He looked down on her, and in this light, from this angle, she didn’t look half bad, actually. He wondered if he could maybe get Thor to find a little interest there. He could certainly use the distraction.
Then she stuck a cigarette into her mouth and he changed his mind. “I was hoping you’d blow off that little job you had tonight and stay here with me instead.”
“Can’t. Need the money.”
“You can’t need the money. You’ve got that cushy civil service job with benefits. You sure don’t spend your money on me. Where does it all go?”
He wanted to tell her to shut up, but he didn’t. He silently dressed, tied his shoes, and walked out into the darkening twilight. He ought to have said good-bye, he ought to have kissed her, she worked so hard to get him going, he ought to have said thanks, see you soon, but he didn’t have the stomach for any of it.
He didn’t have the stomach for his future. Not his immediate future, not his long-range future. He didn’t have the stomach for much, and he sure didn’t have the stomach for worn-out Eileen. He heard her yell something to him as he was walking out the front door, but the only word he caught was “Clover.” He knew her heart was in the right place about Clover, and that was a big point in her favor.
But maybe he could find somebody else from here on out. He always felt dirty when he was through with Eileen. Maybe that’s what his dick was trying to tell him.
He parked in Gretta’s parking lot and checked the cash in his wallet.
He found ten bucks, stuck his wallet back in his pocket, and went in to get a bowl of soup or a sandwich or something that would take the edge off the Southern Comfort and the taste of Eileen’s cigarettes. He caught sight of himself in the reflection of the glass door and resolved to get to the gym. Tomorrow. He’d drop a few pounds, tighten up the abs, find himself a decent woman and maybe think about settling down. Give up these midnight jobs for the mayor. Start feeling good about himself again.
But, shit, it was hard. He couldn’t afford his trashy little lifestyle as it was. How was he going to attract a decent woman?
Maybe he’d fluff up his resume and send it on to the police station over in Sacramento. That might be the best thing. Maybe after tonight, the mayor would give him a good recommendation to go with it.
He pushed open the door and smelled the fried grease. It added to his discomfort, but he choked it down, sat at the counter and felt a tired smile come across his face when Veronica greeted him. Veronica set a cup of hot coffee in front of him, and he doused it with sugar and cream while he ordered.
He ate the beef barley soup and a whole basket of crackers, and when that was finished, he was feeling better and it was ten o’clock. Maybe he’d get to the meeting place early and wait. Maybe the whole thing could be over with early and he could go home and sleep for a couple of days. Call in sick and stay in bed. Maybe he’d just quit. But on the heels of that thought was the thought of that stack of unpaid bills on top of his refrigerator. One of these days he’d have to go through them and see what needed to be paid.
Meantime, he thought, as he pushed the bundle of envelopes out of his mind, he had work to do.
He paid the tab, flirted a little bit with Veronica, although she was way too old for him, and got into his car. He took a deep breath, said out loud, “Let’s get this over with,” and revved the engine a couple of times before putting it in gear and slowly backing out of the diner parking lot.
~ ~ ~
Brenda and Clover watched him go.
“He never even saw us,” Clover said in wonderment.
“This isn’t a very big place,” Brenda said.
“Don’t you look around to see who’s in a place when you first go in? Especially a place like this?”
Brenda nodded.
“I mean in case you’ve got friends sitting in a booth, and you might want to join them?”
Brenda nodded.
“Everybody looks around. Everybody always looks around in the donut shop, too.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have any friends.”
“He’s got other things on his mind,” Clover said, and again she wondered where Denny was and what was going to happen to them all as a result of this approaching night. “I’ve got to take care of York in the morning,” she said to Brenda. “I think I’ll call in to work and tell them I can’t make it.”
“I did that today,” Brenda said. “I better not do it tomorrow, too.”
Clover nodded. “You need to get home?”
“Yeah. I hate to, but it’s after ten already. I ought to get some sleep. You going to be all right by yourself?”
“Sure,” Clover said, but she had no idea what she was going to do to occupy her mind. She couldn’t even ask Denny to call her when it was all over. “It’s getting dark.”
They paid their tab and walked out together, said their good-byes, almost but not quite engaged in a hug, and Brenda went one way while Clover went the other.
Clover headed for home, knowing she ought to be there and be safe, and wait for word. It was going to be hard. She could make her list of places to call in the morning for York. She could paint that picture frame she’d been wanting to decorate. Maybe she’d get out some glue and put some beads on it, too. Or the shells she’d picked up last time she went to the beach. Maybe she could occupy her hands with that project while she thought about Denny and tried to make it all right that he had up and scampered away. It was hard for her to believe it one way, but in another way, she’d been expecting it.
By the time she got home, the streetlights were on, it was pitch black, and she was glad Denny was gone. He was going to suck her youth away. It was time she found a nice guy she could have babies with, somebody who had a car and a job and a future. She was certain there were guys like that out there, she just had to open her eyes. Denny had put blinders on her, but now the blinders were coming off, and Clover was on the prowl for a man.
It hurt kind of good, the feeling, and she laughed through the couple of tears that squeezed out of her heart and fell off her eyelids. A new life, a new adventure.
~ ~ ~
Denny woke up when he heard the car door slam and for a moment he couldn’t figure out where he was. He squinted and looked around. Dark. He moved a little bit and realized he was in the front seat of a car. Truck. He moved his head and felt the enormous ache that came with the colossal knot on the front of his forehead. He moved to touch his forehead and found the spotlight in his hand. The cord was plugged into the cigarette lighter.
Jesus. It was dark. He’d fallen asleep under too many pain pills. Who knows what could have happened down at the tracks. Deputy Dawg may have beaten York to death by now, and it would have all been his fault.
He sat up, but as his mind began to clear, he searched mentally for the sound that woke him. It had been a car door slamming. Somebody else was in the motor pool. He had to be careful.
He unplugged the light, slipped it inside his jacket, zipped up the jacket and slid out of the car as quickly as possible, then shut the door quietly to minimize the interior light. Then he crouched by the rear tire, listening to the night, listening for voices. Nothing. Just the sounds of the night.
Then, the crunch of footsteps. Denny ran in a crouch as quietly as he could until he could see who was illuminated under the security light at the front gate. It was the deputy himself.
Good. Denny ran the other way, found the breach in the fence and scampered through, headed hell-bent for home, trying to ignore the pounding in his head, which felt with every footfall as if his cranium would fly apart. He checked to make sure the slingshot was still tucked into the back of his jeans, and he didn’t stop running until he hit the top of the path.
“It’s me,” he called as he walked down. He didn’t want Sly ambushing him at the bottom.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Sly asked.
“I got the light, and it had to get charged up,” Denny said.
“Jesus Christ,” Sly s
aid. He was relieved that Denny hadn’t deserted them, but the fact that Denny was back didn’t help their situation all that much. They hadn’t trained. He’d practiced with his slingshot a few times, agitation building in him to the snapping point, but now the time was at hand.
“Deputy’s at the motor pool,” Denny said.
Sly nodded as if he knew something. “Douse the fire,” he said. “Everybody assume their positions.”
The two of them got York up amid a flurry of rotten newspaper powder, and had him sit on the overturned bucket right at the bottom of the path. “Maintain absolute silence,” Sly whispered. Denny smothered the small fire with dirt and let the starlight illuminate the camp. The eastern horizon glowed with imminent moonrise.
“Full moon’s coming,” York said.
“Shhh,” Sly said.
“Full moon’s going to have its way with all of us.”
“Quiet.”
They maintained their silence, York sitting on the bucket with the light in his hands, Sly and Denny on either side of him, wrist rockets at the ready. They knew that it wasn’t going to be long before the ambush, and all three of them wanted it over quickly.
~ ~ ~
“Ready?” Sonny Topolo called out to Travis as they pulled up in the van. “Leave your car.”
Travis slid open the side door and got in.
“Here’s the plan,” Sonny said. “We’re cleaning out that place tonight. Everybody goes. They either go to the hospital, to the morgue, or down the line. Tomorrow morning the dozers make a park down there. Everybody clear?”
“Morgue?” Travis didn’t like the sound of that.
“They make trouble, we’re just defending ourselves.”
Silence.
“Everybody okay with that?”
“Hell, yes,” the guy in the passenger seat said.
Travis felt himself shrinking inside his skin.
“You? You there in the back?”
“Yeah, I guess, sure, okay, let’s do it.”
“All right,” the driver said, he put it in gear and they headed out.
~ ~ ~
“I gotta go, baby,” Steve said to Athena.
“Nooo,” she moaned, and threw a well-formed leg over his hip.
He rubbed the outside of her thigh, and then around to her muscular butt, up the small of her back, and he felt her wiggle a little bit under the caress, but his mind was already on other matters.
“Mr. Mayor?”
“Stop that now,” he said, and tried to push her leg off him.
“Can I start thinking of what my social programs are going to be when I’m First Lady of West Wheaton?”
“Yes, you can.”
“What about when I’m First Lady of California?”
“Whoa. I’m no politician, Athena. You know that. I’ll run for mayor, because this is where we live, but when the term is up, we’ll retire and I’ll help you in the garden.”
“You’ll help me in the garden?” She raised up on an elbow and looked at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“What if you run and don’t get elected? Then will you help me in the garden earlier?”
“I’m done with you, woman.”
“Obviously.” She pulled her leg back and rolled over, her back to him, hugging a pillow. “Come home, use me, abuse me, and then leave again like a thief in the night.”
“I’ll be back for another round.”
“In your dreams, cowboy.”
She lay quietly, listening to him dress, thinking again, for the millionth time at least, that she was the luckiest woman in the world. She loved how he made love to her, and she loved how he came home to share information with her, his triumphs and his defeats in life. She loved how when he was triumphant, his first thought was to come home and make love to her, and whenever he had experienced defeat, he came home and she always wanted to make love to him. And so it went. Life was good. Better than good. And soon he’d be mayor.
He kissed her on the cheek, and she looked up just in time to see him wearing a short sleeve sweatshirt and jeans, not the uniform she expected to see him in. “You okay?”
“I’m going to see to York tonight,” he said. “I want to make sure nothing bad happens down there. I don’t trust Travis.”
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too, babe,” he responded.
“Honey?”
He stopped and looked back at her from the doorway.
“Be careful.”
“Always,” he said, and headed out.
~ ~ ~
As soon as Sly heard the van pull up and stop at the top of the hill, he knew who it was and what they were coming for. “This is it,” he whispered to Denny and York.
“Where are the cops?”
“Fuck ’em,” Sly said. “Can’t count on nobody but ourselves.” He turned to Denny. “Aim low, boy. We don’t want to get arrested for putting eyes out. Ready? Lock and load,” and with that, he and Denny both loaded their mouths with ball bearings, and each put one in the leather of their slingshots.
York, sitting on a bucket at the bottom of the path, tensed, his hand on the spotlight trigger. He knew the signal, that Sly would tap him on the elbow when it was time for him to turn the light on, but they should have practiced this. It was too important to be flying by the seat of their pants.
He heard the van doors slam, heard men’s harsh whispered voices, felt the heavy footfalls as they came around the van and then started, single-file, down the path, momentum carrying them a little too fast.
York’s heart started to pound until he couldn’t get enough air through his nose. He opened his mouth to breathe. He wished he could see. He wished he could see the full moon, wished he could see the faces of those he was about to illuminate.
He felt the tap on his elbow. He pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
The light took a moment to wake up, but when it blazed, it lit the place up like a movie set. Even York could see the thick blackberries on both sides of the dirt path. Sly reached down and grabbed York’s wrist and aimed the light right at the eyes of the first man to come down from the street, while Denny let fly with a ball bearing. It hit the first man square in the chest.
“Ow, fuck, what was that?”
“What?” The next guy bumped into the first guy who had stopped suddenly by the blazing light and the ball bearing in his chest, and they both stumbled a few steps closer. The second guy took a ball bearing to the nuts and brought his knee up in painful reflex, falling back on Travis, who was bringing up the rear.
Sly and Denny hit them with hot little ball bearings as fast as they could spit them into their hands and pull back on the surgical tubing rubber bands. They stopped aiming and just kept firing. In the brilliance of the surreal light, the three men were ambushed by stinging bullets like invisible bees bombarding them from unknown sources. Everything was eerily silent except their exclamations of pain and confusion. There seemed nowhere to go, no way to turn that would get them away from the light and the stings. And the goddamned blackberry brambles that grabbed at their clothes and ripped through their skin.
Sly spit a ball bearing into his hand, pulled back hard on the rubber, but it slipped out of his fingers before he could aim.
Travis elbowed his way past thrashing railroad guys, pushing both of them into the brambles. He was blinded by the light, but someone needed to be in charge, and since he was the law, he thought it ought to be him. He stepped around the cursing men—why was it so goddamned quiet?—and took one step too many.
Something white hot hit Travis on the ankle bone. “Ow. Fuck!” As he bent down to rub it, grimacing puzzlement mixed with fear, a steel pea released by Denny, aimed low, hit him square in the mouth. Travis heard the tooth crack and tasted the warm blood. He spit both into the dirt, and backed up the path. Blind with the startling light, he got himself caught up in the blackberry brambles with the two other guys, which grabbed his skin
and tore his arms. “Jesus fuck!” he said, then turned and tried to run up the hill back to the van, but he couldn’t see anything but floating globes in front of his eyes. He felt the railroad guys right behind him. He kept hearing the whiz of the dangerous missiles as they barely missed his head, hit the top of his ear, stung his neck, the back of his arm. The other guys were feeling the stings, too.
Travis finally stumbled to the street, just as a car came around the corner. He sat down on the curb and felt around in his mouth. There was just a jagged piece of tooth that hurt like holy hell in the space next to his left front tooth. What the fuck had just happened down there?
“Travis?”
Oh, great. The sheriff.
Travis heard the van doors slam, the engine roar to life, and the van pulled out, leaving him behind. Those railroad guys were chicken shits. He opened his mouth and spit more blood onto the street.
“You okay?”
“Fuck, no, I’m not okay,” he said. “They ambushed us. They’ve got some kind of weapons down there.”
Steve Goddard kicked the baseball bat that was lying on the street next to where the pathetic Travis sat with blood running down his chin and staining a streak on his shirt. “What’s that? Not a weapon, is it? No ambush planned from this end, right?”
“Can you get me to the hospital?” Travis whined.
“Yeah. Are York and those guys all right?”
“Hell, yes,” Travis said. “We didn’t even get close. We couldn’t even see them.”
Steve smiled to himself, helped Travis up, and put him in the cruiser. And Steve had thought he was going to have to protect those hobos. As if they needed him. They were street people. They lived in the jungle. They knew how to protect themselves.
~ ~ ~
While there was no yelping and high fives down at York’s place, the three men were silently pleased with the outcome of their plan.
Sly took the light from York and turned it out. The world went dark for a while, until their eyes adjusted. Then the big yellow moon began to show itself.
Denny helped York off the bucket and back to his bed, and once he was settled, Denny and Sly quietly elbowed each other with pleased congratulations. Denny was glad the light was out; it was making his head pound. He was glad it had never been aimed straight at him. Jeez, it was like the spotlight from hell.
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