Casket for Sale, Only Used Once (14 page)

"Believe me, I know."

"How far are you from the road?"

"I'm not sure. Not too far, I hope."

"Let me know when you can see the road, but don't show yourself," I told her.

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you, too."

I extended the walkie-talkie toward Goblin, and then, on second thought, drew it back. "Can I keep this for now?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

Charlie got out of the truck, apparently satisfied there wasn't going to be any upcoming additional violence. "You're going to pay for what you did to my store," Charlie shouted, pointing accusingly at Roger. "You don't just drive a truck through a man's place of business and expect to get away with it! You'll be cleaning up my place, and you'll be doing it without any fingers on your hands, I promise you that!"

"Shut up, Charlie," said Troll.

"I don't have to shut up! That store is my livelihood! It's bad enough that I've got you shoplifting all the damn time and I have to watch your unnatural perversions, but now my store is ruined! Did you miss the truck breaking through the wall? Did you see how much merchandise was damaged? You think I get that stuff for free? You think some delivery guy just stops by and says 'Here you go, compliments of the house,'? You think I don't have bills to pay?
Debts to settle?
Pets to feed?"

Goblin pointed his gun at Charlie's head. "Okay, I'm
not
in the mood for you right now. Shut up."

"You shut up! You think what you're paying me to help you guys out is going to cover the damage to my store? I'm tired of this! This is horseshit! Hell, I probably won't even be
able
to get it fixed because you whack-jobs will kidnap and murder the laborers! Screw you all!"

Troll took out his own gun. "Charlie, I highly recommend that you give your mouth a rest."

"All of you! Screw you!"

Goblin and Troll both pulled their triggers at the same time. Goblin's bullet hit him in the forehead, while Troll's struck him in the nose ... or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, there wasn't much left of Charlie's head as his body dropped to the ground.

"Shut ... the ... fuck ... up!"
Goblin shouted, firing a bullet into Charlie's lifeless body in between each word. "What the hell do I have to do to get you to shut up?"

"That may have worked," Troll noted.

"I
know
the truck broke through his store! I saw it happen! We all have problems today! Give me a break!" Goblin wiped some spittle off on his sleeve. "I should've stayed in bed this morning."

Roger and I gaped at him.

"What are you looking at?" Goblin demanded.

I pressed the black button on the walkie-talkie. "Helen? Still try to be careful of booby traps, but you might want to hurry."

Chapter Fourteen

"HOW'S YOUR FOOT?" I asked Samantha.

"Hurts," she said. "How's your hand?"

"Hurts."

"Sorry."

"Me, too."

I avoided turning around to look at her. Something about having my best friend's well-endowed girlfriend sitting behind me wearing only a bra made me a bit uncomfortable. It seemed odd that I was bruised, battered, cut, missing a finger, covered in blood, and yet still unnerved by an awkward social situation, but there you go.

At least I could still joke about it.

"So, she's wearing my pants and I'm wearing her blouse," I said, holding up my wrapped hand to show Roger. "Not many best friends are as generous as you."

Roger chuckled. "Yeah, well, don't try cutting off another finger to see more."

I shrugged. "It might be worth it."

"Guys, I'm right here," said Samantha, amused.

I was keeping tight pressure on my hand and was pretty sure I wouldn't bleed to death if we managed to resolve all of this unpleasantness soon.
The idea that I had my own finger in my pocket seriously
creeped
me out, so I tried not to think about it.

"I know we're supposed to do a lot of macho posturing," said Roger, "but I'm really glad you're not dead."

"Thanks. I'm glad you're not dead, too."

"Thanks."

"I do sort of wish Goblin and Troll were dead."

"That's understandable."

Goblin and Troll were sitting in their truck, looking generally unhappy.

"So how did you get the keys to the truck?" I asked.

"We didn't.
Samantha hotwired it."

I turned around to glance at her through the rear windshield. "You know how to hotwire a truck?"

She nodded.
"An important skill in the fashion business."

I turned back to Roger. "Wow. I'm impressed."

"Well, she's a pretty special lady," said Roger, giving me a look.

I wanted to say
don't give me that look
, but I couldn't with Samantha around. She really was a pretty special lady.

Suddenly, sitting in the back of a wrecked truck with one of my fingers newly severed and Roger sitting next to me holding the gun to the head of an unconscious psychopath, I realized why I didn't like Samantha.

It wasn't that she wasn't good enough for Roger. It was that she was
perfect
for him. I didn't dislike her. I was just scared she'd take Roger away from me.

I was worried that instead of hanging out with me at the Java Joint on Wednesday nights, Roger would be stuck at home, hanging up laundry and giving foot massages.

I didn't have introspective moments very often (apart from those involving television shows), so this was a rather amazing revelation.

It was an amazingly
pathetic
revelation.

I mean, I had a wife and two
frickin
' kids, with a third on the way, and I still found time to bum around. What was I worried about?

"It's going to be okay," I told Roger, giving him a look, although a different
look
than the one he'd given me.
"Everything."

"Everything what?"

"You know.
Everything."

Roger stared at me. "Huh?"

"Never mind."

"Okay."

"So what made you decide to follow me?"

"We thought you might need help. It happens a lot."

"It does not."

"Sure it does."

I shook my head. "Actually, if I remember correctly, and I think I do, it's
you
who generally needs saving."

"That's not true."

"Which one of us got strapped to that machine that was going to chop off his arms, legs, and head?"

"Which one of us was responsible for me being strapped to that machine that was going to chop off my arms, legs, and head?"

"We weren't discussing responsibility. We were discussing the need to be rescued."

"You were trapped in that giant plastic cube with the darts," Roger pointed out.

"You're right. That cube sucked."

"Anyway, Samantha and I decided we weren't doing any good just sitting around, so I carried her back to the store. We saw that you were in deep ka-ka and decided to save you."

"By crashing through the store."

"Yep."

"Did you consider the possibility that by doing that, you might run me over?"

"It was an irony I was willing to accept," said Roger with a grin.

"Well, that's soothing."

"I thought you'd like that."

"You know what else is ironic? The last time we were at the Java Joint, this lady offered me a hundred thousand dollars to deliver a suitcase to
Arizona
. I turned her down. I thought it carried the risk of causing problems in my life."

"You turned down a hundred grand without asking me first?"

"I was being responsible!"

"Screw responsibility! Responsibility gets your pinky chopped off. Take the money."

"I know that now." I nodded toward Witch. "How's she doing?"

"Still zonked."

I pressed the black button on the walkie-talkie. "Helen, how's it going?"

"I think we're getting there."

"Sounds good."
I set down the walkie-talkie.

Goblin got out of the truck and stepped over the tire shredder. "We've got ourselves a bit of a problem, gentlemen."

"What's that?"

"The alert signal just went off. Somebody's coming down the road."

"How far away?"

"About five minutes. We all need to play it cool. Whoever it is, we'll tell them everything's all right, we've already contacted the police about your accident, and we'll let them drive on through."

"Sounds good," I said, gesturing to my blood-covered shirtless body. "They'll never suspect a thing."

"There's some bottled water under the seat," Goblin told me. "Get yourself cleaned up as much as you can. This doesn't have to turn into a bloodbath if we all play it right."

"What about the camper?"

"Crap. That's right." Goblin thought for a moment. "We'll just send them back the way they came. Tell them a tree fell or something."

Goblin turned around and motioned for Troll to get out of the truck. Together they moved the tire shredder off to the side of the road.

"What should we do about her?" Roger asked me, gently tapping his gun against Witch's head.

"Do we have anything to cover her with?"

"I could keep up with the trend of the day and use my shirt."

"You know, that's a great opening for a fat joke, but actually you've lost a bit of weight since you started dating Samantha."

"You noticed?"

"Yeah, but I didn't want to say anything because, you know, we're guys and stuff."

Samantha reached out of the truck window and handed me
a bottled
water. "Just carry her out into the woods."

"We can't leave her," I said. "What if she wakes up?"

"Then don't leave her. Hide out there with her."

I unscrewed the cap and poured the warm water over my shoulders and chest. "We can't leave you, either."

"Then don't leave me," said Samantha, as if speaking to a remarkably stupid child. Many people have spoken to me in that tone of voice over the years. When we finally made it home I'd have to look into improving my intelligence level. "We'll all hide out there."

"Okay," I said, emptying the rest of the bottle. There were still streaks of blood on me, but that wouldn't matter if we were hiding out in the woods. "Roger, you carry her out there, and I'll keep our friends covered with the gun. Witch should be okay for a minute while you come back and get Samantha."

"Sounds good," said Roger, handing me the gun. Goblin and Troll had dragged Charlie's corpse out of sight and now Goblin was in their truck, driving it off to the side of the road so the approaching vehicle could get past. Troll was scattering dirt on the remnants of Charlie remaining on the road.

Roger got out of the truck, and then reached into the back and picked up Witch, putting one arm under her knees and one behind her back.

Had she stirred?

Nah.

Roger lifted her out of the truck and walked toward the woods.

"What are you doing?" Goblin demanded.

"We can't have her just lying in the back of the truck," I said.

"This part of the woods is
loaded
with traps! If you want to march through there, be my guest, but if you try to bring her with you the deal is off. I didn't swallow my pride just to have her ripped up by three dozen rusty poison darts."

Roger hesitated.

Troll looked at his watch. "You'd better decide either way. We don't know how fast they're driving."

"Let's put her inside the truck," said Roger. Samantha opened the door for him and he not-so-gently set Witch inside in an upright position. Then he and I got into the truck as well, brushing safety glass off the seat from the shattered windshield, the four of us tightly squeezed together. I looked over my shoulder and saw Troll get into his own truck with Goblin.

"Shouldn't we have worked out a cover story first?" asked Samantha. "What if the people stop and want to know what happened?"

"I think we're going to have to wing it," I noted, as I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching.

Witch twitched.

Then coughed.

The vehicle, a dirty but impressive black limousine, came around the corner. It slowed down.

Roger grabbed Witch by the collar and yanked her down, bashing her forehead against the dashboard. She jabbed him in the side with her elbow, and he yanked her down again, bashing her forehead once more.

The limousine came to a stop right next to our truck. The windows were tinted, preventing us from seeing who was inside.