by John Farris
Alone at last. Flicka needed, she had reckoned, less than three minutes while the Supa was on the pottie and her room was empty. Of course, Bertie’s brother Kieti or her father could show up at any time, but Nic was there to handle that situation. She’d already fucked Kieti once, on their first date and even though her wisdom teeth were killing her. Kieti probably thought he was in love.
Bertie Nkambe’s last moments on earth had been carefully prepared for. Flicka wondered, even as she chatted amiably with her intended victim on the way to the bathroom, how much time Entertainment Tonight would devote to the supermodel’s shocking and unexpected demise. She’d been doing so well, according to daily bulletins from the hospital. Tragic. A real tragedy.
As Flicka helped Bertie onto the toilet, then closed the door, Flicka experienced a momentary but profound lack of focus. She knew what it felt like to have her heart skip a beat, but this was the first time her entire brain had suddenly gone off-line.
She took a step away from the bathroom, but couldn’t take another.
Suddenly terrified, forgetting what she had in one pocket of her colorful volunteer’s smock, Flicka opened her mouth to call Nicole.
And discovered that she couldn’t make a sound.
Flicka could see, and also she could hear perfectly well Nic’s laughter in the other room as she jollied the Blackwelder guards. But Flicka’s mind was one massive jammed gear. She stood in the bedroom as if rendered in bronze, eyes unblinking.
Behind her the bathroom door opened. Bertie came out.
“I haven’t done everything to you that I could,” Bertie said. “It’s just a partial brain lock. I may let you go after you’ve had a talk with a good friend of mine . . . but that will depend on you, Fetchling.”
6:18 P.M.
As if my life isn’t complicated enough,” Eden said with a weary smile while Cody drove them to Concordia Hospital.
“How much of Patrick’s story do we buy?”
Eden laughed. “All of it, or none of it, I guess.”
“Means you’re buying it,” Cody said with a glance at her as they stopped at a red light.
“Cody, what fifteen-year-old could possibly come up with a story so fantastic, but so detailed?”
“The part I liked best was the junkyard full of waylaid time machines.”
“What he told us does make sense—when I put it together with everything I already know is true.”
“Your doppelganger, Gwen—”
“Calls herself Gwen,” Eden said with a frown of disapproval.
“—Strayed off the reservation. And she has the ability to time-travel.”
“In common with all dpg’s. I think probably Gwen had an assist, at least on the way home in that Jazz Age sports car with Pat and Unca Mickey, from the red crystal skull the car came equipped with.”
“Nearly forgot about the skull. There’s so much else to keep track of.”
“Maybe I didn’t mention it, but I’ve seen the skull or one like it in my dreams. My dreams may confuse the hell out of me half the time, but they don’t lie.”
“Was that the dream where you met up with, how did you put it? The female half of Mordaunt’s soul? Which could be the same one your friends saw in Africa, stark naked and ridin’ on the back of a tiger?”
“Head of a hyena, which technically makes it a were-beast.”
“Now there’s a sight I’d pay money to see.”
“Not if I can help it, darling.” Eden sighed. “So Mordaunt’s better half is back, possessing Gwen, calling herself Delilah, talking, Pat said, in Elizabethan-era iambic pentameter. She has a lousy temper and can change her shape on a whim. Oh, my.”
“Got a few other tricks up her sleeve, maybe. Did you just call me ‘darling’?”
“Tricks? Like pulling down stars with one hand, unearthing lightning from Acheron with the other? Combining celestial and man-made power for a hell-on-earth-welcome-to-doomsday-folks scenario? I’ve wondered about the source of that power—could it be from the heart of the earth, or from the spent nuclear fuel I’ve heard is already being stored inside Yucca Mountain? I suppose Delilah can do all of these things, being the bitch version of Deus Inversus, and who knows what else? Just my luck. Yes. I did call you darling. My love. My darling cowboy Cody. The reason that taxi driver behind us is screaming as if he wants to kill you, the light’s been green for ten seconds, Cody.”
Cody burned some rubber getting through the intersection, a look of disbelief on his face easing into a mellow smile.
They had just driven into the larger of two parking lots at Concordia when a tall girl wearing one of the distinctive paisley smocks of the hospital’s volunteer corps roared out from between a couple of large SUVs on a very flash low-rider hardtail and crossed six feet in front of them, cutting across the lot between other vehicles to an exit.
Cody had jammed on the brakes of his little Prius.
“What the hell?”
As he started forward again, a uniformed security guard appeared in all-out pursuit of the motorcyclist, closely followed by one of Bertie Nkambe’s Blackwelder bodyguards. Neither had a chance of catching up to Nicole, who disappeared from the lot a few seconds later.
“I’ve seen that girl!” Eden said, her hands pressed against the dashboard. “She was in Bertie’s suite with another volunteer this morning! Oh God, I think something’s happened to Bertie!”
Eden was out of the car, sprinting herself in spite of the pain in her bad knee, before Cody could say anything.
AT VIRGIE LOVECHILD’S • 6:35 P.M.
Devon had planned to pull her Jag into Virgie’s narrow driveway, but most of the drive was blocked by an RV with a couple of trailered Harleys behind it. She drove on up the block and parked near an apartment building with feather-duster palms in front, illuminated by pink and green floodlights. She walked back to Virgie’s compound.
There was a pickup truck with California plates in front of the RV. Two big black dogs in the truck bed who looked and sounded mean enough to kill Red Riding Hood leaped up when Devon approached. She stopped, a cold needle of fear penetrating her heart.
From the carport where Virgie kept her old Chevy a tall kid with shoulder-length unkempt hair and a face as sore and spoiled as Dumpster fruit strolled toward her. He was biker-bar trash. Dangling silver and a death’s-head tattoo on his exposed chest, the densely tattooed forearms known as “sleeves.”
He whistled sharply to the dogs, who were lunging around in the pickup’s bed with barely suppressed violence. It seemed to have an effect on them. They quieted down but didn’t take their eyes off Devon.
The kid gurgled down what was left of a quart bottle of beer, dropped it in the yard, and tried to focus on Devon. He had the bright creepy eyes, itchy-twitchy body language, and jaw gyrations of a meth addict. She could smell him from ten feet away.
“You want something?”
“I came to see Virgie.”
“Who’re you?”
“A friend,” Devon said, with a lift of her chin.
He shook his head. “She’s not feelin’ good enough to have company.”
“Virgie’s ill?”
“Call it that.”
“Who might you be?”
“You don’t rec’nize me? I’m Brad Pitt.” He tried out a boyish grin.
“Where is Virgie? In the house?”
“Told you. She ain’t seein’ nobody.”
“Well, look who’s here!”
Devon turned her head toward the Airstream trailer. The Goth girl named Deborah, whom Virgie employed, stood in the doorway. Her little mouth was bunched. A smirk to go with her smirky tone of voice. Devon suddenly felt very cautious. Insolence thickening the air, the tense murderous dogs. Brad Pitiful lazily flicked his cigarette butt in Devon’s direction. Sparks flew near her feet. Devon looked at the fiery butt, looked up slowly and steadily at him, saying nothing.
He turned to Deb, shoulders pumping up and down freakily.
“The Brit cunt says she’s a friend of Virgie’s, about which I never heard nothing. Virgie havin’ friends, I mean.”
“Devon is Irish,” Deborah said, eyes narrowing in Devon’s direction. “Or so she would like us to believe. I don’t know about the cunt part. Got my suspicions, though.” Deb smiled belatedly. “Just messing with you, Devon.”
After a few seconds Devon said, “I’ll just be leaving now. If you would tell Virgie I stopped by.”
She took three slow steps back toward the street, her mouth dry. Keeping an eye on the dogs, who looked ready to leap out of the pickup.
Deborah came down into the yard, saying, “No need to rush off! You want to see Virgie? Could be she’s asleep again. Sleep’s the best thing for her in her time of grief, but—”
Devon stopped. “Grieving? What’s happened here?”
Deborah shook her head, looking sorrowful as she walked toward Devon.
“Not to make a long story of it, Snowjob sneaked out of the house without any of us knowing, and—”
Devon looked again at the dogs growling and shaking the pickup with their murderous energies and was instantly appalled.
“Oh, no! How dreadful. Poor Snowie.”
“Yeah, Virgie’s just all busted up about it.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. Whose brutes are those?”
“They belong to Chinch here and his Hermosillo honcho Keno Ramirez. Who are friends of mine, dropped by for a visit.” Deb resumed smiling. “Same as you and your bud Harlee drop by sometimes unexpected? What happened to Snowjob was just one of those tragic misfortunes.” Deb sighed. “Chinch and Keno, feeling kind of responsible wouldn’t you know, they offered to buy Virgie a puppy to help make up for her loss.”
“And them bitchin’ frizzies cost an ass ’n’ a half,” Chinch grumbled with a few uncontrollable head jerks. “Show-dog money, honey.”
“But it was for naught,” Deb continued in a passable imitation of Devon’s gentle brogue. “Virgie’s, like, inconsolable. I had to give her something, you know, calm her down.”
“Like what?” Devon said.
Deborah looked Devon over, not answering the question.
“You didn’t happen to bring Virg a little present, did you, might get her to feeling better? Right now she doesn’t want to talk or eat. I don’t know what else—”
“Yes. I do have a keepsake for her.”
“Swell! Let’s go in then.”
There was another guy, whom Devon took to be Keno Ramirez, lounging in the shuttered front room of Virgie’s bungalow. Big, no neck. He had one of those scary-looking, stone-carving Hispanic faces with hooded dark unmoving eyes that seem never to blink. He was staring at the Cartoon Channel on a wall-mounted LCD screen. Devon had the quick impression that Keno’s idea of real entertainment would involve chain saws and live human beings.
A miasma of squantch in the room was almost enough to trigger Devon’s gag reflex. She’d just had her hair done and now she’d have to wash it as soon as she got out of there.
“This way,” Deborah said, as if she owned the place. She preceded Devon down a tiled hallway to the back of the bungalow, where, mercifully, the air was cleaner and Devon could take a reasonably deep breath. But Chinch and his odor were too close for comfort behind Devon.
Deb opened the door to Virgie’s bedroom without knocking, then turned her head to warn Devon, “It ain’t a pretty sight.”
She remained in the doorway. Devon squeezed past her and looked at Virgie, whose head was propped up on a couple of breadloaf-size squishy pillows on the iron bedstead. Her eyes were closed. Her complexion was cement gray, her face sweaty. In the crook of her right arm lay the remains of Snowjob. The air in the room had a bloody odor. It was difficult to identify what Virgie clung to as a dog.
There was a tray of uneaten food, drying on the plate, placed across the arms of an antique Spanish chair next to the bed. Apparently Virgie had been all day without getting up to visit the bathroom. Devon smelled soiled sheets as she approached the bed.
“Virgie? It’s Devon.”
Virgie was breathing through her mouth. She didn’t respond until Devon was close enough to reach down and touch her cold cheek. Then her breathing accelerated, muscles moved randomly in her face, her eyes peeped open. She looked uncomprehendingly at Devon.
Devon turned to Deborah, who stood watchfully in the doorway, picking with a fingernail at something between her teeth.
“Her color is awful! Are you certain she hasn’t had a heart attack?”
“She’ll be okay. Shock. You know how she doted on her doggy. Go on, tell Virgie about your present, maybe that’ll perk her up.”
Devon glanced at the containers of prescription pills that were on the tray. Heavy-duty tranks. She looked at the scales of dried vomit on Virgie’s chin.
“Perk up? That’s ludicrous. Virgie should be bathed, and it’s obvious she requires immediate medical attention. A stay in hospital.” Devon reached into her purse for her cell phone. “I’m calling for an ambulance.”
“Wouldn’t be in a hurry to do that,” Deb said with a quick turn of her head. “Chinch, get your ass in here.”
Chinch jived into the room with a crooked grin and snatched the cell phone from Devon’s hand, slipped it into a pocket of his silver-studded leather vest.
Devon swiftly drew her stiletto from the flat forearm scabbard beneath her sweater. With the point beneath Chinch’s stubbly chin where an artery throbbed, she walked him backward into a stucco wall below a ceramic head of the biblical Madonna. Her purposeful expression caused his grin to fade. He looked sideways at Deborah, clenching and unclenching his teeth.
“She means to stick me, Deb. On the border you get where you rec’nize the ones they’ll use a fuckin’ blade.”
Devon retrieved her phone and kept Chinch pinned to the wall, where he jitterbugged like a hung-up marionette.
“You’re overreacting,” Deb said mildly to Devon. “Like I tried to tell you, what Virgie needs is bed rest, time to get over the trauma. She works too hard anyway. Give her a week, she’ll be her old self. Meanwhile Bluesie and I will take care of the business.”
“Devon,” Virgie said in an exhausted voice, “help me.”
Devon didn’t dare look around. She motioned Chinch toward the door, the point of the knife denting his throat. He had sense enough to keep his neck muscles taut, which could make it slightly more difficult for Devon to open his throat from ear to ear. If he wasn’t afraid of her, at least he had learned respect.
“That’s what this is about?” Devon said, recalling her earlier conversation with Deborah. (“Let me leave with you a message. I got here first. Virgie won’t be around all that much longer, not with that coal miner’s cough and sewer-pipe arteries.”) “You’re taking over Virgie’s business? Stoking her with monster chemicals—Oh, I see. Snowjob’s demise was no accident, was it? But you are not as clever as you think. Not half. I won’t allow you to get away with this.”
As Deborah moved aside, Devon pushed Chinch out into the poorly lit hall. She heard the dogs. She took a fast look, her blood congealing. The dogs were at the other end of the hall, claws scrabbling on tile. But for now the hulking Keno had them tight-fisted on chain leashes.
“You be steady now,” Chinch advised Devon. “That big boarhound’s Bobo. The part-rotie bitch is Evangeline. What it is, they’re trained to kill when they see a knife. Crotch and throat, bam-bam. So you still wanta stick me?”
Deb walked past Chinch and Devon into the bedroom. Virgie was crying, a faint despairing wail.
“Hey, Virg, just shut up for now, okay? Had about all I care to listen to. I’ll get you a drink of water in a minute.”
Devon said, “Harlee knows exactly where I am. In case I don’t show up at the Caesars spa in the next fifteen minutes.”
Chinch put an easy hand on the hand that held the stiletto. Crisis seemed to soothe his nerves.
Devon let him take her stiletto.
Deb
orah removed the ceramic head of the Madonna from the wall. She walked out of Virgie’s room and smashed Devon in the back of her head with it. The heavy but hollow piece broke in two. The dogs were going nuts. Devon crumpled without a sound.
Deb prodded her hard in the ribs with a booted foot.
“Looks like Devon is O-U-T,” she said sardonically.
“So what do we do with her?” Chinch said, beginning to twitch again.
“Parrrtyyyy,” Keno growled.
“Down south on your own turf,” Deborah advised. “Have all the fun you want, guys, but don’t tear her a new asshole. Keep her high. Morph, not skag. Make sure she eats and doesn’t get dehydrated. Couple weeks, she’ll be docile as lovebirds. Clean her up and take her over the border, see what she’ll bring from that Ay-rab who does his shopping in No Gal for the teenage runaways. We split the proceeds fifty-fifty.”
Deborah reached down for Devon’s shoulder tote and began to rummage through it. First she found the keys to the Jag. Then she came up with a jeweler’s box wrapped in pink tissue.
“What do you know? She wasn’t spoofin’ about a present for Virgie. Let’s have a look.” Deb tore off the paper and opened the box. “Expensive, too. From Fred’s.” She held up the bracelet to the hall ceiling light. “Yep, eighteen karat. It’s always good to know people who go first class. I’ll drive her car over to Treasure Island and leave it in their garage. Keno, give her a dose of treats before she wakes up. Enough so she’s nodding but can still walk out of here to the RV with a little help. You don’t want to have to carry her; the goddamn neighbors are incredible snoops.”
CONCORDIA HOSPITAL • 6:47 P.M.
I’m not ready to check out of here,” Bertie said. “Another twenty-four, forty-eight hours maybe, before I’ve built up my strength to the seventh energy body.”
“Then security needs to get a hell of a lot tighter,” Eden said. “This was way too easy for our friend here.”
They both looked at Flicka. The Fetchling sat in an armchair, hands folded in her lap, staring at a landscape on the wall with unblinking eyes. Her expression was one of eerie serenity.
