Cookie Dominguez and the Busy Bees operated two jerky stands at either end of town. Originally, the Bees sold topographical maps of the area—Cookie’s version of Hollywood Maps to the Stars. Hunters would stop to get a map of the BLM and National Forest lands that were available to the public. They would then show Cookie, on those maps, where they were camping and place their orders for liquor and prostitutes. Cookie would ride the women up the mountain on ATV’s and pick them up in the morning. With the Christmas only two months away, there was no shortage of women needing cash. The hunters, most of them sorely lacking in outdoor skills, stood no better than a 10 percent chance of getting an elk. Those lucky enough to get one either shot theirs illegally in the middle of a county road or in someone’s yard. The brilliance of Cookie’s service was that even those who were unlucky could still go home with a wonderful memory of Vanadium. Unfortunately, over time, the hunters began to prefer Internet pornography to his flabby-fleshed lineup. Cookie, too smart a businessman to buck a trend, replaced prostitution with selling jerky. The Busy Bee vacuum-packed jerky was, of course, a loss leader. The real sales were in meth rocks and loose joints.
Each of Cookie’s jerky stands was positioned over a storm drain. The counter man had a piece of kite string tied to his finger. At the end of that string was a daisy chain of Ziploc bags containing several thousand dollars worth of black market goods hanging inside the storm drain. When a customer requested some weed or methamphetamines, the counter man would simply reel up the bags and package it with a small bag of jerky. In the event of a bust, the Busy Bee would simply release the string, make note of the amount and report it to accounting as a write-down. This system worked so well that Cookie decided to expand his drug franchise over the Fourth of July weekend by selling meth along with fireworks.
Buster had spent the last couple of weeks frantically preparing his spike camp for Mallomar’s arrival. He was making his last trip to the grocery store when he happened to see Cookie serving up his special jerky to a young hunter with “Sooner” plates. Their eyes met momentarily as he drove past and Cookie glowered at him. Buster thought about what Jimmy had said regarding Cookie’s intentions to kill him and quickly decided to go have a word with him. Buster hit the brakes and made a U-turn. The screech of the brakes startled Cookie and he reached reflexively for his baby Glock embedded above his fat right butt cheek. It wasn’t there. He panicked. He’d forgotten that he’d moved it to his left butt cheek since the loss of his two right fingers. Cookie’s customer seemed uncomfortable with a stranger walking up and he made a quick exit to his fifth wheel.
“What the fuck do you want, fuck face?” Cookie said, as Buster sauntered over, unaware of Cookie’s real enterprise.
“Ah was jes thinkin’ that this here’s gone far ’nuff—with you and me clashin’ like.”
“Why don’t you learn to speak English, joto? This only gets settled one way. Now fuck off.”
“C’mon now, Cook. Why you talkin’ like that?”
“You want me to put you down right here? Is that what you want, culero?”
Cookie yanked his pistol out if the holster and let Buster have a peek at it under a laminated jerky menu.
Buster put his hands up. “Easy there, bollito.”
“Now you’ve done it!” Bollito, Spanish for cookie or biscuit, was what he only allowed his mother to call him. “Now you’re dead.” Buster closed his eyes and waited for the shot to ring out, but it didn’t. “Oh shit,” he heard Cookie say.
Buster opened his eyes to see that Sheriff Dudival had pulled over. He had not yet seen the gun. He had been distracted by a dead yellow bug on Buster’s right fender and stopped to scratch it off with his thumbnail. Cookie had the gun in his left hand and held the string to his drugs in his right.
“Uh, ah’d like to buy some jerky,” Buster said, trying to help everyone concerned. Cookie slid the gun back off the counter and held it at his side.
“Just take it and get the fuck out of here.”
“Ah ’spect to pay fer it.” Buster took a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet. There was no way Cookie could make change with his hands filled as they were.
“Did you hear what I said, you fuckin’ idiot?”
A customer slowed down to pick up some of Cookie’s fast-paced jerky, but when he saw the sheriff waiting at Buster’s truck, he sped up and drove away.
“Ah’m payin for it. No ifs, ands, er buts.”
“Just go, faggot. I don’t have change.”
“I have some change,” Sheriff Dudival said, overhearing.
Dudival reached for his wallet as he approached the stand. Cookie realized that his best option was to drop the gun in the grass behind him, but used to holding it in his right hand, he released the string by mistake. He shuddered as thirty thousand dollar’s worth of crank disappeared down the storm drain and splashed below. He wanted to kill both of them or kill himself—he was so angry but, after considering all outcomes, dropped the gun into the goldenrod behind him. “I’ve got ten singles. That any help?”
“Yeah,” Cookie said hoarsely.
Buster handed Cookie the ten and opened his package of jerky, tore off a piece with his big teeth and chomped it.
“Say…this here’s top shelf!”
Cookie smiled weakly as the sheriff provided the change.
“Buster, do you mind if I have a word with you…in private?”
“Nice visitin’, hermano,” Buster said.
“Yeah,” Cookie said, his mouth spitless.
Buster and the sheriff walked back to his truck.
“You’re working as a game guide now. Is that right?”
“Yessir. Elk and the like.”
“I presume you have a guide’s license?”
Did he have to ask that? Of course Buster didn’t have a guide’s license.
“Ah kinda don’t, seein’ as how ah’m doin’ this for a friend like.”
“Oh,” the sheriff said, wincing at his speech as much as his disregard for the law. “But…if you decide to make this a permanent commercial venture, you will need to file the proper paperwork. The Department of Wildlife is very specific about that.”
“’A course.”
“Do you have a tent cabin for your client?”
“Not yet, ah don’t.”
“I have one if you want to make use of it.”
“Golly, how’d you come acrost one a them?”
“Two hunters from Oklahoma went missing. They were found on Lone Cone this morning—all cozied up in their sleeping bags—dead. From what I could gather, asphyxiation. They must have closed the tent flaps and had the propane heater on all night. I contacted the family. They’re obese and can’t make it up the mountain to retrieve the tent. So, it’s yours for the asking.”
“Gosh…ah’m much obliged…”
“Come by the office and I’ll give you the map coordinates so you can haul it out.”
“But uh…what do ah owe ya, fer it?”
“Nothing.”
“Jiminy. Really? That booger gotta be worth a grand er more.”
“There’s just a small thing I’d like you to do for me.”
“Shoot.”
“This unpleasantness between you and Jimmy. I’d like to see it end. She feels sorry about what she did.”
“She can jes tell me that himself then.”
“You know her better than that.”
“Well, if she ain’t man ’nuff to ’pologize…” Buster got into his truck and rolled down the window. “Ah’d like to give you a side of elk in ’xchange for the tent, if you don’t mind…jes to keep thangs straight.”
“The rightful recipient of that would be Jimmy,” the sheriff said as Buster kicked over the engine. “She’s the one who found them.”
“Found who?”
“The dead hunters.”<
br />
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dang Fool
The day before the season opened, a Gulfstream IV flew into Montrose airport. The employees at the APO were waiting on the tarmac with disposable cameras. There were rumors that the plane belonged to Telluride property owner Oprah Winfrey. Some of the women employees brought out her latest book for her to sign personally. Then the plane landed, and Mallomar appeared at the top of the gangway waving to them like he was the president of the United States. They dispersed with disappointment and some with disgruntlement. But Buster got a small thrill driving his pickup truck—on the normally verboten tarmac—right up to the plane. The excitement turned to befuddlement, however, when he saw Mallomar’s crew unloading boxes and boxes of brand new equipment from every outdoor company known to man.
“Howdy, Buster!”
Buster winced as Mallomar approached the truck wearing a brand new plaid guide coat and a red Filson wool hat replete with earflaps.
“Uh, howdy there, Mr. Mallomar…”
“Why the look of consternation?” Mallomar said as he placed the same gum-shaped packet of hundred-dollar bills in his pilot’s hand.
“What’s all this stuff for?”
“It’s for our trip…why?”
“We’d need a mule train to carry all that stuff… Besides, you don’t need nuthin’ much more’n a pair of boots.”
Mallomar’s face clouded. He looked lovingly at the boxes containing the sub-forty-degree sleeping bag, the collapsible cooking stove, the portable shower—all the stuff he had had so much fun buying.
“What do I do for clothes, then?”
“Ah got some clothes for ya that ah’ve had settin outside unnerneath a pile of pine boughs to get the scent off ‘em.”
Mallomar thought about that for a moment. A big smile grew across his face. He ordered the pilot to put all the boxes back on the plane.
“I’m leaving my scent behind,” he explained to the sangfroid crew.
Everything went back in the plane except a pair of boots and two bottles of Macallan whiskey. Buster got back in the truck and was ready to roll, but Mallomar just stood outside the driver’s door.
“Problemo, Mr. Mallomar?”
“Uh…can I drive your truck?”
Mallomar owned two Mercedes, the twin to Prince Charles’s 1969 Aston Martin DB6, a Ferrari 380 GTS, and a 1934 Bugati. Why he wanted to get behind the wheel of Buster’s Chevy Apache was anybody’s guess.
“I never drove a pickup before,” he said shyly.
“Okay,” said Buster. “But go easy on ’er.”
Buster slid over on the bench seat and started to roll a quirley. Mallomar ground the Chevy noisily into reverse, then first. He looked around for his seat belt. There was none—the truck being manufactured before the mandate for safety regulations. Mallomar practically squealed with delight at this. And he had Buster roll him a cigarette even though he hadn’t had one in twenty-five years. Then he cranked open his window and stuck his arm out into the freezing night. Down the main drag they went—the radio tuned to “Maverick Country”—past McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Super Wal-Mart, past the Cattleman, the Dairy Queen, and the Red Barn. Mallomar was smiling so hard he looked like Arthur Bremer on his way to shoot Governor Wallace.
“I want to buy this truck.”
“Sorry, it ain’t for sale.”
“Give you thirty grand for it.”
“No thanks.”
“Fifty.”
“Sorry. It was a present from someone.”
“That’s twenty grand more than it’s worth!”
“Caint.”
When they pulled up to the first red light, Mallomar’s smile faded slightly as he looked over to see the demonic face of Cookie Dominguez framed in the window of his monster truck next to him. Cookie rolled down his passenger side window and leaned over.
“Hey!” he said making sure he had their attention. Then he motioned for Mallomar to lean over.
“What can I do for ya?” Mallomar said, colloquially.
“Do you know what this means?” Cookie made a “V” with his two blown off fingers.
“Don’t imitate Winston Churchill while operating a punch press?” Mallomar said, thinking he was being funny.
“It means you’re a fuckin’ dead skunk!” Cookie yelled and threw something furry through Mallomar’s driver’s window and then squealed off in a cloud of diesel and burnt rubber.
Mallomar practically had a heart attack. Buster calmly opened his door and toed the creature out his side. To carry a dead skunk around in a new truck with the slim chance of using it as an act of terrorism was testament to Cookie’s psychosis.
“What the hell’s his problem?”
“He wants to kill me.”
“So you know the guy?”
“Yessir. He’s my ’dopted brother.”
As far as Mallomar was concerned, the trip was already worth the twenty-seven thousand dollars he paid for jet fuel. He had only been off the tarmac for five minutes, and his intuition to come and experience life in its rawest form was paying off in spades.
Leaving the big city lights of Montrose behind, Buster and Mallomar arrived at their trailhead and began their horseback ride to the spike camp in Disappointment Valley. Buster had to remind Mallomar half a dozen times not to talk lest he would spook the game. Mallomar couldn’t help himself. He was too jacked up to keep his mouth shut.
As soon as they arrived at camp, Buster got the wood stove going for hot water.
“Saw some big bulls comin’ down this trail jes’ the other day,” Buster observed as he offered Mallomar hot decaf and a plate of Lorna Doones arranged in a daisy pattern.
“Do they still make Lorna Doones?” Mallomar said. “Fan-tas-tic!”
By ten o’clock the next morning, Mallomar had fired his custom-made Cooper .300 magnum rifle a total of eleven times, which was ten times more than necessary. No one could have predicted the Hulk-like effect Mallomar’s prescription medications would have on his body in combination with the altitude and his own adrenaline. In the dim light of the tent cabin, Mallomar opened his compartmentalized plastic pill container and mistakenly took seventy-five ml. of Marplan—his old monoamine oxidase inhibitor medication for depression—along with 125 ml. of Lexapro—his new medication, along with a Tagamet to ward off the heartburn he would certainly encounter during the day. Little did he know that within two and a half hours he would be sending his body into extreme hypertensive crisis. The result—Mallomar’s sudden murderous zeal coupled with his labored breathing and blurred vision—so unnerved Buster that he decided to keep his rifle chambered just in case Mallomar decided to start shooting at him. Fortunately for the elk and Buster, Mallomar’s shooting was about to cease.
It had just started to snow. Buster peered through the white veil with his binoculars. He was glassing the edge of the timberline where he’d just heard some bugling. A large seven-by-seven with tines and beams that would’ve scored at least a 280 on the Boone and Crockett was staring back at him. The bull’s nose was in the air trying to scent, but the wind was at his back. At 175 yards, it was an easy shot—even for Mallomar.
“There’s yor elk, Mr. Mallomar.”
Buster slowly took off his pack and nestled it into the snow for Mallomar to use as a rifle rest.
“Now this tahm, don’t shoot so dang fast. Take a breath, relax, and squeeeeeze…” Buster stuck his pinkies in his ears and waited and waited for the gun to go off. After thirty seconds Buster turned around to see Mallomar—red as a crayfish, his eyes rolled back in his head, unconscious.
When Mallomar opened his eyes two nights later, he was on an army cot swaddled like a baby in horse blankets. Not being able to take any more medication, his convulsions finally ceased. Buster, trying to calm himself, was sitting at his side tapping out a portrait of Destin
y and Maple on a pie plate with a hammer and awl. Mallomar opened his crusted eyes.
“How ya feelin’ thar, Mr. Mallomar?”
“I feel like taking a crap.” Buster grabbed him by an elbow and led him around the tent to a place in the trees. “What the hell is that thing?” Mallomar felt like he was hallucinating. Buster’s usual privy was a guide’s “groover”—a .50 ammo can so named for parallel grooves it left on the user’s buttocks. But anticipating Mallomar’s discomfort, Buster topped his groover with a scrounged toilet seat and jury-rigged a pink plastic shower curtain around the whole affair to provide privacy. Charmin Extra Soft toilet paper and a magazine rack with a few American Rifleman magazines were added as a finishing flourish.
Once satisfied that Mallomar was properly enthroned, Buster moved off to the cook tent to prepare the hors d’oeuvres. Mallomar had missed the first night’s round—which was cheddar cheese on Triscuits with a crisscross of roasted red peppers and a dot of caper. Tonight’s menu would begin with sautéed mushroom caps stuffed with artificial crab salad and celery stalks filled with smoked oysters and cream cheese. He hoped that Mallomar’s hunting experience hadn’t been ruined by the fact that he had almost died.
Mallomar made it back to the tent by himself and collapsed back on the cot. There was a glass of single malt whiskey with one cube—the way he liked it—sitting on top of a chunk of pine. He swallowed his drink and within two minutes was noisily asleep—missing dinner again. Buster didn’t wake him, for he was pretty wrung out himself. So, after he had fastidiously cleaned all the dishes and utensils and re-hung their food in a tree, Buster climbed into his bedroll and finally got to sleep himself.
In the middle of the night, Mallomar awoke. He was feeling better, and his appetite had returned with a fury. He was going to wake Buster, but when he saw how soundly he was sleeping, he decided to forage in the cook tent for himself. Not fully appreciating why Buster had hung all of their food in a tree, he was about to give up when he found an unopened bag of snack crackers. He crammed the whole package into his mouth like a madman, crawled back in his sleeping bag and returned to sleep.
Improbable Fortunes Page 19
