The Bare Bones

by Layla Wolfe

  When I’d been taking a piss behind that shed last time I’d been here, I’d noticed a gap in the tall wall that seemed to entirely surround the compound. Probably a service road, the gate must’ve been broken because someone had slapped up a few rolls of barbed wire to cordon it off. If not simple to unhook the wire fence from whatever hook it was on, we could cut it. As luck had it, the lazy workers had merely hooked the wire behind a couple of feeble nails. Night had fallen so abruptly I had to feel blindly for the nails. One thing Wolf didn’t bring was a flashlight.

  I said, “There are no doubt security cams along the main drive, so let’s just approach through the bush.”

  “What’re we going to do, sneak into the house? Eavesdrop? Get the lowdown on the caper? Or we could just act natural, like we’re wondering what Unity is doing up here. Say we just followed her.”

  We wove through manzanita shrubs and succulent agave, royal purple flowers standing out brilliantly against the twilight tints of grey. Wolf resembled a Jewish infantryman, clanging with tools dangling from his utility belt, his profile stoic and noble. He’d kept his dome of obedience on, one of those that looked like a WWI helmet. I had to say one thing about the guy—nothing fazed him.

  And I really had no plan. “I figure we look in windows until we find them. Who knows? Maybe Unity had some totally innocent reason to visit Tutti.”

  “To get alone and isolated with the guy who murdered her friend? I doubt it, man. I think she was off her rocker with grief.”

  I snorted. “With grief over me.”

  Wolf looked at me, confused. “You? What are you talking about? No, I mean grief over the idea that Lavinia is almost certainly at the bottom of Grandview Point, maybe with her neck broken.”

  I felt compelled to remind him. “In case you forgot. She was running away, in your words, angrily sobbing after finding out I did time for rape.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That, too. Well, both things combined could’ve sent her crazy as a soup sandwich. She’s been dealing with a lot lately, Tanner. Gary Gregario, Lyric, then Lavinia vanishing. She’s barely had time to do her promotional work.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me she’d turned down work. I knew I’d only heard her mention going in to her dog grooming spa once or twice. Other than that, her assistant was dealing with it. It was completely self-centered of me to think the only reason she ran to Tutti like a chicken with its head cut off was me. Things definitely had been building up. She had to testify in person in court against Gary in a few weeks. The stress would be caving in anyone with a healthy outlook. But a damaged doe like Unity? My stomach tightened at the idea she might be throwing herself at Tutti’s mercy, begging for answers. Not the brightest way to get intel from a warped monkey like Tutti.

  “I see motion in those windows,” Wolf whispered, pointing.

  I did too, the two-story windows of most likely a living room. Tall curtains covered half the height of the glass, and opened louvers the other half, but silhouettes of people moving were plain, as though projected there by a shadowbox. We crept even slower, and I winced when Wolf’s big engineer boot crackled a dried pine branch. But the man and the woman in the living room kept right on arguing.

  If I bent my knees in an awkward manner and leaned against the window, I could make out the forms of Tutti and Unity as they stridently walked circles around each other on the carpet. Wolf bent the same way on the other side of the curtains.

  “We know you killed her!” Unity shouted.

  Oh, no. Wolf rolled his eyes. Everyone knew you never showed your hand to the enemy. You played dumb, like the Bare Bones were doing in not firing Tutti.

  The back of Tutti’s white-lavender hair glowed eerily under fluorescent lights, as though it were a Halloween fright wig. He barked a laugh. “Oh, Unity! You make me laugh. Why would I off the love of my life, my Lovey? Remember the enormous twenty-four carat ring I gave her? Why would I do that if I was planning to off her?”

  Off her. Like offhauling some trash.

  My fingers scratched the glass helplessly, hoping to get Unity’s attention. But as they walked circles around each other, they switched places, and now I had the back of Unity’s head as she said,

  “We have proof! We have a video of you crossing into Grand Canyon National Park with her!”

  Oh, no. No, no, no, Unity.

  Wolf whispered, “I’ll go in the front to stop her from saying anything else. You break this window.”

  Tutti was recklessly eyeballing her as though he had a plan in mind. Indeed, he clicked his tongue with pity as he circled her, getting her into position. “Oh, Unity. How little you know! We were taking a romantic drive down the south rim.”

  “On Tuesday? I thought you said she drove off with José on Sunday.”

  Tsk-tsking some more, Tutti made a lunge for her. As he struggled with the stronger woman, a bodyguard popped out of the shadows to help him. I was forced to helplessly watch behind the plate glass as they wrestled her into a facedown position and snapped zipties around her wrists. These fucking windows! They were not the kind that opened, just picture windows for the view.

  But as Tutti straddled Unity’s ass to tighten the flex-cuffs and the bodyguard pinned her shoulders to the floor, Tutti seemed to get some ideas. He slapped my woman on the ass and began to ride her like a horse. He even trilled, “Giddyup!” while making bucking motions with his hips.

  “You fucking cray-cray dickhead!” Unity shrieked, her voice muffled by the Persian rug. “Lavinia told me how you’d ride her, force her to wear a bit in her mouth, put reins on her, like you enjoyed fucking a horse! You’re a twisted assmuncher! You make poisoned fake weed you know kids will buy and you stand back and laugh when they die!”

  Tutti did seem to be overwhelmed with a crazed fit of the giggles. Like those insane marijuana addicts in thirties movies who ran around with bugged-out eyes, scratching their faces and laughing maniacally when they saw a werewolf in the mirror, Tutti acted like he was on some drug I’d never heard of before. Maybe he was. Maybe he was trying his shit out on himself.

  Now he slapped her ass again and lunged even more energetically against her bottom. “You know it, sister! I do enjoy fucking horses! Too bad you’ll never live to tell anyone about it!”

  That was fucking it. There was still no sign of Wolf Glaser. I could’ve gone around the front, too, but when Tutti whipped a knife out from somewhere on his person, I was done with waiting.

  Hefting the hammer on high, I smashed the plate glass.

  To my surprise, it only spread out into a network of spiderwebs as tall as myself. And, of course, the three people in the room went stiff and silent, staring in wide-mouthed awe at the window. Breakproof glass. But I was a tall, muscular guy, so I smashed again and again. The spiderweb grew larger and divots appeared where I was certain I could break through. In the meantime, Wolf Glaser finally appeared in the doorway, distracting Tutti from his cutting or humping of my woman. I couldn’t hear their dialogue what with my smashing, but I did hear a gunshot. The bodyguard. He had shot Wolf Glaser.

  At last, I smashed a weakened spot in the glass. Kicking with all my might, glad I’d worn the steel-toed boots too, I busted on through, skidding on a sea of broken glass.

  The bodyguard had his semiauto leveled at Wolf again, though Wolf was on the floor in the shape of a pedestrian on a sign. So I shot the bodyguard—a poor sap who looked to be former military—through the temple, painless and quick. The hollow-point round made a fairly big rosette of a blowout against the wall behind him. He slumped to the rug like an empty suit of clothes.

  Tutti had the knife held to Unity’s throat but had done nothing more than press it to draw a little blood. Before he could say “boo,” I whipped him by his spindly arm so stridently the knife went flying, and in one fell swoop I slammed him against the wall.

  I pinned him with nothing more than the pressure of my gun barrel against his forehead and a knee to the groin. “You’re an inhuman bastard. You loaded
Corey up with that poisoned fentanyl and you didn’t care. You shoved your own wife off a cliff and probably took back that twenty-four-carat ring first. You poisoned all those sideshow kids and didn’t give two fucks who you killed.”

  I was showing my hand like Unity, but it was pretty much a done deal by now. I could’ve easily popped him off then. After all, he’d handcuffed my woman and put a knife to her throat. In fact, in a way, Tutti seemed to be begging for it. He could poison a bunch of young strangers, cowardly-like, behind the scenes from afar, but he couldn’t off himself. What a miserable wretch he was with his silver-purple hair, his patch over one eye just for affect.

  In fact, now he hissed, “Go ahead, shoot me. See if I fucking care. I’ve accomplished everything I want to in this life. In the next life I’ll start from scratch and build it back up the same way.”

  Just then another bodyguard came hauling butt into the room, hustling like a linebacker. I’m still not sure what his goal was because he came rushing in like we were the end zone, but he did have a piece in his hand, so from his prone position, Wolf Glaser shot him, also in the head. I backed off from Tutti in time that he was the only one sprayed with globular brains just as the linebacker went sprawling over Unity.

  Unity! It was now of the utmost importance that I free her. I found the knife that had flown from Tutti’s hand and used it to slice through the plastic zipties that bound her wrists.

  “Oh Tanner, thank God,” she cried all in a rush, and wrapped her arms around my neck. I had to turn her with her back facing Tutti so I could keep him in my sights. He stayed smashed against the wall like a two-dimensional incubus, his mouth twisted in distorted glee. Unity’s face was buried in my neck as she took in huge, life-giving lungsful of air. I risked looking down to Wolf still splayed on the floor. It was difficult to tell where he’d been hit.

  “You okay, man?” I asked him.

  Wolf sat up, lifting the edge of his leather cut to peer at his chest. “I think so.”

  “See any other guards out there?”

  Wolf grinned boyishly. “Just the one I popped off in the foyer.”

  “You bury him?” I asked, using the MC term.

  “Ten feet under.”

  Only this caused Tutti’s expression to change. “You killed Matt?” he wailed. He came unglued from the wall and came toward us with claws outstretched. He seemed undecided whom to scratch to death, finally deciding on Wolf because he was still sitting down.

  Releasing Unity, I grabbed Tutti’s arm and spun him around to face me. I cracked him with the gun barrel hard against the cheekbone, right where I knew bone would shatter. “You psycho chemist from hell,” I growled as Tutti’s eyeballs rolled up into his skull. He started to collapse, so I grabbed him with my left hand by the front of his stupid peach button-down shirt. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of lying down. “When we fucking get done with you, your business and rep won’t be worth a bullet.”

  And, because I was riled up, I bashed him a backhanded blow with the barrel across the other cheekbone. Only then did I let him fall, and reached a hand down to yank Wolf to his feet.

  Unity kicked Tutti in the hip. “Worthless murdering scumbag,” she cried.

  Wolf displayed an unused snap-tie before my face. He had his own evil scientist’s gleam in his eye.

  I got the picture, and since Tutti seemed unconscious, I jammed my piece into my waistband and kneeled to roll him over. He snorted a little into the carpet but seemed limp as his grandma’s Mother Hubbard nightgown. Wolf held his wrists together behind his back as I zipped the tie.

  “Let’s boogey,” suggested Wolf. “I think there might be another—“

  Two pairs of boots shuffled down the hall toward us, so I directed Unity toward the broken picture window. I knew she’d get cut as I had on my arms rushing through the jagged hole, but it was better than facing two more goons.

  Wolf and I scuffled briefly to be allowed to be the last one out. Both of us wanted to pick off more of Tutti’s team. That would leave him with a void in labor and support while we found Lavinia. “Help Unity,” I finally said, and Wolf was all over that.

  I flattened myself to the side of the window, knowing that would be the guards’ first focal point when they entered, and popped them off assembly-line style, one, two. One of the guys went flying comically back against the wall, hands above his head, his piece making a wild arc in the air that clunked down smack on Tutti’s head. Poor evil scientist had been pretty pistol-whipped today. He’d be seeing too many stars for awhile to make any mortal concoctions.

  I rode bitch on Unity’s Sporty, directing her to the barbed wire gate. Wolf claimed he’d only been grazed between his chest and arm—though later I’d find out otherwise—and he was going to Pure and Easy to get his drone and his dog.

  Unity briefly stopped at the junction of the driveway and the road. “Let’s get a hotel room somewhere between here and Grand Canyon, maybe in Williams.”

  I had no idea where Williams was, but it sounded good to me. “So you want to come to the Grand Canyon tomorrow?” A part of me braver than the part that had pistol-whipped Tutti blurted out, “You don’t blame me for taking the fall for my brother’s assault on that girl?”

  I felt her stiffen. It was hard to see her face beneath her dome of obedience in the starlit night. At length she said, “I definitely feel weird about it, Tanner. I won’t lie. But it’s my problem, my business to get over it, not your problem.”

  I brushed the backs of my fingers against her cheek, her diamond stud. “I beg to differ. It’s my business to make you feel at ease.”

  I definitely saw the devilish cast in her eyes then. She blipped her throttle impudently. “Well then. Let’s go practice you making me feel at ease.”

  Despite the fact that she’d just witnessed three men die, there was a definite lift to Unity’s heavy spirit as we carved it down the ridgetop. I held her tighter than I’d previously dared, just because I could. I pressed my lips to the sensitive back of her neck and breathed in her scent. It filled me with life.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Unity

  “I want you to tell me what you were thinking.”

  We were settled down in Room #7 of a motel in Williams, one of those with a neon horse and cowboy for a sign. We saw it from miles off and pointed eagerly at it while blazing down Route 66. In the lobby, I wondered if Tanner would get one or two rooms—after all, I was letting him pay, since I imagined he had more money than me. I would settle for whatever decision he made.

  He got two rooms.

  I zipped into mine so I could shower the disgusting sweat of dogfighting and fentanyl from my pores and tear into a bowl load of indica. When I shampooed my hair with the cheap shit the motel gave for free, my mind immediately went to the time Tanner shampooed me in the salon. My emotions clashed so ardently I was practically sobbing as my fingertips scrubbed my scalp. My heart clenched upon itself as I tried to suppress the howl that would lead to a complete and utter breakdown.

  It was as though my extreme emotions were damaging my heart muscles. I’m in love with Tanner Principato did not mesh with he did ten years for rape. When my fingers tangled in the shaved strip of hair between my legs, they automatically strayed to my bulging labia. The first few flicks of my fingers and I knew it’d be over within a minute. I wanted my mouth all over Tanner’s chest, his jacked abdomen.

  I forced myself to stop touching myself. I didn’t want to become a slave to my hormones. If I was going to proceed with Tanner, it was going to be in a logical and thoughtful manner. I wasn’t going to fling myself at him like a crazed hyena.

  Besides, what did that mean, “proceed with Tanner”? He lives in St. Louis, you idiot. Sure, he’d mentioned Prospecting for the Bare Bones, and wasn’t there something about med school at the U of A? I knew I should find out his plans.

  When I emerged wrapped in a towel, I saw Tanner had put a brand new T-shirt on the bed. He must have gone to a convenience st
ore. Well, at least I got a clean shirt, if not bottoms. I pulled the T-shirt on my braless torso, admiring the way the camping and hiking kokopellis illustrated the “Rim to Rim” Grand Canyon tagline. I smoked a bowl but couldn’t stop thinking of Tanner. Once again, he’d shown incredible bravery at Tutti’s compound. I didn’t know how they’d tracked me down, but they’d obviously found that obscure barbed wire gate to enter the property. And then, of course, Tanner had manfully bashed the plate glass window with a hammer.

  And shot two men clean through the forehead. All because I’d been stupid enough to attempt to confront Tutti about what I knew.

  Tanner could’ve easily buried Tutti. I thought I understood the reasoning behind not doing so. They wanted him alive to take responsibility for everything he’d done, all the people he’d killed, whether directly or inadvertently through his poisonous drugs. Everyone wanted to see that fucktard pay. Without involving pigs, as that wasn’t the Bare Bones way, we needed to offer Tutti up for a very public reckoning for his sins. That he hadn’t yet been killed in his lab by a concoction gone wrong only seemed to attest to his vast chemistry skills, particularly for a guy who’d never gone to college. But while he may be a chemical genius, he was no perfect murderer. He’d made a bunch of moronic blunders, none of which would be good enough to convict him in a murder trial, especially without a body. But the Bare Bones didn’t deal with prosecutions or trials. They knew who was guilty, and they proceeded from there. Although Tutti Morgan had pushed one of my best friends off a cliff and grossly humped my butt, it was the Bare Bones’ business to take him out. We were only the investigators.

  I tapped the ashes from my bowl onto the glass tabletop and stood. I put the pipe into my front T-shirt pocket, even though it ruined the tight, sexy lines of the shirt, my nipples poking out between the flutes of the fertility deities. Adding a baggie of weed only ruined the lines more, so I planned on taking them out first thing when I got inside Tanner’s room.