Ring Game

by Pete Hautman

“The Clark station.”

  “Right. What’s with the biker hat?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “It looks like somebody else put it there, doing a remake of The Wild One.”

  Debrowski removed the leather cap, gave it a brief inspection, tossed it through the lavatory door into the open toilet.

  “Nice shot.”

  “I never liked that movie.”

  “You think it’ll flush?”

  “You never know. So, you were at the Clark station …”

  “Yeah. Carmen wanted Marlboros in a box. Then the guy behind the counter did something. No. He saw something. Somebody.” Trying to remember made his head hurt worse.

  “You don’t remember running a half mile to the American Legion?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “You made quite an entrance. Blood all over your shirt. You don’t remember any of that?”

  “I remember the guy at the counter. He saw something. That’s it. Look, just tell me what happened, okay?”

  “Okay. I talked to one of the cops and he told me that the kid behind the counter said that a man dressed in black followed you into the store, slapped a gun up against the side of your head, then robbed the place of two hundred nineteen dollars and a carton of Snickers.

  “So, it was just a robbery?”

  “More than a robbery. Apparently, the robber needed wheels, and you’d left the limo idling out front. The guy took the money and his candy bars and jumped in the limo and took off. With Hyatt and Carmen in it.”

  “No kidding? Then what? They get dropped off someplace?”

  “Nobody knows. The cops aren’t using the word kidnapping yet—my guess is they want to avoid getting the FBI involved—but nobody’s heard from Hyatt and Carmen, as far as I know. You’re supposed to call this guy—” She unzipped a side pocket and produced a business card. “—When you’re able to answer questions.”

  “Who is he?”

  She frowned at the card. “Wes Larson. Some cop.” She tossed the card on his bedside table.

  “As far as he’s concerned, I’m still unconscious.” Crow found the bed control and pressed buttons until he found one that raised the back. “Am I supposed to stay here overnight?”

  “I think so. They want you to be here in case your brain swells up and your head explodes.”

  “They know I don’t have health insurance?”

  “They’ve got my American Express card.”

  “Ouch. Maybe we should just go home while you’ve still got your fortune.”

  “Forget it, Crow. You die tonight, you do it here.”

  That was fine with Crow. He wasn’t sure he could stand up, and he didn’t want to put it to the test.

  Debrowski said, “The wedding has been postponed, of course.”

  “Axel should be happy about that.”

  “To tell the truth, he’s pretty upset.”

  A liquid rumble exploded from Sam, a laugh turning into a wet cough. Crow and Debrowski looked at him, waited for the hacking and throat-clearing to subside. Sam pushed the suitcoat off his chest, sat up straight, and thumped his chest with a fist.

  “You okay?” Crow asked.

  Sam cleared his throat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s the food’s got his bone in a knot,” he said. “All these people goin’ nuts, you on the floor bleeding off your head, waiting for the ambulance, that one guy runnin’ around with his camera, Sophie screamin’ at the cops. All this and Ax says to me, he says, ‘What am I gonna do with all this food?’”

  “You see this?” Chuckles plucked a thin orange carrot stick from his salad and held it between his thick dark fingers.

  Flo nodded. She watched Chuckles insert the carrot stick into his wide mouth and chew. She noticed for the first time that he had a gold canine tooth to match his earring.

  Chuckles said, “Eat life.”

  They were sitting in a Union 76 truck stop just north of Des Moines having a late supper.

  “Eat life?” She dropped her eyes from his mouth to his black silk warm-ups, some kind of design on the chest, black on black embroidery, two segmented worms swirling around each other, the same design as he had shaved onto his close-cropped temples. She pointed at his chest. “What is that, anyway?”

  “The Amaranthine coil. It’s like the double helix, you know, like DNA. Cell software. The heart of the cell, where regeneration take place.” He pointed at the twists of black thread. “You got your genes, which are the secret code. And these lumps on the end here, they’re the telomeres, what tell the cell to keep on keepin’ on. You got to make your telomeres longer. The longer telomeres you got, the more years you got. What the seven steps do is they stretch ’em out.

  Flo blinked. Chuckles are another carrot. “Eat life. That step number five. You suppose to eat things were alive within the last twenty-four hours.”

  “How do you know that carrot was alive?”

  “Fresh vegetables always alive. They maybe not growing, but they alive.”

  Flo looked down at her chicken sandwich with fries. “How long you think this chicken’s been dead?”

  “No more’n a month.”

  Flo pushed her plate aside. “How come you let me order it?”

  “I don’t tell you what to do. You want to stop and eat, I pull over. Your wish is my command.”

  “Say what? You didn’t pull over the first time I axed.”

  “That’s cause I had some things to tell to you.”

  “Tell me what? I can’t have chicken no more?” Flo noticed that she was talking the language of her teenage years. Slipping into jive. Get hold, girl, she said to herself.

  “You eat what you want. I’m just telling you how it is.”

  “I like chicken.”

  “You want to know the steps, I’m just telling you. Number six, now, that a tough one. Be rich. The more money you got, the longer you gonna live.”

  “That makes sense. Poor people die.”

  “Rich folk they die, too, only not so soon. You don’t hear about no rich folk havin’ no heart attack from shoveling snow, or getting lung cancer from no coal dust. Money is life. People got money they got the good air, the good food, the good doctors. They drive the big safe cars.”

  “Like your big car?”

  “That not my car. I borrow it.”

  “From Bigg?”

  “Yeah. I axed him could I use it. He say no, but we work it out.”

  “Oh. Okay. So what’s number seven?”

  “You know how many folk know number seven? Only three.”

  “You don’t know it?”

  “I’m number three. Rupe and Polly are the only other.”

  “How come they told you?”

  “They didn’t. Got me a look at Rupe’s secret book, where he put it all. Far as they know, I’m still on step four.”

  “Give more.”

  “You got it. Most of the Faithful, they still on step four. Rupe and Polly, they like them there.”

  “What’s number seven?”

  “My favorite. All them first steps are nothin’ compare to number seven.” Chuckles grinned, making her wait.

  “You don’t say something quick, I’m gonna plant another heel in your ham.”

  Chuckles moistened his lips.

  “Be God,” he said.

  “Be God?”

  “Like Rupe and Polly done.” Chuckles winked, took a handful of fries from Flo’s plate, and put them into his mouth.

  Shortly before ten o’clock, Zink Fitterman looked into the room.

  “Hey there, it’s Laura Debrowski, back from wherever-the-fuck you were. And my man Sam O’Gara.” Debrowski and Zink embraced. Sam roused himself sufficiently to wave a hand and belch. Zink regarded Crow, who was asleep.

  “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s going to be fine,” said Debrowski.

  “I see he’s getting the V.I.P. treatment. Got his own room and everything.”

  Sam clea
red his throat. “That one nurse got a little testy about the hat in the shitter, but mostly they been waitin’ on him foot and mouth.”

  Zink blinked, then looked to Debrowski. “If what he just said made sense, flash me a sign.”

  Crow said, “It makes perfect sense.”

  “My god, the dead man speaketh. You look like hell, man.”

  Crow opened his eyes. “Thanks for coming, Zink.”

  “You’re welcome, but I can’t stay long. I left my kid downstairs. You know they got a game room here? This visit’s gonna cost me a goddamn fortune in quarters.” He looked at his watch. “Anyways, visiting hours are over. Fuckin’ bureaucrats.”

  Crow produced a weak smile. “Zink, I know damn well you showed up late so you wouldn’t get stuck talking to an invalid for more’n five minutes, so cut the crap.”

  Zink shrugged. “Hey, I showed up, didn’t I? And you ain’t gonna believe who I ran into in the emergency room. Your friend Biggie. Looking like he got hit by the same truck ran over you.”

  43

  Even the basest of creatures are ennobled by their young.

  —H.M.S. Johnson

  CARMEN WOKE UP TO the sound of men talking. She tried to make them into voices on her clock radio, but it was Hyatt and Chip.

  “You sure? This doesn’t look like it goes anywhere.”

  “There’s a back gate. I been here before.”

  “Then how come we’ve been driving around lost for the last half hour?”

  “The roads must’ve changed.”

  Carmen opened her eyes. She was on the backseat in the limo. They weren’t moving. The headlights illuminated a narrow dirt road. Tree branches touched the windows on both sides. Hyatt was sitting up front with Chip, arguing.

  “I don’t want to be driving around here all night, Chip. We’ve got work to do.”

  “There is a back gate. Someplace. And call me Eduardo.”

  “Let’s get off this cowpath and go back to the highway, Eduardo. Come at it from the front.”

  “The plan was to infiltrate the compound through the rear entrance.”

  “I know what the plan was, Chipster. It’s not working. Now we go to plan B.”

  Carmen sat up. Her head was not good. She groped around on the seat, found her cigarettes and her lighter, and lit up.

  The limo started forward down the narrow dirt road. A few seconds later Hy said, “I thought we agreed to go back to the highway.”

  “I gotta find a place to turn this thing around.”

  They drove another hundred yards, tree branches scraping the sides.

  “There’s a pullout,” Hyatt said, pointing at an aneurysm in the road. “Turn around there.”

  Chip swung the front end of the limo into the wide spot and stopped. They were looking at a short, rutted lane ending about thirty yards away at an iron gate built into a stone arch. Carved into the top of the arch was the word STONECROP.

  “Told you so,” said Chip.

  “So you did.”

  “So we’re back to the original strategy?”

  “Roger wilco, Chipmeister.” Hyatt turned toward Carmen. “How you doing back there? Waking up?”

  “I’m okay,” Carmen said.

  “You better grab on to something, okay?”

  “What for?” Carmen asked.

  The limo suddenly lurched forward, dirt and rocks spewing from the rear tires. The gate rushed toward them. Carmen heard herself scream in reverse—sucking the air in instead of forcing it out—then they hit the gate, broke through, and skidded to a stop. One of the limo’s headlamps now pointed up, illuminating the top branches of a pine tree.

  Carmen picked herself up off the floor.

  “You okay?” Hyatt asked.

  Carmen touched her forehead. “I bumped my head.” She looked at her fingers. “Am I bleeding?”

  Hyatt said something to Chip, who turned off the headlights and turned on the interior lights. Hyatt got out of the limo and reentered through the rear door. He turned Carmen’s face toward the overhead light. “You’ve got a little cut there. But that’s good. It’ll make the whole thing look more real.”

  “Real?” As far as Carmen was concerned, it was real.

  “The realer the better,” Hyatt laughed and turned to Chip. “Onward, Eduardo. To the chapel. The forces of darkness await us.”

  “What was that?” Rupe sat up and swung his head back and forth, but could see nothing due to the bandages over his eyes.

  “What was what?”

  “That sound.”

  “What sound?”

  “You didn’t hear it? A crunching, screeching sound, far away.”

  “I didn’t hear anything. Why don’t you go to sleep?”

  Rupe laid his head back on the pillow. He heard Polly turn a page in her book. A minute or so later, he heard her turn another page. After three pages he said, “It’s too quiet here.”

  “Do you want me to put some music on?”

  “No.” Rupe lay still for another few minutes, tuning out the noise of turning pages, the thumping of his pulse, waiting for the distant crunchy-screechy sound to repeat itself. The sound did not come again, but he heard something else, faintly. “I can hear my cells talking,” he said.

  “What are they saying?”

  “They’re healing my incisions. By morning I’ll be whole again.”

  “Good.”

  “The scars will be invisible.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Or nearly so,” he added.

  He heard Polly breathing through her nose the way she did when she was feeling irritable.

  “I wonder what that noise was,” he said. “An animal, maybe.”

  “I’m sure that’s what it was,” Polly said. “A rabbit or something. I understand they have those out here. In the woods.”

  “You know what would be justice?” Chip said. “Justice would be if the surgery made them look older.” He was guiding the limo slowly along the dirt road, seeing by moonlight.

  “Justice will be served when their sins are made public,” Hyatt said. “Where are we?”

  “The main house is to our left. You see that bunch of trees there? The house is on the other side of that, about three hundred yards.”

  “You’re sure they won’t see us?”

  “The security system isn’t on-line yet. I warned Rupe that it was not strategic for he and Polly to be here before the area was secured, but he chose to ignore me.”

  “You warned him not to come here? What did you do that for?”

  “It was my job,” Chip said. He had tried to explain this to Hyatt Hilton several times already. Even though he was working with Hyatt to expose the sins of the Elders, he still had to perform his duties as Security Chief. It was one thing to stage a coup—sometimes drastic measures were necessary. But it was another thing to fail to do one’s job. The job came first.

  “What if Rupe had listened to you?”

  “Then we would have had to establish new parameters for our strategy.”

  “Chip, you’re a piece of work.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where’s the chapel?”

  “Right up here.” Chip slowed the limo from walking speed to a crawl as they topped a low rise. “They call it the Telomere Chapel, on account of the double helix design in the stained glass.” The silhouette of a low building appeared against the backdrop of a starry sky. “It’s very inspiring.”

  “Does it have a bathroom?” Carmen asked.

  Chip said, “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sure it does,” Hyatt said.

  “It had better,” said Carmen.

  Chip bit his upper lip and held it. The thought of this cigarette-smoking whore pissing her used champagne in the Telomere Chapel offended him greatly. In fact, there were many things about this situation that made him uncomfortable, but there were times when the ends did justify the means. Being immortal had taught him to look at things from a long-term perspective.
<
br />   “They can’t see the chapel from the house, right?” Hyatt asked.

  “That vector is blocked,” Chip said.

  He stopped the limo in front of the chapel.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  Carmen was already out of the car, trotting toward the door in her white gown, looking phantasmic in the light of the full moon.

  “She’s in a hurry,” Chip said.

  “She’s got a whole bottle of bubbly inside her.”

  Carmen pulled the door open and disappeared into the chapel.

  “How’s she gonna find the bathroom in the dark?”

  “She’ll figure it out. Where’d you put my bag?”

  “It’s in the trunk.”

  “Good. How about you open the trunk, then make a run over to the house, make sure Rupe and Polly are here. See if their car is there.”

  Chip reached under the dash and popped the trunk. “You want me to reconnoiter the perimeter.”

  “That’s right. I’ll take care of Carmen, you reconnoiter the perimeter.”

  “Gotcha.” Chip pulled a black watch cap from his pocket, pulled it down over his head and ears. He’d been hoping for the opportunity to do some surveillance. Taking his mark by lining up a tall pine tree with the moon, he chose his vector and took off cross-country.

  Using her Dunhill lighter, Carmen quickly located the restroom, found the light switch, and took care of her immediate problem. Sitting on the toilet, surrounded by the stiff folds of her skirt under the glare of the overhead fluorescence, Carmen considered her situation.

  A few months ago, Hyatt had made it sound easy, and exciting, and glamorous. Her ticket to fame and fortune. But now? Now it just sounded damned uncomfortable. Not to mention dangerous. In fact, it reminded her of nothing more than the situation with her last boyfriend, Dean, which had ended with a bunch of people dead and no money. Axel and Sophie had been pretty upset about that whole deal.

  She could take a stand. Refuse to go along with Hy’s plan. Demand to be taken home. Insist on going ahead with the wedding.

  Maybe not the wedding part. Maybe it wasn’t time to get married, despite her delicate condition. They could talk about it, though. She tried to imagine the conversation with Hy, but failed. She kept seeing her mother’s face. Sophie would never let her forget this one, no matter what happened. But she could deal with her mom when the time came. All she knew for sure was that she did not want to be here in this weird little church with Hyatt Hilton and his swine-faced chauffeur. It was too much like some movies she’d seen, movies that had scared hell out of her when she was a little kid.