The Nirvana Blues (76 page)

“I don't care what they think. I hope all of you kill each other for it. That'll serve you right.”

“But you're involved. And they'll try to get at you through the kids.”

“Tell them I'm not afraid anymore. I'm out of the stupid game. And that's final. I hope Tribby crashes that dumb helicopter tomorrow!”

“Oh my God—how did you hear about that?”

“How could I
not
hear about it? You wouldn't believe the rumors out there. Somebody told me today that Ephraim Bonatelli, on a contract from his own father, was going to snatch the Hanuman and hold it for ransom.
If
he can get up from his hospital bed.”

“It so happens that your new boyfriend, Nikita Smatterling, is in cahoots with Mr. Bonatelli, to rob his own statue, both for the ransom and the publicity that they figure will make Iréné Papadraxis' hack job a best seller, and garner millions for the Simian Foundation.”

“You lie! Nikita would never do anything like that!”

Weary beyond belief, Joe said, “Shoot, it doesn't matter. I just want to resolve the coke scam and then flee to Timbuktu. So please tell me how you destroyed it,” he begged. “Then I can relay the information to Tribby, and he can tell Ray Verboten—”

“Why don't you leave now?” Heidi interrupted. “We're getting nowhere.”

“You refuse to tell me?”

“Oh Joey, you know I flushed it down the toilet!”

“No!”

“You knew I had all along.”

“I don't believe you! You're lying! That stuff cost me twelve Gs! We could have sold it for a fortune! We could have—”

“You're the one who
told
me to do it.”

“When? I'm not that crazy! You're nuts!”

“When you phoned from Tribby's office you said it wasn't worth it. You said ‘I would rather you just flushed the shit down the toilet.' Those are your exact words.”

“I never dreamed you'd take me seriously!”

“You were terrified they might harm Michael or Heather.”

Joe sat there, benumbed, contemplating the hands in his lap. She had actually done it! He thought his hopes for the land had vanished long ago, but her statement now cut him apart with machete strokes. Finally, irrevocably, his family was destroyed; the children were scarred for the duration. Nothing to do but end it all. Joe giggled, reached into his pocket, removed the revolver, and pointed it at his right temple.

As he pulled the trigger, Heidi shrieked,
“Joey, don't!”

Incredibly, though he had assumed it was empty, the gun went off:
blam!
Joe keeled over sideways in a great hullabaloo of flame and smoke.

“Oh no!”
Heidi shrieked.

“Oh help I killed myself!” Joe wailed.

His eardrum must have burst; a fire engine clanged through his brain. A muscular maniac pounded an enormous Chinese gong. And yet his senses were reasonably intact: he could smell gunpowder, he could see Heidi, absolutely horrified, her knuckles pressed against her teeth. And he could even hear Michael crying, “What happened, Mom? What did Daddy do?” And he could feel the gun, still in his hand—cold, hard, and somehow not as deadly as guns are supposed to be when discharged at point-blank range.

Joe whispered hoarsely, “Heidi, I'm still alive. Can you see where it hit? Is there any blood?”

“I can't see a thing.” When she bent over him, her plaster cast accidentally banged the back of his head—he cried “Ouch!” Heidi said, “There's just a little burnt area, nothing else. No hole. No blood…”

“I thought it was empty,” Joe moaned weakly. “But there must have been one blank left.”

“‘Blank'?”

“It was loaded with blanks this morning. But I thought I had fired all of them. I guess I counted wrong. I feel sick, I'm gonna throw up.”

“Blanks? Joey, what kind of monster are you? I thought you had actually
shot
yourself!”

“Nothing was supposed to discharge, believe me. I didn't mean—”

“Out! Get out of here!”

“It's cold out there.”

“Out, buster, before I call the cops!”

“It was a stupid gesture. I'm sorry I scared you. I scared myself. I'm gonna vomit.”

“Just get out, Joey, I'm warning you.”

“But where will I go?”

“Go to hell. Now come on—adiós! If I have to look at you for ten more seconds—”

She slapped his face and tugged him into a sitting position.

“Hey, take it easy. Christ, I'm going.”

“Not fast enough to suit me. On your feet—alley
ooop!
” She actually heaved him upright. He staggered, dropping the gun. Heidi stooped, picked it up, and handed it over. “Take this, let's go.”

“I don't want it. I'm gonna upchuck.”

“I don't want it either. You carry it for protection in your helicopter.”

“Heidi, I'm really going to blow my lunch!”

“So barf already! Need I draw a map to the bathroom?”

Hands clapped over his mouth, Joe lumbered across the living room, plunged into the can, and sank whimpering to his knees, tears already galloping from his eyes as his stomach's contents lurched northward. Terror had always accompanied his throw-ups. Heidi barely flinched when nausea struck: at the first queasy pangs she stuck a finger down her throat and regurgitated the poison in a matter-of-fact manner. But Joe would suffer a rocky stomach for days in order to postpone, or even avoid entirely, the horrible moment of truth.

Currently, however, he had zero choice. In no uncertain terms he vomited, punctuating the painful heaves with agonized watery sobs. Inside a minute, having coughed up the very dregs of his guts, Joe rocked back, resting on his heels, bleary-eyed and thoroughly frazzled.

Heidi occupied the doorway. “That's it? You through? Because if you're entirely finished—”

“I'm done. Christ, woman, have a heart. I'll just take this for a souvenir.” So saying, he reached into the wastebasket for that empty tea carton.

Empty? Joe gripped it lightly, thinking it weightless, but the carton slipped from his grasp, striking the tiles with a heavy
chunk!

For a second, nothing registered. Then, befuddled, he grasped the box again. “Hey … this thing's heavy.” Fumbling weakly, Joe pried open a flap, discovering what he should have known all along—the carton positively
groaned
with uncut cocaine!

“Holy mackerel. Heidi…?”

But she had turned and commenced walking away.

“This box is
full!
” he called after her. “You didn't flush it down the toilet!”

“Fuck you, Joey. I've had it, I mean it.”

“
You've
had it?” He jumped to his feet. “You lied to me, Heidi! You said you flushed it down the toilet!”

“You lied to me about Nancy Ryan. In the last five days you've become the most shiftless monster I ever met!”

“Oh no, hold on just a minute, here. This is different. We're talking about a hundred Gs, here.” Joe advanced menacingly across the living room, shaking the box at her. “We're talking about Eloy's property, and his future well-being, and the future of ourselves and our children. We're talking about goods that people are prepared to kill to obtain, and you
lied
to me, Heidi!”

“Don't be self-righteous, Joey. Under the circumstances that would be very unbecoming.”

“‘Unbecoming'?” Instant apoplexy! Veins bulged, ears blazed, Joe's heart trumpeted against his sternum. “I don't
believe
you can stand there with that pinched, twitty smirk on your face putting
me
down, after trying to launch a caper like that! What were you gonna do, give it to Scott Harrison for reaming me? Abscond to New York and make a killing in secret? You son of a bitch!” His arms flailed, his hair stood on end. “You would double-cross me like that? What happened, you made a deal under the table with Ray Verboten? Did Nikita Smatterling seduce you into turning it over to Skipper Nuzum? I don't believe it! Everyone of those assholes tried to make me double-cross you and Eloy and Tribby and anybody else in the valley with even a smidgin of decency left, but I told them to walk! You scumbag! The junk in this little box could send our kids to college! It could pay all your hospital bills if you ever got cancer! It could give us a little bit of security in this goddam shark-infested country! It could … it could…”

All the while he ranted, she had stared at him frozenly, her arms folded, her eyes absolute slits, her face arctic. Now, as he sputtered off incoherently, she said, “My my, would you look at the Fascist rising up out of the Communist rhetoric.”

Joe hit her with all his might. A right-hand cross that bounced off her left temple. He screamed
“Ouch!”
as Heidi capsized sideways, tripping over the coffee table in a watery explosion of sea monkeys—her right arm, in the cast, swung into the TV set, smashing the picture tube with a scary hollow
pop!
Glass sprayed across her body as she bounced to earth.

Joe cried,
“Oh no!”

Heather shrieked.

Michael stared disbelievingly, his mouth awkwardly open, palms cupped over his ears.

“My hand!” Joe howled.
“You broke my hand!”
He doubled over as pain leaped splinteringly, like haywire needles, up his arm and tried to break his neck. Through a screen of sputtering freckles before his eyes that forewarned fainting, Joe saw Heidi flop over on all fours and start scrambling like a terrified crab through the carnage toward the telephone: a red haze seemed to spray off her shocked and stormy features. At the same instant, Heather flew through the air as if propelled by a mammoth slingshot: she crunched into his belly, fists flailing, and knocked him head over teakettle. Enraged, Joe flung her aside and hollered at Heidi as she fumbled with the phone:
“What are you doing?”

“I'm calling the police! You better get out of here!”

“Call the police and I'll kill you!”

“No you won't, Daddy,
I'll kill you!
” Volume J-K of the
World Book Encyclopedia
thumped against Joe's cranium, catching his tongue directly between his teeth and driving his head halfway to China.

Joe elbowed his whirlwind daughter aside and bolted toward Heidi. “You call the cops and they'll find the cocaine! We'll
all
go to jail!”

She warded him off, viciously swinging the cast: it caught him in the shoulder, shunting his charge sideways. Her eyes bugged out of a face smeared in red. Rent across the chest, her blouse was ruined. Joe belly-flopped, clutching the coke box to his ribs like a good tailback. Immediately, he rolled, grasping for Heidi with his free hand. She kicked at his face, meaning to maim; at the same time her fingers scrabbled to register a single digit: “Operator! This is an emergency!”

Joe cried, “Wait a minute, I'm leaving!” Heather crashed into his back, grabbing hair, ears, shoulders; her knees frantically drubbed his kidneys. “This is crazy!” Joe dumped his daughter brusquely on her ass again. They looked like a scene from the cover of
Police Gazette.
Eighty percent of all American murders occurred within families, among lovers and estranged spouses.

“Operator, I want the police!”

“I'm
going,
Heidi! Shit, please don't—” Staggering erect, Joe stumbled toward freedom. The empty fishbowl, pitched by Heather, ricocheted off his rump, knocking him off-balance again: he pitched over the arm of the easy chair.

Michael remained paralyzed, hands covering his ears, mouth wide open.

“I didn't want this to happen!” Joe bawled, as Heather, a miniature wounded rhino, charged again.

“Hello, police? This is an emergency. I live on Ranchitos Road … Castle of Golden Fools … a big, dumb, two-story mansion by the S-curve. A man is going amok … he tried to kill me.…”

Next time around, Heather drove straight for his balls: one fist caught him there. Reacting to the pain, Joe boxed her ears—she cartwheeled into the bookcase:
crash!

Joe stammered and gestured pathetically: if only he could retract this mayhem. Jumping up from the phone, Heidi grabbed the nearest weapon, an oversized red Wiffle Ball bat; even her teeth were soaked in blood.

“You're a lunatic, Joey! Be gone!”

“But I didn't mean…”

Here came Heather again, the Floyd Patterson of the kiddy pugilists, up off the floor for the umpteenth time.

“
Out
, you bastard!”

“Not like this—
oof!
” Tiny teeth sank into his forearm and held on, mongoose-fanatical: boneless and floppy, Heather twitched like a rag doll in a hurricane as Joe tried to shake her loose.

Wielding the Wiffle Ball bat like an expert, Heidi caught him broadside with a home-run swing. Stars appeared; Joe's ears popped and clanged; and he realized that if they prolonged this rumble, a death might truly be the outcome. Gasping, Joe located the doorknob and toppled over backward outside, landing on the deck.

“I'm going,” he gurgled. “I give up!”

“Not fast enough!” Heidi croaked. The bat drummed against his forearms, head, and shoulders.

Using every last bit of strength, Joe humped onto the ladder, lost his footing, and clung one-handed to a rung. Heidi bounced a final blow off his head, placed her foot against the top rung, and kicked outward. Joe screeched, letting go, and experienced a briefly euphoric free fall before crunching to earth: the ladder jounced off his thighs, underscoring—emphatically—the fact that their marriage was over.

“I hate you, Daddy!” came from over the parapets above. “I hate you, I hate you,
I hate you!
”