Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca?

by G. M. Ford

  "Heeeeee." He stepped back and waited.

  I stood still. I knew that if I moved to wipe it off, he'd kill me.

  "That's enough, goddammit, Wesley."

  Wesley stepped back, rubbing his thighs together. His eyes were glazed. His breath was coming in short gasps. He raised the gun to my forehead. I closed my eyes, calling to my father, waiting for whatever came next.

  What came next was so out of context my brain refused to process it.

  "Do I have to tell the ladies?" Frank asked resignedly.

  Behind my eyelids, I heard Wesley's breaths lengthen. I slit one eye and peeked out. Wesley had moved back three more steps. The gun was at his side. He was silently wagging his head at Frank. Frank smiled.

  "Get the girl."

  Wesley stiffened, but kept wagging his head.

  "I won't touch the filthy bitch."

  Frank sighed.

  "You" - Frank waved the gun at me - "pick up the girl."

  I bent at the waist and pulled Caroline to her feet. She took her hands from her face. Her nose was bleeding. Bits of grass and debris clung to her hair. She gazed disbelievingly down at her bloody hands.

  "Hands on top of your heads," Frank ordered.

  I laced my fingers over my scalp. Caroline still stared at her hands.

  "Let's go. This way." He gestured with the gun.

  Nudging Caroline before me, I started toward the closer end of the building. Frank and Wesley fell in behind. Instinctively, I veered left, toward the darkness.

  "Toward the lights," Frank growled. I angled back the other way.

  I stepped as slowly as possible toward the small brick building that held down the center of the yard. I wanted the sixty yards to last forever. I shortened my stride. Wesley rewarded me with a kick in the kidney. As I stumbled from the impact, Caroline grabbed one hand onto my belt.

  Wesley's electric-motor giggle picked up speed as we neared the building. He loped around in front of us to get the door. a single trapezoid of yellow light fell from the interior of the building onto a small cement porch.

  Wesley held the door wide.

  I hesitated at the doorway. Frank, using his forearm as a club, drove Caroline into my back and me through the door.

  It was stifling in the little building. Ninety degrees, at least. Worn black-and-white linoleum squares clashed horribly with the yellowed pine shiplap on the walls. The single room was nearly empty. The walls were bare. An orange Naugahyde secretarial chair and two gray filing cabinets, their drawers hanging open and empty, were all that was left. We'd walked in on moving day.

  The saunalike heat was being produced by a small, black rectangular woodstove in the corner. The little stove was working overtime on the enormous sheaf of paperwork being systematically fed in through the open door by Blanche Hammer. Eunice leaned in the shadows of the west wall, impassive, knitting furiously.

  Chapter 29

  Blanche Hammer glanced up only long enough to register mild annoyance and then resolutely went back to feeding the last of the documents into the fire. The clicking of Eunice's knitting needles provided staccato percussion to the dull roaring of the flames. After banking the blaze with a final pyre of manila folders, Blanche shut the stove door and turned our way.

  "Your timing leaves a great deal to be desired," she said. "Another hour and we would have been gone, and we could have avoided all this unpleasantness. Most unfortunate."

  Her tone was that of a tolerant adult scolding a child. She brushed her chubby hands together. Either she was trying to remove loose dust, or she was doing a Pontius Pilate impression. I suspected the latter.

  "He killed Marvin, Miss Hammer," blurted Wesley. "Stove his head in with a pipe."

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully and shuffled closer.

  "Well, Wesley," she said soothingly, "Marvin was a good boy, but I'm afraid Marvin had nearly outlived his usefulness anyway." I was touched by the outpouring of sentiment.

  She turned to me, eyeing me closely.

  "You were with Tom Romans at the conference, weren't you?" I didn't answer. No matter. She put it together for herself. "You must be the inquisitive Mr. Waterman," she said after a minute.

  I must have looked surprised. "Your friend, Mr. Knox, with - er - a little encouragement, was quite informative."

  I strained forward. Frank tightened his grip around my throat.

  "He was just a harmless old man," I croaked.

  "Harmless? Hardly, Mr. Waterman. Mr. Knox was scarcely the type to be acting of his own accord. It was essential that we knew who else was involved. One spies at one's own peril, Mr. Waterman. This is a war we are engaged in. I'm sure you understand."

  "Can I have him, Miss Blanche?" Wesley asked impatiently.

  "In just a bit," she said distractedly. For the first time, she noticed Caroline standing behind me. She came closer.

  "Now what do we have here?" she said, peering around me. "This must be the young lady who's been making such a nuisance of herself down at the transfer station. What's your name, dearie?"

  The cultured civility of Blanche's tone gave Caroline false hope. She straightened her spine, wiped her face with one hand, and worked up her most imperious tone.

  "My name is Caroline Nobel, and if you have any decency, you will tell these Neanderthals to release Mr. Waterman and me, this instant."

  Blanche's face crinkled in amusement. She turned. "Did you hear that, Eunice? Nosey Miss Nobel insists that we release her this instant."

  There was no need to raise her voice. Eunice was at her elbow. She'd stopped knitting and was fixed on Caroline like a pointing retriever. She leaned down and whispered at length into Blanche's ear. Blanche listened patiently. Eunice straightened up, gazing expectantly at Blanche.

  "If you must," Blanche said. "But you'll have to be quick about it."

  Blanche turned her attention to me. Eunice began rooting around furiously in her knitting bag. Blanche smiled sweetly at Caroline.

  "I'm afraid, Miss Nobel, that allowing the two of you to leave is out of the question. It was thoughtful of you, however, to give us this last opportunity to tie up our loose ends. We do like to keep things neat, if we can. What with the boys going their separate ways and the greedy Mr. Short out of the picture, you two were just about the last two worrisome creatures left in the forest, so to speak. Were we to allow you two to leave here tonight, why, that could put an end to our work, and we couldn't have that, could we? There's so much more to be done. I'm sure you understand."

  "More PCBs to dump."

  "Oh no, Mr. Waterman, I'm afraid your infernal meddling has put a temporary end to that. For the time being, we'll just have to go back to recycling oil, like we've always done. It's a very important service, you know. I can't tell you how many people still pour their used motor oil down the storm drains, never thinking that the drains run directly back into our precious waters."

  She put one finger coyly along her cheek. "When things calm down, well, we'll see," she added. "Now - " She looked to Frank and Wesley.

  "How can anybody who's supposedly so concerned about our waters justify illegal dumping toxic waste?" I asked quickly, trying to buy time.

  "Two steps forward and one step back, Mr. Waterman. Compromises have to be made. The environment has become big business. It took big business to despoil the land; it will take big business to return the land to its former splendor. You wouldn't believe how much money it takes to thwart the forces of corruption."

  Her eyes suddenly got black and hard. Her face tightened up. I flinched. The transformation was too quick. It takes sane people longer than that to go from one emotion to another.

  "I'm afraid Papa left his affairs in something of a mess. He didn't leave us nearly enough to fix all the damage he'd done." She looked disgustedly at Eunice. "Not that all of it could be fixed," she added. "The sins of the fathers, you know."

  "That's worth ruining several thousand acres of land?"

  "I'm afraid you've got it
backward, Mr. Waterman. We've save the land, not despoiled it. Papa did enough despoiling for all of us." She looked heavily at Eunice again. "You see, Mr. Waterman, we were going to tell the EPA about our dumping. Anonymously, of course. We wanted them to find it. It was vital that they find it. How else would it get cleaned up? We couldn't have those poisons leaching their way into the soil in perpetuity, now could we?'

  My blank expression seemed to encourage her.

  "It's the only way they'll do anything, Mr. Waterman. The government won't save anything, wont' reclaim anything, won't protect anything that produces even the slightest ripple of economic inconvenience for business, unless you rub their noses in it." She was on a roll.

  "What about the spotted owl?"

  "Oh, yes, the dreaded spotted owl," she said sarcastically. "The Endangered Species Act and all that. Makes good reading. Within sixty days of shutting down the logging of old-growth forests, do you know what they did? Interior Secretary Lujan promptly turned around and appointed a special committee with the power to override the act. In Washington, they're calling them the God Squad. They're entitled to decide which species they'll allow to become extinct."

  "I don't see how that justifies what you've been doing."

  "That's because you, like most of our other well-intentioned citizenry, are a short-term thinker, Mr. Waterman. I can't begin to tell you the good we've done with the money we made on that dumping. Buuut" - she drew it out - "the money from the dumping was only a beneficial side effect. We hit upon that almost by mistake. All we really wanted to do was to save that beautiful property from any more useless development. Lord knows we don't need any more condos or gold courses. We were merely trying to evoke the federal superfund law. The PCBs were just a way to stop development. We had no idea about potential profits. Next thing we knew, the money just came rolling in." Her eyes twinkled. "The Lord provides in mysterious ways."

  "The federal superfund law?"

  "A wonderful piece of legislation." She clapped her hands lightly. "It says that property owners are responsible for the cleanup of any toxic elements found on their property. Contaminated property can't be sold or developed until it gets a clean bill of health from the EPA. That piece of property will be tied up for decades to come." She smiled at the thought.

  "It was already tied up in court. You didn't have to - "

  "That was us. Who else was going to do it? The government? Don't make me laugh. The tribe? Lately, they're nearly as bad as the government. It's costing us a fortune to keep them in court - those mercenary lawyers have no sense of moral purpose. And do you know what we get for trying to stem the tide of development?" She didn't wait for an answer. She was screaming now. "Legal bills. That's what we get. We lose. We always lose. They own the courts. The developers always win. It was our turn. Our turn."

  Before I could say anything, her face turned back into a stone mask.

  "Wesley. You and Frank take care of Mr. Waterman. Be quick about it, I want to be out of here within fifteen minutes."

  "Fifteen minutes?" whined Wesley. "I need - " She cut him off, cold. "Fifteen minutes is plenty of time for your fun. I'm limiting. Eunice to a similar amount of time with Miss Nobel here. Now get to it, young man."

  Eunice grunted as she yanked a cluttered collection of ominous-looking crochet hooks and knitting needles from the bag. Several pieces of yarn were caught up in the hooks. She frowned as she worked to free them. Her eyes burned with the same anticipation that made her bony fingers tremble.

  It was now or forever hold my peace.

  I threw my head back. I heard Frank's nose break under the impact. Half-turning, I clamped his gun arm under mine and swung him back into Wesley. We hit the door in a tangled heap. Caroline, suddenly a snarling tiger, went at Wesley's eyes with her thumbs. He screamed, a high-pitched, inhuman sound, flailing with his arms, trying both to protect his eyes and to get some room to maneuver. Frank and I had him pinned against the door.

  Frank, who I suspected had had his nose broken before, staged an immediate recovery. He clamped his free arm around my throat and began to apply ungodly pressure. My own pulse drummed in my ears above the sounds of Wesley's screams."

  "Bad move, pilgrim," he grunted.

  Mustering one last burst of oxygenated energy, I brought Frank's gun hand down hard over my left knee. The gun clattered to the floor somewhere behind me. No go. The pressure on my throat increased exponentially. I could feel my movements going into slow motion, like I was running underwater. I began to float. Only Wesley's hysterical keening kept me conscious. A muffled shot burped in the tiny doorway. The pressure behind my eyes again increased.

  For a second, all sound and movement ceased, as everything waited for the pain that follows the impact. Nothing. Pound by pound, the pressure on my throat began to lessen. Frank began to drop to his knees; his belt buckle caught on the back of my belt as he slid down. Before he could fall, I turned and shouldered him back into Wesley, who was pinned in the doorway, staring disbelievingly upward at the smoking nine-millimeter, now held high above his head. I lunged for the gun, pinning his arm to the wall.

  "She touched meee. She touched meee," he slobbered.

  My left shoulder caught fire. A searing cramp ran down the length of my body, knotting my hamstring, putting my foot to sleep. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Eunice using both hands to stir the bright blue knitting needles around in my back. I felt it scrape bone. I opened my mouth to scream but came up dry, empty, and dark.

  Wesley, in his fever to escape Caroline, bowled both Frank and me over backward. Our combined weight broke Eunice's grip on the needle. I fell to the floor at her feet, banging the embedded spike on the linoleum as I rolled over. My vision swam and then refocused in time to see Blanche pick up the gun and squint myopically down the sights. I waited for the tearing.

  Without Frank to muffle the sound, the second report was horrendous. The sound waves seemed to lodge themselves in the yellowed softwood walls.

  The shot took Frank high in the forehead, painting the door behind him with a ghastly collage of hair and tissue. His face didn't register surprise, only a sense of wonder as the impact bowled him over.

  Blanche turned the gun on me. Wesley hopped over and filled the space between the sisters. "I didn't mean to shoot Frank."

  He stayed partially behind Blanche while he gazed beseechingly up at Eunice. "It was her fault," he said pointing at Caroline. "She touched me. You saw her. You'll fix her, won't you?"

  "Never mind, Wesley." Blanche kept the gun steadily aimed at my midsection as she spoke. "Accidents will happen. We were going to have to do something about Frank anyway. Get that tape we were using on the boxes from over by the stove."

  Wesley hurried over and returned with a full roll of dull silver duct tape.

  "Tape Mr. Waterman's hands behind him. He's proven to be quite a distraction. We can't be having any more accidents, now can we?"

  As Wesley came around behind me with his tape, Caroline came off the doorjamb like a missile. "You - you - " she screamed. She never made it.

  Wesley roundhoused the nine-millimeter up beside her head with a crack, catching her coming forward, midstride, dropping her to the floor. Raising the gun high overhead, he made a move to smash her in the face while she was down. I was paralyzed. Eunice growled like a bear. He stopped.

  "Okay, I won't," he said contritely.

  Wesley made it a point to scramble the needle in my shoulder around in a wide circle before jerking my hands behind me and taping them together.

  I briefly blacked out. From the bottom of a deep fog bank, I barely heard Blanche Hammer's next instruction.

  "Drag Miss Nobel out of the way over into the middle of the floor, so your mother has a little elbow room, and then take Mr. Waterman out to the maintenance shed and dispose of him. We've wasted too much time here already. Put him in a barrel when you've finished with him."

  My vision blurred back in time to see Wesley take Caroline by t
he feet and drag her to the center of the room. Eunice picked up her purple knitting bag and followed. Blanche held up her free hand.

  "I know how much this means to you two, but I'm afraid we're going to have to hurry. Five minutes is all you get."

  Wesley skittered over in front of her. "Nobody heard, Miss Blanche. Five minutes isn't enough time."

  "Five minutes," she insisted, wagging a chubby finger at him.

  "Not fair," he bellowed. "Not again. You let Frank shoot that old bum before I even got a chance."

  "Don't sass me, Wesley. If five minute is good enough for my sister, it's good enough for you. Now hustle, young man. Time's a wastin' ."

  Wesley hustled. Grabbing me by the hair, he dragged me out the door and lobbed me off the little porch into the frozen grass.

  "Get up," he screamed in my ear. I stayed down. I'd already made up my mind. I was willing to die here. While he was trotting over to kick the door shut, I'd come to the realization that I was prepared to beg. Tears streamed down my face, without the act of crying. In that moment, I had become middle-aged. The imagined invulnerability of youth seemed absurd. I tried to speak, to plead for our lives, but nothing came out. Without intending to, I vomited into the sparkling grass.

  "Get up," he screamed. I stayed down, watching white spires of steam rise slowly from the pile of effluent in front of me.

  He kicked me in the small of the back, rattling the needle, sending red waves coursing through my head. I fell over on my left side. Wesley knelt beside me. He was breathing heavily. He set the gun down behind him in the grass and fished out a knife. He tilted the fluted blade in front of my eyes, letting the moonlight glint of the surface. "I'll cut you right here then," he breathed.

  "I'm gonna feed you your cock and balls," he whispered in my ear. "Heeeeee. They're gonna find you that way. Have you ever tasted your own cock? Heeeeee. When I was young, I used to - "

  He stopped babbling and suddenly went on alert.