Ernest Tubb swallowed the rest of his three fingers, gave it a fast chase and cracked an ice cube with his back teeth.
“Goin' after 'em myself,” he said. “Glory Ann, she thinks I'll get myself killed, but a man's gotta do what he feels deepest in his heart is the right thing. That's what I say. So I'm goin' after Estelle. She's my baby.”
Ernest Tubb hopped down from his stool.
“Good talkin' to ya,” he said to Woody, and walked out.
Sherry Louise came over.
“What was Elmer Fudd there so fired up about?” she asked.
“Man's on a mission of some kind,” said Woody. “No doubt about it.”
“Ain't much left in this lonesome world got no doubt in it,” Sherry Louise said.
Woody laughed. “No real comfort in knowin' that, either, I suppose.” Sherry Louise cleared away Ernest Tubb Satisfy's glasses and wiped the bar clean.
“Seems like sometimes bein' even a little intelligent just don't pay, Mr. Dumas. You know what I mean?”
CRITICS
“Thought it'd be a good idea to see a movie,” said Romeo. “Might relax everybody a little bit.”
Romeo, Perdita, Duane and Estrellita were in a room at the Orbit Motel in Buck's Bend, New Mexico, halfway between El Paso and Las Cruces. It was four o'clock in the afternoon; they'd slept eight hours.
“We can get back on the highway right after it's over, when it's dark. Noticed on the way into town one of them multi-theater complexes out at the shopping center. What kind of pictures you like, Estrellita, honey?”
Estrellita sneezed and coughed.
“You catchin' cold?” asked Romeo.
“I'm okay,” said Estrellita. “I don't care much what show we see.”
“What about you, Duane?”
“Don't care.”
“Hey, c'mon everybody! Cheer up!” said Romeo. “After all, I'm buyin'.”
Perdita did not comment.
Romeo herded everyone into the Cherokee, leaving the truck parked under the Orbit sign, which was an orange neon planet with a purple spaceship, connected on one side by a metal spoke. Several yellow-white stars twinkled on and off around the planet, and a few that didn't work buzzed and hissed.
At the movie complex, Romeo said, “This
Shocker
sounds like fun. Accordin' to the poster here, a mass murderer gets sentenced to the electric chair, only instead of it killin' him, he feeds on the juice and becomes crazier and more powerful. Let's go.”
Romeo bought the tickets and they went inside. The movie turned out to be even more bizarre than the advertising promised. An insane, sadistic killer, who'd worked as a television repairman and with other electronic devices, is scheduled to die, and his last request in the prison is for a TV set. He hooks his hands up to the television tubes with jumper cables and transfuses himself with electrical current. The guards rush in and disconnect him, and in the ensuing struggle he practically
bites off one's lower lip and breaks another's fingers. When they finally give him the big jolt, the chair and the entire penitentiary power system shorts out, and the killer's electrified self, in the form of phantom particles, escapes and wreaks havoc all over again. The film moves back and forth between dreams and reality, and the monster manages to plug himself into a satellite and transmit his ens through television all across the country. He runs rampant among cable and network landscapes until he's programmed into oblivion by the hero, who's been chasing him over the airwaves.
“Man, I'll bet that con in Louisiana,” Romeo said when they were all back outside after the movie, “Bubba Somethin', who got singed the other day, woulda asked for a TV set, too, instead of shrimp and oysters, if he'd seen this picture first.”
“It was kinda interestin',” said Duane.
“I enjoyed the hell out of it,” said Romeo. “Just shows how capital punishment don't really make much of a difference, after all. What'd you girls think?”
“It was disgusting,” Estrellita said. “These kinds of movies are for morons.”
“Hear that, Duane?” laughed Romeo. “Your sweetheart here's callin' you a moron.”
“Least he's got company,” said Perdita, lighting up a Marlboro.
“Well, Duane,
amigo,
there you go,” Romeo said. “Everyone's a critic. No wonder now, is it, why the world's in such a mess. Can't nobody agree on nothin'.”
THE CHOICE
Marcello Santos was unhappy. Dede Peralta had been a long-time associate of his, a friend in a business where few men could truly consider themselves friends. Dede was dead, as was his soldier Pete Armendariz, and Crazy Eyes was upset. He had called a meeting to be held in the farmhouse of his six thousand acre property west of New Orleans. Set in the middle of a swamp, with only one heavily guarded road leading in and out, it was the only place Santos felt totally safe. He had named this haven “
Il Giardino d'Infanzia,
” the nursery. It was as The Nursery that Santos and others, including federal and local police agencies, referred to it in conversation. A small handpainted sign hanging over the entrance to the house read, “Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”
Present at the meeting, called for eight o'clock on a Tuesday night, were Santos; Alfonse “Tiger Johnny” Ragusa, the crime boss of Houston and El Paso; Beniamino “Jimmie Hunchback” Calabrese, a capo in the Gambino family, from New York; Nicky “Bigfoot” DeAngelis, the Alabama and West Florida drug king; Reggie San Pedro Sula, who stood by Marcello; and the bodyguards for each of the others: “Papaya Phil” Romo, with Ragusa; Provino “The Fist” Momo, with Calabrese; and Vincent “Pit Bull” Deserio, with DeAngelis.
The air conditioning was fighting a losing battle against the ninety-five-degree heat and ninety-nine-percent humidity of the Southern Louisiana night. Santos took off his jacket and mopped his forehead with a black silk handkerchief.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said, “for coming to The Nursery. You all know how this tragedy of Dede has hit me so hard. I have been in mourning since the news reached me. The reason for calling you together is that we have a problem, a most serious problem, that, if we are going to be able to continue what has been so far a profitable participation in the cosmetics trade, we must solve.
“The problem is this Dumas, who is, of course, the special agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency in Dallas. Our friend from Dallas, Joseph
Poca, whom you all know as âJoe Polkadots,' is, unfortunately, at the present time in prison. Therefore, we are empowered, with the permission of Joe Polkadots, that I have very recently obtained, to act on our own behalf concerning special agent Dumas. I call for suggestions.”
“Marcello,” said Tiger Johnny, “I'll be happy to take care of this creep. He is, after all, in Texas, which is my state. I can arrange for a pipe bomb to be placed in the man's car, and it will be done. Allow me this privilege.”
“A thought,” said Jimmie Hunchback. “It might be wiser to have an outside representative handle the job. Why not I leave The Fist here go up to Dallas to take care of it himself? Killing a federal agent is a thing the government won't forget, but in this case I don't think they'd suspect someone from my part of the country.”
“Nicky Bigfoot,” said Santos, “what do you feel is the correct thing?”
At seventy-nine, Nicky DeAngelis was the oldest of the group. He had ruled the Florida Gulf Coast area for forty years, and Marcello sincerely respected his opinion. Like Santos, Nicky Bigfoot, who earned his nickname because he'd made a large and lasting impression in the course of his career, wore dark glasses most of the time. Unlike Santos, who wore them to cover up his strange eyes, Nicky used them so that he could catnap without anyone knowing he was dozing off. His bodyguard, Pit Bull Deserio, was fiercely protective of his boss, and listened closely to everything that was said in his presence in case Nicky needed him to whisper into his ear any information the old man had missed. Deserio did this now, and it took several moments before Nicky responded to Santos's question.
“I go with Jimmie the Hunch,” said Bigfoot. “You understand that's how come he's called Jimmie Hunchback. Not because he's got a crippled back, which, as you can see, he don't. If he says his man will do the job right, we should honor his judgment. With all respect to you, Johnny Ragusa, it should be a hitter from someplace out of Texas.”
Santos held up his left hand, the one minus a thumb.
“It's settled, then,” he said. “Jimmie's man, Provino Momo, will take care of the agent Dumas. Now we can relax and play some serious pinochle! Reggie, give Signore DeAngelis another cup espresso so he can't say he's asleep when I beat him with the cards. Everyone, have more
wine, whisky, whatever you want. There is plenty food, also, spaghetti and oysters. You know we like to eat in Louisiana!”
Santos held up a glass filled with wine in his right hand.
“To you,
Il Pugno,
our blessing. And to us all,
salute!
”
RUBOUT
“Thanks, especially, for sending up the files on Dolorosa and Durango, Doyle. They're quite a pair.”
Woody Dumas had been reading the FBI reports on the skin-business smugglers that Doyle Cathcart had faxed to him overnight, and Doyle had just telephoned to make sure the information had arrived.
“Didn't recall who she was right away,” Woody said, “but that name, Perdita Durango, was stuck in my head from someplace.”
“She was hooked up with that feed store holdup awhile back in Iraaq,” said Doyle. “Remember? One of the stickup men got his head blown off and the other one was captured and sent to Huntsville. The Durango gal was the getaway driver, and danged if she didn't get clean away.”
“So now you figure she's mixed up with this barefootin' dope dealer.”
“Right. He's also some kind of
santerÃa
priest. They apparently murdered a boy in a ceremony, and the Mexicans want 'em.”
“Well, I'm about to saddle up, buddy, and get on the trail. Word is the target is in Los Angeles, so I'm headin' west.”
“Just watch your tail, fella. They shoot horses, don't they? They'll sure as shit shoot you, too.”
Woody laughed. “ 'Preciate your concern, son. You take care, too, now. Hear?” he said, and hung up.
Jimmie Hunchback's best boy, Provino Momo, sat in a rented dark gray Ford Thunderbird across the street from the Federal Building. The Fist was an expert at sitting and waiting. As a child, he'd had tuberculosis and had to spend nearly two years resting. During those two years, from the age of eleven until he was thirteen, The Fist mostly slept and read comic books. An only son, he was not allowed to play at all with other children during his illness, and was kept on a strict low-fat, salt-free diet. He didn't realize how angry he had become during this hiatus until five years later when, during a disagreement in a poolhall in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, the now fully-grown Provino Momo beat a forty-year-old man to death with his hands. It was from this incident
that his nickname derived. Word got around about this big, tough, quiet kid with the grip of steelâhe was six-four, two-fifty at eighteenâand The Fist went to work as a soldier for the Gambinos, New York's largest organized crime family. Eventually, he earned the confidence of Jimmie Hunchback, and became the capo's right-hand man.
Now, as The Fist sat in the rented T-bird, watching for the Drug Enforcement agent whose photograph he had next to him on the front seat, he thought about the various men and women he had personally whacked on behalf of the business. Usually, The Fist avoided this kind of rumination, but for some reason, perhaps because he would turn forty years old tomorrow, the same age as his first victim had been, he allowed himself to review this side of his life. Altogether, The Fist figured, he had murdered at least twenty people, most of them without any weapons other than his own hands. That wasn't so many, he thought, not in twenty-two years. He didn't know whether to be pleased or not by this, but his reverie ended a moment later, as soon as he spotted Woody Dumas walking out of the building.
Woody's Malibu was parked directly across from The Fist's T-bird. The agent unlocked his car, got in, started it up and drove away. Didn't even check for a bomb, The Fist thought, as he followed him, wondering why anyone who made a halfway decent living would drive such a crummy-looking car. Maybe these federal guys didn't get paid so well. In any case, he figured, Dumas could drive a better short than this turd-colored piece of junk. It looked too much like a cop car to even be a cop car. The Fist owned an identical pair of white '88 Cadillac Sedan de Villes. He drove them on alternate days, and when one of them was in the repair shop he always had the twin to use. Even though it was too small for a man his size, he didn't mind driving this T-bird. It had pretty good pickup and held the road okay. He wouldn't hesitate to rent another one.
Woody drove slowly through the downtown traffic headed toward his athletic club, which was in the newly gentrified warehouse district. He wanted to get in a good workout before the trip to L.A. After parking his car in the alley behind the club, Woody opened the trunk to get his gear. As he bent over to take out his gym bag, the trunk lid came down hard on his back, causing his legs to collapse. Woody fell to the ground. All he could see were two large, brightly polished brown Cordovans.
Woody reached his right hand down to his left ankle and pulled from its holster his Charter Arms Bulldog Pug .44 long snub-nose revolver. He felt himself being lifted and squeezed at the same time. Suddenly, he found it very difficult to breathe and realized he was being crushed to death by an enormously powerful person. Woody brought his backup gun as close to his own head as he could and just as he was about to lose consciousness glimpsed the face of his attacker. He squeezed the trigger, hoping the business end was pointed in the right direction.