Apparent Wind

by Dallas Murphy

  However, he forgot the heat when he got a look at Omnium Settlement, his town. He stared slack-jawed at the smoking dozers cheek by jowl. One, a red one, lay on its side, and a yellow one had been blown upside down, treads pointing skyward like the legs of a dead cockroach. Christ, what force could do that, demolish a fleet of earth-moving machines? Who had that kind of military capability? Castro? Iranian Muslin extremists? What the fuck was there in south Florida for Muslims? Dick. Must be Castro…But then, it might be anti-Castro cadres from Miami…

  A medic scurried from cop to cop, trying to establish who was in charge here.

  “I am, goddamnit! Right here. Sheriff Lincoln Plotner.”

  The medic saluted, then said, “I have a casualty report, sir.”

  “Who the hell are you!”

  “Steven Schwartz. Medalert Ambulance Service, Inc. We got”—he consulted his notebook—“seven fractures of the outer extremities, four of those compound, nine fractures to the thoracic region, four concussions, three spinal injuries of unknown severity, nine dislocations of major joints, internal injuries also of unknown severity, and just a shitload of cuts and contusions. All in all, I’d say we got off pretty light under the circumstances.”

  “What circumstances!” Sheriff Plotner wanted to know.

  “I saw this before. Up in Quang Tri Province near the DMZ. Only one thing can do this kind of shit, Sheriff.”

  “What!”

  “Incoming.”

  “Incoming what!”

  “Rockets. I’m talking Russian-made SAMs here, Sheriff.”

  Video cameras whirled on the word “rockets,” and reporters converged.

  “Rockets? What rockets?”

  “Terrorists?”

  Boom mikes swung in over the sheriff’s head—he knocked the more aggressive away with his hat—and the press began bumping each other for position. “Did you say rockets, Sheriff?” The sheriff was suddenly surrounded.

  “Whose rockets, Sheriff?”

  “PLO?”

  “Hezbollah?”

  “Right to Life?”

  Just then an injured combatant crested the hill on a stretcher carried by two skinny bearers.

  “Step aside, give me room, get the fuck outta here—” The press parted for Sheriff Plotner as he made his way to the casualty. It was time for some answers.

  The casualty was a big man. The stretcher bearers strained and wavered under his weight. His clothes were bloody. He whimpered and bleated, muttering prayers to the Holy Mother of Jesus in the Field for delivering him from the jaws of death. He wore only one boot.

  “What happened here?” the sheriff demanded.

  The man, clearly in shock, slowly rolled his battered head toward the sheriff and came face-to-face with twenty-five ambitious reporters, print and electronic, jabbering inquiries at him. There were prizes, accolades, jobs in New York and Washington awaiting the best coverage of rocket attacks on innocent construction workers. The man’s pained eyes went round with terror. His bottom lip quavered. Then he screamed from deep in his soul, as if at another onrushing twelve-cylinder Caterpillar Earthmaster.

  The press recoiled a step but quickly recovered and surged inward—hot shit: real-life emotion. Real-life emotion looked fabulous on TV, like that cracker from last week who ran over his infant daughter with his swamp buggy, great stuff all around, real pain. They pursued the casualty in a surging, compressing clot all the way to the ambulance, where they got some terrific ambulance-door-closing material.

  That, momentarily, left the sheriff alone, where he could think. The other cops waited, smirking, to see Sheriff Lincoln Plotner, Big Al Broadnax’s right nut, fuck up and humiliate himself.

  The last victim was being carried up the hill. To get a leg up on the press, the sheriff waddled down to meet him. He brought the bearers to a halt.

  “What happened here?” the sheriff demanded.

  This last victim’s left eye was swollen shut, and his front two teeth were missing. “Christ!” he whistled through the gap. “It was hideous!” The victim seemed to have had a mustache, but the left side of it was singed or ripped off. “Hideous, I tell you! I ain’t seen nothin’ so hideous since Pork Chop Hill!”

  “Yes, but what happened?” The sheriff tried the gentle approach, taking the man’s hand in his own, patting it.

  “They just kept comin’ at us, wave after wave of them!”

  “Of what?”

  “Red bulldozers!”

  “Uh, what red bulldozers?”

  “Every red dozer in the world!”

  Things were not coming clear. “What were all those dozers doing here?” That was more specific.

  “We was hired to knock down the town.”

  “Hired by who?”

  “Big Al Broadnax.”

  Sheriff Plotner studied the battlefield. There were red bulldozers and yellow bulldozers. “You were on a yellow dozer?”

  The last victim nodded vigorously.

  “Sheriff,” said the rear stretcher bearer, a pockmarked kid in his late teens, “we better get this man out of the sun.”

  “I’m conducting a goddamn investigation here!” The last victim’s eyes were rolling around as if at a celestial tennis match. He was about to pass out. “Who hired the red ones?”

  “Bikes.”

  “Bikes?” Was he delirious? Wait! “Sikes? Do you mean Donald Sikes?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Look, Sheriff, we’ll lose our job if this guy cashes his check.”

  “Okay, go.”

  It was about this time that Doom and Rosalind arrived from the hospital and parked behind the sheriff’s black-and-white. Wordlessly, they hiked to the top of Main Street. “Good God,” Rosalind muttered.

  “Look,” said Doom, ducking behind an ambulance fender, “it’s Sikes.”

  “Where?”

  “Right there—next to the fire truck.”

  “The pudgy guy?” Donny Sikes reminded Rosalind of the fat boy from high school who had b.o. and was good in chemistry. “We better get out of here.”

  The smoke had been plain to see from Big Al Broadnax’s Greco-Moorish mansion down the beach. He insisted that Snack load him aboard his specially designed handicap van, with license plates that said BIG AL!, and drive him to the scene. Snack lowered his old man to the hot pavement and wheeled him up for a close look.

  “Get the fuck aside!” Big Al bellowed at cops, fire fighters, and gawkers. “Get out of my stinking way! Can’t you see I’m an old man!” When Snack had rolled him to Main Street, he began shouting questions. This was his town, and he wanted to know what the stink had happened here, damn it. But nobody would tell him. “Fools! Imbeciles! Where’s Frankie O’Mera!” he demanded.

  “In the hospital,” somebody told him.

  “What the hell’s he doing there!”

  Snack caught a glimpse of Doom and Rosalind hunkering behind an ambulance, but his father didn’t seem to notice.

  “Where’s Lucas Hogaboom!” Big Al wanted to know. Big Al had been asking that question ever since he’d sent Lucas to knock off Doom Loomis. “Get me Lucas Hogaboom!”

  “He’s not around, Dad.”

  “Where is he? Is he in the hospital, too?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s in jail,” said Snack.

  “Then get him out! Where’s that nincompoop sheriff of mine!”

  “Right here,” said Sheriff Plotner, ascending the hill after touring the battlefield. Nincompoop, huh? Sheriff Plotner was glad to be betraying this old coot. He nodded at Snack, who stood behind his father’s chair, then said to Big Al, “Did you hire bulldozers, Mr. B.?”

  “Yeah, I hired—who the hell did I hire, Sennacherib?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. You didn’t tell me you hired anybody.”

  “Well, I hired somebody. O’Mera! That’s right, Frankie O’Mera, a mick!”

  “Did you hire red bulldozers or yellow bulldozers?” asked the sheriff.

  “How the
hell would I know! Red, blue, pink, who gives a rat’s ass!”

  “What did you hire them to do, Mr. B.?”

  “To tear down the town. Not that’s it’s any of your stinking business!”

  “Well, you can’t tear down a town in Broadnax County without a whole raft of clearances and variances. It’s the law.”

  “It’s my county, you cunt!”

  “Well, no sir, it ain’t. It’s a county of laws, and the law says you can’t just tear down towns whenever you feel like it.”

  “Have you gone crazy, Plotner?”

  “Do you own the land down there, Mr. B.?”

  “What! Of course I own it! My father made that land! Without my father that land would still be a sinkhole of a sweaty swamp!”

  Doom and Rosalind peeked out over the ambulance’s hood to see Donny Sikes saunter up to Sheriff Plotner, but they couldn’t hear what Donny said when he got there.

  What he said was this: “I own the land, Sheriff—in conjunction with my partner, Mr. Broadnax. Good afternoon, Mr. Broadnax.”

  “Partner?” squinted Big Al.

  “Donald Sikes is the name.”

  Sheriff Plotner studied the soft little man. What was he trying to pull? “I guess you have papers to prove that, Mr. Sikes.”

  “Indeed I do, Sheriff. I don’t of course have those papers on my person, but I would be happy to present them to the proper authorities. You see, Mr. Broadnax and I got our signals crossed. We each hired competing construction firms, and apparently an altercation ensued.”

  “An altercation? You call this an altercation?” said Sheriff Plotner. “Looks like war to me!” He wished Doom were around to help him.

  “I take full responsibility, Sheriff, and I’m prepared to make good any damages to property and person,” said Donny Sikes with a smile meant to be charming.

  “How is it Mr. Broadnax didn’t recognize you, his own partner?”

  “It’s my eyes,” lied Big Al. “Bright sun gets me in the eyes. I got bad eyes. Ain’t that right, Sennacherib? I got bad eyes?”

  “That’s right, Dad.” Snack exchanged glances with Sheriff Plotner, but neither knew what to do, except to play along.

  “Well,” said the sheriff, who was through playing along. “I want all construction—and destruction—to cease and desist right now till we sort things out. See what laws have been violated.”

  “Are you nuts! Who the fuck do you think you are! You get in my way, you end up directing elementary-school urchins across the street!”

  “And another thing. I want these dead bulldozers out of here by tomorrow this time, and I want to see their owners in my office right after that. Otherwise you’re all under arrest.” With that the sheriff turned snappily on his heel and walked off to complete his investigation. He felt great.

  “You slut! Who does the cunt slut think he is!”

  “Why don’t we have a little chat, Mr. Broadnax?” suggested Donny Sikes. “Don’t you think it’s time we talked things over before they get out of hand?”

  “So talk.”

  “In private.”

  “How about in the van?” suggested Snack Broadnax.

  A LITTLE CHAT

  Snack pushed Big Al onto the boarding platform, and when he activated the mechanism, his father rose to floorboard level. Big Al rolled himself on into the van. Donny Sikes climbed in behind Big Al and sat on the jump seat while Snack stowed the boarding platform, slid behind the wheel, and started the engine to get the air-conditioning going. He adjusted his rearview mirror onto Donny’s face.

  “Let’s get right down to brass tacks, Mr. Broadnax—”

  “To what?”

  “Brass tacks.”

  “Who gives a fuck about tacks!”

  “Skip it. This is ridiculous, what happened here. It’s going to cost us both real money, and we didn’t accomplish a thing except to call a lot of attention to ourselves. Besides which there’s some funny business going on here—”

  “You tried to blow me up, you whore!”

  “No, I did not. A disloyal ex-employee of mine tried to do that. He’s been taken care of now. But that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

  “What is?”

  “Funny business.” Had Donny Sikes known just how stupid this Big Al was, he might have handled things differently. Yet he still needed to be careful, because stupid people were dangerous; they didn’t respond predictably to stimuli.

  “You sent that punk Loomis to sell me a phony deed!”

  Donny said no again, that Doom Loomis did that on his own and that he, Donald Sikes, had nothing to do with it. “Mr. Broadnax, I propose that you and I join forces, that we let bygones be bygones. Let the past die and think about the future. Perfection Park is the future. You see, Mr. Broadnax, we have a common enemy in this punk, as you rightly call him, Doom Loomis. His father bought up Omnium land with our money and siphoned it off into a phony corporation called Palmetto Properties, which he controlled and which upon his death reverted to his son. They were in it together, don’t you see? Discovering the attempted swindle, I in good faith encouraged the younger Loomis to sell me his interests in Palmetto Properties for a fair price. He did so. Then he turned around and tried to sell you the same interests.”

  “The slut’s pulling a fast one.”

  “Ex-actly. When he sold me his interests in Palmetto Properties, he agreed to leave the state. Well, he didn’t. In fact, he’s right over there.”

  “What? Where? Lucas didn’t—?”

  Donny Sikes leaned over the front seat and pointed out the windshield. “There—see him, getting into that truck?”

  Big Al wheeled himself up behind the front seat to see—Lucas didn’t kill him! What the fuck was taking him so long!

  Rosalind started her truck. Doom scrunched down in the passenger seat behind the dashboard. “I was afraid of that,” said Doom. “That was always the chink in the plan, that those two would get together one day and compare notes.”

  “Do you think they saw us?”

  “Probably.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I think we’d better get back to the boat. Rosalind, I’m afraid I’ve ruined things by coming here to see the bulldozers.”

  “It’s hard to skip a bulldozer battle in your own hometown.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Should we drive right past the van?”

  “Otherwise we’ll get trapped up at the north end of the island…On the plus side, Snack’s in the van. He’ll tell us what they’re planning.”

  “Okay, get down.”

  “I’m down.”

  “Here goes—”

  As Doom and Rosalind drove past, Big Al said, “Look! It’s that hag Rosalind, the crone whore! Look at that, Sennacherib, it’s your bitch sister-in-law with the pox!”

  “…The turncoat,” muttered Snack.

  “In short, Mr. Broadnax, we’ve got to get rid of this Doom Loomis once and for all,” said Donny Sikes.

  “I already got a man on it,” said Big Al, thinking that first they’d eliminate Loomis, then he’d figure a way to cut this Sikes punk right out of the picture. “That punk Loomis kidnapped my own son, didn’t he, Sennacherib?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “Is he a pro?” Donny wondered.

  “Who?”

  “The man you have on it.”

  “A pro what?”

  “A professional, uh, eliminator.”

  “He’s a sex offender. But he does what I tell him. Sennacherib, get me Lucas Hogaboom.”

  “He’s gone, Dad. Nobody’s seen Lucas for days.”

  “There’s my point,” said Donny Sikes. “We need a pro.”

  Snack pointed out that nobody knew where this punk Loomis was hiding out.

  “That’s why you need a pro, Sennacherib. Pros find their people. That’s part of what they’re paid for.”

  Big Al asked Sennacherib if he knew any professional killers.

  “No, Da
d.”

  “Well, I do,” said Donny Sikes. “I’ve used him before, on three separate occasions, and I can recommend him highly.”

  Donny thought maybe Big Al had died, but he was just thinking. Big Al said, “Sennacherib, would you do me a favor?”

  It was always a bad sign when his old man was polite. “Yes, Dad?”

  “Would you go over and tell that shit pot of a sheriff he better get in touch with me today? Tell him if he don’t, then he’s washed up in Broadnax County.”

  Snack sat rooted in indecision. The old man was clearly trying to get rid of him. Why? Yet he didn’t have much choice but to obey. Tears welled up in Snack’s eyes. His own father was plotting Doom’s murder with another killer. There was no hope now. Only death and sadness would come of this. “Yes, Dad.” Snack got out of the car and approached the sheriff, who was himself trying to figure out what to do now.

  “He’s a nice boy,” said Donny Sikes. “Do you know he came to me to plead for your safety when he thought I was trying to blow you up?”

  “Aww, he did?”

  “That’s how I knew Roger Vespucci was a villain.”

  That warmed the cockles of Big Al’s heart. His boy loved him. “Sennacherib’s a loyal boy, but he’s sensitive. That’s why I sent him away.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause I got an idea. We don’t know where to find this punk Loomis, am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I know how to get Loomis out in the open.”

  “How?”

  Sheriff Plotner figured that the first thing to do was get these vehicles off the road. The crowd of gawkers was growing by the minute. Pretty soon Ted Koppel would show up. He had to break this up. “Hello, Snack,” said the sheriff, waving at gawkers, emergency vehicles, surfers.

  “Hello, Sheriff.”

  “Hey, you all right, son?”

  “No. My father and Sikes are sitting in the van over there, planning to hire a killer to murder Doom.”

  “Damn! Your old man’s goin’ too far, Snack.”

  “I know it. We got to warn Doom. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to get away. Oh, my dad sent me over here to order you to call him today.”