Rovers

by RICHARD LANGE

  “We’ll take a vote,” she says. “Do we stick with the regular rotation, or do we give everybody a shot at the kid?”

  Everyone but Yuma and Real Deal votes to make an exception. The pair sit there steaming, but what can they do? They’re outnumbered.

  “How do we decide who makes the hit?” Bob 1 asks.

  “We’ll roll for it,” Antonia replies. “One person per team. Winners do the job and get the kid, the rest split the money.”

  Elijah grabs a pair of dice out of the domino box. They agree to let Yuma go first. She shakes the bones and tosses them on the table, gets a seven for her and Real Deal. Johnny rolls a nine, and Antonia throws a three for her and Elijah. Then it’s Bob 1’s turn. He whispers to the dice, blows on them, shakes them over his head. When he finally flings them, he gets two sixes.

  “Boxcars!” Bob 2 shouts.

  The party breaks up. Too much disappointment and resentment in the air. Everyone shuffles off to their rooms except the Bobs, who celebrate their good fortune until the first rays of sunshine, leaping over the horizon, chase them inside.

  “See it?” Bob 2 says.

  He points out a giant rat, a foot long from its nose to the tip of its tail. The beast creeps up on a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket lying in the gutter. Poking its head inside, it pulls out a half-eaten drumstick and rears back on its haunches to gnaw it.

  “What the fuck did you show me that for?” Bob 1 says. “You know I can’t abide vermin.”

  They’re sitting in an ice-cream parlor across the street from the Sandman Motel. They’ve been here almost an hour, since right after sunset, came over as soon as it was safe. Their table has a view of McMullin’s room, and of the rat, which is rooting in the bucket again.

  “A rat’s got to be smart to get that big,” Bob 2 says. “Got to be able to sniff out poison, fight off dogs, think on its feet.”

  “Fuck ’em,” Bob 1 says. “They should all die. You never heard of the Black Death?”

  “I tried to feed on a rat once.”

  “Stop right there.”

  “I got so desperate, I went to a dump and chased one down. It tasted like shit and didn’t help at all.”

  “It’s a good thing you hooked up with me, isn’t it?” Bob 1 says.

  “I was doing okay on my own,” Bob 2 says.

  “Feeding on rats is not ‘doing okay.’”

  The men have been partners for twenty-five years. Bob 1 was born in 1904 in Key West. He grew up working on fishing boats, got married, had a kid. At 22 he fell for a Cuban girl he met on Mallory Square, a Cuban girl who’d come out only at night. They decided to run away to Havana, and Bob had her turn him, thinking they’d be lovers until the end of time. The night before they were supposed to sail, the girl disappeared, and Bob never saw her again.

  Bob 2 is from Brooklyn, born in 1923. He fought in France during the Second World War, killed a lot of men and saw a lot of men die. This triggered his first and only existential crisis: What was the point of grubbing through life when the only possible ending was death? When a hooker he was jungled up with after returning to the States confided that she was a rover and would likely live forever, he saw a way to ease his mind. He forced the girl to turn him, then dusted her so nobody in the world knew his new secret. His plan worked perfectly: He hasn’t worried about dying since.

  The Bobs met in Kansas City and started traveling together. When your survival depends on hunting down and killing another human being every thirty days, it’s smart to have someone watching your back. They make quite a pair. Bob 1 is tall and thin and fair, and Bob 2 is short and round and dark. Bob 1 is kind of quiet, but Bob 2 talks enough for both of them. They get on each other’s nerves but also make each other laugh more than anyone else can.

  One night a few years into their relationship one thing led to another, and they ended up rolling around in bed. It was more like fighting than fucking, and both of them felt okay afterward, so they’ve kept it up. It’s nothing they plan, just something that happens now and then. Four years ago they fell in with the Fiends, again thinking about safety in numbers, but also looking to make some money, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.

  Bob 2 finishes his coffee and scrutinizes the menu board on the wall.

  “The Bicentennial Special,” he says.

  “What?” Bob 1 says.

  “Cherry, vanilla, and blueberry on a sugar cone.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Bob 2 goes to the counter. The high-school girl scooping sundaes and working the register is scared of him and Bob 1, he can tell. Their long hair, their beards, their tattoos. Good. The more scared people are, the better.

  “Gimme that Bicentennial thing,” he says.

  Movement at the motel catches Bob 1’s eye. He straightens from his bored slouch and puts his face to the window. A man steps out of the room they’ve been watching. He matches Moore’s description of McMullin, and a black rover aura shimmers around him. He makes sure his door is locked, shoves his hands in his pockets, and walks toward the ice-cream parlor.

  Bob 1 stands and calls to the girl, “Where’s the back door?”

  He and Bob 2 dash through a storage room and out into an alley behind the shop. Hurrying to the end of the alley, Bob 1 peeks around the corner and watches McMullin enter the ice-cream parlor. A bell rings when the door opens. Bob 1 pulls his head back and takes a bag of sunflower seeds out of his pocket. He tosses some into his mouth and cracks them between his teeth.

  “You aren’t gonna keep an eye on him?” Bob 2 says.

  “You didn’t hear that bell?”

  A few minutes later the bell rings again. McMullin leaves the shop, carrying a cup of coffee. He crosses Van Buren and gets into a Dodge Dart parked in front of his room, starts it up, and pulls out of the lot.

  The Bobs dash to the Hornet they stole in order to be less conspicuous than they would on their Harleys. They keep a car between them and the Dart as they follow McMullin. He makes his way to a drive-in theater and turns into the entrance. Bob 2 pulls to the side of the road. The jittery red and yellow neon on the back of the giant movie screen dances across the hood of the Hornet.

  “What now?” Bob 2 says.

  “I guess we’re going to the show,” Bob 1 replies.

  They join the line of cars waiting to enter the drive-in, pay the admission fee at the booth, and cruise the lot, looking for McMullin. When they find where he’s parked, they pull into an empty slot two rows behind, between a couple of teenagers in a Volkswagen Beetle and a family sitting in lawn chairs in the bed of a pickup. Bob 2 takes the speaker off the post and hangs it from the window but turns the sound down. The film has already started. Clint Eastwood, fifty feet tall, squints and draws his gun.

  Bob 1 watches McMullin’s car while Bob 2, imitating a play-by-play announcer, keeps up a running commentary on the action in the Volkswagen.

  “Here we go, folks,” he says. “Johnny Fuckerfaster is making a move on Susie Rottencrotch. He’s got his hand up her blouse and is trying to sneak under her bra. Meanwhile, Susie’s petting his trouser snake. Young love, ladies and gentlemen, young love. You can’t beat that.”

  McMullin gets out of the Dart and heads for the cinderblock snack bar. He’s a little guy with an unruly mop of curly red hair.

  “There he goes,” Bob 1 says.

  “I’ve got a plan,” Bob 2 says.

  “Clue me in.”

  “Come running when I signal.”

  Bob 2 slides out of the Hornet and walks to the Dart. A gunfight erupts on the screen, and shots ping out of every speaker on the lot. The driver’s door of the Dodge is unlocked. Bob opens it and pops the lock on the rear door. Opening that, he climbs in and lies down behind the front seat. He made the garrote he takes from his pocket himself—a length of thin wire with wooden handles at both ends.

  Crunching gravel telegraphs McMullin’s return. Bob grips the garrote tighter. The front door opens, and the overhead light goes on. The D
art rocks as McMullin slides in with his popcorn and soda. He closes the door, and the light goes out.

  Bob sits up, slips the loop of wire over McMullin’s head, and yanks the handles. The wire digs into McMullin’s throat. He drops the popcorn and struggles silently, the garrote cutting off his voice as well as his air. He claws at the wire, trying to pry it from his windpipe. His legs spasm, and his feet kick the underside of the dash.

  Bob uses all his weight to draw the wire even tighter, nearly pulling McMullin into the back seat. McMullin’s eyes bulge. His tongue protrudes from his mouth like a snail stretched to its limit. Bob takes both handles of the garrote in one hand and with the other draws a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt. He leans forward and drives the knife into McMullin’s chest, angling it so the blade slides between two ribs and plunges into the man’s heart. McMullin’s arms drop, his eyes close, and he slumps in his seat.

  Bob climbs out of the back of the Dart and opens the front door. He pushes McMullin over and slips behind the wheel. The keys are in the ignition. Two flashes of the car’s brake lights bring Bob 1 running. He’s carrying a duffel bag.

  “Get him?” he says.

  “What’s it look like?”

  Bob 1 dives into the back seat. Bob 2 hangs the speaker on the post and makes for the exit, leaving the Hornet behind. He takes it slow, but McMullin’s head still bounces off the passenger window a few times. When they’re in the clear, Bob 1 leans over the seat to look at the body.

  “It go easy?” he says.

  “I hit him like an A-bomb,” Bob 2 says.

  “Boom.”

  “Boom.”

  They pull over on an empty stretch of road outside town. Saguaros stand out against the starry sky, and jagged black hills disrupt the horizon. Bob 2 drags McMullin’s body out of the Dart and drops it on its back. Bob 1 unzips the duffel bag and takes out a Polaroid camera. He snaps a couple of photos as proof for Moore (click, whirr, click, whirr)—McMullin’s face, a tattoo on his forearm—then goes back into the bag for a hatchet.

  “You want me to dust him?” he says.

  “My hit,” Bob 2 says. “I’ll do it.”

  He grabs McMullin’s hair and lifts his head. Bob 1 passes him the hatchet, and he raises it high and brings it down on McMullin’s neck. Flesh splits and bone crunches. The guy’s head comes off so suddenly after only three whacks that Bob nearly loses his balance. He drops the head, and he and Bob 1 watch it and McMullin’s body disintegrate into gray powder, leaving only his clothes.

  Bob 1 goes through the pockets of the pants, removing a wallet and motel key. The shirt yields a pack of chewing gum. The wind gusts and carries away most of the ash. Bob tosses the shirt high in the air, and it sails flapping across the desert, all the ghost McMullin will have.

  “You want his shoes?” Bob 1 says.

  “You ever see me wear sneakers?” Bob 2 replies.

  They drive into town, abandon the Dart in a shopping mall parking lot, and ride their Harleys back to the Apache.

  9

  E​DGAR SWAYS AND GRUNTS AND JABS AT THE FLIPPER BUTTONS on a pinball machine. Jesse’s at the bar. They’ve returned to the bowling alley after Jesse lay awake all day, buffeted by a flood of memories triggered by meeting Johona, memories he thought were lost to him for good.

  There Claudine was, humming French songs in the moonlight; there she was sipping champagne in a San Francisco hotel, New Year’s Eve 1902; there she was, the shine of her hair, the swish of her skirts, the seaside rhythm of her breath in sleep.

  Time devours memories, gnaws the meat off them and crunches the bones. Jesse’s always considered this a blessing. Better to be focused on the here and now when you’re forever on the hunt, forever being hunted. Better not to be daydreaming about Mama’s peach pie or a departed lover’s touch. But maybe he’s been wrong. Because tonight, for the first time in a long while, he doesn’t wish he was dead. In fact, after spending hours caught up in the torrent of reminiscence, he felt as if a crust of mud that’d been weighing him down had cracked and fallen away. That’s why, as soon as the sun set, he roused Edgar and said, “Let’s go back to that place we were last night.”

  Johona was behind the bar, as he’d hoped. “Howdy, stranger,” she said, and he’d be damned if she didn’t even have the beauty mark on her lip Claudine had. He set Edgar up in front of the game and went back to the bar and ordered a beer. Johona’s been busy ever since, however. The place is packed, and there are drinks to be poured, jokes to be laughed at. Jesse doesn’t mind. It’s a thrill watching her scoop ice, watching her make change.

  She stops by whenever she gets a chance, sighs and says, “You good?” and, “I’m about to lose my voice, screaming over all this noise.” She lights a cigarette, takes two quick puffs, and stubs it out in an ashtray with a conspiratorial wink. She shakes her hips to the beat of a song and glances over to make sure he saw. When her hand brushes his, time collapses in on itself, old feelings and new crashing head-on.

  At ten she slaps the bar and says, “So where are we going?”

  “What do you mean?” Jesse says.

  “I’m off,” she says. “Where you taking me? And don’t you dare say another bar.”

  Jesse hesitates. He should end this flirtation now. As much as he’s drawn to the girl, going any further will only be courting trouble. Nothing good ever comes of the turned consorting with the unturned. But then she smiles Claudine’s smile again, and a worry she’s misread him ripples across her face, and in the second between the needle of the jukebox dropping onto a record and the song starting to play, he throws caution to the wind.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks.

  “Always,” she replies.

  “I’ve got my brother with me.”

  “He can chaperone. Meet me in the parking lot in ten minutes.”

  Edgar’s run out of quarters and so is pretending to play the pinball machine, making sounds with his mouth. He whines about having to leave but brightens at the mention of food.

  “Now, listen. There’s a girl coming with us,” Jesse tells him.

  “You gonna feed?” Edgar says.

  “No. She’s a friend of mine.”

  “You ain’t got any friends.”

  “You best behave yourself.”

  “I know how to act,” Edgar says. He stands up straight, clicks his heels, and bows like someone he’s seen on television. “May I kiss your hand?” he says.

  “No fucking around, I mean it,” Jesse says.

  They wait for Johona in the parking lot, Jesse so nervous that he’s bouncing on his toes. Johona comes through the door, laughing and waving goodbye to someone inside.

  “You’re here,” she says to Jesse, kidding like she thought he wouldn’t be.

  “This is Edgar,” Jesse says. “Edgar, this is Johona.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Johona,” Edgar says. “You sure are pretty.”

  They walk to the Grand Prix.

  “You ride in back, let Johona up front,” Jesse says to Edgar.

  “I got shotgun,” Edgar says. “I always got shotgun.”

  “It’s cool,” Johona says. “I like riding in back.”

  “He has the mind of a child,” Jesse says as he opens the door for her.

  “Me too,” Johona says. “We’ll get along great.”

  She directs Jesse to a Mexican restaurant that’s the last business hanging on in a dying strip mall, says it makes the best chimichangas in the world. The hostess seats them in an orange vinyl booth. A menagerie of piñatas hangs from the ceiling, and the Coors sign on the wall has a moving waterfall. Jesse and Johona order beers. Edgar wants one too, but Jesse says, “He’ll have a Coke.”

  Johona talks nonstop, flitting from subject to subject so quickly that Jesse gets lost sometimes. When he does, he just smiles and nods, content to let her enthusiasm wash over him without worrying about keeping up. “You’ve never heard of Neil Young?” she says. He hasn’t, nor Led Zeppelin,
Slaughterhouse Five, Charlie’s Angels, or any of the other things she chatters about. When she asks, “What TV shows do you watch?” he’s embarrassed not to have an answer.

  “I like wrestling,” he says. “I see Dragnet sometimes. The Lone Ranger.”

  “The Lone Ranger?” Johona says. “Okay, Pops.”

  Edgar is pretending his straw wrapper is a snake, slithering it between the salt shaker and the basket of tortilla chips. He doesn’t like spicy food, so Jesse orders him a hamburger.

  Johona moves on to stories about her friends—Tracy and Pam and Eddie and Carlos. One of them was busted for a joint, but his dad knew the judge and got him off. Another works at a drugstore where the pharmacist keeps cornering her in the back room and telling her he and his wife have an open marriage.

  “He’s so gross,” Johona says. “He looks like Jackie Gleason. You know who that is, don’t you?”

  Edgar pipes up with, “To the moon, Alice.”

  Johona laughs and says to him, “Well, you know, anyway.”

  When the food comes, she sits back and claps a hand over her mouth.

  “I haven’t shut up since we got here,” she says.

  “I don’t mind,” Jesse says. “My life’s boring compared to yours.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Johona says. “Tell me about it.”

  “There’s not much to tell.”

  “You do construction?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What about the other times?”

  Jesse makes up something new. “I sell cars.”

  “Man,” Johona says. “I really wanted you to be a bank robber.”

  “How come?”

  “So when I’m an old lady I can say I went out with one. I’ll say, ‘We only had one night together, but it was glorious.’”

  She’s trying to be funny, but Jesse hears something sad in her voice. For the first time since they sat down, there’s a silence. She sips her beer and avoids looking him in the eye.

  “Why’d you ask me out if you’re taking off for Denver?” she says.