by Richard Hoyt
“Wasn’t he wonderful?” Melinda said.
“Sensational,” I said. “Better than a yodeler on The Gong Show.”
Willie was pleased. “Oh, good. Good. Let’s go over to the Doie and drink a couple beers, what do you say? Or how about some of Juantar’s hot wine? Do us good. This is Halloween, remember. We promised Juantar. We can throw a few darts. Play some low box or Killer. Get ready to be humiliated, Assholete. I’m going to have you whimpering.” Chief Dumbshit demonstrated his dart-throwing ability with two make-believe throws at a pretend board. He had good form, a smooth stroke. His elbow was under his hand. On his second throw he said, “You’re going to have to get off the streets, sis. Mike Stark was out there in the crowd.”
“Oh, Willie,” she said.
“I said go!” Willie looked hard at his sister.
“Willie!”
“You’re just going to have to stay out of sight until we get this thing resolved. Right, Rodney?”
“That’s what I told her when she said she wanted to come down here,” Rodney said. With that and with Prib Ostrow right behind them, Rodney started guiding his sister by the arm.
Melinda let herself be led, but she didn’t want to go. “Well, would you please do something, Willie. I’m getting tired of watching soap operas all day.”
When she was gone, I said, “Willie, did I ever tell you I grew up on a farm outside of Cayuse, Oregon? When I was a kid I used to listen to coyotes across the Columbia howling in the Horse Heavens.”
Willie looked surprised. “Why, no. You didn’t tell me. Maybe you know a little about Coyote then.”
31 - WE’RE ON OUR WAY, DENSON
The weather, having drenched the Indian storytelling in the afternoon, backed off, giving the kids a break that Halloween night. The clouds were merely threatening, a ten percent chance of rain the weatherman said. A person has a chance with ten percent, but if the weatherman in Seattle says there is a twenty percent chance of rain, take your umbrella. If he says ninety percent, make sure your outboard has gas and good sparkplugs.
Willie had become something of a celebrity in the Doie because of his performance across the street, so it was easy for Janine and me to duck out to go take a nap. After a couple of hours’ rest we drove back to the Doie to participate in Frighten Your Neighbor Night before we went underground. Kids were all over the place, out in force. Anticipating a haul, they carried the biggest bags they could find. There were little tykes hardly able to walk and five-and six-year-olds freaked out with excitement. We saw toddlers who were Tinkerbells, four-year-olds who were Long John Silvers. We saw ghosts, vampires, and kids in cardboard boxes made up to look like robots. A bunny rabbit with a fluff of cotton safety-pinned to her rear skipped merrily along with a kid in a rubber gorilla mask. Grinning mothers watched the carnival from the sidewalks, on the alert for screwballs. The only people out of sorts were the teenagers, who lurked on the street corners, plagued by zits and now judged too old for trick-or-treating.
I wore my black woolen pullover cap and rubbed some charcoal under my eyes. I wore my navy blue turtleneck sweater, blue jeans, and running shoes. I had a Spanish bota of screw-top red and a paper bag of raw vegetables so Janine and I could have a little snack if we wanted.
Janine wore a solid black outfit with a beret and huge fake pearls. She went heavy on the makeup and smoked her cigarette through an ivory holder. She said, “And you are a cat burglar, I take it.”
“I was inspired by that movie with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. And you are?”
“A woman who wants to blend in with the darkness of the Seattle underground. An artist or writer, the way I see it.” Janine paused. “I couldn’t go to sleep for thinking about Willie’s performance.”
I geared down for a stop sign. “It was a show-stopper, I’ll say that. By the way, you can call me Cary if you want and look swoony-eyed like Grace Kelly.”
For weeks the regulars at the Doie had been urged by Juantar Chauvin to come in full, rip-roaring drag — costumes all the way. Juantar had goaded them, challenged them. He said, dammit, this was the doie, not the lookie or the feelie. Freak your neighbor, he said. Freak ‘em out. Thus encouraged, they responded with enthusiasm. There couldn’t have been a more bizarre place in the city that night. In addition to the door prizes, everyone in costume got drinks at half price. I don’t think a customer in the place was paying full price. Ordinarily shy women had transformed themselves from spectators into sultry French hookers, belly dancers, and exotic concubines. The men wore all manner of rubber masks. There was a man who looked like Jabba the Hut from Return of the Jedi, corpulent body and all. I saw Lucifer strolling through the crowd, casting spells and passing out cards that said “Cancer,” “Bankruptcy,” or “One hour with Howard Cosell.” Hitler was there, chatting amiably with Jimmy Carter and an almost naked woman wrapped in huge plastic snakes. Richard Nixon was kissing Little Bo-Peep.
As Janine and I passed by, the rubber-faced Nixon said, “Really, baby, I don’t have herpes. Don’t you believe me?”
Even Richard Willis had managed to dig up a frilly shirt and western string tie so he wouldn’t look out of place walking into the Doie. “Well?” he said. He adjusted the string tie.
I appraised his outfit. “Doc Holliday or Buck Bohannon, I’ll have to think about it.”
“I wonder where that damn Chauvin is?”
“We’re not going under until eleven, Richard. He’ll be here. He probably wants to have some fun with his costume first.”
We tried for an hour to figure out which one of the figures was Juantar but gave it up. At five to eleven, and with Willis beginning to get impatient, it was decided that Janine and I would go ahead. Willis would wait for Juantar. We walked to the underground entrance on the north side of James Street, where both we and Juantar had heard the buzzing. Janine watched while I went through the lock with a state-of-the-art pick provided by Willis.
The howling began minutes after we had stopped at the first station designated by the computer. We had to coerce Willis to give the computer the times and locations of the sound we thought might have been a saw; the machine considered the data and altered our routine.
The coyote seemed especially agitated that night. He didn’t howl at all at first. He fell instead into fits and spells of excited barking. Janine and I had learned from previous nights there was no sense in chasing him. He was here. He was there. We could never find him. And after the coyote stories earlier in the day, my imagination raced like a stuck blender. I started to chew on a carrot, but the crunching sound seemed outrageous under the circumstances. There was no way to hide it. I was sure the coyote could hear it. I finally removed the carrot from my mouth with my fingers. Janine knew what I was doing and could barely keep from laughing. Both of us were scared silly.
Then we both heard a buzzing. An electric saw.
“Got your weapon ready?”
Janine took her .38 from her shoulder holster. The buzzing continued. Then stopped.
It started again.
I should have carried a weapon like everyone else. I slipped my hand into my pocket and furiously rubbed my Doie coin with my thumb. The buzzing continued.
I gave Richard Willis two beeps on the walkie-talkie the signal for buzzing heard.
Willis gave me three beeps in return: received and understood. He and Juantar would head for the James Street underground. Willis would enter from the north, around the corner. Juantar would take the longer way and enter from the east.
I heard voices.
Janine gripped my thigh. She’d heard them, too.
I gave Richard Willis four clear beeps: voices heard, please hurry.
Willis gave me a staccato of beeps: he and Juantar were doing their best.
More buzzing.
I rubbed my Dole coin.
More voices.
I rubbed it faster, faster. Come on, Dickie! I thought.
The voices were louder.
Whatever it was that s
ounded like a coyote heard it, too. The sorrowful lament began. It was startlingly close to Janine and me. It got louder, louder, higher and more impassioned. The howling filled up the underground sidewalk and was all around us. It was impossible to tell which direction it was coming from, but I thought from the east, maybe — Juantar’s assignment.
To hell with the beeping routine. “For Christ’s sake, get your asses over here,” I whispered harshly into the walkie-talkie.
My walkie-talkie clicked and I could hear a man running, breathing hard. “We’re on our way, Denson, keep your pecker up.”
What happened next came all in a rush.
32 - EARLY IN THE MORNING
A door opened from the streetside wall. This wall had appeared solid to us and was represented by unbroken lines on the maps Janine had uncovered in her research. The open door flooded the underground sidewalk with light. Janine and I both covered our eyes. We’d become adjusted to the darkness and were momentarily blinded, helpless. We looked away from the light, not moving. The voices became clear. Men’s voices. A woman said something. The voices were loud, crazed. A man spoke. He was right beside us. It was he who had opened the door. We heard a man vomiting inside.
“Oh, Jesus, Jesus, we shouldn’t’a done that,” a man said.
Whoever had opened the door didn’t answer. He was vomiting as well. “Halloween! Shit,” he said, and puked again.
The man farther inside was in terrible shape. He retched and retched and retched. “Aw God, God, we shouldn’t’a done that.”
The woman groaned pitiably. “Ohhhhh!” she wailed. “Oooo. Aaaaa.” We heard her vomit.
All that and the furious howling seemed right on top of us, a wavering, piercing, angry howl.
When my eyes were adjusted to the light, I stood and edged around the open door. Rodney Prettybird, on his hands and knees, was nearest the entrance. Farther down the mystery tunnel was Prib Ostrow, on his back, an awful bile erupting from his mouth. Prib was lying by a rotary brick saw. On top of the brick saw was part of a frozen human torso.
To the left of the brick saw, Melinda Prettybird squatted weakly, looking up with dull, glazed eyes. The front of her blouse and the thighs of her jeans were soaked with vomit. She opened her mouth and made gagging sounds but nothing came.
Farther down the tunnel, under the shaft that apparently rose to the center of Pioneer Place Park, I counted four RV propane freezers containing what I knew must be what was left of Moby Rappaport and Kim Hartwig.
I was glad only to see that Willie Prettybird was not in the tunnel.
Rodney Prettybird looked up at me, his face twisted.
“Why?” I asked.
“You must learn to honor your word, white man,” he said. Rodney didn’t recognize me as his brother’s friend. I was a white man, any white man.
“We gave the judge and his helper what they deserved. Ain’t that right, Prib? Cut ‘em up like animals.”
“Aarrgghh!” the pribliged character said. I wasn’t certain whether or not he understood Rodney.
“That’s not enough, Rodney.”
“We did it for those guys. Those guys up there.” Rodney motioned to the ceiling of the tunnel. “Have you seen them up there? Have you? Drunk. No future. You people came with your judges and took everything we had. We signed treaties. What good did it do? What good? Took our timber. Won’t let us have our salmon. We got ‘em, didn’t we, Prib?”
Prib didn’t answer. He looked glassy-eyed. “Threw their pieces up there where my brothers gather. Prib?”
“Aagghh.”
“In the shadow of the totem pole,” Rodney said. He gagged and tried to vomit, but nothing came.
Melinda Prettybird had by now slumped against the wall of the tunnel. She was unable to speak. She was too weak to vomit if she wanted to. She was in a stupor, clinging to consciousness. Her mouth hung open. Her jaw was slack. Her eyes were glazed.
Janine put her pistol back in its holster. “Look,” she said.
She meant two cardboard boxes of dried mushrooms. I could tell by the red tops, even when they were dried, that one box was Amanita muscaria, Fly Agaric — the same as Willie Prettybird had eaten earlier in the day. The mushrooms in the second box had white stalks and dirty yellow tops.
“How many did you eat?” I asked Prib.
He continued to retch. He tried to speak but no sound would come.
I turned to go for a phone, and there stood Rodney Prettybird, reeling but on his feet, holding an enormous revolver. He wavered. He gagged. He pointed the revolver at Janine Hallen. He cocked the revolver. Rodney Pretty-bird grinned. “Gonna kill you,” he said.
Janine, whose pistol was back in its holster, stared at him, hands at her sides, surprised, shocked, not knowing what to do.
But Rodney’s trigger finger didn’t get to finish the pull. Rodney’s body was suddenly hurled backward by an ear-splitting roar from the underground sidewalk. Crimson loops of blood squirted from the cavity where his heart had been.
Willie Prettybird, still dressed in his scarlet ski-jacket and red bandana, stood in the doorway with a Winchester Model 94, a lever-action .30 — .30 handy for a saddle scabbard. It was Willie’s deer-hunting rifle. He leaned the rifle against the wall and sat down on top of one of the RV freezers. He looked at his stricken sister, looked down at his childhood friend Prib Ostrow, who writhed in agony on the floor.
“I’ll go call the ambulance,” Janine said. Willie looked at Melinda, who was fading fast, looked at the dull yellow mushrooms. “Tell ‘em to bring lots of atropine.”
“Will they live?” I asked. I watched Janine disappear, running, up the underground sidewalk.
“If they’re lucky.” Willie picked up a dried mushroom. “Amanita pantheria. I once told Rodney that an Amanita pantheria had the same poisons as Amanita muscaria only more of them. You shouldn’t mess around with mushrooms unless you know what you’re doing.” Willie knelt and wiped the sweat from his sister’s feverish brow. “It’s suicidal to eat these things. An ambulance is on its way, sis. Hold on.” He looked at the corpse of his younger brother.
“I’m sorry it turned out this way, Willie.”
“It’s not your fault, John. After a while I suppose it got to be too much for Rodney, all this arguing in court for what was ours in the first place. It was outrageous. I just assumed Rappaport would rule in our favor. How could he do anything else?” Willie shook his head in amazement.
“You came with a rifle. How long have you known about Rodney and Prib?”
Willie looked at me. “And Melinda. Several days now. I’ve been down here nights trying to find out where they were holed up. If they’d gotten themselves worked up enough to butcher people, I thought I’d better bring some protection. I don’t own a pistol so I brought my thirty-thirty.”
“There’s been something down here howling,” I said. “Did you hear the howling?”
“I heard it, too. Figured it was some kind of dog. People shouldn’t keep dogs in the city. Dogs need room to roam around.”
“Or maybe some kids getting worked up for Halloween.”
“Sure, that could be it,” he said.
Richard Willis arrived then, breathing hard. He looked at the hole in Rodney’s chest, at Willie holding his sister, and at Prib wallowing in vomit.
“Janine’s on her way to get an ambulance,” I said.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Will two live ones for the courts do you any good at your hearing?” I felt like vomiting myself, only not from being sick in the stomach.
Willis squatted beside Rodney’s corpse. He looked at Willie, who held his sister even tighter. “My name is Richard Willis. I’m a cop. You don’t have to tell me anything until you’ve got a lawyer. Do you understand?” Willis was kindly, genuinely concerned.
Willie Prettybird nodded. “I understand,” he said.
“If you do tell me anything it can be used in court against you.”
“I understand. I kille
d him. Shot him with my thirty-thirty.”
I said, “Rodney was about to waste Janine with that thing on the floor.” I nudged Rodney’s pistol with my foot. “It was Rodney or her.”
Juantar arrived next, also breathing hard. He wore a raincoat and a fedora. He was bleeding from both ears, both nostrils, and the corners of his mouth. A long, obscene open wound curved across his forehead and down the side of his face. Plastic maggots fed on plastic pus that had gathered in the realistic plastic wound. He looked at Rodney, then at Melinda and Prib. “Praise Jesus,” he said and for the first time since I’d known him, Juantar Chauvin was momentarily moved to silence. He didn’t twitch or jerk. He didn’t rub the balding front of his head. He didn’t wave his arms. He didn’t pace. He stared at the terrible scene. “Six-bit doie,” he finally said. “Much too exotic for my taste.”
33 – EPILOGUE
With Janine Hallen’s help, Willie Prettybird was released on his own recognizance and drove downstate to Mossyrock to tell his mother what had happened. Willie had had to kill Rodney. Both Melinda and Prib Ostrow had O.D.’d on poisonous mushrooms and were seriously ill. If Melinda lived, she would likely be tried for obstruction of justice for having slept with Kim Hartwig to learn of Rappaport’s decision, for abetting in Rodney’s assault on Hartwig and two other of her lovers, and for assisting in the murder of Rappaport and Hartwig.
It was starting to get light when Willis, Juantar, Janine, and I went to a seafood restaurant’ on Alaskan Way that stayed open all night.
Juantar Chauvin was hyper again, recalling the pleasures of doie, trying to get our minds and the conversation off the Prettybirds. He wanted to cheer us up. “Hey,” he said, “with all that excitement, I didn’t get to show y’all the rest of my costume.” He stood up and unbuttoned the front of his raincoat. There was a huge, stuffed, homemade penis sewn onto the front of his blue jeans. The bizarre organ hung to Juantar’s knees. He was pleased. He swung it merrily. He wiggled his hips. He looked lascivious. He waggled his eyebrows at Janine. “Trick or treat,” he said.
