Thunderbird

by Chuck Wendig

  They pass a billboard outside. Pistol on it. Big Glocky-looking gun. Bullet shooting out with the name of some gun store on it. Gabby scoffs.

  Miriam raises an eyebrow. “What?”

  “What what?”

  “You scoffed.”

  “I didn’t scoff.”

  “You audibly, visibly scoffed. It sounded like the combination of a scuff and a cough which is, I think, the very definition of scoffed.”

  “The gun thing is all.”

  “What? The billboard?”

  “Gun violence in America is at an all-time high.”

  Miriam blinks. “I guess.” She thinks about the pistol she stole from the dead man in the desert. And how it sits in the bag of money she has sitting at her feet— a fact she decides not to mention to Gabby just now. Gabby knows about the money but not about the gun. The money is five hundred bucks in small bills. It’s the price Gabby helped negotiate for the information they seek. It’s also the last of their cash. But it’s a price Miriam has to pay.

  “This area freaks me out,” Gabby says.

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s super-conservative.”

  “Is it?”

  Gabby makes a face. “Don’t you follow politics?”

  “Do I look like I follow politics? I don’t have time for politics or TV shows or movies or any of that.”

  “You totally have time for all that,” Gabby says, laughing an incredulous laugh. “You don’t have a full-time job. You don’t have a job at all.”

  Miriam scowls. “And you do? By the way, being me is a full-time job, Little Miss Judgeytits.”

  “My tits would never judge you.”

  “I bet.”

  “And me helping you is a full-time job too.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Gabby reaches over, touches her arm. “Seriously, I hope we find what you’re looking for tonight. I’m sorry. I know it’s hard. Especially lately.”

  Miriam told Gabby about the events in the desert— the boy, the woman Gracie, the sniper. (Though she continues to withhold the part about hey, I can become birds and sometimes eat people because that seems about four or five bridges too far.) Gabby, to her credit, listened, nodded, shushed her. And even now it continues. The soothing, the loving gestures. Gabby’s fingers tracing reassuring lines up Miriam’s arm. The occasional squeeze of her wrist, hand, or shoulder. The reminder that there’s someone else out there. Someone else who maybe actually cares about her.

  “Thanks.” That word, croaked out, like a frog under the toe of a stepping boot. She’s not used to someone being nice to her. It’s weird. It makes her uncomfortable. Which, Miriam thinks, says a whole lot. None of it good.

  TWELVE

  SCUZZ AND THE SKIZZ

  The hotel is so boutique hipster bullshit, it makes Miriam want to soak her chest in rage-barf. Pink floppy chairs contrastingly shoved in brushed steel frames. Blue neon framing the room. Big words bulging from the walls hung as art: DIVA, LUXE, WOW. A dull, thudding bass— lazy trip-hop like someone on Molly made it with their iPhone. Pretentious black-and-white photos on the wall of things that have nothing to do with anything: a chess piece, a homeless man, an oboe, a laughing supermodel cutting red peppers in a kitchen. Miriam passes each and finds her face twisting up tighter and tighter, like a screw spun so far into the wood, it splits the board.

  The elevator dings. She and Gabby enter.

  The wall behind them is a giant photo of what looks like a bearded lumberjack pressing a finger to his lips, as if to say, Shhhh, I’m a douche. His handsome face looks soft, not hard. Another model. “That’s not a real lumberjack,” Miriam says, growling.

  Gabby shrugs. “So?”

  “These things are important to me,” Miriam says.

  Gabby asks, “Authenticity in elevator art?”

  “Yeah.” She blinks. “Okay, I probably shouldn’t care about that.”

  “Probably not.”

  “I care too much. That’s my problem.”

  Gabby smiles. “I think that’s pretty low on your list of problems.”

  The elevator dings again.

  Doors open.

  Long hallway. Blue walls, lemon yellow accents. More pretentious photography. This hotel is trying so hard, it’s going to strain something. Pop a nut, give itself a hernia. Hell, the design already suggests a place in the throes of anesthetic aneurysm.

  “Room 522,” she says.

  They head to the door. The three digits in the room number are each a different font, like it’s a ransom note.

  Miriam knocks three times. Loud.

  Inside, music thuds. An erratic bass line. A musical arrhythmia.

  She knocks again. The volume drops.

  The door opens a couple inches. A narrow sliver of white-dude face stares out. Faint hair on his upper lip like a dusting of Oreo cookie crumbs: a crustache. His lip curls in an amused sneer.

  “Sup,” he says.

  “Sup,” Miriam mimics.

  “You need something? You don’t look like you’re from Triple Visions.”

  “I don’t know what that is. We spoke on the phone last week.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m looking for Mary Scissors.”

  She gestures with the tote bag.

  The realization dawns on his face slowly. “Aww, ha ha ha, yeah, yeah, sure. Come on in, ladies.”

  The door closes, the locks disengage. The room is like the lobby downstairs. Nothing matches. Looks like God got high and painted everything in fluorescent highlighter.

  “I’m Buzz, yo,” the white boy says. Miriam offers her fist to bump, but he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. She wants to see how he dies, wants to get that taste of it— she tells herself it’s because it’s good to know, that it’s important to see because of what she might learn. But part of it, too, is that she wants it.

  Hell, not just part of it. Most of it. All of it, maybe.

  “Yeah, I know your name,” Miriam says. She tries to shake the desire scratching at her door like a monster inside a child’s closet. “Like I said, we spoke on the phone.”

  “Sorry, sorry, yeah.” He bumps the desk chair over with his knee, the casters rattling on the floor. He sits, kicks back, gestures to the bed. “Take a load off, ladies. Relax.”

  Miriam and Gabby share a look.

  They sit after silent agreement.

  “I don’t want this to take long,” Miriam says. “I brought the money. I want to know where Mary Scissors is. Easy deal to make.”

  “Chill, chill. Can’t we get to know each other?”

  “We’re not going to fuck you,” Gabby says.

  Miriam, impressed, thumbs toward Gabby. “What she said.”

  “Nah, nah, nah, I ain’t trying to play you like that, ladies.” He licks his crustache, like he’s thinking about it anyway. “You gals lezzies?”

  “She’s straight,” Gabby says, and the bitterness there is so plain, Miriam can actually taste it on the back of her tongue.

  “Uh, excuse me, I’m bisexual,” Miriam says, “Thanks.”

  “Bisexual isn’t a thing,” Gabby says. “It’s like trying to be a vegetarian while saying you also sometimes eat meat.”

  “Some vegetarians eat eggs, and that metaphor totally sucks anyway because people can eat both meat and vegetables— it’s called being an omnivore and I’m basically a sexual omnivore and I don’t think we should be having this discussion in front of—”

  She’s about to say “Buzz,” but when she looks over at him, he’s pulling out what she first thinks is a fountain pen— it’s long, black, with a silver end and what she soon realizes is a mouthpiece of sorts. Like a tiny musical instrument. He wets his lips and sucks on it. When he does, the end glows blue.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Smokin’, yo.”

  “Smoking what? Some sort of Tron cigarette?” Then, to Gabby: “See, I watch movies. I know Tron.”

  “The ne
w one, or the old one?”

  “There was a new one?”

  Buzz chuckles. “It’s an e-cig.”

  “An e-cig.” Miriam blinks.

  “Yeah, yeah. Electronic cigarette.”

  “That’s not a real thing. You’re just making that up.”

  “You never vaped?”

  “ ‘Vaped?’ Now I know you’re just dicking around with me. If this is what smoking is coming to, I’m glad I’m quitting.”

  He exhales a cloud of what looks like fog. “It’s cool. They got flavors.”

  “Well. You look like a fucking asshole. And the only flavor I need for my smokes is tongue cancer.”

  He frowns. She pushed too far.

  “How do I know you’re not cops?” he asks.

  “Because we’re not?” Gabby says.

  “If you think we’re cops, then you’re even dumber than I thought. Listen, Dirt-Lip. Let’s move this dog and pony show along, okay?”

  All jocularity has been bled from his face. He sucks on the e-cig again, blows another vapor plume. He says, “You wanna know where Skizz is, you’re gonna have to prove you ain’t po-po.”

  “Skizz?”

  “Mary Scissors. We call her Skizz, like in Skizzers.”

  “Fine.” Miriam sniffs. “What do you want us to do?”

  He laughs, pulls out a little black satchel. The e-cig hangs out of his mouth as he unzips it. It’s like a little shaving kit, except instead of shaving gear, it’s three hypodermic needles, two spoons, a tiny packet of white cloths, a lighter, and a baggie of white powder.

  “I want you to shoot up,” he says. “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

  “I’m quitting smoking, not starting heroin,” Miriam says. “Besides, I’m pretty sure undercover cops totally do drugs.”

  “You want your info, this is how. I wanna know you’re on the up and up.”

  He wants to get us hooked so we buy his shit, she thinks.

  “You work for the cartels?” she asks. Would make sense. Arizona is right up against Mexico. They have power here— presence.

  “Hell, no. They make stepped-on, shitty stuff. This is synthetic. Cheap, clean, beautiful.” He hands over the satchel. “Fire it up.”

  “Fuck yourself. No.” She starts to stand. And then sits back down.

  Gabby gives her a look. “You’re not seriously going to—”

  Miriam looks at the bag.

  Remembers the gun in it.

  No. That won’t work. No guns here. Not now. Not yet.

  But she needs the info he has. Needs it. This thing she has is worse than any addiction. Touching people, seeing their deaths—it’s a curse, yeah, and it’s all well and good to keep calling it that. But the hunger for it twists in her marrow like a chewing maggot. She’s addicted to death. It’s become a part of her— woven into her fabric, half the squares sewn to her crazy-ass quilt. She hates that.

  It’s gotta go.

  “I need to know where this woman is,” she says. “So, fine, lets all get goofy.” She starts taking things out of the satchel. The items within are a mystery to her. Suddenly frustrated, she barks: “I don’t know what to do with this shit.”

  “I’ll help,” Gabby says, taking the kit.

  Now it’s Miriam’s turn to offer the quizzical look.

  Gabby says, “I used to use. High school. It was a thing. I got over it.” She pauses. “Some of my friends didn’t.” She starts to tap the powder into the spoon. Flicks the lighter. In seconds, it’s like melting snow— the granules of white join each other, their margins breaking down. Then it’s gone, replaced with a bubbling liquid. “You don’t wanna do this.”

  “I know I don’t. Just cook.”

  The scuzzy fuck vapes and watches and chuckles. Like he gets off on it.

  Gabby dips the needle tip in the bubbling broth.

  Then sucks it up into the syringe.

  “Miriam,” she says, handing it over. “Be careful.”

  Miriam winks.

  The needle tip drips— a glistening bead like morning dew.

  Then she grabs Buzz by the wrist—

  Two years from now, four months, seven days, Buzz is in a souped-up Honda hatchback driving down the highway at night, dipping his chin and biting his lip to the bass booming so loud out of his car’s stereo, it’s a surprise the whole thing doesn’t vibrate apart, and he looks over and sees a white Caddy sliding up alongside him with a bunch of vatos ridin’ dirty, and he lifts his head and nods at them, and the one in the passenger side— face so gaunt and so long, he’s like a deer skull with skin stapled to it— nods back, and then the back window rolls down and Buzz realizes a half-second too late that they’re holding guns, submachine guns, and then bullets start chewing into the Honda and chewing into Buzz, too. He screams, hot lead opening his middle, glass peppering his cheeks. He cuts the wheel, steers into the highway divider, and then the car is flipping like a can kicked down the road, everything spinning, and he’s not wearing his seatbelt, and so next thing Buzz knows, he’s on the ground, bleeding, surrounded by glass, his car ten feet ahead of him on its side. He laughs, and the laugh makes him belch up blood, and then he hears an engine revving. When he turns his head, he sees the Caddy coming. In reverse. Buzz screams. The tires mash his head like a banana under a little kid’s Big Wheel. And that’s the end of scuzzy Buzz—

  — and then Miriam jams the needle in his arm, thumbing the plunger.

  The dealer’s eyes go wide as the spoon that cooked the horse, and he clubs an easily ducked fist toward Miriam. Then his mouth goes slack and his eyes go unfocused.

  “Buh,” he says.

  Drool wets his drooping lip.

  Miriam stands. Snaps her fingers at Gabby. “C’mon. Help me get Scuzzy Buzz into the bathroom.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “Improvising.”

  INTERLUDE

  CROW BAR

  In the hills outside Atalaya Mountain— down a long canyon road looped and curved like guts spilled and twisted, amongst the pinyon pines and the sagebrush— sits an old biker bar. Crow Bar. From the outside, you’d think a madman lives here— it’s an old double-wide trailer whose outer walls are covered with a random assortment of forgotten shit. Hubcaps nailed to the walls. Broken mirrors and bits of once-colorful pottery bleached by the sun and speckled with red dust. A shattered birdbath. Pickaxes. Iron skillets. Like inside is a black hole sucking all manner of junk and desert detritus toward it.

  Inside ain’t much different. Long bar framed in tire rubber. Stools, none that match, many metal, many rusted. No tables—no room for tables. More garbage hanging from the ceiling: bike chains, an ammo belt from a WWII machine gun, Mardi Gras beads.

  But inside doesn’t matter.

  Because Jerry Carnacky— a guy they call Jerry Carnage— isn’t going to be in there for long. He’s sitting. He’s drinking. This is a safe place. A you don’t fuck with me, I don’t fuck with you bar. Made all the safer because those fucks from the Ladrones Viciosos are dead and gone. Not all of them dead, okay, but all of them gone. Scattered like broken teeth.

  But that win is a loss, too. Mary did this for them— Mary, with her gifts. Mary, with her big bush and mournful eyes. Mary, sweet Mary. She was gonna be Jerry’s hot old motorcycle mama. She’s like them raw, rough broads out of those Easyriders magazines that Li’l Jer used to steal out of Pop’s toolbox in the garage. All those natural women. No fake tits. No baby pussies. Real goddamn motherfucking women. They had soul, but they looked like they’d pop you in the mouth, too, if you said the wrong thing. Tough bitches. Jerry likes tough bitches.

  Mary could’ve been in those pages.

  Mary Scissors. He hated that name. Apt as it was.

  She’s not with him anymore. He said, “You’re mine; you can’t go.” She said her job was done and she was never his. And Jerry, hoo boy, Jerry threw himself an epic shitfit. Like a monkey cranked tight on meth. Okay, now, he never hit her. Not re
ally. He’d never do that. Sure, he threw a lamp. Kicked a hole in his own wall. Broke a goddamn coffee table clean in half when he stomped on it. Every broken thing just making him want to break more things. When he ran out of steam, she just asked him if he was done, and he said he was, and then she gave him a small kiss on his salt-and-pepper cheek and walked out into the setting sun and was gone.

  He misses her.

  He’d cry, but he can’t muster the tears. Last time he cried was when his dog— an old long-bodied hound named Dickripper— got hit by a car on the highway.

  A man’s allowed to cry over his dog. That’s just a rule.

  So, no, he’s not crying, but he is drowning his sorrows in some tequila from just south of the border— it’s cheap shit, but it isn’t swill, and it tastes like the sunset into which his sweet Mary walked.

  Time comes and brings the sound of a bike roaring outside, engine guttering and going quiet. Then he hears the door behind him open— it can’t open without making a sound, given the fact it brushes a set of old wind chimes made from a set of little wrenches. Jerry looks up, sees the bartender— a scraggly-bearded strip of beef jerky named Delmar— scowl like someone just unzipped and started pissing on the floor. “You can’t bring that in—” the bartender starts to say.

  Those words, swallowed up by the hungry boom of a shotgun. Damn near cuts Delmar in two. Bottles pop. Liquor spills. Jerry jumps off his stool, but he’s half in the bag, and he falls into another stool while reaching for the Bowie knife hanging at his hip—

  The butt of the shotgun cracks him in the mouth. He swallows teeth. Chases them with blood. Next thing he knows, he’s being dragged outside, and he looks up and sees that it’s Johnny Tratez, meth cook for the now-defunct Ladrones Viciosos, doing the dragging. Tratez must be sampling his own goods, because his whole face is drawn wide, stretched out, skin so tight it looks like it might rip— the man’s mouth is a cavern of screaming rage, his eyes bleary and unblinking. Even his nostrils are flaring big enough you could fit a couple of 20-gauge shells up in there. He flings Jerry out the front door, into the broken stone parking lot, not far from the old withered hitching posts where bikers lash their rides.