Rovers

by RICHARD LANGE

  “Bring me my cars,” he calls to Jesse. “I’m gonna wash ’em.”

  “Time to go,” Jesse says.

  He stands and stretches while Edgar lollygags to the ladder. Something sharp digs into his heel. He dislodges a sliver of glass embedded there with his fingernail and wipes away the drop of blood that wells before the puncture closes.

  Johona is in a good mood as they get ready to go to supper at Beaumont’s. Jesse’s happy to see it. She turns on the radio and dances while brushing her hair. Twirling in the green dress Jesse bought her, she asks, “Is this fancy enough for Monsieur Beaumont?” hamming a French accent.

  “Fancy enough for anyone, if you’re wearing it,” Jesse says.

  Edgar’s locked in the bathroom. Jesse knocks on the door.

  “Hold your horses.”

  “Let me in.”

  The door opens, and Edgar’s standing there with Jesse’s razor in his hand and a big grin on his face.

  “What the hell did you do?” Jesse says.

  “Shaved myself,” Edgar says. “What do you think?”

  Jesse’s been shaving his brother as long as he’s been looking after him, Edgar afraid to do it himself after trying and winding up nicked from cheek to chin. He got himself in a couple spots this time, too, but that didn’t stop him. Jesse takes hold of his jaw and twists his head from side to side.

  “Smooth as a china teacup,” he says.

  Emboldened by this success, Edgar demands to drive to Beaumont’s when they go out to the Grand Prix and gets pissy when Jesse refuses. Johona distracts him with a game.

  “I spy, with my little eye, something yellow,” she says.

  “Is it a banana?”

  “Man, where’s there a banana around here?”

  Beaumont lives beyond the edge of the city. His house, which resembles a concrete bunker fortified against the hot sun and scouring winds of the desert, is perched on a rise with a view of the Strip, the yard landscaped with cacti and boulders lit from below. Jesse parks on the driveway next to a white Cadillac.

  Beaumont answers the door dressed in a bright-red disco suit. He shakes Jesse and Edgar’s hands, kisses Johona’s. “You look lovely,” he says.

  The furnishings of the house are modern, chrome and black leather, the carpet spotless white shag. Nothing—not the abstract paintings on the walls, the enormous television, the hi-fi system—hints that the man living here is 2,000 years old.

  Beaumont leads them into the sunken living room, where they share a long couch while Beaumont relaxes in a swivel chair on the other side of the glass coffee table.

  “Champagne, Tommy,” he says, and a young man dressed in old-time livery brings in a tray with four glasses on it.

  “This place is something,” Jesse says.

  “I designed it myself,” Beaumont replies. Jesse once asked Claudine where the man got his money. “He married well,” she said. “Many times.”

  “You don’t got that parrot anymore?” Edgar says.

  “Gigi?” Beaumont says.

  “The one could speak French.”

  The man in the servant getup returns, this time offering shrimp and little meatballs on toothpicks.

  “Gigi passed away some time ago at the ripe old age of eighty,” Beaumont says. “I was devastated.”

  Edgar licks a meatball and pops it into his mouth. “You should get you another,” he says. “Teach it to talk Chinese.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t speak Chinese,” Beaumont says.

  “I do,” Edgar says. “Ching chong ching chong ching chong.”

  “I have something you’ll like even more than Gigi,” Beaumont says.

  He takes Edgar over to the hi-fi and hands him a microphone. “Sing something.”

  Edgar belts out “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and Beaumont flips a switch when he finishes, playing back a recording of the performance. Edgar is thrilled.

  “I could be on the radio,” he says.

  “After dinner you can do another, an old one for me,” Beaumont says.

  Sliding glass doors in nearly every room of the house open onto an interior courtyard. Dinner is served there, at a table set with a white cloth, black plates, and candelabras that look like silver snakes strangling one another. Tommy pours wine. The soup has lobster in it.

  “So fancy,” Johona says.

  “I don’t have many guests, so when I do, I go all out,” says Beaumont.

  “You live here by yourself?”

  “Tommy stays in the guest quarters and runs the house, but it’s still a lonely life. In fact, your visit, Johona, is the most exciting thing to happen to me in a long time.”

  Johona blushes and says, “I doubt that.”

  “You’re from Phoenix. How do you find it there?”

  “It’s fine, but I’m on my way to L.A. now.”

  “Los Angeles is a wonderful city. I lived in Hollywood for a time. Are you hoping to get into the movies?”

  “Now you’re being funny.”

  “You’re certainly pretty enough,” Beaumont says. “Isn’t she, Jesse?”

  “Sure,” Jesse says.

  “I always told Claudine that, under different circumstances, she could have been a star on the stage, and you’re as beautiful as she was.”

  “She sounds like she was a special person,” Johona says. “Jesse speaks highly of her.”

  “He hardly knew her,” Beaumont says, the sudden scorn in his voice making Jesse uneasy. “She and I traveled together for twenty years, the best twenty years of my life. She was a jewel, a rare jewel too valuable to be entrusted to the likes of Jesse. He was much too stupid to appreciate her.”

  “I told you what happened,” Jesse says. “There was nothing I could do.”

  “I grieve her still,” Beaumont says to Johona. “But now, look, you’ve come along, and though you’re not the original, there is value in an almost-perfect copy.”

  The doors surrounding the patio all slide open at once, and big men and hard women in leather and denim step through them. The Fiends. Jesse stands, on the verge of panic. The rover he fought, the one who jumped off the cliff, slips behind Johona and lays a knife to her throat.

  “Down, motherfucker,” he says to Jesse.

  Jesse collapses more than sits, legs gone numb, and a short-haired blond woman puts a gun to his head. There are seven Fiends in total, guarding him, guarding Edgar. They check them for weapons, running their hands over their chests, around their waists, up and down their legs.

  “Jesse?” Johona says, eyes wide with fear.

  “It’ll be okay,” Jesse says. He turns to Beaumont. “You set me up?”

  “I’ve put things right,” Beaumont says. “I thought of taking revenge for Claudine every time I’ve seen you since her death, but either my courage wavered or the circumstances were against it. I’ve lived long enough, however, to understand the power of patience, and I knew an opportunity to punish you for your carelessness would eventually present itself. When you called the other day, everything finally fell into place.”

  The ancient rover sips his wine and gestures with the glass at Johona. “The girl was something I hadn’t anticipated, but something that pleases me greatly,” he continues. “Partial compensation for my years of mourning Claudine.” He stands and holds out his hand. “Come with me now, and you’ll not be harmed,” he says to Johona. “You’ll live a life beyond your wildest dreams.”

  “I…I…I…,” Johona stammers.

  “Go with him,” Jesse says.

  “What’s your hurry, Beaumont?” the short, burly Fiend holding the knife to Johona’s throat says.

  “We agreed—”

  “Sit down.”

  Beaumont sinks into his chair.

  Jesse addresses the Fiends, though he knows it’s futile. “I can get money,” he says. “I can get another baby. Whatever you want me to do to make up for what happened, I’ll do it.”

  The Fiend holding the knife on Johona says, “Money�
�s not gonna even things up. Neither is another baby.”

  “Fine,” Jesse says. “But let my brother and the girl go. He’s a half-wit, and she stumbled into this.”

  The Fiend with the knife walks over to Edgar and bends to peer into his face.

  “Is that true?” he says. “Are you a half-wit?”

  Edgar starts to cry.

  22

  I GOT A SACK OF SALTWATER TAFFY FROM VIRGINIA BEACH. I GOT a Mickey Mouse shirt and a Superman shirt. I got a Sunday school medal for memorizing verses. And when I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine own blood I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live. Yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live.

  I knew what Jesse and Johona were up to under the covers at the motel. He had his pecker in her. And all the while the Little Devil hissed how I should do something about her. He didn’t believe she’d be shoving off soon. He said her and Jesse was gulling me. In the swimming pool I played I was a giant in the ocean. I scooped up a drowned moth. They’re the same as butterflies but come at night. Their wings are made of powder and if you touch them turn to dust.

  I shaved myself. There’s an extra two bits in it for ya if you don’t draw blood. Down on the cheeks up on the neck easy does it under the nose. Monsieur Beaumont lived in a big white house in New Orleans. Now he lives in the desert. Jesse made me comb my hair before he knocked on the door. We sat down to supper. The soldier brought wine and I did a toast. Here’s to Monsieur Beaumont here’s to Miss Johona here’s to Mr. Jesse and here’s to me.

  The Fiend from the mountain put his face in front of mine and the way he looked made me cry. Hold him, he said and went to sawing at my ear with his knife. Leave him be, Jesse yelled but that didn’t stop him. Wasn’t nobody gonna do me like that though. I stood and shrugged off the bastards holding me down. They went to stabbing me, but I kept swinging. Jesse broke away too and we gave them a fight until the Fiend from the mountain yelled, Hey!

  He was behind Johona again using her hair to pull her head back had his knife at her throat again. His men shoved me into my chair and Jesse into his. I was cut so bad I couldn’t breathe. The Fiend from the mountain said, My partner’s name was Bob and he was worth ten of this cunt. Stop! Beaumont yelled, but the Fiend ignored him and cut Johona’s throat just like that. Her heart pumped her blood through the gash beat by beat and it sprayed across the tablecloth. She tried to pull in air but couldn’t and her face got the same scared look they all get when they know they’re dying. Don’t fight it, Jesse yelled, let go. She blinked like someone trying to stay awake. She started to shiver. Then she was gone.

  Mama’s making biscuits. Flour baking powder baking soda salt lard milk. She folds the dough and presses it flat and lets me cut circles with an empty soup can. You got to press straight down without twisting and got to be careful when you take them out of the oven. If you drop one you’ll have uninvited company.

  When the flow was down to a trickle the Fiend stuck his finger in the cut showed the blood to Jesse then licked it off. He let Johona’s head drop and come at me again. Now you big boy, he said, let’s see what you look like without a nose. I yanked a hand free and grabbed him by the throat. Something cracked and he went to gagging. The others swarmed me like wild dogs punching kicking stabbing. For every one I slung off two more jumped on. Jesse was up again too. He slammed a blond girl’s head into the table took her gun and shot a man.

  Monsieur Beaumont was against a wall looking like he was gonna be sick. It was all his doing and I meant to kill him but was having trouble walking. Someone stabbed me in the back. The blade was cold as an icicle going in hot as a freshly forged spike coming out. A redhead raised a pistol and shot me in the chest. I fell fast down into the dark.

  The Little Devil laughs and shows his teeth. I’m dead, I tell him, leave me be. I ain’t done with you yet, he says. Popeye eats spinach to get strong. Sinbad the sailor cinches his belt. Underdog’s got him a pill. I chew a red M&M and lift a chair over my head till Jesse makes me stop. Where you at Jesse? I ain’t mad at you no more. Come get me. Come bring a light and I promise to toe the line.

  23

  June 30, 1976, Las Vegas (cont.)

  Y​OU WANT ME TO KILL YOU?” I SAID, NOT SURE I’D HEARD Sally right.

  “If you won’t let me go, yeah,” he said. “I’ll take you to Beaumont, you catch him and lock him in your box and dust me.”

  I was standing in a heartless motel room in a heartless city, clutching a dead man’s pistol and listening to a monster try to convince me to end his life. The grotesqueness of the situation stalled me for a second.

  “What do you say?” Sally asked.

  There was no way I could give him an answer right then, so I marched him out to the camper and locked him in the crate. Back in the room the television blared. I turned off the set, but the silence was even worse. I put on a clean shirt and walked the two blocks to the Strip.

  A band was playing your favorite song, “Misty,” in the lounge of the first casino I came to. It was pearls before swine. Three white girls in bouffants and minidresses cackled over mai tais, a table of cowboys talked baseball at the top of their lungs, and the bartender’s corny jokes drowned out the singer.

  A man sitting at the corner of the bar struck me as strange as I sipped my beer. His blond hair was neatly combed and parted, and he wore a nice sport shirt and pressed slacks, but there was something mocking, something sinister, about his smile. He turned his colorless gaze my way and lifted a long, thin cigarette to his too-red lips.

  A rover, I thought.

  He got up quickly and left the bar, and I wondered if in the same way they recognize each other, the monsters are able to sniff out someone who’s killed their kind. Was there something in the blood of the woman and child from last night that clung to me and marked me as a hunter? Or was the man just another tourist and my imagination running wild?

  I worry that part of my fate is to live life choked by that kind of fear and paranoia. I imagine it’s how Adam felt after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, when all the evil he’d been ignorant of was suddenly revealed. Did he, like me, mourn his loss of innocence? Did he, like me, question whether the knowledge was worth it?

  TODAY’S PASSAGE: Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, o ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.

  —Job 19:21

  July 1, 1976, Las Vegas

  I felt better this morning after last night’s hysterics. Sleep had recharged my batteries, and I spent an hour with the Good Book to fortify my soul. I decided this Beaumont, this rover royalty, was someone I should look into, so when the sun went down I brought Sally in and asked where I could find him.

  “He lives here in Vegas,” Sally said. “At least he did fifteen years ago, when I last saw him. I remember where his house is. We can drive out there right now.”

  I didn’t have a better idea, so I walked him to the truck, locked him to the bolt in the cab, and we were on our way.

  His directions took us out of the city and into the desert, to a neighborhood where the houses were widely spaced and set far off the road. We meandered for an hour, making U-turn after U-turn and driving the same streets again and again. When we came to our tenth dead-end, asphalt giving way to sand and tumbleweeds, I’d had enough.

  “You don’t have any idea where you’re going, do you?” I said.

  “We’re close, I feel it,” Sally said.

  “And I feel like you’re wasting my gas and my time.”

  “Whip around and go back to that last intersection.”

  We came to a street sign we’d missed before, for Red Rock Road. I turned there, and Sally rolled down his window and stuck out his head to see better. We’d gone half a mile, passing five or six driveways, when he pointed to a house.

  “What makes you sure?” I said. “They all look alike in the dark.”

  “I told you, man, I remember.”

  I parked far enough up the road that someone tur
ning into the home’s drive wouldn’t notice the truck. After unlocking Sally, I grabbed a pair of binoculars out of the glove box, and we walked a short distance into the desert, the kid’s chains rattling with each step, then turned toward the house. We eventually topped a low rise capped by a stunted tree, a lucky bit of cover. Crouched there, we had a clear view of the driveway and front door fifty yards away.

  The house was a concrete box built around a patio and had a guest cottage out back. The few windows were small and set high on the walls. There was no car in the drive, and the only lights were colored spots scattered around the yard.

  “Looks like nobody’s home,” I said. “Or maybe he’s gone to bed.”

  “Before daybreak?” Sally said. “Not Beaumont.”

  “Let’s get closer,” I said.

  We ended up walking all the way down to the house and circling it. A door in back had a window in it. I looked through it into a storage room that opened onto the dark kitchen. Beyond that was the patio on the other side of a sliding glass door. There were no signs of life.

  We returned to the rise, and I told Sally I was going to wait another hour, see if anybody showed.

  “Fine with me,” Sally said. “I’m enjoying the fresh air.” He sprawled on the sand.

  The night was warm and windless, and the stars outshined the Strip in the distance. Sally pointed out airplanes passing overhead and traced the paths of satellites. A coyote yipped, another chimed in, and soon a chorus howled. Sally peered into the darkness.

  “You got that gun?” he said, making me uneasy too.

  He talked about his childhood. I wasn’t interested, only half-listened while watching the house.

  “My old man got it into his head he was gonna raise rabbits for extra money,” he said. “Since it was summer, and school was out, taking care of them was my responsibility. I didn’t want the job, but that didn’t matter. The old man’s word was law.

  “It was three does and a buck. There wasn’t much to looking after them besides feeding and watering. Those rabbits had it better than we did. When it got hot I soaked burlap sacks and spread them over the hutches to cool them while we suffered with a swamp cooler. I was only ten years old but already knew I couldn’t live like that.”