The Earth Died Screaming

by Chuck Rogers

  I had no idea what jewelry was worth now, if anything. But I'd stolen two pearl necklaces from the Fuck Them's. While Lalli was gone I put one on her pillow. The other I put on Santa Muerte's offering plate with a pack of cigarettes. I nodded at the saint. "Take care of my girl."

  I started knocking together planter boxes.

  When I came back in the sun was setting and moon meteors were starting to streak the sky. Sometimes, actually a lot of the time, you could see them during the day. Lalli was home. She sat at the kitchen table. She looked at me long and hard. Olmec stone face. I thought I had blown it again and was in bad trouble. Lalli rose, took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom.

  We did the last thing a couple can do without baby-making intercourse.

  She started sobbing. I didn't think I was hurting her. She was doing almost all the backing up and with difficulty I was keeping my hands off of her. "Lalli, are you--"

  She reached back and put my hands on her hips. She put her face in the pillow. Lalli reached back to put her hand between her legs.

  She sobbed like it was the end of the world.

  Lalli didn't leave when we were done. She crawled into my arms and cried and cried and cried.

  I just held her.

  Maybe she really was a priestess. It was hard to imagine but maybe Lalli was a virgin and her holiest of holies was actually holy and consecrated to la Muerte, or something.

  Lalli read my mind. "I am not a virgin. But my husband was in Mexico City when el rayo came. With our daughter, Najelli."

  There was nothing to say.

  "If Eduardo is alive, he and Najelli will come for me, if they can. If they can't, they won't. But I must give Eduardo a year."

  "I understand."

  "In the meantime, you have not had dinner."

  "I could eat."

  "Good, then I want you to eat me. Eat me as if I am going to be your last meal upon this earth."

  I gave her a crisp, horizontal Marine Corps salute. "Yes, ma'am."

  Day six I went down to the creek and my trap was swarming with crayfish.

  I presented Lalli with a bucket of mudbugs and she literally started jumping up and down, clapping her hands and squealing with delight. I had envisioned some kind of suck the head squeeze the tip meal but Lalli boiled them, deveined them, removed the meat and shredded it with two forks. She whipped up a salsa, used our dwindling supply of flour to make tortillas and we had crayfish tacos. That called for bringing out that six pack of Corona.

  We had fallen into a rhythm.

  I would go hunting. She would do the rather minimal domestic chores and cook. Then she would go "do business." Things around the house disappeared. I was startled to find a number of Bobby's sex toys disappeared. New things we needed more appeared. She asked me if we had a gun we could spare. I gave her a teenage caveman's snub nose. She came back with a box of light bulbs and candles.

  Lalli was good.

  I gave her the gold, the cigarettes and all the drugs and told her to shop wisely.

  She asked if she could keep the pot.

  How could I tell that little face no?

  Lalli was a live-in domestic in Malibu with a husband, daughter, unmarried sister and mother in Mexico. Of course she'd been sending nearly all of her wages home. The only luxuries she allowed herself out of her own money were going to the movies once a week, usually buying the soundtrack to the movie if she liked it, then smoking a joint and listening to it. Reliving the film on her one day off.

  After dinner we would watch a movie. Then I would crank off push-ups, free squats, Charles Atlas myself and go to bed. Lalli would do the dishes and then appear in the night to wield some part of her body against me.

  That night she led me into her bedroom.

  She had thrown all the fur coats I had stolen for her on the bed.

  Lalli crushed her lips against mine. She shook as she breathed in my ear. "Quiero hacerte el amor."

  I want to make love to you.

  We made love on the fur coats. The nights were shorter now but we made love all night long. We lay in the sex glow and the glow of the borealis.

  Her voice was an unfamiliar little girl hesitant.

  " When shall Clarice remove the rest of your stitches?"

  "She said she wanted to take out them out in seven days."

  Lalli began weeping.

  I rolled on top of Lalli and kissed her. "Why do you cry, little priestess?"

  "Because I am in love with you." Lalli wept beneath me and couldn't stop. " Tomorrow they will come for you, and you will go. "

  CHAPTER TEN

  Call of duty.

  DAY SEVEN.

  Clarice pronounced my ass ready for action and took out the stitches. Apparently Lalli was right. Clarice went and narced on me. Sunday night a delegation of the Malibu Illuminati paid me a visit.

  Before that Lalli and I planted.

  She started telling me about Eduardo, Najelli and her life in Mexico City before coming to California. I told her about Line and the last night on Earth as we knew it. I told her about my past. It wasn't painful for me and she didn't seem to mind even the bad parts that much. I watched her on her knees, in the soil, laughing and talking and planting our garden.

  I wasn't in love with her . . .

  At least not yet.

  I'd only told a woman I loved her three times in my life. The first time I discovered I was wrong. The second one I had been right but that was a tale for another day. The third you know what happened.

  A thought occurred to me.

  "Do you know how to shoot?"

  Lalli rose without a word and went into the house. She came back with a pistol and a stiletto style switchblade. The pistol looked like a novelty cigarette lighter but it was a little too big. Nearly all its finish was gone. It looked like a piece of junk. Lalli set it before me bursting with pride. "This is Danny!"

  "You name your guns?"

  "You do not?"

  "May I?"

  "It is loaded."

  It looked like your standard John Moses Browning action. I ejected the magazine and racked the slide.

  The left side of the slide read TREJO MODELO1-A CAL .22

  I grinned as I got the joke.

  "Danny Trejo? The actor?"

  Lalli clapped her hands. "Si!"

  The left side of the slide read HECHO EN MEXICO.

  You can probably figure out what that means.

  What stumped me was that it had two safeties. The one on the left was the usual, old-timey thumb catch. The awkward one on the right was a tiny switch with an ' A' engraved over it.

  I looked at Lalli in mild shock.

  "Automatica?"

  "Si!"

  "You have a machine pistol?"

  "My father was a very interesting man."

  I immediately imagined Señor Mondragón as that Dos Equis 'most interesting man in the world' guy.

  You knew he had to have had a machine pistol.

  Lalli also had five, loaded spare magazines.

  That told me it was serious despite looking ridiculous.

  "Okay, keep that one under your pillow."

  "That is exactly where I keep it. The knife is with me always, unless I am in bed with you."

  Good to know.

  I held up the Uzi. "Keep this within reach while I'm gone."

  "Show me."

  I showed her how to load and unload it, deploy the stock and switch it from safe to semi to full auto. Uzi's aren't particularly accurate but Lalli gleefully proved she could blow empty wine bottles off the back fence at seven meters and that would do for most Get off my lawn! situations.

  Then she wormed her way deeper into my heart.

  "Show me how to take it apart and clean it."

  That's-my-girl!

  We were eating dinner when Lalli pulled the prescient, priestess of Santa Muerte routine. She lifted her chin and looked out towards the road. "They are here."

  The gate buzzed a moment late
r. "Frame? It's Ted. I have a few people with me. We'd like to talk if you have a minute."

  "Sure."

  I buzzed them in.

  Lalli went full stone-face. "You will receive them in the dining room?"

  "Sure."

  "You have a gun?"

  "I do."

  I wasn't wearing sarongs anymore and the PPK was always in my right pocket when it wasn't under my pillow. I had smartened up since my excursion to town and the PPK's loaded spare magazine was always in the other pocket. I was never without my folding buck knife either. I went and sat at the head of the dining room table while Lalli greeted our guests. I switched the PPK from pocket to front-of-the-pants carry.

  I leaned the Uzi against the wall directly behind me.

  Ted and Mar-J came in with a crowd.

  I recognized the cowboy guy who had gone and fetched Clarice the other night. A lanky young man who looked like Cowboy guy if he travelled back in time forty years followed him. Cowboy Guy tipped his hat. "Good to see you on your feet, Frame. Jeff Hauser. This is my son, Colin."

  I shook hands with the resident cowboys of Malibu.

  An Indian fellow I didn't know walked up to me beaming. He was wearing a dhoti and dress shirt and I knew in some parts of India that was formal wear. He'd dressed up to meet me. He presented me with a big mixed bouquet of tulips and crocus. "Oh, Mr. Frame! Thank you for killing the evil bear! My wife and children were terrified! These are from my wife's garden! The first bloom of spring!"

  I was a little touched. "Thank you, Mister . . .?"

  "Tejprataap Rajanbahadur." He held up finger before I could begin butchering him name. "Call me Raj. Everyone does."

  We shook hands. Lalli took the flowers into the kitchen.

  The beefy, bald guy with the wolfy-eyes and the biker mustache and beard in shorts and an Aloha shirt grinned at me. I knew him and he knew it. I mean I didn't know him, but anyone in Southern California with a TV did. Keith Braun, the RV King of Malibu, with locations in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Canoga Park and Encino.

  His commercials on local cable were epic.

  I admired a man who was literally willing to take a pie in the face to fight "the clowns who gave recreational vehicle vacationing a bad name."

  We shook hands. I grinned back at him. "It's an honor."

  "Heard good things about you, Frame."

  I shook hands with an older but still beautiful black woman named Sophina Smythe. Ted told me later that she had been the mayor pro tem of Malibu when the beam hit. She wasn't claiming it anymore except when she got on the radio once day on the government emergency channel, identified herself as the Mayor of Malibu and asked for any state or federal agencies to respond.

  Nothing but static had ever responded.

  Ted also informed me Sophina and Clarice were married.

  She had a smile that could light up a room. "Clarice said you were a stud!"

  I liked her.

  Joran Guftason was as big and Swedish looking as his name implied. Tall as me, big boned and barrel chested. At least a decade older and getting thick through the middle. He had piggy blue eyes I didn't like that were noticing every detail of the house. He was dressed for a safari and was open-carrying a gigantic, eight-shot .357 Magnum in an Alaskan chest-holster rig.

  Guftason the Younger had a Glock on his hip. His eyes were big, blue, and cold with privilege.

  I shook hands with Joran. He almost attempted to give me the bone-crusher and thought better of it. He introduced his son, Brock.

  His name was Brock . . .

  Of course it was.

  I held out my hand and Brock held up a vague fist bump. I managed to resist rolling my eyes or breaking every metatarsal in his hand.

  I gestured for everyone to sit.

  Raj beamed as Lalli put the flowers in the middle of the table. She put the beer maids of Oktoberfest to shame as she left and came back bearing ten foaming steins each with a wedge of lemon in it.

  This was good for some ooh's and ahhs.

  Little Gufto let his right hand fall to his side and Lalli stiffened as she set a beer down before Gufto the elder. Lalli finished serving the table and took station right behind me. Lalli slid her hands under the bib of her apron as she walked past and I knew in that moment she had her gun. She shot me a look that told me what I already knew.

  The Guftason's had no business being here.

  This was a hostile reconnaissance.

  Little Gufto smiled at nothing, insufferably pleased with himself.

  I made up my mind, but decided to let it play out a little more.

  Joran sipped his beer. His eyes narrowed at me over it. "This is Carey James's home brew."

  "Yup." I thought of Carey James as Mr. Fuck Them but I grinned and waggled my eyebrows over my stein. It was a little stiff, but I was pleased that the right eyebrow managed to go up and down in concert with the left. "The Christmas wheat."

  Joran shot Brock a look. Guftason the Younger had failed in his house toss. I wasn't surprised that the Fuck Them's and the Guftason's were friendly.

  Sophina started to speak. "So, Mr. Frame. We--"

  Joran interrupted her. "We are all grateful that you took care of the bear nuisance."

  Sophina stiffened but said nothing.

  "But you are a stranger in this community." Joran absently tapped his finger on the table twice and Brock was way too obvious about receiving the signal. He started to get up. Joran blathered on. "I think we need to--"

  I glared at Brock. "Where do you think you're going?"

  Gufto the Younger stared at me in a shock. "To take a piss?"

  I gave Brock the look. "May I please use your bathroom, Mr. Frame?"

  His jaw worked. "Mr. Frame, may I please use your bathroom?"

  "No."

  No way in hell I was going to let him reconnoiter the house.

  "I need--"

  "You need to sit down, shut the fuck up and hold your water. Go wait outside for daddy if you can't."

  Brock paled. He sat down.

  Joran Guftason's eyes went cold. He spoke very low. "Now you listen here."

  Playtime was over.

  "Who the fuck invited you?"

  Ted flushed in embarrassment and I knew the Guftasons had invited themselves and no one had felt comfortable telling them no.

  I don't think Joran Guftason was used to people talking to him like that.

  "Now you listen here."

  I don't think Joran was used to repeating himself, and he realized too late that every time you repeated something it got weaker.

  Ask any screenwriter.

  "I asked you a question."

  "Now you--"

  What a third time?

  I shut his shit down. "You think you can come into my house, uninvited, open-carry, and your shit-stain son can grope a member of my household while you think I'm not looking? You think you can signal shit-stain to go pee-pee and poke around the house and I won't notice?"

  Joran turned pale but it wasn't because he was scared.

  The rest of the table sat like old west townies and two gunfighters were squaring off.

  "Now, you take shit-stain and have yourselves a nice game of hide and go fuck yourselves."

  Lalli blew it.

  I loved her for it, but she stepped to the table and put the Uzi in front of me.

  Joran and Brock stared in shock at the Uzi on the table. It was the PPK they didn't see that was going to give them both a double-tap through the face. I would have preferred it if Joran had blown his top and ran his mouth before backing down.

  Or even drawn.

  It would never occur to Brock to draw.

  But I'd really hoped Joran would. Then I would've shot both of them.

  Instead Jorn just nodded at me. "Okay."

  There was going to be trouble.

  I should've killed him.

  I addressed the table. "Someone take them home."

  "I have a driver."

 
; Joran had a driver. I had a feeling he would also be a bodyguard.

  Then he nodded at Brock. "Let's go son."

  Lalli followed the Guftasons with her hand under her apron and slammed the door after them. A minute later something with a big engine burned rubber for my benefit as the Guftason's took their leave.

  Raj looked at me gravely. "I am not sure you should have done that. Joran Guftason is a very wealthy and powerful man. One hears rumors that some aspects of his business dealings are quite unsavory. As are some of his associates."

  "He's a real asshole." Keith confirmed.

  "Money isn't worth anything anymore. Soon the only thing that is going to matter is who eats and who doesn't."

  Everyone at the table contemplated this.

  "If it's just him, shit-stain and the driver? I've dealt with their kind before and a lot worse." I looked around the table hopefully. "Honestly, does anyone mind if I kill him?"

  Sophina grinned from ear to ear. "Not one bit."

  That got some laughs and the tension broke. Lalli came back with a bucket of beer and poured herself one and sat at Joran's spot. I looked at Ted and nodded toward Lalli. "Do you mind?"

  "Oh, not at all."

  Lalli put the Uzi back behind me and sat at my right hand.

  She put her hand on my leg beneath the table.

  The new King and Queen of Malibu.

  I leaned back. "Okay, pitch me."

  Everyone at the table looked to Sophina. She'd clearly wanted a warm up. What had transpired wasn't it. "There is a rather vital task that needs doing. We believe you are the most qualified person in Malibu."

  I already knew so I asked another question. "What's it pay?"

  That was not what Sophina had expected.

  Jeff Hauser laughed. "I'll give you a horse, and I'll board it for you if you want. Hell I'll give you two. One for the little lady."

  Lalli stared. "I do not know how to ride."

  Colin tipped his hat. "It'd be an honor."

  Lalli looked at me with her big dark eyes suddenly wide.

  Girls and horses . . .

  "Tell you what. I'll throw in a dog."

  "Do a deal, you get a dog? I've heard about this."

  Colin Hauser grinned. "Well, it's called horse-trading, Frame."

  Jeff shrugged. "Gal who lives next to my ranch, Cecilia. She runs an animal rescue. She also trains dogs. Well, right at the end of the flood the kennel flooded. Colin and I helped save a bunch of the animals. However, in the confusion the Catahoula Leopard Dog and the Giant rescue Schnauzer commenced to fuckin. The long story short of it is the Schnauzer dropped a litter. If you can get past how goddamn ugly they are and those broken glass eyes?"