27
All had been going well for the Corpus until their extended caravan arrived in the small town of Wakulhatchee, just south of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, at around nine p.m. on an unseasonably hot Friday night.
It had been a long day’s driving for the ten-car, eleven-person ersatz surveillance team. A day whose effects were exacerbated both by the continual need for caution, and by the inevitable wear and tear caused by the obsessive twenty-minute rotas that Abi had insisted upon despite the fact that the trio they were following in the Grand Cherokee appeared to have not the remotest idea that they were still being watched.
Even during the trio’s lunch break – when it might have appeared reasonable for the team to stand down and take it easy – Abi had refused permission for any of his brothers and sisters to take time off for anything more than a snack. ‘You can relax this evening. When they’re static. We’ll only need two people at any one time to watch them then. So the rest of you can go off and get some R amp; R.’
‘Which two are going to watch them?’
Abi could see storm clouds looming. He put on his most placatory voice. ‘Vau and I will take the first four-hour shift. We’re the freshest. And the pressure’s been off us all day. The rest of you can draw lots for who’s next in line. Those four hours ought to give you all the time you need to get some food and drink inside you and lighten up a little. If our trio decide on a late outing we’ll call you and tell you whereabouts they’re headed. We don’t want you all to crash into each other like ninepins. If Lamia catches sight of any of us, we’re done for. They’ll bolt again, and this time they’ll make damned sure they’re not followed. No. We need to keep them sweet and unaware.’
For their part Calque, Lamia, and Sabir had found another of their Olde Worlde – read terminally rundown – motels, on the very edge of town. This one was managed by a Polish family – and they, too, barely raised an eyebrow at their guests’ unconventional sleeping arrangements.
After watching the trio check in, Abi and Vau settled down to watch the entrance to the motel from 150 yards down the street. They were driving a different rental from the one they had been using in Massachusetts – a vehicle that had not been within sight of the Cherokee all day.
‘How do you think it’s going?’ Vau asked his brother.
‘In a word? Shit.’
Vau sat silently for a while. ‘I don’t get you, Abi. We’ve still got them under surveillance. The whole family are here to support us. What is there to complain about?’
‘Inactivity. That’s to complain about.’
Vau raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
‘Oh, come on, Vau. You know very well who you’re dealing with here. Our bunch of siblings are used to getting everything they want whenever they want it. They either buy it or they grab it off someone else. That sort of freedom acts like an inbuilt dynamo. Now we’re asking that same bunch of anarchists to rein themselves in and conduct a sort of interminable holding operation. Heck, Sabir could be intending to drive as far as Brazil for all we know. Which is fine for him – he owns his damned vehicle. But what do we do? Somehow, at every border, we’re going to have to dump the rentals and fetch ourselves new ones. Without losing our marks.’
‘But why should we be crossing borders? They might be heading down to Florida.’
‘Florida? Haven’t you looked at your map recently? We’ve just driven along the fucking Appalachian Mountains – we’re heading for Texas.’
‘Well. Texas, then.’
‘What’s beyond Texas?’
Vau thought for a moment. ‘Mexico, I suppose.’
‘Don’t you think they might be heading for there?’
‘Why?’
‘Anything happen there in the past few days? Anything out of the ordinary?’
Vau thought again. Then he shook his head. ‘No. Not that I heard of.’
Abi settled himself further down in his seat and closed his eyes. ‘Jesus.’
28
The place was called Alabama Mama’s, and it was situated on the far opposite edge of Wakulhatchee to the trio’s motel. It was basically a parking lot with a corrugated iron building pitched into the middle of it. The corrugated iron had originally been painted rust red, but over the years the patina had changed until it had now come to resemble a sort of inverted, badly limed-up, coffee pot.
At ten o’clock on a Friday evening the car park was still mostly empty, so the sudden arrival of a phalanx of New York registered rentals didn’t do more than flurry the waters. A few odd looks were cast in the Corpus’s direction – they were, after all, quite noticeable – but nothing untoward either occurred or suggested itself.
Of the nine siblings who entered Alabama Mama’s that night, Athame was a virtual dwarf, with tiny hands and feet, Berith had a harelip, Rudra limped in an extrovert manner on account of his untreated club foot, Alastor was spectre thin from the effects of cachexia, Asson was enormously fat, Dakini had hair which grew down below her buttocks framing a face frozen into a sort of malevolent rictus, Nawal suffered from hirsutism, Oni was a seven-foot-tall albino, and Aldinach was a true hermaphrodite.
Of these, Aldinach was the most ordinary looking, as he/she had decided to be a she tonight, given the heat and the sub-tropical climate that ensured that even at nine o’clock in the evening – and freakishly, even in October – the ambient temperature was well above thirty degrees. Inside the club it was hotter still, with the slowly churning ceiling fans barely ruffling the overheated air.
Aldinach had therefore chosen to wear a thin seersucker cotton dress, cut low to show off her small, but perfectly formed, breasts. She was wearing red patent leather ‘fuck-me’ shoes with five-inch heels, and the sheerest stockings she could find. She had her hair down – when she lived as a man she commonly wore it in a pigtail – and her fringe now curled inwards to flatter and give weight to her heavily lashed eyes. Aldinach refused to enter the club alongside her brothers and sisters, but came in separately, by a side entrance, and took her place alone, at the corner of the bar.
The barman did a double take, and then shook his head in amazement. Despite twenty years spent working in clubs and bars and dives of all persuasions, it still astonished him what women were capable of contriving when they were ‘in open season’. He stood for a moment admiring the sight, and speculating which of his regular clients would be the lucky man tonight. Because someone was going to be the lucky man. That much was darned certain.
‘I’ll have a margarita.’
‘Frozen? Or on the rocks?’
‘Frozen.’
‘Wise choice. Do you want salt around the rim?’
‘Yes.’
The barman busied himself with the makings. ‘You from Louisiana?’
‘Yes.’
‘I knew it. I picked up your accent straight away. Lafayette?’
‘Lake Charles.’
‘Well I’ll be damned. I got close, didn’t I?’
‘You’ve got an ear. I’ll give you that.’
The barman placed a paper mat in front of Aldinach, and set the margarita on top of it. ‘Now you try that. Then tell me if it isn’t the best damned margarita this side of the Sierra Madre.’
Aldinach sipped the margarita. Then she cocked her head and smiled.
‘I told you. I used to work down in Cancun around the Easter break. At the Hotel Esmeralda.’ His expression changed abruptly. ‘Look. Tell me if I’m out of line here. But you do realize what sort of a place this is?’
Aldinach shrugged. ‘I have a vague idea.’
The barman glanced towards the main door. ‘Well it ain’t what you’d call genteel, if you take my meaning.’ He hesitated. ‘Look, lady. I like you. Strikes me you’re a cut above the usual sort of moppet props up this bar. Plus you’ve got good taste in booze. If I were you, I’d drink up and head on out again. Try the Hummingbird up the road about two miles. I dearly hate to drive away custom, but you don’t deserve the sort of riff-raff we get i
n here. Now take a look at that table of freaks over there.’ He nodded towards the far edge of the dance floor, where Aldinach’s brothers and sisters had pushed together three separate tables to make one. ‘There’s trouble if ever I’ve seen it. Like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The sort of rednecks we get in here on a Friday night will take the mere existence of that bunch as an insult to their manhood. Our clientele ain’t much into “special needs”. I don’t know who they are – an idiot’s works outing, maybe, or escapees from the funny farm – but I wouldn’t want to be in here when the Skunks get through with them.’
‘The Skunks?’
‘You don’t want to know. Believe me, lady. You don’t want to know.’
29
Skip Dearborn had been grand master of the Skunks chapter of the Birmingham Hells Angels for nearly twenty years now. In that time he had raped, killed, tortured, stolen, grafted, skimmed, blackmailed, and kidnapped his way through the better part of Southern Alabama, without ever having done any prison time to speak of. Others had suffered in his place. As far as Skip was concerned, that was only just.
He was the smartest and the meanest looking sonofabitch on the block – why shouldn’t he benefit from his smartness and his meanness? There would come a time when someone else stole his crown, but that time wasn’t looming anytime soon. And in the meanwhile Skip exercised droit de seigneur over any women stupid enough to want to associate themselves with his chapter, and had pick of the crop as far as loot, drug money, and any passing pussy was concerned.
Heck, he was like a lion in charge of his pride. He had the shiniest bike, the most patches (he sported Red Wings, Black Wings, the Dequiallo, and even an ultra-rare Filthy Few shoulder blaze), the smoothest leathers, and the foulest body odour of any of the males in his war party. What did he care? Who was going to argue with him? Who was going to cause him any grief? He had a steel plate in his skull, a rivet in one arm, a punctured lung, scars on his back, shoulder, and neck, a perforated eardrum, and occasional tinnitus, which made him very irritable indeed.
Tonight, the tinnitus was real bad. And the only thing that made the tinnitus halfway bearable was either a fight, or pussy, or both. That way, he was able to forget about the hissing in his ears for a pleasurable hour or two.
This particular Friday night he was surrounded by an assorted mob of what the Hells Angels termed hang-arounds, associates, and prospects. Wannabes, in other words, amenable to just about whatever Skip chose to throw at them. A lot of the main chapter members had taken to avoiding Skip’s company on a Friday night, either because they were getting too old, or too comfortable, or didn’t want their women outraged by anyone other than themselves. This pissed Skip off, and he was prone to take his revenge in unexpected and inventive ways.
Running the hang-arounds was one of his neatest tricks. Most of them were so desperate to join the One Percenters (the 99 per cent of remaining bikers being considered law-abiding – what the Angels sarcastically called ‘Citizens’), that Skip could just about do what he wanted with them. Aim a hang-around at a bunch of Citizens and let him loose – that was Skip’s motto. Then he’d stand back and watch the mayhem. Get in a lick here or there with a sawn-off pool cue. Smash a few knife-hands. All good fun and games. No one got killed. No one got seriously hurt – unless you called a few lost teeth, a broken nose or two, and maybe a cracked rib, pain.
Skip’s newest trick consisted of spraying people with triple-action pepper spray when they least expected it. One shot in the eyes, and you could do what the hell you wanted without any danger of a comeback. Tonight, Skip had a can of pepper spray, a sawn-off pool cue, a Kau Sin Ke Chinese fighting chain, and a switchblade in his armoury. The tinnitus was getting so bad that he had to grind his teeth together to counteract the sound – it was like being tied underneath a damned waterfall in Yellowstone Park. He desperately needed an outlet – some way of switching his attention to outside his head.
He flung Alabama Mama’s main door wide open, and strode in, followed by his little coterie of hangers-on. It was early yet. Far too early for any real fun. So Skip intended to hit the mescal for an hour or two, and then take whatever happened in through the door. What he wasn’t expecting was that his evening’s entertainment would already be in situ.
Skip allowed his eyes to trail lazily across the dance floor. Sweet Jesus. Who were the bunch of freaks huddling together around a far-off table? He was so surprised at the sight of them that he even stopped for a moment to stare as if in wonder. As if he’d witnessed some minor sort of miracle. Then he saw Aldinach at the bar.
‘She’s mine,’ he said to the hang-around nearest him. ‘Go fetch.’
The barman came hurrying over towards the assembled Angels. ‘Skip, no trouble tonight. You hear me? Last time around you almost got me canned. Drinks on the house, huh? Tequilas all round. How’s about that?’
‘Mescal. And beer chasers.’
‘Sure, Skip. Anything you say.’
The Angels sat down. Skip watched the hang-around angling towards the woman at the bar. Asshole. What was he doing? Fishing for cut-throats?
‘You. Miss. Care to have a drink with us?’ Skip’s voice was loud – stentorian even. As if he was shouting orders down a communications tube.
Aldinach stood up. She looked around with her head canted to one side, as if she wasn’t quite sure the yell had really come from Skip’s table. ‘That would be very nice.’
The hang-around had only just reached her. Now he drew back in horror. What was the slit thinking of? Was she blind? He had anticipated a little local difficulty in persuading her to come across to the Angels’ table. A straight no, maybe, followed by a ‘fuck off’. He had then intended to try a little wheedling, upon which he would have headed disconsolately back and left the whole thing up to Skip. Let the motherfucker harvest his own pussy.
Instead, the woman gathered up her drink from the bar and accompanied the hang-around voluntarily across the floor.
The barman met them halfway. He raised his eyebrows dramatically when he caught Aldinach’s eye, and then shook his head, as though abrogating all further responsibility for his former client. He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t have a death wish.
Skip got up and offered Aldinach a chair. His manner was studiously polite. Rather like a man who intends to lull a companion into a false sense of security, before snatching the chair away just as they sit down.
He could scarcely believe his luck. What was the slit thinking of? Did she like rough trade, maybe? Was she out for a Friday night she would never forget? And what did he care?
‘You want a shot of mescal?’
‘No. I’d like another margarita.’
‘Coming up.’ Skip yelled across at the barman, who waved a hand in weary acknowledgement.
Aldinach looked around at the table of Angels. ‘You’re all dressed alike. Are you members of some club, perhaps?’
Skip grinned. ‘You could call it that. The “share and share alike” club.’
‘Oh, really? I have never heard of that.’
‘My name’s Skip. What your name, sweetheart?’
‘You can call me Desiree.’
‘You French or something?’
‘I’m from Louisiana. Lake Charles.’
‘Should have guessed.’ Skip hesitated. ‘By the way you dress.’
‘Do you like the way I dress?’
‘Jesus Christ. Do you get this dame?’ Skip glanced around at his hangers-on. He was beginning to look ever so slightly nonplussed.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘Sure. I like the way you dress. I like it fine.’
Aldinach stood up. ‘I must go to the powder room. You’ll wait for me, won’t you? You won’t go away?’
Skip nearly let his chair tilt all the way over. He could hardly feel his tinnitus any more. There was no way on earth he was going to pass up on this broad. ‘You go right ahead, honey. We’ll all be here when you get back.
’
Aldinach weaved her way amongst the tables. As she passed close to her brothers and sisters she smiled, and raised one questioning eyebrow. Oni glanced quickly across to the Angels’ table and shrugged.
‘Those freaks bothering you, sister?’ Skip was standing up now. He could feel a sudden knot in the pit of his stomach.
‘Yes.’ Aldinach turned around. ‘They have said a disgusting thing to me. And that you Angels are pussies.’
Oni sighed. He looked across at his brothers and sisters. ‘Abi will be angry with us if we do this.’
Berith shrugged. ‘Who cares?’
Oni glanced across at Rudra, Alastor, and Asson. ‘You three on?’
Nawal nudged him. ‘What about us girls?’
Oni smiled. ‘You can mop up after us.’ He stood up and turned towards the Angels.
‘Hey boys,’ Skip said. ‘The fucking circus just came to town.’
30
It was an uneven fight. The hang-arounds didn’t really have their hearts in it. The main problem was that no one had tanked up yet on beer and mescal and crank. The Skunks weren’t honed. They had no edge to them.
The fat guy, and the thin guy, and the harelip guy, and the guy that limped, all moved one way, and the albino giant just came straight at them through the tables. Drinkers scattered in every direction. The female freaks circled around the outside of the fight like barracuda, watching for an opening.
Each of the freaks drew fighting batons from their sleeves. Seeing this, a few of the hang-arounds began to lose heart.
The albino reached them first. Christ, but he was fucking enormous.
Two of the hang-arounds drew knives, to sort of puncture his morale, but he just swept over them with his fighting baton, cracking the head of one, and smashing in the other man’s teeth.
By this time the four other male freaks had hit the ground running. Batons were swirling and swishing through the air. Bones were cracking – hang-arounds were screaming.
The Mayan Codex as-2 Page 18
