Open the driver side door and Stinky Joe trot ’round the side. “Don’t get in just yet.”
I scoot onto the seat, slippy like snot on glass. Twist the key and the Eldorado roars.
Granny’s at the driver window.
“What year is she?” says I.
“’79.”
“Ah, see, that’ll shave some digits off the top. ‘79’s got that sissy little three-fifty and not the four twenty-five.”
“That sound like a three-fifty to you?”
“Why no, it don’t at that.”
I pull the hood release, slip out the car and take a gander. “This ain’t a ‘79.”
“Ervin bought it in ‘79.”
“All kindness, Granny, but that don’t mean shit. This is a ’78.”
“So, it got the engine you want?”
“Indeed.”
“That puts us back at eleven gold coins.”
She beams.
I could go another three rounds but I’ll give it to her here. “You win. You got the title?”
She whip a piece of folded green and black paper with the government zigzags on it.
“Let’s see them coins.”
I fetch ’em out the pocket and drop ’em one by one in her hand. Eleven.
“What’s your name, Gleason?”
“Uh, Günter Stroh. But you don’t need that for the title.”
She pull a pen from behind her back and rest the title on the car hood.
“I’ll press light so I don’t mar the paint.”
She writes.
Car door slams. Another. Granny look at the Mustang.
“Who’s them girls up there?”
“Ah, see, them girls and me, we uh…”
“Yeah. Günter Stroh. That’s German?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Whereabouts in Germany?”
“Gleason is all.”
“Uh huh. Them Mexican girls find you in Germany?”
“How you know they Mexican? Blonde and red?”
She study me like I’m daft. Fold the title. Hand it to me.
I shake her hand. She pulls a little. Squint and grin.
“Pleasure doing business,” Granny says.
“All mine. Git up in there, Stinky Joe.”
He spring to the seat and I shut the door. Step ’round back. Notice the plate got the sticker says EXP 09 DEC. Good to go.
I hop in the seat and wave Tat and Corazon to stay put while I show off for Granny.
Brake, cut left, reverse cut right, forward cut left and stomp the gas. Stinky Joe slides this way and that. Me too. That monster V-8 sprays rocks out the ass like the front’s fixed to a stripper pole. Damn if it don’t feel good to have nuts ’tween my legs agin. We roar past the girls and this time, no three point. Just brake, cut the wheel all the way and stomp the gas. Line up behind the Mustang and while the dust floats and Stinky Joe sneezes I look about for the trunk button.
Old Granny still in the yard, hands balled on hips.
I pop the latch.
Step to Tat’s door and she release the Mustang trunk. I lift out my gold and back pack and set ’em on the ground.
“Great,” says Tat.
No woman wants a man to feel free. Ain’t in her makeup.
“I’ll follow you ’til we figure out what’s next,” says I. “Maybe ditch the Mustang where you stole it? Or keep it if you want, I guess.”
Corazon sicks her black eyes on me. “My phone?”
I pull it out the pocket and toss.
Back at the rear I heft the gold to the Eldorado trunk and it’s so big and deep, even with the back-pack jammed agin the gold they’s no way to be sure the bucket don’t spill — less I put one the girls in there with it. Reckon the fun’s over for now. Slam the lid, slip behind the wheel and flash the headlights. Let’s get on, Tat.
Let’s get on.
Chapter Ten
Tat drive on the straightaway like she got the pedal stuck and slides through the first curve, right wheels in the dirt. I had better eyes I might could make out which finger she’s wavin’ out the window.
I float along behind in the Eldorado. On a dirt road the car drive like some boats swim. Stomp the gas and the rotor spins, and after a good churn the nose lift and alla sudden they’s a breeze.
If Tat drive so fast I lose track, I’ll understand it’s the Almighty set me free.
Granny coat the seat in Armor All and Stinky Joe slide to me on the first turn. Slide away on the next. I drop his window and he get back to his feet and fill his mouth with air. He look so happy I drop my window too, stick the head out and gulp wind. Tongue wag in the air and I’m grateful the bugs ain’t so thick in Coloradee as North Cackalackee.
“We got a good thing, Joe. Any time you got good times, just remember they’s a shitstorm ’round the bend. So don’t enjoy ’em too much.”
He pull his head back inside the window. Give me a sober look.
Always keep the disappointment handy.
“I know I bitch and moan one minute and — ”
Bitch and moan the next.
“It’s on account the women. Always and evermore. Women is doom.”
So let’s go visit that one you call Chicago Mags.
“That’s exactly what I was thinkin’.”
Sun’s deep in the mountain and I can’t get the feel for twilight, these parts. Seem like a good three hour. Funny Joe mention Chicago Mags. Don’t recall I said her name.
So how you gonna do it?
“Do what?”
Leave Tat and Corazon.
“That ain’t a done deal. But things turn out that way I reckon we’ll drive.”
I mean how will you end relationship?
“Relationship? I don’t know it was all that. We poke on and off, but all kinda critters poke on and off and don’t got a special word for it.”
Maybe give it a full think.
Stew a minute. Try and recollect. I ain’t been with but three women and two was Ruth. I didn’t leave her ’til she left me twice — accourse, thirty year back — but partin’ ways with Ruth in Flagstaff didn’t feel like leavin’ a woman so much as sayin’ goodbye after a holiday supper turn sour. I bounce into her so many times, deep down I expect it’ll happen again. So why make a fuss? Just drive. But I see what Stinky Joe is sayin’. Tat like to feel she got a claim on me, since I poke her and pay her way. Ladies understand the economics. Man like to believe he don’t pay a woman for love but they’s always economics to the obligation and no escape. My gold’s in the trunk and Tat’s is ’tween her legs. We trade pieces — and after so long doin’ good business, folk get stuck in the expectation. I end the here and now, I also end the future… and that’s where the expectation waits.
“Guess I’ll hafta say goodbye. Somethin’.”
Yeah. Keep thinking.
“What? You wanna stay with the girls?”
Stinky Joe look away.
“Hey. What?”
Got his head back out the window, low, like he’s sortin’ through six kind of disgust.
“Come on Stinky Joe, shit. I don’t know your mind.”
He look at me.
You got your flaws but I’ve been loyal. You left me to winter in Flagstaff snow, but I was loyal. You left me with the girls for your little road trip, but I was loyal. You drank that poison so much you didn’t know your name or mine… but I was loyal.
“Shit, Joe. I know it. I ain’t been precisely wonderful.”
So no, I don’t want to stay with the girls. Or I didn’t until you asked.
Scruff his neck. Joe sinks into the seat and drops his head to paws. Just two minute ago he was happy as a lark and now on account my nonsense his ill humor’s won the match.
“I’m a far sight from perfect and you’re what the yuppies call a self-actualized dog. Just want to respect your volition, is all.”
I’ll stay with the one that saved me. But I’m still waiting on you to stop calling me Stinky.
&
nbsp; “If I called you Loyal Joe?”
Then I would call you Patronizing Baer. You know, calling out the fact that you’re trying to placate me at little personal cost.
“Yeah. Now you say it.”
Rub his shoulder, along his back. Feel the old bullet wound from that kid pimp in Williams, Arizona.
“Sometimes I think you don’t say a word. It’s just me out here alone, got a dog and a brain fulla guilt.”
Can’t be. I know more words than you.
While me and Joe been talkin’, Tat pull outta sight but I come ’round the bend and see she’s holdin’ back like she don’t want to lose me. Longer I drive with the wind clearin’ cobwebs from the cranium I get to thinkin’ maybe Joe’s right, and I owe Tat more’n a smack on the ass goodbye. Like we oughta have a sitdown and a couple solemn notes afore we call it quits. We had some good times. Some nice words don’t cost nothin’. Maybe I oughta end things right, if I can puzzle what’s right. Maybe we get Corazon to take a walk and give us fifteen minute for a partin’ poke. So while Tat’s in sight I press the gas and keep the Caddy inside the rails. Mustang disappear at the next mountain bend and shit if I ain’t worried she’ll disappear afore I get to call quits the right way. Then I’d got one more regret loose in the head, rest of my days.
More gas to the V8.
Joe sit up in the seat.
Easy, Alden Boone. I got a feeling.
“What?”
Slow down. Something ain’t —
“Joe, it’s like you said. I gotta do this right.”
Go easy…
Brake a little and follow the turn. Red and blues — shit — everywhere — like they was already there. One, two, three, another on the side road, what’s that sound? Head out the window — a helicopter?
Ohhhhhh… shit…
Take the foot off the pedal and drift while chaos storm the brain.
Mustang’s mostly off the road, rear wheels spinnin’ loose in the air and nose over a gulch. If the girls had any speed…
And Corazon never wears a seat belt.
I ain’t felt this sick in the belly in a long damn time.
Think. What to do?
Up ahead is every lawman or woman in Colorado and no way I’m like to bust out the girls without a shootout, and nah-- This aint’ the time. I won’t go in guns blazin’ ’til I want to be dead. Got to preserve the self… so how exactly I preserve the self? Already see a couple coppers lookin’ this way. If I three-point on the road and haul ass, they wonder who’s that in the gnarly Eldorado, and why he want outta Dodge City so quick?
But what’s the odds I make it through?
Shit.
Shit.
Damn.
Try the glove box.
I bend ’cross the seat and drop the box. Pull out a bright orange ball cap says Denver Broncos. Slap it on the head. Twist and pull and get it half situated. Need a lid with a bigger brainpan. This one’s made for NFL fans.
“You think that’ll throw em, Loyal Joe?”
No. And don’t be a dick.
I take off the hat.
But the hat is better than turning around. That would draw attention. Normal folks would rubberneck, you know?
“I hear you.”
Slap on the cap and stick my head out the window. Creep the Eldorado close and put the transmission in park with the engine runnin’. I get out and lean on the door with my elbows crossed, takin’ in the sights. Meanwhile thinkin’ on Tat or Corazon tangled up with busted limbs and blood, and who know what other damage… And I can’t do shit to help on account the law. Once a fella’s in the book no moment’s too low but they’ll grab his ass anyway.
I scout the terrain, lest I gotta hop back inside the vehicle and cut a hard uey. Feel the Glock in my back — very same one I liberated from an agent in Flagstaff who want to place me under arrest while I crap in a knocked-down tree. It’s a warm and fuzzy feelin’ knowin’ I can shoot bullets, but it’d be a blessin’ if I never had to agin. In particular not with six divisions of police close enough I could chuck a dead frog and hit one.
Wait.
Long enough.
Turn and look back the way I come thinkin’ I’ll seek an alternate route but a Silverado pull behind me and the muffler rattles to silent. Rifle in the window. Fella in a cowboy hat gets out. Got a shooter on his hip and wear a flannel shirt. Big man. Clean cut. Now he’s out the vehicle I spot the special white stitchin’ high on his leather seat, maybe got a heartbeat or some other Chevy nonsense. He pull up his britches and wiggle his seat and once he got his mess situated, eyeballs the gold Eldorado.
“You bought that off Myrtle?”
“I dug the shit out her in that Eastwood flick. Hard as nails.”
He sniffs like to arrest a runny nose and fishes a tin of Copenhagen from his front pocket and thwack it with his thumb. Offers me a dip.
“Nah. That shit’ll rot your teeth.”
“Good thing I quit,” says he, as he fill his bottom lip.
I lean on the Eldorado and he look like a feller likes to lean too and if they was a tree nearby he’d prop it up. Car’s here but some folk don’t get close to another man’s property ’cause they understand property’s the foundation of civilization. A man’s body, his land, his vehicle. His animals. And most of all his labor. All property. A man with no rights on property’s got no rights on himself. And if he don’t claim his property and defend it they wasn’t no right anyway, ’cause that’s all a right is. When you say I’ll fuckin’ die for it, it’s a right. And if you got nothin’ you’ll die for you got nothin’ anyway. A man like Copenhagen here is just the sorta feller what knows all this without another man needin’ to say it. He’s a kindred spirit and I like this son of a bitch right now, just on account he won’t lean on my Cadillac. He won’t mess with nobody else’s nothin’, and that’s the highest respect he can pay.
Copenhagen cross his arms and lean back ’til he find a spot in the air that’s comfortable.
Says I, “Looks like a red Mustang over the ditch there, maybe hit it hard. Ain’t happen but five minute ago.”
“Did you see it?”
“Nah, I was ’round the bend.”
“What was it? A roadblock? And they got a chopper here inside five minutes?”
“Nah, they’s no roadblock. Just a car in the gulch. That bird just come up. Or maybe was followin’. I dunno.”
“Crazy things going on,” Copenhagen say.
“How so?”
“You didn’t hear about the hubbub in Glenwood Springs?”
“How the hell’d I miss a hubbub?”
“Hell yeah, cop died in shootout with some pothead hippies this morning. Got our own Waco situation. ’Cept it was over ’fore anyone heard about it.”
“Waco? Like Janet Reno brung in the Abrams tanks? Flame throwers on the babies?” says I.
“Nah, not like Waco. Maybe like the Ruby Ridge.”
“FBI snipers shootin’ pregnant wimmin on the doorstep?”
“Nah, hell. Just big government shit is all.”
“The Feds?”
“No, the local.”
“That ain’t big government.”
“Well you know. The dirty sons a bitches — ”
“Mmmm. Way I see it we need more government. That’d solve everything.”
His mouth puckers like it want to take a shit. We ain’t friends no more.
I grin.
He tilt his head.
I grin hard.
“You fuckin’ with me?”
Hardest grin I got. “Accourse.”
“Whoee. Damn. You look scrappy but I thought I might hafta kick your ass from here to the next right turn.”
“Well I’da shot your dumb hillbilly self, so it’s a good thing you held back.”
More grin.
He offer his hand. “Abraham Church.”
“Günter Stroh.”
Shake.
“You from around here, Günter?”
&
nbsp; “Passin’ through.”
He tap my shoulder and point. “Look.”
Ambulance come from the other way, no lights or siren.
“That don’t look good,” I say. Got the ache in the chest like I run a mountain. “Shit, Tat. Hang in there.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s up ahead? Where that ambulance come from?”
“Glenwood Springs.”
“Wait. Behind us?
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s ahead?”
“Carbondale.”
“They got a motel? Someplace a stranger could hole up?”
“Well, sure. We’re coming in on a back road but you work in a general northward direction, you’ll find the 133. Take that north to 82 and you’ll find all the motel-ery you’d ever want.”
“You’re one them fellas knows every road and number.”
He smile.
“And it’s a point of pride.”
He smile more.
Men in uniforms open the back of the ambulance and I see right in. Get the stretchers out and I spot Tat’s blonde hair as they hustle her inside. Another two minute they carry Corazon on a board — no wheels — and slide her on the inside right. Outta space so they use the seat. Two fellas in FBI jackets stand stiff backed and firm and talk at the paramedics. One paramed wave his arm and the FBI boys climb in the back.
Ambulance turn on the lights and blast off.
Holy shit. Are they dead?
“I dunno, Joe, I dunno. If they was dead I wouldn’t expect the ambulance would turn on the lights and burn so much gas.”
“What?”
Abraham Church study me.
“Dog ask a question,” says I.
“Oh.”
Another two vehicles behind the Silverado. Both trucks. One got a horse trailer and the next is filled with dirt bikes. Alla sudden I understand somethin’ big and true and not much use knowin’: Men like to ride things. That fella in the truck with the motorcycles got the wife inside too, and looks like another woman in the king cab. If he’d a brung the sheep, they’d all been there handy.
Up ahead the law enforcement boys and girls all get in they cars and zip after the ambulance, save one. He pop the Mustang trunk and empty out the backpacks. See him come back after stowin’ ’em in his trunk and he look to half dive in the trunk, got his legs in the air and wigglin’ ’til he right himself and study somethin’ shiny in his hand.
The Men I Sent Forward (Baer Creighton Book 6) Page 6
