“How bad is it?” he found himself asking.
“I don’t know how to describe it,” Gibby said flatly. “It’s indescribable. Yep. That’s a good word. Indescribable. Uh-huh. Very indescribable.”
“There’s no snakes, are there?” he asked tiredly, not particularly impressed. “Tarantulas I can handle. Bugs crawling down my shorts and messing with my private parts, well okay, yucky, but bearable. Snakes. They’re like, gross. They crawl on you. They leave little snaky trails all over your flesh. And there’s that little wiggle thing they do with their tongues. Not that I have anything against you wiggling your tongue, Gibby.”
“I don’t see any snakes,” she stated certainly.
Pascal opened his eyes and looked. They were parked on the wrong side of the street, where the Expedition could sit and not be in water deeper than ankle-high. There was a brown Chevy Suburban parked in front of his house. Thaddeus and Thomasina Worth were standing outside their house in what appeared to be an argument with someone holding a very large rifle. Pascal’s house was a big pile of smoking, sizzling ruins. In the carcass of his garage, he could see the skeletal frame of the 1947 Harley Davidson Knucklehead that he had planned to eventually rebuild. A soaking wet squirrel scampered past, chased by an equally dampened blue jay in an unavoidable argument over an oversized pecan. Then the squirrel stopped to shoot the bird at Pascal and he couldn’t help his immediate alarm.
“Jesus soft shoe shuffling Christ with gladiolas on top!” he yelled, sitting straight up. “What the fuck happened to my house?” He glanced at Gibby who was sitting still and white faced. “Do you know how rare a ‘47 Knucklehead is?”
“Uh,” she said. “I think you’ve got bigger problems, Pascal.” Then she pointed. Pascal looked where she indicated and saw the three people he’d noticed before. Thaddeus was pointing agitatedly; his hands were a flurry of disconcerted motion. Thomasina was wringing her hands worriedly and kept her distance from the last person. And Ophelia Rector, who was the last person and who was incongruently dressed in waders and a rain slicker, was pointing a large gun at the both of them.
“Is that an M-16?” Pascal said incredulously. “Is that a grenade launcher on the end of it?”
Gibby gibbered. Then she asked disbelievingly, “How would you know that?”
“I spent my four years in the service,” Pascal said. “I seem to recall in my more lucid moments that is, in fact, an M-16 with a grenade launcher attached.”
“Do you mean to say that she did that to your house?” Gibby sputtered. “Where do you get a grenade launcher, for the love of St. Barbara?”
The three people that they were watching suddenly stopped and Ophelia turned to look at the Expedition. Even from where Gibby and Pascal sat, they could see the slow, insidious smile swell across her face. The end of the weapon came around just as slowly and settled on the midsection of the Expedition.
“Is she going to-” Gibby said but Pascal interrupted with, “Get out of the Ford, Gibby.”
Ophelia struggled to get the M-16 situated while Pascal yanked off his seatbelt and then helped Gibby with hers. Without ado, he yanked her across the middle of the car and out the passenger door as she yelped with pain. They fell to the ground in an anxious quagmire of limbs, each scuffling madly to gain their feet. Pascal gainsaid matters by taking her by her arm and dragging her across the yard of the house they were in front of it, taking shelter behind a substantial oak tree.
Pascal could see that Ophelia strained to hold the M-16 with an injured hand and to reach for the trigger of the grenade launcher with the other hand. Endless moments later, she got the correct leverage and the weapon kicked impressively. Pascal dived for the ground, tucking Gibby under him as he did, covering his head and hers with his arms. “Fire in the hole!” he howled.
A great poof sounded and then there was a loud crash of glass. It was followed by the crack of an enormous explosion that shook the ground underneath them. Then he heard a loud, “Goddamn it all to hell!” It was followed by a furious, “Motherfucker!” Then came a vicious, “SHITTY grenade launcher!” Next was a hysterical “Crapdoodlehead cast on my wrist!” It was all concluded with, “FUCK MY USELESS, BALLLESS SONS ALL THE WAY TO OUTER MONGOLIA!”
Pascal lifted his head and saw that not only had Ophelia missed them, but that she had missed the Ford as well. She had, however, hit the Suburban dead on. It had cheerfully detonated into a blazing pile of miscellaneous Chevy parts lying in a rough semi-circle in the street. The engine was crackling and sizzling as rain dripped on its fiery remains. A fender smoldered ten feet away from them and what appeared to be a distributor cap laid smoking within reach of his hand. A bent and singed Louisiana license plate came to a tottering stop on the sidewalk a few feet away and rattled to a precarious silence.
“Well, fuck,” Gibby said awedly.
“Well, fuck,” Pascal agreed. “You stay here,” he added and got up to stalk across the street.
Ophelia was struggling with the weapon. As he got closer he could see that she was trying to activate the M-16, but it was obvious to him that she didn’t even have an ammunition magazine inserted into the weapon. Apparently, she didn’t know what it took to actually fire the weapon.
By the time realization came to her, Pascal had put himself squarely in front of her. Ophelia looked up and blinked. In a moment, he sized her up. Her hair was wet and laid lankly upon her head like drowned worms on a bare sidewalk after a deluge. Her eyes were bloodshot and showed the wear of days of unparalleled stress. Her fingers twitched with nameless emotion and the formerly sinister smile had melted into a twisted frown of incensed wrath. Here was the woman who had done her level best to drive him into hopeless insanity. Here was the woman who was so egocentric that her desires went above all else. Here was the one who had blown up his vintage 1947 Harley Davidson Knucklehead, and also his pet goldfish, Bill Clinton.
Ophelia started to snarl and Pascal decked her. A roundhouse punch with his dominant hand knocked her on her back and she twitched once before her eyes slammed shut. The M-16 rattled across the asphalt of the driveway and came to rest under a battered azalea bush.
Thaddeus and Thomasina stared at Pascal.
Pascal roared, “That’ll teach you to kill a defenseless goldfish!”
Gibby stepped up and added belligerently, “And to steal a dead outlaw’s body, too.”
All four people stopped to study Ophelia’s prone body. Then Thaddeus said disbelievingly, “You hit a lady, Waterford.”
Pascal shrugged. It was too easy to supply the line and he didn’t try to resist. “That was no lady. That was Ophelia Rector.”
“That’s Ophelia Rector?” Gibby asked. “So that’s what she looks like. Hey, she’s pretty close to my mental image of her. Except I didn’t imagine her holding a big gun with the grenade launcher on the end.”
Thaddeus rubbed his face with one hand and shuddered. Thomasina merely studied Ophelia’s insensible form.
“I suppose we should call the police,” Gibby allowed cautiously. “I’m not sure we can attribute your house being blown into little, blackened smithereenies to Alexa.”
“Phones are out of service,” Thomasina said helpfully.
Gibby pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. “Signal’s out. Storm must have taken out the towers.”
“Look,” Thomasina said cheerfully. “It’s stopped raining. I can feed the kitties now.”
Thaddeus suddenly appeared alarmed. “Uh, Thomasina, perhaps you should go inside.”
“Well, look at this mess, Thaddeus,” Thomasina said. “Someone’s got to clean it up. And I’m certain that the kitties need a little nibble now that the worst is over. All that thunder and lightning can scare the dickens out of the poor little dears.” She paused and looked at Pascal. “Did you know your house is on fire, Mayor?”
“I happened to notice, Miss Worth,” Pascal said dryly.
“And you.” Thomasina had noticed Gibby. “Didn’t you borrow
some nutmeg from us the other day? Or perhaps I’m thinking of Jayne Mansfield. You know she died in a car accident in 1967. You resemble her, dear. Although I think her eyes were brown and her bosom was substantially bigger. Also her hair was dyed platinum. But definitely the rest.”
“O-kay,” Gibby said slowly.
“You need a cup of tea, Thomasina,” Thaddeus said urgently. “I’ll get you one. Come inside and-”
Thomasina glared at her brother. “I don’t drink tea, Thaddeus. It gives me the volcanic whoopsies something awful. You know that. Why don’t you go out back and finish digging your hole?” She leaned over to Gibby and said confidentially, “He’s digging a very large hole in the back garden bed. I think he’s planning to murder me for the insurance money and bury me in the back yard.” Her gnarled features contorted. “I don’t understand how you’ll get the money, Thaddeus, if they don’t know that I’m dead. You’ll have to pretend a burglar broke in and strangled me because I wouldn’t give him my collection of antique hatpins.” She paused and asked Gibby and Pascal, “That sounds plausible, doesn’t it?”
“I always go for the fake car accident with a bottle of whiskey poured on the body for effect,” Pascal said gravely.
“Well, that would be one way, Mayor,” Thomasina permitted graciously. “But it sounds so dreadfully dull. Perhaps a large explosion in a diamond mine surrounded by a pride of ravenous, man-eating cheetahs?”
“Certainly not dull,” Gibby said.
Pascal looked around Thaddeus’s yard with abrupt perception. As a politician, Pascal had extra sensory perception when it came to other individuals trying to hide something and his bullshit meter was ringing off the hook. Thaddeus was trying to hide something. He wanted them out of his yard and out of any line of sight. So Pascal thought about it for a moment and clarity dawned. He asked, “Is your truck in the garage, Thaddeus?”
“Yes,” Thaddeus said.
“Your blue truck,” Pascal said. “Your dark blue truck. The same dark blue truck that was following me around on Tuesday? Hmm?”
“Oh,” Gibby said.
“Mayor, did you know your house is on fire?” Thomasina asked courteously.
“Yes, Miss Worth, I do know,” Pascal said insistently. “What is your brother digging a hole in the back yard for?”
Thomasina waved her hand. “Something about a new fertilizer for his precious flowers. Although I don’t see what the big fuss is all about. It looks like some kind of pork product to me. I don’t see how that would help the flora all that much. It categorically has to be for a grave.” Her voice lowered. “A hidden grave.”
Thaddeus groaned and took a step backwards.
But Thomasina had skittered back to another topic of interest to her. “Pig. Turkey. An emu perhaps or maybe it was an ostrich. It was mostly frozen, too. Although I was able to shave off some to feed to the cats. I had to use the electric knife. It’s a lovely knife, you know. It does nice, even slices like the kind you’d get at the delicatessen. I tried the blender and the food processor, too, but since the electricity went out, I couldn’t use any of the appliances, of course. Then I tried the axe. I only accomplished chopping off a piece the size of a large ham hock. So finally I tried a hammer with a wood chisel. That got me some manageable pieces. Finally, I chopped everything up with a meat cleaver. It made just the right size for the kitties.” Thomasina smiled brightly. “What was I saying, dears?”
“Thomasina,” Thaddeus said hoarsely. “You didn’t, did you?”
“Didn’t what, Thaddeus?”
Gibby said, “Did she cut up…Billy…to feed to…stray cats?”
Pascal forced a sickening lump back down his esophagus.
“I didn’t cut up any billy, dear. I don’t think it was a goat at all. It was white meat, though. Very old, and stringy. It’s the kind of meat that one has to cook all day to get tender. You know the gas still works just fine. Thaddeus really liked the soup I made today. I added lots of white potatoes and carrots with a little garlic for taste. It took me an hour to make a roux for the base. Took all morning to get it just right.” Thomasina looked around wonderingly. “Look, it’s stopped raining.”
“Where is…he?” Pascal said with a half choke.
Thaddeus pointed into the side door and then proceeded to throw up into the azalea bushes.
By the time Pascal saw what had been done to Bayou Billy he was hoping that he was experiencing a complete delusion. Gibby stood beside him, eying the half-open garbage bag that was on the floor of the kitchen and said, “Eww. He’s half…gone. I’m going to hurl.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of meat left, dears,” Thomasina said helpfully, having come in behind them. “However, we need to act fast if we’re going to use it. I’d wager a slow-roasted chunk in chicken broth would taste blissful after about eight hours in the crock pot. Personally, I’d add Tabasco and some of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning, too. It’ll give it that right proper zing all good meals need.” She loudly smacked her lips for emphasis.
Pascal swallowed to get that horrid mass of bile from rising in his throat. He heard Thaddeus say something loudly outside and then there was a deafening clunk that echoed dramatically. He turned to see what was happening and saw Ophelia standing in the open doorway, holding Thaddeus’s shovel in one hand and a Magnum .44 in the other. She had a huge, blackening lump on her cheek and an expression of undiluted hatred on her face.
Gibby screamed and then Ophelia swung the shovel at Pascal, which was pretty much the end of consciousness for him.
•
“Wake up!”
Someone was yelling in Pascal’s ear. He thought that maybe he’d gotten way too smashed again and had passed out at the Masonic Lodge while doing the hula bula with the year’s winner of the Miss Yellow Rose contest. “Go ‘way,” he mumbled. “I’ll be better in an hour. Bring coffee.”
“WAKE UP, PASCAL WATERFORD! YOU’RE NOT DRUNK! OPHELIA RECTOR WALLOPED YOU WITH A SHOVEL! WAKE UP!”
That certainly explains a lot, Pascal thought, thinking of the raging headache that was presently battering his poor brain into little bloody pieces of gray noodles. In fact, battering was an inept word for the extreme bludgeoning that was being perpetrated upon his unfortunate and luckless encephalon.
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and saw that Gibby was crouched above him, holding onto his shirt with both hands and staring down into his face. Her eyes were large and round and her color was like leached flour. “Pascal,” she said urgently. “Ophelia whomped you and then she took what was left of Billy and your Expedition.”
“I’ll buy another car,” Pascal said wearily. He thought maybe that one of his eyes was going to burst out of its socket with the intense throbbing that was occurring. “A nicer one. Maybe one of those cars that looks like a Styrofoam cup with a lawnmower engine. But only if a bank gives me a loan. That doesn’t seem likely so maybe I’ll steal an orphan’s bicycle instead.”
Thaddeus appeared behind Gibby. Standing behind her stooped form, he had a wicked shiner on one eye and a large red bump on his forehead. A dribble of blood wound its way down the side of his features looking for an avenue of escape. “Say, Waterford,” he said affably. “That dadblasted Ophelia Rector stole Billy and your vehicle. I think you should go after her and teach her a thing about who has the testicles in this part of Texas.” He held up the keys to the Ford F-150 in his hand.
“Jesus, Thaddeus,” Pascal muttered. “Why did you have to steal Billy’s body? And why in hell were you burying him in your garden?”
Thaddeus shrugged, mutely embarrassed.
Pascal reached up with a trembling hand and snatched the keys. He convinced Gibby to take Thaddeus and Thomasina with another neighbor’s car to the high school where they could receive medical aid. When he drove out of Thaddeus’s garage he deliberately ran over three of Thaddeus’s warty-assed gnome statues and crushed them into itty-bitty gnome dust chunks.
•
Pascal knew that he wo
uld either catch up to Ophelia or that he would find her in Albie. Either situation would be acceptable. Based on earlier observations of the Sabine River’s current flood level, he thought that it was possible that she was stopped at the one and only bridge within twenty miles. When he reached the bridge, he found that Ophelia had skidded off the road and gotten the Expedition high centered on the high side of a water-filled ditch. Smoke from the wheels showed that she had attempted to get the Ford out of the ditch and had failed. Obviously she had been unable to engage the four wheel drive mechanism because the front tires were unscathed.
Realizing her dilemma she had exited the SUV taking her lifeless and inert passenger with her. Ophelia was wading down the road, headed for the bridge, towing the large garbage bag containing Billy.
Pascal stopped to goggle. Then the sun came out. Vicious gray clouds were whirling away to the northeast and the sun’s rays were shining down on the soggy remains of Sawdust City and also on Ophelia Rector as she hauled about half of a dead man behind her in a black, yard-trash sized, garbage bag.
Gunning the engine, he saw Ophelia glance over her shoulder. With her uninjured arm, she aimed the Magnum and fired at him. He ducked even though the bullet didn’t come anywhere near him. She fired three more times before he realized that she was firing with her nondominant hand.
“Hah!” he yelled out the window. “Ophelia Rector! You’re a rotten shot! And you smell bad, too!”
Ophelia turned and pressed on through thigh deep water, keeping a solid grip on her baggage.
Pascal put the truck into four low and let it have the throttle but good. He looked up into the rear view mirror and hesitated for a brief second. There was his self-incriminating reflection looking back at him. Despite a pounding headache and an indication that his eye socket might be fractured, he felt good and he was not surprised to see it gazing frankly at him.
Life and Death of Bayou Billy Page 35
