushes away this heretical thought. No! he berates himself. The endless killing in my country is because of you Americans. All of you. My sister’s murder is on your hands. Soon the circle of revenge will be complete.
Lydia steps away from the sink holding a glass of water. Motioning for Alberto to sit at the kitchen table, she sets the glass on the gaudy vinyl cloth hiding the old oak beneath.
“Please sit here. I’ll be right back. I have to talk to my daughter.”
At that moment, with the high-pitched squeal of sneakers on burnished wood floors, Maud appears in the kitchen doorway. She looks at Lydia, flashing the shitassed grin of the utterly guilty. Then Maud sees the stranger and everything changes.
Lydia hisses at her daughter. “I need to talk to you in the other room.”
Maud walks to the sink and runs herself a glass of water. She takes a long drink; then turns and looks at Lydia again. “What’s up?” She nods obliquely toward Alberto.
Alberto is stunned by the turn of events. He wants to cry out, beat himself with sharp briers, grovel before the madness of existence. The young woman standing by the window, the daughter of the woman who almost ran him over, is the identical image of his sister Azza! As if she has risen from the dead!
His eyes rake over Maud’s miniskirt and fitted top. Except my sister would never have dressed like you, he thinks. Not like a harlot.
Unable to hold herself back, Lydia snaps at Maud:
“You were standing naked in my bedroom window.”
“Mother!”
“Are you here by yourself?” Lydia’s lips overlap in her eagerness for an instant answer to this question.
“Mr. Bates…”
“Mel Bates, that scumbag? You’re sleeping with Mel Bates?”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone,” Maud says, setting down her water glass and crossing her arms under her breasts. Maud suspects Lydia is cheating on Zeke. So what’s the big deal? “He’s helping me with my science project,” she says.
“Then what were you doin’ naked up there?” Lydia blurts out.
“Can we not have this discussion now? In front of a stranger and all?”
Maud turns on the coldwater tap, leans down and splashes her face. Erect again, she runs wet fingers through her hair, staring out the window.
Mom’s Bronco is there. But why is a man in a black suit leaning into the open driver’s side window? Now he’s opening the door and climbing into the cab. Holy moly, he’s stealing mom’s truck! she thinks.
“Mom. No way, José, are you going to believe this…”
“Try me.”
Before Maud can speak again, Warren Jolene thrusts open the door from the enclosed back porch and strides into the kitchen.
“Y’all put your hands up. This is a robbery.” He waves the Saturday night special. In his thick hand it’s a toy, but a deadly one.
For a moment no one cries, spits, yawns, sniffles, coughs, or otherwise makes a move. Then Lydia, with her usual bravado, steps toward him. “I don’t know who you are, pal. But get the hell out of my house.”
Warren’s hand flies out and up, slamming the steel barrel of the gun into Lydia’s face. It cuts a swathe through her flesh from cheek to hairline. A wolf pack of pain and blackness howls through the winter landscape of her brain. She crumples to the floor. Her hands cover the gash in her face, her feet kick like a swimmer treading water.
“Anybody else want some of this?” Warren holds up the cheap pistol.
Maud is crying, her face bleached of color. Alberto remembers Azza’s tears when their father beat her mercilessly for meeting a man, an engineer, for coffee at the university. Alberto’s father is an old man now
, spending his time mumbling over the verses of the Koran.
Alberto shakes his head, his eyes on the floor.
“Fantastic,” Warren says in a cheerful voice. “Now everyone put your wallets, watches, cash, and jewelry on the table.”
From outside the explosion of a large caliber weapon makes Warren jerk his head around. A second explosion and he’s disappearing out the way he came in.
22.
Ray Jolene, sitting in Lydia Floodway’s Bronco, his hand about to turn the key left in the ignition, goes into freeze-frame mode at the unmistakable click of a weapon being armed. His mind races like a hamster on steroids. The unyielding tip of a pistol comes to rest against the side of his head, just behind his left ear.
“Don’t do anything dumb,” Sheriff Bobby Troop says in a deadpan whisper. “Just put both hands on the steering wheel. And don’t move a fuckin’ nose hair.”
Ray does what he’s told. Where the hell’s Warren got to? he wonders.
“Now, asswipe, I’m gonna open the door. Then you’re gonna get out of the truck real slow and put your hands on the roof. You with me, chico?”
No way, José, thinks Ray. The Sheriff appears as a distorted stick figure in the chrome window-detail of the Bronco. A stick figure in cowboy hat and sunglasses pointing a large weapon into the shadow behind Ray’s left ear. This guy’s an f-ing cartoon, Ray thinks. Deputy Dawg. There’s got to be an opportunity here.
Where the hell’s Ritter? wonders Troop. Sombitch is never around when ya need him. Troop’s Crown Vic sits 40 feet away behind some bushes at the side of the road; his cell phone’s in the vanity tray between the seats. The 12-gauge pump is in the dashboard rack.
“I was just borrowing this vehicle,” Ray says. “Mine’s broken down and I’ve got a medical emergency.”
“Shut up! Or you’ll be the medical emergency.”
Just beat this boy unconscious and move on, goes through Troop’s head, ’cause there’s another killer out there unaccounted for. His left hand moves to the Bronco’s door handle and presses the unlatching nob. The door, out of plumb, grinds open.
Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem Page 20