“It was—”
“But the woman had no intention of cheating you.”
“No—”
“And you made more money than you originally planned.”
“Yeah—”
“Then it would be bad karma if you killed her and the man she is with.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Let them live,” the legless man in the wheelchair said, and the music started up again, and the strippers began to dance.
I leaned into Cassandra and asked, “What the
hell
is this?”
“You know,” she replied in a whisper, “Las Vegas.
Every
thing is a show.”
Not to mention surreal. At that very moment, five men in suits and ties burst in, brandishing guns, holding out badges, yelling,
“Freeze! United States Treasury Department!”
No one froze and bullets started to fly. It all happened so fast. Rook and Lucy were shooting. The two strippers suddenly had guns—I don’t know where they were keeping them—and shooting. Even the legless man had a gun and was shooting. Bullets were flying everywhere. This firepower took the men in suits by surprise and they were all shot down. One of the strippers was shot in the face. The air was filled with cobalt discharge. I looked at all the blood and gore and thought, there’s too much senseless violence in the world.
“Holy shit,” Rook said, when it was over.
“Who are they?” Lucy said, her legs shaking.
I noticed, then, that Cassandra was holding onto me, tight, and she was shaking, too.
I was numb.
The surviving stripper left the stage, took the badge and ID off a slain man, and brought it to the Arbiter.
The air was thick with something.
The Arbiter made a face. “T-Men! Rook, this is your doing! Goddamn T-Men!”
“I don’t understated,” Rook said. He looked very worried, something that didn’t quite fit his demeanor.
“What’s there not to understand?” said the Arbiter. “You’re carrying around a large sum of counterfeit money. You attracted the attention of Treasury agents.”
“Fucking card player,” Rook said under his breath.
“Yes. They must’ve been on his tail. Waiting for the exchange. Instead, you kill him and take off with the funny money.”
“Shit!”
Rook kicked a seat.
“You’ve really inconvenienced me, Rook. We have to clear out of here fast before more Feds show their faces.” The Arbiter groaned. “Do you know what this
means?
I have to find a new theater.”
Rook hung his head down. “I’m sorry, sir.” He sounded like he really meant it.
“You’ll pay for this later, Rook.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now we have a problem on our hands, Rook. Another moral question.”
“Sir?”
“Those two,” pointing at me and Cassandra.
“I’m sick of these two,” Lucy said. “I really am! We should’ve never brought them here! Rook, we should’ve killed them like I said!”
“Girl,” said the Arbiter, “shut the fuck up.”
Lucy was about to reply, and Rook smacked her across the head.
“Owie,” Lucy said.
Rook glared at her. She looked away.
“
Who
is she?” asked the Arbiter.
“My girlfriend, Lucy,” Rook said.
“You need to teach the bitch some manners.”
“I will, sir.”
“I changed my mandate,” said the Arbiter. “Take those two,” pointing at Cassandra and me, “and kill them.”
“But …”
“
But?”
“I was told a mandate can never be changed.”
“Mitigating circumstances. We just offed a bunch of Feds. Survival can change a mandate. I can change my own goddamn mandates any way I please.”
“What about karma?”
“Self-preservation comes before karma. You will have to deal with the karma when the time comes.” He pointed a finger. “Do you, Rook, have the audacity to go against me?”
Rook shook his head. “No, sir, no.”
“Well, go bury them deep out in the desert where no one will ever find them.”
“Yes sir!”
B
ack in the Mustang, Lucy holding the gun on us, Rook driving, “Suzy-Q” blaring out the speakers. The hellish part was that the song kept playing over and over. Either Rook had a tape that endlessly looped, or the song had been recorded several times. We were heading north, far from Las Vegas, it was past one in the morning. Rook must’ve been going eighty or ninety. I was holding Cassandra’s hand.
“Rook,” Cassandra said.
He didn’t hear her.
“Rook!”
He turned the volume of the music down. “Yeah?”
“You don’t have to kill us,” she said. “You can let us off. We won’t say anything. You know we won’t.”
“Yeah. But I gotta.”
“The Arbiter said—”
“He said he changed his mind and to bury you.”
“But you don’t have to do what he says. He’s not your boss.”
Rook shook his head. “No way. Bad mojo you go against what the Arbiter says. You just don’t do that.”
Finally, I said something. I said, “Who made him God?”
Rook said, “The Arbiter has paid his dues, he’s seen it all, done it all.”
“He doesn’t even have any legs!” I screamed.
“Lost them on a hit,” Rook said. “Still, he got the job done. Don’t worry. We’ll be swift, and bury you somewhere nice.”
“I wanna shoot her soooooo bad,” Lucy said, putting the gun against Cassandra’s nose.
Rook turned the music back up.
We drove for what seemed like a long time. There was nothing but an endless stretch of highway, darkness, and stars.
Rook looked in the rearview and said, “Aw, crap.”
“What?” said Lucy.
“Five-oh flagging us down.”
Lucy said, “Oh, junk.”
I turned my head, and so did Cassandra. Flashing red lights were coming in close.
Rook slowed down.
“This sucks,” Lucy said.
“Keep cool,” Rook said.
“It’s about those Feds we killed.”
“No. No. There’d be helicopters and a shitload of police cars. It’s just a slap-happy Nye County sheriff. Put the gun down, Lucy. You two back there, keep calm, keep cool, and we’ll get out of this without too much of a mess. Lucy, play it by ear.”
“Right,” she said, putting a new piece of gum in her mouth.
Rook pulled over and turned the music off. I was grateful just to have that song out of my life.
The cop, who was in fact a deputy sheriff, strolled up. He was your stereotypical out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere sheriff—beer belly and wide-brimmed hat, wearing shades even though it was the middle of the night. He flashed a light on all of us. Rook grinned as he rolled down the window.
“Howdy, officer.”
“Son, you were driving way past the speed limit. Why you in such a hurry?”
Lucy brought the gun up and fired. Rook screamed, the gun going off near his face. The sheriff’s own face turned into a bloody mess, spraying over Rook and the car.
“Goddammit, Lucy!” Rook cried. “I’m deaf now!”
“You’re not deaf!”
“You don’t shoot a gun in front of a man’s face!”
“You said play it by ear!”
“Not
my
ear!”
“Is he dead?”
Rook looked down at the sheriff’s body. “He looks pretty dead.”
“That was close,” Lucy said.
“Shit! My ears! Ringing!” He got out.
“You’ll be okay.” She turned to us. “He always has to make a big fuss about things.” She made a face.
Lucy held the gun on us as Rook dragged the sheriff’s body into the police cruiser, then he pushed the cruiser off the road and into the darkness. He got back in the car.
“Any day a cop dies is a good day. Okay,” he said. “We get rid of these two, switch license plates, and lay low for a week in Arizona.”
“Where we going in Arizona?” Lucy asked.
“I dunno. Phoenix.”
“I fucking hate Phoenix.”
“You never been to Phoenix.”
“Yes I have and the place sucks.”
“So where we gonna go?”
“Grand Canyon.”
“Too many people.”
“Sedona.”
“Where’s Sedona?”
“By Flagstaff.”
“Why there?”
“I hear it’s a wonderful and spiritual place.”
“I could go for spiritual.”
“You’re a very spiritual guy, Rook. That’s why I love you so much.”
“Oh honey bunch!”
“Oh sweetums!”
They embraced and kissed. It was a very strange thing to watch.
“Okay,” Rook said, putting the music back on, “we’ll go there.”
He started to drive. He hadn’t bothered to clean the blood off himself or the car.
The two started to sing along with Creedence Clearwater Revival again. What may have explained their behavior came next. They began to smoke crack out of a pipe. I knew it was crack because they told me so. Rook offered us some. “Wanna smoke a few hits of rock?” he said. “It’ll make everything easier.”
“I is just a cwack hoe,” Lucy laughed as she smoked from the pipe.
Cassandra whispered, “Take it easy, Philip.”
How could I take anything easy in a situation like this? But surprisingly, I was. I was ready for anything, and knew I deserved what I had coming to me.
We drove for about twenty minutes.
Rook stopped the car. “This is as good a spot as any.”
“Here?” Lucy said.
“Here.”
“Time to get out,” Lucy popped her bubble gum.
We got out. There was a strong wind. Rook left the headlights on, “Suzy-Q” still playing loudly.
“Go get the shovel out of the trunk,” Rook said.
“You get it,” Lucy said.
“Just get the damn shovel, girl.”
She huffed, and opened the trunk. Rook had his gun on us. Lucy tossed the shovel to Rook. She had something else in her hand.
“What are you doing?” Rook said.
“My imitation of Cassandra here.” I saw she had a long, black dildo. She stuck it between her legs and started chanting, “I’m a chick with a dick! I’m a chick with a dick!”
Rook roared with laughter.
Lucy jumped in front of Cassandra and waved the rubber phallus. Cassandra stared at the platinum blonde with disgust.
“Remind you of the old days?” Lucy said.
“I’m a chick with a dick!”
“You’re not amusing, little girl,” Cassandra said.
“I’ll show you amusing!” Lucy hit Cassandra in the face with the dildo and laughed. Rook laughed. Cassandra took the blow without a flinch. “Little girl my ass!
At least I am a girl!”
“Okay,” Rook said, “enough fun and games. Let’s get this shit over with.”
“Finally,”
Lucy said.
They marched us out into the pitch-black desert. I almost fell several times. The ground at my feet was full of holes, littered with unexpected large rocks.
In the distance behind us, all I could see was the car, its headlights, the faintness of that damn song playing over and over.
Above, thousands of stars. In another context, it would have been beautiful.
Rook, Lucy, and Cassandra were barely visible dark shapes.
I was going to be killed and murdered out in the middle of nowhere. I decided I deserved this. Every bit of it.
A light shined on us. First, it was a small flashlight—next, a larger, brighter one.
“Well, what do we have here?” an amused voice said.
M
ore light flooded on us, the high beams of a truck. Rook and Lucy were dumbfounded.
The two men holding shotguns didn’t seem to be members of the human race. They were dirty, in mud-covered denim overalls, with greasy hair and missing teeth. They looked like they’d stepped right out of
Deliverance,
The wind whistled around us.
“Why don’t you drop that gun, boy,” one of them said to Rook.
“Why don’t you suck my dick?” Rook retorted.
“Now, you might just be doin’ that yo’self, badly,” the other laughed.
“Rednecks!” Lucy spat her gum out. “I
fucking hate
rednecks! I ran away from home to get away from rednecks and
every
where I turn, you assholes
pop
up! There’s no getting rid of you! You’re like a
disease
on the rear end of humanity!”
“Whoooo, that mouth on this girl,” one of the rednecks said.
“And look at this one here,” said the other one, nodding at Cassandra.
“We gonna have us some
fun
tonight!”
“Whoooo-weeee!”
“What’re you two yokels doing out here in the dark?” Rook said. “Blowing each other’s peckerwoods?”
The rednecks laughed.
Lucy started to shoot. She got one redneck in the arm. The other blew a hole in her chest with his shotgun, and then he was killed by Rook: several
puff-puffs,
silenced bullets, in the chest and face. The one who’d gotten it in the arm shot out a gaping, bloody hole in Rook’s chest. Rook just looked at the wound and said, “Aw, shucks.” Music was still coming from the parked Mustang, an outlandish soundtrack to this madness.
I don’t know what I wasn’t thinking—
I wasn’t thinking
. I was acting on instinct or impulse, the desire to live, or maybe I’d seen it in a movie. Like the Arbiter said, “self-preservation.” I saw Lucy’s gun next to her body and dove for it. I thought I heard Cassandra say, “No,” but that could have been myself telling myself not to do it. But I did it. The injured redneck shot Rook again, and this time Rook went down. I was in the dirt, pointing the gun at the redneck, who smiled at me. I pulled the trigger—I kept pulling it, emptying every bullet into the redneck, the gun going
click-click-click.
There was silence, except: “
Oh, Suzy-Q, baby I love you, Suzy-Q
…”
“Oh my goodness,” Cassandra said.
I stood up and surveyed the carnage.
“Oh my goodness,” Cassandra said again, her hand at her chest.
“Are you all right?” I said to her.
“My heart needs to slow down.”
I dropped the gun.
Cassandra took the gun and wiped if off with her shirt, carefully placing it back next to Lucy.
“You don’t want your prints on anything,” she said.
“They’re all dead.”
“Of course they’re
dead,
you goose.”
“What do we do now?”
“We get the hell out of here. Come.” She took my hand, and we quickly made our way back to the Mustang. Cassandra removed her shirt, standing in the cold night in a black bra; she popped open the trunk. She removed one of the canvas bags. “My money,” she explained. “Wait,” she said. “We best not take Rook’s car. Every police agency in Nevada is probably looking for it. We’ll take the Howdy-Doody boys’ truck.”
“Then what?”
“We go back to Vegas. We ditch the truck. We leave town.”
I reached into the Mustang and yanked the tape out. Finally—
finally
—there was no music, but I knew it’d stay in my head for a long, long time.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I used to like the song.”
We walked back to the scene of the crime. Seeing all those bodies, all that blood and human flesh and bone, illuminated by the truck’s high beams, I started to cry. It was overwhelming, and it struck me, really struck me, that my beautiful little daughter was dead, and it was my fault that she was dead, and because I couldn’t keep a leash on my libido, a whole lot of people were now dead. I was drowning in a sea of dead bodies. I fell to my knees and bawled, thousands of stars twinkling high above. I screamed up at God. I wanted an explanation for all this. I wanted to believe that none of this had happened, that nothing like this could ever be real.
“Blimey, Mr. Lansdale,” Cassandra Payne said, “get a grip on yourself.”
She helped me to my feet.
“I don’t know how to drive one of these big trucks,” she said. “Do you?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
I forced myself to concentrate.
I got behind the wheel and she sat next to me. The cab smelled like fish and cigarette smoke. The floor was littered with empty beer cans, fast-food bags and wrappers.
“A couple of winners,” I muttered, started the truck, put her in gear, and drove. I don’t know if I was referring to the dead rednecks or us.
Silent, we went
south, back toward Las Vegas. I could see a patch of lights miles ahead: the undeniable city.
“Something else is going to happen to us,” I said.
“Think positively,” she said.
“How much can happen to two people in one night?” I said.
“It’s not over. Something bad is going to happen.”
“We’ll be
all right,
” she said.
I imagined a blockade of police cars waiting for us. Or drunk tourists coming the other way, crashing into us. And why not? It’d all be part of this bizarre day, and would make sense.
We closed in on Vegas.
“Once we’re in the city, I’ll go to my room, pack, and leave,” she told me.
“Where are we going?”
“I know where I’m going, and I’m not going to tell you. You should just go home and—”
“We’re not leaving together?” I said.
“What gave you that idea?”
“I don’t know.”
“I never asked you to come here,” she said. “I never asked you to help me find Boyd. I
didn’t
ask you, I didn’t force you. And there’s nothing between us. We may have fooled around a couple of nights, Mr. Lansdale, but I don’t like you.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
“I’m sorry, but I had to tell you. I have no romantic feelings for you, despite whatever you may feel. You weren’t the only neighbor on the block I was messing around with, you know.”
“What?”
“Don’t act so dumbfounded,” she said. “There was another, long before you came around. They always fall in love with me, when I tell them not to. Then they do damn fool things for that love.”
She was quiet for a while.
“Every damn thing we do in life is for love,” I said, feeling very small.
“It has only now occurred to me who killed my husband and the cab driver,” she said. “Why didn’t I figure it out before? He wanted Lawrence out of the picture, but I still wasn’t going to see him. Or be with him. How could I? He’s not my type.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Like I’m really going to tell you,” she said sarcastically. She looked at me, like I should have known. I didn’t know shit.
At the outskirts of the city, we parked the truck, wiped it for prints, and went to a pay phone. We called two cabs. We didn’t speak as we waited. She held the canvas bag with real money, her shirt wrinkled and dirty. The cabs arrived.
“Well,” I said.
“Cheerio,” she said.
I told the cab driver to take me to the airport. It was four in the morning.
The first flight to San Diego left at five-fifty.
By seven-thirty, I was back home. Frankly, I didn’t care who killed Lawrence Payne. Maybe he deserved it, for having married such a fucked-up individual like Cassandra. He deserved it like I deserved it.
The house was empty and lonely. I didn’t want to be there. But here I was.