by Dick Wybrow
"No," Anza said, frowning. "But you are toeing the line!"
Sally rubbed her mouth for a moment, and hand to God, it sounded like she might have a bit of scruff. She said, "Anza, I am a curser, no lie. And I feel that if this transaction is to move forward, I will have the need to express myself, and yet I am an animal in a godda—uh, gilded cage!"
The Actor was smiling far too wide for my comfort. I didn't think he was aware that only ten minutes earlier, Sally had been dead set on shooting him dead at the first chance. She still might have been.
"Cocksucker is fine exclamation, Sals," he said. "Can be used as a noun and adjective."
Sally only grunted.
Uncle Jerry put a hand out and leaned on a cement balustrade in the restaurant's entryway. "You might also consider dickhead, asshole, son of a bitch, and the c-word."
Shifting from foot to foot, Sally adjusted her hat for a moment. "What is… the c-word?"
We all looked at each other, lifting our hands as if someone had dropped a plate of scorpions on the ground in front of us.
The Actor broke the silence. "Given my recent role in an inexplicably British fantasy period piece, I can also suggest bollocks, bugger, wanker, and—a favorite of mine—twat."
"Jews got some good ones, less R17, except for fakakta, which means 'fucked up.' But you got putz, schmuck, schvantz, and petzl. Strangely, those all mean penis," Jerry said, affecting a professorial tone, crossing his arms. "But those folks are the ones who invented the bris, which is, truth be told, a penis party."
Not wanting to miss the fun, Angel chimed in, "If you want to go multilingual, pendjo and verga are pretty sweet. Coño is quite good, too, but you're back in c-word territory."
For a moment, Sally only looked at her hands, then she turned away.
We got quiet, waiting.
When she spun back around, she sniffed loudly and dragged a hand across her eyes. Then, pulling of her hat, she said, "Now, I ain't going soft or nothing… but I will say you lot bequeathing me this treasure of language, for a curser like myself, is one of the nicest things anyone has ever did for me."
My mouth hung open for a moment. "Uh, no problem."
"At this moment," she said, her voice trembling slightly, and returned her hat to her head with a smile, "I am a rich woman."
Anza was over it. "Okay, enough of the twatting and wanking and the fisting—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" the Actor shouted, putting his hands over his ears. "That just sounds all kinds of wrong coming out of your mouth right now."
"But so I am saying," Anza growled, waving a finger, "back to point—if you want to get your motorhorse back, which currently, as you have seen, has pledged its loyalty to Rasputin, then you are going to help us getting into the FriendBook."
Like a thunderclap, Sally's anger snapped back. "Really?" she asked through her teeth.
"Yes, if you wanting motorhorse back," Anza said, her hands on her hips. "Or it will forever be Raz's faithful companion, Boo."
Sally leaned forward, her eyes blazing at my friend. She was met with a blank expression. "Fine."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Outside of Villahermosa, Sally banged on my shoulder to let me know she wanted to make a pit stop. I'd shaken her off a few times, looking to get to Northern California around the same time the others did.
The four of them had gone a separate way after Uncle Jerry said he knew where to find a plane.
We pulled into a gas station with only one working pump, but of course, we didn't need gas and never would. Despite my hesitations, it was good to get off Boo for a moment because my legs were turning to jelly, and I needed a Coke and a pee.
When I came back out with my soda, Sally was fiddling with her hell-issued cell phone. As I walked up, she looked up and resettled it back into its holder between the handlebars.
"We're making good time," she said. "That leg woulda taken anyone else like twelve hours. We did it in four!"
I'd long given up on trying to steer Bucephalus as it weaved around cars, trucks, and RVs like they were standing still. I wished there was, at least, something else on the radio. But still, I only got the strange numbers station.
"You know," I said. "The selection on the radio dial leaves a lot to be desired."
"Ah," she said, slugging a beer she'd gotten from the station. "Music'll rot your brains, boy."
"Nobody thinks that."
"I do."
I paused, then, "Nobody but you thinks that."
Sally laughed, shrugged, and not for the first time, she looked back the way we'd come, staring hard at the horizon. When she noticed I was watching her, she rubbed her eyes, flipped me a stony smile, and pointed to the bike.
"At this rate, we'll beat your friends to our destination," she said as I swung my leg over the seat. "But I dunno… their plan to break back into that drug man's ranch that they just broke your friend out of? I expect if they do show up to meet us, they'll be dead."
I turned to contradict her thoughts on their chances but only saw the gunslinger standing next to the bike, once again, staring off to the east, back the way we'd come.
"What are you staring at?"
Sally turned to me with a half smile, about to say something, but stopped. She pulled her hat off for a moment, scratched the top of her head, and put it back in place.
"Sally?" I asked.
Slowly, she walked up the length of the motorcycle, the tips of her fingers running over its curves, across the gas tank, and up to the headlight. She softly patted it with her calloused fingers.
"Don't worry," I said. "When we get up there, and the Actor's all sorted out, I'll… find a way for your, uh, Horse to come around. I'll figure something out."
She shook her head and looked lovingly at the mechanical beast beneath me.
"Well," she said. "I suppose you got a right to know the truth."
"Man, I don't like the sound of that."
Again, she stared back to where we'd come from. "This here ain't my Horse, not really," she said and sniffed. "Ah, he is now but, you know, not originally."
"Ah," I said. "You stole Bucephalus."
She squinted at me, deep frown lines cut into her face, but before the words in her head made it to her mouth, she sighed then chuckled softly, shaking her head.
That time, I looked back, staring at the horizon. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because," she said, leaning down to bang dirt off her knees then standing upright again. "The feller I acquired this lovely creature from, he's the one you saw in the lot."
I looked down, thinking. "You mean the guy trying to nab the Actor? The one with the screwed-up hat?"
"He's an Aussie putz named Digger," she said with a small smile. "Freelancer. He'll be looking for a reward by bringing your friend to Hell Inc. HQ, which is a funny thing when you think about how that's where we're headed anyhow."
"He may have realized that." I looked down the road. "Then why is he still following us?"
"Horse ain't like any other machine in the universe. One of a kind," she said, grinning at the machine like it was her child. "He's coming for his bike."
* * *
"That there's the hangar," Uncle Jerry said.
The Actor sighed. "Really? We can see that. What are all the other buildings?"
The old pilot pointed off into the fading light as they stood on a hill just outside the sprawling compound. In the distance, there were a handful of small, twinkling lights. He said, "Back there, there's a couple cheaply built adobes. That's where some of the low-level workers here live. The place I had wasn't much better, but I had a bed and a toilet, so I guess no complaints."
Anza looked at him, her soft eyes glistening. "That must have been awful."
"Sometimes, yeah. But not always. When the young boy would bring me a paperback, it wasn't so bad. I'd sit and read to him sometimes."
Angel said, "I thought you didn't know Spanish."
"I don't," Uncle Jerry said and l
aughed softly. "So I just made up stories. Pablo doesn't really know English either, but he'd just sit and listen for as long as I would talk to him. Or until his daddy sent for him."
"Daddy? You mean Silvio?"
"Yeah," the old man said. "He lives in the big house there, the only real nice place on the property. He runs the whole show down here."
"And he's got his kid there?"
Uncle Jerry shrugged. "Better than an absentee father, I reckon."
The Actor said, "Really? You think it's better to have your kid on a sprawling drug estate with guys toting AK-47s everywhere you look?"
"Every kid should have a papa around," Uncle Jerry said. "Even if he ain't the best, I suppose."
Anza pointed at the hangar. "So is plane down in the hangar, yes?"
"Yes," Uncle Jerry said. "That's where they parked the runner that I flew before it got smashed, then in the metal building there's Silvio's. Not as nice as Enrique's, mind you, but it's better than most small planes you'll see."
"Who's Enrique?" Angel asked.
The Actor said, "He's another drug lord, up in Atlanta. But he's not Honduran, as he'd tell you."
"Bakersfield," Anza said and smiled.
"Wait," Angel said. "You make a habit of stealing planes from drug kingpins?"
"No, no," Uncle Jerry said. "We threatened to expose him for being a fraud and not from Honduras, basically blackmail, and then he sorta lent us his plane."
Angel looked at them one at a time. "You know this isn't how normal people go about their day, right?"
Uncle Jerry laughed. "Ah, keeps it interesting."
"So, we need to get Silvio's plane," Anza said, "meet up with Razzie in California."
It was the Actor's turn to point at the hangar. "There'll be guards down there, right? Guys with guns looking for a reason, any reason, to shoot someone!"
"Usually, there're two guys. Don't know their names, but they pretty much play cards all day and drink," Uncle Jerry said. "Well, they do also go out to smoke, now and again."
"So, two guards that might go on smoke break," Anza said. "Hold on—what about cameras and motion detectors?"
"Oh, they got 'em, sure."
The Actor rubbed at a spot on his elbow. "What? You didn't mention those! How are we supposed to—"
"Most of them don't work, as far as I know," Uncle Jerry said, smiling. "Sun baked 'em or whatever. But I heard one of the guards talking about it once. They don't need all that electronic security."
"Why?" Angel asked.
"Because who'd be dumb enough to sneak onto the local drug lord's property?"
"Right," the Actor said.
Anza said, "Okay, we wait, maybe for the smoke break, then get into the hangar and take plane and go very fast."
Uncle Jerry scratched his chin. "There is a slight problem there. The main hangar is open, but the one with Silvio's plane," he said, pointing to the slightly smaller structure snuggled up against the large one, "that's all locked up with electronics that do work. We need a key to get in."
"Jesus," the Actor said, and Anza shot him a hard look. He raised his hands in apology.
"So where is key?"
Uncle Jerry pointed back to the main house. "Silvio will be in there, so the key is also in there."
"Okay," Anza said, standing. "Angel, you keep an eye on the guards. Maybe you can see how often they go for smoke break. And then we time it."
"What are you guys going to do?"
Anza sighed. "We've got to break into the drug man's home and steal the key."
* * *
I was beginning to feel like panic had become my natural state of being. Scanning the tiny gas station, I searched for trouble. The old man I'd seen at the counter looked like he'd probably fallen asleep again. There were a few shacks in the distance and the occasional long-haul truck on the road, but I saw no danger, at least not yet.
Sitting on a large rock at the side of the desert highway, Sally looked up at the sun, wiping the sweat off her face.
For a brief moment, I considered taking off and leaving her to the bike's original owner, that Digger guy. But there was no question, since he had a bead on his ride, he would track me. And keep tracking until he got it back. Then he would probably run me over with it a few times.
I walked over, one eye on the road behind us, trying to swallow my fear and just listen.
"When you're dyin'," she said and let out a long breath, "you do say the damndest things to whatever god or devil might be listening, trying to reverse your fortune."
I nodded and felt tears fight their way to my eyes. "Or when someone you love is dying," I said then rubbed my face, suddenly very self-conscious. "You make promises, bargains, anything."
She stared at me for a long moment then blinked and nodded once. "I ain't never had the pleasure," she said, smiling. "Despite having been married a fair bit."
Despite myself, I laughed. "A fair bit?"
"Six times, I reckon," she said. "Maybe seven by the time I'd hit my fiftieth birthday."
"Holy shit. You must have made divorce lawyers very happy."
"Only divorced the first one. The others," she said, smiling. "No need for lawyers after that."
That, of course, came as no surprise. "Got it."
"The last fella was mean as a snake, he was," she said and rubbed her hands on her thighs. "He was good in bed, though." Her eyes went distant as she spoke. "But I was a woman of some means by then, and he was meaning to take what I had. So I found myself running. I was in a cave when my old man caught up to me."
"What'd you do?"
"Nothing I could do. I had my shooters with me and a few rifles, but he was smart in all sortsa ways that were cowardly and despicable. Instead coming in and taking his chances, he filled the mouth of the cave with timber, dead leaves." She sighed. "Straw-lit fire and the smoke, ah hell, either I was going to suffocate or have to run through flames to live, only to get shot once I did."
Sally stood and looked back down the road for nearly a minute then continued. "As a child, I'd been part of some settlers, the Old Three Hundred, and there'd been church on Sundays, so I knew about praying. Did a lot of praying over those days on the run from the husband, but after all that, I just ended up in a cave." She lifted her head and grinned at me. "So, I tried the other guys."
I nodded, unsure what to say.
"I told the Devil, 'Just let me live, and I'll do what you say.' Even cut into my palm and made a blood oath." She held up her hand, where I saw a crescent-moon-shaped scar. "The cave filled with this wind, like a hurricane, blew the flames out of the cave. When I stumbled out, the branches were all burnt up, just dust. I saw my betrothed out there, burst like a piece of meat forgotten in the fire."
Sally stood, looked over her shoulder, and started back to the motorcycle. "That was, oh, just shy of 1870, I reckon," she said. "The let-me-live part of that bargain meant just that. I just live, on and on. The other part means that I'm what they called, in my time, a type of regulator. The Devil's regulator."
"Like an assassin," I said. "Or a ninja."
She frowned. "Not like a ninja. Their food gives me gas somethin' wicked."
"Right, not really—"
"So, my job is to kill for a living," she said, hopping onto the back of Bucephalus. "Only two times have I not completed my task. One is your actor friend, but that will soon be rectified."
"Not if we get the contract back," I said, pointing a finger at her face.
"The other was when I'd come up against a regulator for the other side. Hell Inc."
"Oh?"
"People call him Digger, but I don't know what his real name is," she said. "I was told it was because of his hat, one side smushed up to his head. Didn't really explain it, but I didn't care to ask. I was supposed to kill him, but you know, the other side is very modern in all sorts of ways. Full of corporate lawyers and CEOs and tax accountants and vegans. Got all these fancy gadgets that the old man don't. And when I took one look at
ol' Horse here, I knew he belonged with me. So, that's what I did."
"You stole Digger's motorcycle."
"Ha," she said. "Seems that was the deal he made with his side when he traded his soul. Got 'em the best machine there ever was on two wheels. I kept off his radar for many, many years. Side roads everywhere, never the interstates." She then looked at me, her face darkening. "Until you stole it. Ridin' through cities like you had no cares in the world. It was only a matter of time before someone from their side spotted it."
I squinted at the horizon, where far in the distance, I could see at least two riders kicking up a maelstrom of dust and smoke.
She said, "Come on, let's ride. Digger wants it back, and now that he's likely given up chasing your friend, he and his crew will be keen to make that happen."
Pointing at the bike, I said, "But we can outrun them, all of them!"
"Not if they're coming from all directions, which is a tactic of his," she said then patted me on the shoulder as I got on the bike and fired it up. "Head west. We'll go as far as we can, but be ready for a showdown."
"What if I'm not?"
"Don't matter," she said over the roar of the engine. "That's life, boy. The showdown comes whether you're ready to draw or not."
* * *
Keeping low, the three of them walked the edge of the property until they were next to the big ranch house. The fence hadn't been properly maintained and was easy to get through.
From there, they'd spent a few minutes watching Angel stumble in the dark toward the side of the hangar. Despite whispered protests from the others, he'd refused to take off the heels.
In the driveway in front of them, there was a large black SUV. The two-car garage had, in fact, two cars in it, one Jaguar and the other was sporty and flashy, which none of them could really place.
The Actor whistled. "What is that, a McLaren? Ferrari?"
"Is fast car. Who cares?"
Uncle Jerry nodded. "Purple, though. Who drives a purple car?"
"Yeah, not my first choice," the Actor said, nodding.
"None of this matters!" Anza said, waving her hand in front of their faces. "But the garage door is open, so we can get in."