by Robert Ward
Jack noticed something familiar about him, but couldn't place it. Then he knew. Tommy was covered with the same green dust that had been on Ole Big and Zollie back at the Jackalope. And there was something about his vocabulary. It was that of a different person than the kid he'd met at the Red Sombrero. Would a teen-aged kid use the word “assurances”? Jack wondered again about his skin, which seemed somehow different than it had been only a day ago. There was something gray about it, like the skin of a friend he'd seen years ago, a friend who died of alcoholism. Before he died his skin had become gray and pouchy, like popped Bubble Wrap. There were blisters on Tommy's neck, too, and some kind of weird rash on his forearms.
“What kind of assurances?”
“Look, Jack, I already figured you must be some kind of cop. I need to know that whatever happens I won't be prosecuted. If you can't offer me that, get somebody who can.”
Jack looked at him and Tommy looked away, at the ground, as though he was ashamed of even asking for immunity.
“I can't promise you that until I hear what you're offering,” Jack said.
Tommy laughed in a hapless way. “I knew you were going to say that,” he said. “You're a cop, right?”
“Yeah, I am. Tell me what you've got and we can make a deal of some kind.” Jack said.
“They're going to kill me if I talk to you,” Tommy said.
“I can protect you,” Jack tried to reassure him, “ but you have to tell me everything.”
“I don't know where to begin, man,” Tommy said.
Then the kid glanced down at his blistered arms and began to cry.
“Look at me,” he said. “Look at my fucking skin. I look like a fucking dingo.”
Oscar fell down in the sand. Sand he had assumed was a solid rock but which somehow gave way the second he stepped on it. His ankle twisted under him and he grunted with a flash of pain.
“Madre de Dios,” he said.
He made his way forward slowly. He saw the ledge above and across from him, still pretty far away. But he could see Jack and the kid up there, silhouetted against the sky. He looked to his right and left, saw nobody. So maybe it wasn't a setup after all. Maybe the kid was for real.
He stood up and the pain in his right ankle was so intense he nearly cried out.
In agony, he climbed farther, the pain almost unbearable.
He staggered on, suddenly terrified that he would be late and that his partner and best friend, his real true amigo, would die because he couldn't climb for shit.
Tommy sucked in his breath, looked at Jack seriously, then made his decision.
“Okay, a lot of this is nuts, but I'm just going to tell you the part you need to know first. What's happening to your girl. Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. I heard Lucky talking to this guy who came by the other day. They sometimes talk right in front of me ’cause they think I'm some kind of fucked-up retard who doesn't know anything. They said they had another ‘lamb for the slaughter.’ Said it like it was a joke, you know? But it wasn't any joke. Trust me.”
“What did they mean?” Jack asked, suddenly feeling sick.
“They were talking about the night of rebirth. They said that the big night was the winter solstice, you see? I looked it up. It's December twenty-first. That's tomorrow night.”
“GO on.”
“They mentioned Jennifer Wu, too. How she was going to make the party so much cooler.”
“Sounds like they mean to kill her. Have they ever done anything like that before?”
“No ... no ... You don't understand. I've only been here a little over a year myself. I'm not saying I wasn't involved but there's a lot of levels to what's going on. I was just at level one. So I don't know anything. At least that's what they think. They made me a gofer.”
Tommy began to laugh wildly, as though this was the funniest joke in the world. “It's funny? Doncha see that?”
“Sure,” Jack said. “ I see. Trey think you're stupid, but they don't know shit, right?”
“Exactly,” Tommy said. He looked up at the sky and opened his arms. “A whole world of possibilities, Mr. Harper. You see that? A whole world of them. That's how it looks at first. Then you end up a guy with a bad memory, a delivery boy . . . And your skin looks like a dying dingo dog somewhere in the outback. You see how it goes?”
“What went wrong?” Jack asked. “What did Lucky promise you?”
Tommy began to giggle like a kid on glue.
“Lucky? Lucky? He promised me the fucking world, man. But he didn't tell me what I had to do to get it.”
Tommy looked fractured. He began to shake his head and stared at Jack as though he had never seen him before.
“The Nombees,” he said. “They're part of it, man.”
“Nombees?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, and the Sazis, or something like that. A tribe.”
“The Anasazi? That's an ancient New Mexican tribe,” Jack said. “That it?”
But Tommy suddenly looked far away. There was a skewed geometry to his jaw as he bit his lip.
“What's going to happen tomorrow night, Tom?” Jack asked.
“Things, dude,” Tommy said. “Things that only a cartoon could understand.”
“And where?” Jack continued. “Tell me the place.”
Tommy smiled and stumbled near the edge of the cave.
“Where is not known at this juncture,” he said. “They think that Dumb Tomcat doesn't understand. But that's where they are so wrong. Though all the connections are misfiring I can still find a thread now and again.”
“I know you can,” Jack said. “ Tell me.”
Tommy smiled a cunning grin.
“Under,” Tommy said. “ Way down in the deep under. I need assurances, Jack. And I need a new name, a new face, and a new latchkey. ‘Cause from this sordid place, I must be gone.”
As he got closer to his shooting spot, Oscar saw the flash of gunmetal off to the right, on the ridge. He squinted and looked over the rocks. There it was. A gun and a man holding and aiming it. Oscar scrambled up the trail, tried to stand. He pulled himself up by a half-dead-looking plant, which immediately loosed itself from the ground. Oscar went tumbling down the hill. As he rolled over and over he thought of Jack and Jill. But there wasn't a pail of freaking agua in sight.
“We've got to stop this thing.” Jack said. “Under where?”
“You made a pun,” Tommy said. “Underwear? Hahaha. See, I still have a semblance.”
Jack squinted at him. The kid was staring at his arms again, and had begun to pick his scabs. As though whatever drugs they'd been giving him were still scraping along his blood vessels.
“Tommy, I will help you. I'm FBI,” he said. (And wondered how long he would be, after this debacle.)
“Efrem Zimbalist Jr.,” Tommy said. “ Once upon a time my favorite show.”
“Efrem Zimbalist? How the hell do you remember that?” Jack asked. “ It was on forty years ago.”
Tommy looked at him and laughed bitterly.
“Maybe I saw it on a DVD,” he said. “Maybe not. I can't quite remember anymore.”
Jack couldn't waste any more time on it.
“Tom, the place, the time,” Jack said. “ Focus, kiddo. You want the assurances, you got to help me save Jennifer Wu, you dig?”
“Kiddo?” Tommy said. “ He called me kiddo. Isn't that sweet? Okay, fuck it. No way I can let them do that girl.”
He looked down at his shoes. Then at Jack's.
“An untied shoe is very worrisome on a hillside,” he said.
Jack let his eyes drop and saw that his right lace was untied. To humor Tommy he knelt down.
Tommy looked at him and smiled.
“I recall a couple of places but there's this one, an ancient place that's so amazing. I'm pretty sure it will be the place. The place of all places. The proper and right place for a ceremony to be held.”
A shot rang out in the canyon. A single, silve
r sound. Tommy lurched forward, a look of surprise on his face, a red hole in his shoulder.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “ Oh, dude . . . They're with us, Jack.”
Another shot barely missed Jack, who scrambled back into the safety of the cave.
“C'mon, Tom,” he yelled. “Back here.”
“No way. Bye-bye, Mr. FBI.”
“Don't go down there, Tom.”
But it was too late. Tommy hurried down the side of the hill and disappeared from Jack's view.
In the distance, Jack heard another shot, but he didn't venture out to see if Tommy had been hit.
Oscar clawed his way back up the hill. He was so filled with adrenaline that he didn't feel any pain at all. The shot? Jack?
He saw the shooter headed down the hill now, off to his left. He was still carrying his rifle. He seemed to be chasing someone.
Oscar found a small level spot, knelt, and aimed his gun at the figure as it fled toward the canyon bottom and a black Hummer.
Oscar aimed, led him just a little, and fired.
The shooter cried out and fell into a patch of blue flowers.
As Oscar moved forward, he saw that the shooter was up again and limping down the path. There was no way Oscar could get a second good shot. The gunman leaped into the Hummer and took off, driving fast toward the highway.
Chapter Twenty
Newly flush and stoned on Vikes, Johnny Z had been playing pool at Manny's basement joint on Francisco Street for two hours and had whipped everyone in the house. He'd knocked off a couple of weirdo St. Johnnie's students in eight ball, and he'd beaten a guy down on vacation from New York who thought he was hot shit. Used a lot of street language, and when he made a shot he said, “ Bada bing,” which Johnny was certain he'd gotten from reruns of The Sopranos. Ultra lame.
His Vikes were running down a little and he was about to leave when he heard a cultivated voice speaking to him from behind.
“Would you care to play a game of eight ball, my boy?”
Johnny turned and saw a skinny, older man with white hair and pale blue veins in his temples. He was dressed in some kind of Western hipster outfit circa 1958, with a black vest and a skinny white tie with a silver bull bolo at the top. His pants were black and tapered and on his feet he wore black patent shoes with Cuban heels at least a half-inch high.
The guy's arms were stick thin but his hands were large and his fingers surprisingly long and elegant.
There was something about him that got your attention, Johnny thought, but hell, it was all superficial. The guy was pushing eighty. How good could he be?
“Sure, I'll play,” Johnny said. “ Wanna lay fifty on it? You know, just to make it interesting.”
“Why, that sounds like a splendid idea,” the old man said. “ By the way, my name is Marty. Marty Millwood.”
“Johnny Z.” He snapped off the Z in an ultra cool manner.
“Whoa, a pool player's name if ever I heard one. Wouldn't you say so, Millie?”
Marty had turned and spoken to an older, heart-shaped-sunglass-wearing, red-headed woman who stood by his side.
“Oh, yes, I would,” she laughed. A deep, throaty, actressy laugh. Yeah, Johnny thought, probably played some rep company somewhere once, dreamed of being a star but didn't have the talent to pull it off. He looked her up and down. In her seventies he bet, but still quite slim and had a nice pair of breasts and a kind of sexy wide mouth. She must have been a looker in her day, back in the 1800s, Johnny thought.
“This is my wife, Millie,” Marty said.
“The Millie and Marty Show,” Millie introduced them, doing a Betty Boop bow.
They both laughed as though they were pleased by their own ineffable wit. Johnny took fifty dollars from his wallet.
“Lag for break?” he asked.
“Excellent,” Marty responded.
This forced, fake, colloquial speech was really annoying the hell out of Johnny. Who the fuck did the guy think he was, anyway? Henry the fucking Eighth?
“Here's my dough,” Johnny said, handing the fifty to Millie to show what a trusting guy he was.
“And here's mine,” Marty said. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a bankroll as thick as a brick. Johnny's eyes opened wide. Why, there must be a couple of grand or even more there. The old geezer was loaded!
Marty handed his fifty to Millie, who smiled and held the bills tight.
Oh, man, Johnny thought, he was going to enjoy beating the hell out of the old dude. And maybe there was a way to get some more of that roll.
Unfortunately for Johnny, the beating had to be postponed. Marty won the lag, and then knocked in two striped balls on the break. He proceeded to knock in two more before he missed.
He wasn't bad, Johnny thought. He had control of the cue ball, and he had a clean, true stroke. But by the fourth ball his stick wavered a little. Probably some old fuck's palsy or something. Millie watched silently, sucking in her breath once or twice when her husband made a shot.
But now it was Johnny's turn, He had a clear run in front of him. In fact, Marty had done him a favor, clearing away all the blocking balls. It would be a snap to hit the four, roll a little way to the left of the five, then put a little topspin on the cue ball and head down the rail for the three.
It would be easy as hell.
But then Johnny got a notion. The old man was here to bet, but if he lost... he might walk away. Now was the time to play the hustle. Johnny was certain of it. And he knew exactly how he'd do it.
He'd be the wiseass kid who talks a better game than he shoots. He'd play Mr. Overconfidence, and watch old Marty swell up when he beat the young gun.
Johnny laughed and pointed at the table.
“Shouldn't have missed, Marty,” he said. “You left me a clear run. And you know I ain't about to blow it.”
He gave a blowhard's smile and leaned over for his first shot. Bang, the four went right in the corner pocket. He watched as his cue ball settled in front of the five, an easy duck. He stroked it beautifully, ran the cue ball down the rail and was nicely set up for the three. He looked at Marty with a supercocky grimace, then sized up the angle, picked up the stick, and shot. Too hard. Just barely too hard, but too hard, nonetheless. Not only did he miss but he'd set Marty up for his run. Three balls in a row and an easy shot on the eight ball, which Marty hit gently into the side pocket.
Johnny made a point of being a bad sport.
“Nice game but you know you were damned lucky, old man. Why, if I hadn't missed that duck, you know I was going to run right out.”
“Yes,” Marty Millwood said, picking up his cash. “ There is no doubt whatsoever about that. Wouldn't you say so, Millie?”
“Absolutely, I would,” Millie said. “ If he hadn't missed that one he had a clear table. The only thing is ... he did miss. That's the difference sometimes.”
Johnny looked at her with a hostile sneer.
“The difference between what?”
“Between those who talk it, and those who walk it,” Millie said.
Now Johnny didn't have to act. A violent sensation shot through his brain. How he was going to enjoy this . . . the old hag!
“Well,” he said, “ if you guys think Marty is so hot, maybe you'd like to play again?”
“I don't see why not, young man,” Marty agreed. “ Do you have objections, my dear?”
“None at all,” Millie said. “ In fact, I look forward to another contest between the young and the . . . how shall we say it?”
“The seasoned, Mill,” Marty said. “The young and the seasoned.”
Johnny felt like wrapping his cue around Marty's veiny neck. The young and the seasoned. He couldn't wait to whip up on this old son of a bitch. Reminded him of his old man, Woody, the hippie car thief and junkie. Always ragging on the kids, always putting him down. Well, he'd shown him, put his hands right around his neck and squeeeeeeezed.
Like he would with Millwood, the pretentious old fart.
<
br /> But not just yet.
They played the next game for a hundred bucks, “just to make it interesting,” Millwood said, using Johnny's own words against him. Johnny played like an overeager lunatic, as though rage had taken over his mind and he couldn't tell one shot from the next.
He really was angry, furious even, but he easily could have reined it in and beaten Millwood.
It was too soon, though. There was big money here; he just knew it. A good hustler always knows precisely when to strike, and Johnny Z had always been one of the best.
He was the man, wasn't he? You know he was, and he was going to bring down this old white-haired asshole and his goofy wannabe Lolita bitch, once and for all.
But not yet. Not in game two, and not in game three, which they played for another yard, and which Johnny lost again.
“Okay,” he said. “ You got me for two fifty. That's a lot of cabbage. I want a shot at winning it back. I'll play you one game for a grand. I'll show you. You'll see.”
He slammed his hand down on the table in a parody of barely controlled rage.
The older man watched and rubbed his jaw.
“A thousand,” he said. “Why, that's quite a hefty sum, John.”
“Hey, you've already beaten me twice. It's not much of a man who doesn't give his opponent a shot to win it back.”
“I don't know,” Marty said. “What do you think, Mill?”
Millie looked at Marty and took a sip of her Negro Modelo.
“That is a real head of lettuce,” she said. “But I think you should give Johnny Z here a shot, Mart. The only thing is we can't do it today. You have to lead the council at five and it's four twenty now.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Marty said. “ I'm afraid we have to go, Mr. Z.”
“Hey,” Johnny said, feeling a little panicky, “you some kinda hustler or something?”
“Me?” Marty admonished. “Heck, no. Tell you what, give me your number and I'll call you soon and then we can play again. At my place.”
“Your place?” Johnny asked, suspicious.
