Ride the Lightning

by Dietrich Kalteis

  The brief thing with Pinkie was long ago, back before Artie cut him loose on account of the asthma, back before Pinkie settled for Loop. The guy was half her age, freebasing his pimpled face off most of the time. It would do Miro good to put a bullet in him. He nodded for Mitch to ease back the storm door.

  Mitch’s breathing sounded like he was underwater, the screw-on cylinder on the end of the mask weighing heavy. He ignored his rumbling gut, got ready to tape up anybody inside, mouths, wrists, and ankles, then stuff the pot into bags, the Hefty box and duct tape jammed under his arm. Get out before Wally got into the hundred-percent range and let the warhead fly, Miro dropping the Dancin’ Bare matches in the yard. The three of them would be back on the ferry and heading home, reading about it in tomorrow’s Sun.

  Wedging the pry bar between the wooden door and frame, Miro set his feet, looking into Mitch’s sci-fi eyes, then he counted three. Splintering wood tore from the frame, Miro bucking his shoulder at the door, ripping out the chain, stumbling into the dark, Mitch right behind him.

  The storm door’s glass shattered, Miro and Mitch whirled on the landing, both looking out at the spring-loaded blade stuck in a pine twenty feet away. The knife had passed between them, no more than an inch from either one.

  The pit bull jumped a child’s gate at the top of the half flight of stairs, snarling, leaping at them, both men turning into each other. Throwing his arms up, Mitch knocked Miro’s mask. Snapping its jaws on the cylinder of Mitch’s mask, the dog snarled, shaking it.

  Dropping the pry bar, ripping off his mask, Miro drew and fired. The pistol shot was deafening. The dog was pitched down the basement stairs, an explosion of dark wet on the wall. The handrail leading down kept Mitch from falling after it; he stumbled into Miro.

  Loop showed at the top of the stairs, bringing a carbine level to his hip, working the bolt. Shoving Mitch aside, Miro moved, bringing the Vaquero up when an animal trap snapped into his ankle. He screamed, the pistol dropping from his hand.

  Loop fired as Miro fell. Missed. Mitch jumped past Miro on the stairs and rushed Loop as he worked the bolt, bringing his Walther hard across Loop’s head, Loop falling, knocking down the child’s gate.

  The ringing in his ears gave way to Miro’s screaming. Mitch told him to hang on, kicking the gate out of the way, jumping on Loop, ready to strike him again. The racking of a slide stopped him. The light clicked on in the kitchen, making him turn his head.

  “Get off him.” The woman’s voice was cool, the black hole of a slug barrel staring Mitch in the eye, same as the one that took out Jeffery. Behind the barrel stood Pinkie Fox.

  Mitch let the Walther drop from his fingers. Lifting his knee off Loop, he raised his hands, Miro still bawling on the stairs.

  “Shove it with your toe—slow,” Pinkie said, “because I hate the way this thing kicks.” Pinkie stood in the middle of the kitchen, raw-boned with short-cropped hair, gelled in spikes like a pineapple, ghost white hands on the Mossberg. “That all of you—just two?”

  Mitch nodded and made a V with his fingers, showing two, shoving the gun toward her. He saw the knife rig mounted above him where the doorbell box should be.

  She told him he’d go first if he was lying, then told him to go back down and lock the door, watching Mitch step past Miro and the fallen child’s gate. Padding forward, slippers on veiny feet, a granny dress with a camo pattern, she picked up the Walther, helping Loop to his feet, pressing the pistol into his hand. Top of the stairs, she looked down at Miro lying in a ball, smiling as she recognized him. “Miro Knotts.” She laughed. “You old son, you should have called first; I’d have baked a cake.”

  The pain was unlike anything Miro had ever felt, hands hopeless on the steel jaws, the teeth feeling like they were sheering through to the bone. He begged Pinkie to get it off.

  “Number-four coil-spring, best thing for vermin,” she said, looking at his ankle. “Stax wanted to up it to a sixteen. Lucky Loop is Loop and never got around to it—would’ve left you with a stump.” She lifted the trap’s chain with the end of the shotgun barrel, making him scream. “That’s Victor traps for you—the best there is, sharp as hell.” She looked to Mitch, taking the friendly out of her voice. “Told you to go lock the door.”

  Telling Loop to watch them, Pinkie cradled the shotgun on her arm, went and took her cell off the kitchen counter and punched in a number.

  At the side door, Mitch looked at the dead dog at the bottom of the stairs, its tongue lolling, its eyes lifeless, an ugly, wet crater in its side. The jamb was splintered away, nothing to close the door on. His heart was punching at his ribs, his breath coming like he just dashed the hundred. He turned back with his hands held wide. Loop asked if the dog was dead, and he said yeah. Loop motioned for him to come back up.

  Miro squeezed away tears, prying at the steel teeth, the blood puddling into his Nike, looking at his gun on the stair, then at Mitch, hoping he’d do something.

  “Loop, where’s your head’s at, you old son?” Pinkie asked from the kitchen, waiting for someone to pick up the other end of the line.

  “Getting careless I guess, Pink,” Loop said, leaning his carbine against the wall, the Walther in his hand, checking his teeth with his tongue, a couple feeling loose. He wiped blood from his mouth, saying, “I got no excuses.” He waved for Mitch to hurry up and come up the stairs.

  “Guess it’s a lesson then,” Pinkie said.

  “Yeah,” Loop said, then to Mitch, “Help him out of that thing. I’m sick of his whining.”

  Loop called Miro Popeye, telling him if it was up to him, he’d have him chewing through his own leg to get free.

  “Stax? Pinkie,” she spoke into the phone, leaving a message. “Seems we got company over here. An old friend’s come to call, and brought a buddy with him. We’re having a nice chat about old times. Right now, they’re admiring my Mossberg. Me, I’m wondering how you want to play it. Oh, and I hate to do it, but I got to tell you . . .” She sighed, saying they shot Ike, waiting a moment before adding she was real sorry about that, nothing she could have done about it since Loop insisted on bringing poor Ike, then flipped the phone closed and laid it back on the counter.

  Loop said thanks a lot.

  Coming into the back hall, Pinkie watched Mitch hunch next to Miro, saying, “Stax got him as a pup from someplace called the Paw’d Squad, outside of L.A. Rescued him from some asshole raising dogs for sport. Where’s the sport in dogs tearing each other up, tell me that?”

  Looking up at them, Mitch said he was sorry about Ike, said he grew up with dogs.

  “You got five more seconds to get that off his leg, Sunshine,” Pinkie said to Mitch, “or you’ll be joining Ike.”

  Mitch took hold of either side of the trap. Miro clamped his eyes and teeth together, Mitch pulling the steel jaws apart. Miro couldn’t swallow the scream, Mitch lifting his bloody foot out, inching the pistol with his own foot, sliding it close to Miro’s hand.

  It dawned on Loop, he only had the one gun, guessing what was happening in front of him. Taking a couple of stairs, he swung the pistol, hitting Mitch across the spine, shoving him with his foot, Mitch falling back down to the landing. Getting down and sticking the Walther against Miro’s ear, Loop reached for the Vaquero, saying, “Still playing John Wayne, eh Popeye, you little freak?” Grinning when Miro told him to fuck himself, Loop grabbed him by the hair, reminding him there was a lady present, sticking the Walther in his belt and pressing the big revolver into Miro’s cheek. “What do you think, Pink, do a little root canal with Popeye’s own gun?”

  “Think we wait for Stax.”

  “Hey, I know Stax,” Mitch said, pleading in his voice.

  “That so?” Loop pulled Miro up the stairs by his hair. He was enjoying this, saying to Mitch, “Come by just to help Popeye take Pinkie on a date, did you? Him not being man enough to do it on his own.”

&
nbsp; “Get fucked,” Miro said through all the pain.

  Loop bashed the barrel into Miro’s face, breaking his nose, letting him fall, saying, “Warned you about the mouth.” Loop smiled over at Pinkie, then told Mitch to get his ass back up here, bring that duct tape with him and get in the kitchen unless he wanted some of the same.

  Mitch wanted to run, wishing he could go back to an hour ago, his eyes on Miro, seeing the blood flowing from his nose, giving him a slick goatee, his pant leg bloody and torn. Pumping nitrous oxide through the air conditioning, Miro talked like he knew what he was doing, and Mitch had been dumb enough to buy it.

  Stepping over Miro, he handed Loop the tape and went into the kitchen, wondering if Wally was waiting for a printed invitation. Feet on the dash, smoking that shit with that stupid do-rag on his head, rock blaring loud enough to drown out the gunshots.

  Pinkie nodded to the custom-fit plastic door sealing the living room archway, ushering him by wagging the Mossberg. “What you came for’s in there.”

  Mitch unzipped the plastic door, stepping through. The marijuana stood in plastic tubs in even rows, flowering under more lights than the Vegas Strip, heavy black sheets over the bay window, Mylar on the walls, twin propane tanks fueling the heaters. The walls had been opened to the dining room and the bedroom behind it, making a long L-shape. The air was humid with that skunk smell.

  “Nothing like a few potted plants to spruce up the place,” Pinkie said.

  Mitch nodded like he was impressed, telling her his name. Not surprised that the weed wasn’t cured and compressed into bricks like Miro said it would be. He hadn’t got anything right so far.

  “Want me to say it’s good to meet you, Mitch? ’Cause I don’t see it as that kind of situation.”

  “Look, it was all him, Miro there. He worked for you guys, for Artie Poppa, at least he said he did, said he set all this up.”

  “True.”

  Mitch looked around at the six-foot forest rooted in rock wool, tubing running to the hydroponic pots.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Miro’s the shits as a human being, but when it comes to growing, he knows a thing or two. When he crossed the Bob Marley with the Maui Wowie . . .” Pinkie said, her head going side to side, holding the barrel level with Mitch’s bubbling gut. “It was a thing of beauty, I must admit.”

  He nodded like he got it.

  “Never saw a guy so dedicated,” she said. “Worked around the clock when Artie moved the works inside. He tweaked it, got the high so there wasn’t so much couch-lock, not too much head-stone either so you’re asking questions all night, just a good balance.”

  Mitch kept nodding.

  “Even came up with framing in the false living rooms, making a three-foot wall behind the picture windows, nail up some pictures, leave the drapes open, and from the street it looks like a normal place.” She said it was sad to see old Miro slide down the shitter like this. “What did he figure, Artie owed him one?”

  “I don’t know what he figured. I just—”

  “He seeing anybody?”

  “You mean like a doctor?”

  “Like a woman—he got one or still renting them?”

  “Some chick comes and hangs around.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Works at this topless shoeshine place downstairs. Guess she’s like a girlfriend.”

  “Topless shoeshine, huh?” Not surprised, Pinkie nodded, then was laughing behind the Mossberg, getting the picture, asking, “This topless shoeshiner got a name?”

  Mitch had to search for it. “Bruna, I think it was, something like that.”

  “Bruna, huh? She young?”

  “Not too, I guess maybe forty.”

  “Good looking?”

  “Guess so.”

  “Huh. Not like him—used to go for the young stuff, I mean bobby-socks young. Had a hard time with a grown woman.” Pinkie was thinking for a moment, then asked, “Bruna, what’s that, Russian?”

  “I don’t know, Italian maybe.”

  “Don’t get me wrong . . . what’s your name, Mitch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Mitch, my hat’s off to him. It’s on account of guys like him, the shit we’re growing these days blows the rest away, better than any Kush, Haze or Thunderfuck I ever smoked, better by a mile.”

  “Yeah. Listen, think I could use your can?”

  She went on, “Yeah, the guy was part of the vision alright, a big reason why bud’s right up there with lumber and fish, far as industry goes.”

  “And I’m why assholes like you have jobs,” Miro called from the floor in the back hall, catching Loop’s foot to his ribs.

  Pinkie said that was true, telling Mitch they’d all have jobs until the feds decided to legalize it. “That’s when a seven-billion-dollar industry does a crash and burn.” She snapped her fingers. “Thousands of us in the UI lines. The whole West Coast’ll go bust.”

  Mitch nodded.

  “Don’t think it can’t happen. Lucky for us, the premier’s an imbecile, not a storm trooper like that guy they had in New York.” Pinkie took her cell phone, crooked the Mossberg under her arm and hit redial. “You know, I read where this professor in Colorado figures pot’s like oil to a car, slows down human aging.”

  “That right?”

  “A joint a day keeps the nip-and-tuckers away.” She let it ring until Stax’s answering machine came on again. She hung up.

  “Look, Pinkie, is it? I suffer with the Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and—”

  “Wouldn’t be good for that.”

  “I mean, I really got to use your can.”

  “Which one of you shot the dog?”

  Mitch pointed in Miro’s direction, Pinkie nodding, motioning him through to the kitchen, saying it was right down the hall, reminding him how he could be peeing out of a giant hole in his chest.

  He lowered his voice, looking in her blue eyes. “I owe Miro some dough on account of my treatment for the Crohn’s. You know how he gets, had my feet in the fire . . .” Ducking through the plastic door, Mitch didn’t see Loop coming past the stove, raising the revolver and cracking the butt across his head. An explosion of pain and down Mitch went, looking up at Pinkie’s mouth moving, words coming through a funnel, the room swirling.

  “One thing I can’t stand is a whiny snitch,” Loop was saying to Mitch. “Think you’re talking your way out of this? I don’t think so.” Then to Pinkie, “I say we do them both, show Stax some taking-care-of-business.” He aimed at Mitch.

  “How about you settle for beating on them till he calls? No point pissing him off more than he’ll already be.”

  Loop thought about the dead dog at the bottom of the stairs. He tore a sheet of paper towel from a roll on the counter, dabbing blood from his mouth, sure Pinkie would be reminding Stax it was his idea to bring the dog. “We could take them out by the blueberries. Nice and private there.”

  Mitch looked at Miro laid out in the hall, the fear rocking him. “You already got Miro. Me, I’m nobody. I’m on the next train out of here; you’ll never see me again.”

  “You hear that, Popeye?” Loop went and flipped Miro onto his stomach. Climbing on him, putting the gun on the floor, he asked if he was still breathing and twisted his hands, starting to wrap the duct tape around his wrists.

  “I got a kid and an old lady somewhere,” Mitch said to Pinkie. “Miro there, he’s got nobody.”

  “The shoeshine chick,” Pinkie said.

  “That’s nothing real. You said yourself he pays her. I mean, I hate to see anything happen to him, but he’s—”

  “Tell you what,” Loop said, “you don’t want to see anything happen to him, I’ll do you first, how’s that?”

  “Fuck you all,” Miro said, his voice a croak, his face pressed against the floor, blood smeared
across his face.

  Loop grabbed a fistful of hair, loving this, slamming Miro’s head against the boards, once, twice—the sound of a coconut getting cracked. “Didn’t I just tell you to watch your mouth?”

  Miro curled his fingers, leaving the middle one up. Taking out a knife, Loop yanked off a yard of tape, slicing it and mummified Miro’s head, broken nose and all, cutting off his air and bashing his skull on the floor a couple more times. His nose gushing blood, Miro kicked out his good leg, his Nike marking the oak with a blood trail, Loop riding him like a Brahma, having fun with it, counting off steamboats. He ripped off the tape when he got to ten, Miro screaming and moaning.

  That was it; Mitch made a break for the front door, got as far as clamping his fingers around the door knob before Pinkie swung the barrel, clipping him on the ear, sending him tearing through the plastic wall, fighting like he was caught in a web.

  “I got money,” Miro wheezed. Where the fuck was Wally? Where the fuck was Stax?

  Loop’s face was one big grin. “Like how much?”

  “Got a hundred on me.” Miro couldn’t seem to get enough air, the pain in his leg unbearable.

  “That’s already mine, plus I leave more than that in the collection plate.”

  “But there’s more, lots more.”

  “You got the floor, Popeye.” Loop got off him, rocking on his haunches, pressing the Vaquero under his chin, lifting it, wanting to pull the trigger, watch this guy’s head do zero to sixty.

  “Ten Gs in twenties,” Miro said. “And I got some oil stashed away.”

  “You back doing the oil, huh?”

  “And a bunch of pistols. Whatever’s there’s yours. You go help yourself, then let me go,” Miro said through gritted teeth, glancing at Mitch. “You can do what you want with that piece of shit.”

  Pinkie fetched a pen and paper from beside the phone on the counter, the Mossberg hooked under her arm, waiting for Miro to speak.

  “Back of my bedroom closet there’s a box of LPs, mostly James Last.”

  “Who?”

  “They were my mom’s. The oil’s behind it in a box marked ‘Xmas,’ not Christmas spelled out, guns are in the hockey bag, money’s laid out under the mattress.”