Bullets of Rain

by David J. Schow

  "Please,'' said Bryan. His teeth were starting to chatter.

  In Bryan 's pocket Art had found a fang-bladed Kaiser lock-back knife with a serrated tip, which he used to slice away Bryan 's jacket, making sure the Bry-Guy could see and recognize it, as it calved thousands of dollars' worth of buttery leather with razor-blade ease. Sure enough, Bryan had one of those idiotic barbed-wire tattoos around his right biceps. The rattlesnake in Art's chest was fully awake now, hot-eyed, pissed off and buzzing. He pegged Bryan 's skull with the gun, mostly because of the tattoo. The bullet puncture was still exsanguinating freely. Bryan could not see most of the damage, but if he lived, his arm would be useless for half a year from bone frags and trauma. Gore slicked his bare shoulder and glued flat leather to his back. The corrugated lip of the garage door had sliced a diagonal flap from his chest, straight through one nipple. Art assessed the wounds, then stepped back and laughed. "Wow-get a load of you."

  "Cold." Worse, when you were splayed out cruciform, with no way to hug yourself.

  "Sure is. Guess you better start talking, to stay warm.''

  "I can't-breathe-'' His movements were weak and vague. Frigid blades of air sneaked past the rents in the door in regular gusts. Bryan felt every degree. For every breath he gulped, vapor twinned from his nostrils and was snatched away by the moving air.

  "I got a blowtorch over there that'll heat your sorry ass up doublequick if you don't stop whining."

  "What… do you want me to…?''

  Art backhanded him, whiplashing his neck and bringing new blood from his tongue. "Don't waste my time, fuckstick. You came over here in a goddamned hurricane just to drive your car through my house. Am I wearing a fucking Pirates uniform? You think I was gonna pitch you a few lowballs, easy hitters?" He picked up the - unused baseball bat. "This could come in very handy."

  Bryan said, "Suzanne."

  "Speak up, Bruno, I don't think I caught that."

  "You took her away…"

  It was too easy, too stupid, too reactionary, too goddamned male. Bryan had got all het up and thought all he needed to wield dominance were his car keys, a ballbat, an address, and his bulgy macho self.

  Bryan 's head clunked against the aluminum rail. Keeping it aloft was too draining. He was blacking out again.

  Art prodded him. "Where's Suzanne?"

  "Left her," Bryan croaked, his eyes indicating the garage door, meaning out there. Outside, somewhere. Probably dragged by the hair.

  Art still had other things that would be exciting to say. Things like: Then you get to stay here and bleed. Or you're really too dumb to live, aren't you? Instead, he checked the restraints, pocketed the single spent cartridge from the floor (always recycle your brass), then marched back to his kitchen for a beer, since it was getting a bit chilly in the garage.

  He chugged a Dixie Double Hex and fed Blitz the rest of the ham a chomp at a time while he sorted through the junk he had stripped from Bryan 's pockets. Besides the wicked knife, there was a slim wallet holding $1,500 in cash and a full house of platinum cards. His driver's-license photo resembled a Polaroid mug shot, the colors muddy, his eyes glinting like mineral chips. No business cards; Suzanne had said Bryan never did anything that could be mistaken for work. There was a flat plastic backup key for the Buick, and a couple of broker's cards bearing San Francisco contacts. Scrawled on the backs of these in various inks was an assortment of names and phone numbers-new women, dope dealers, opportunities for fun awaiting. His trousers-a twenty-nine-inch waist, Art noticed- yielded up a two-gram coke vial attached to a silver chain fob, and a Zippo lighter featuring an enameled red devil girl Art recognized as a Coop special. Bryan had left his own keys in the ignition of the Buick. A burnished pillbox held five or six of Price's special capsules in dividered grape felt. One of them had fallen apart, spattering the rest. It was a different mix; black particles to white in almost equal ratio.

  In the bedroom Art dug into the gun safe and wired a Shark shoulder holster around himself, for the pistol. He mufflered his face and found a pair of clear goggles, the kind of eye protection normally used for metalwork or sanding. With the parka and boots, he looked geared up for an arctic expedition. After cutting the power and putting the alarms on standby, he posted Blitz in the garage to stand watch over the unconscious Bry-Guy.

  "Wenn er sich bewegt, machst du in kalt," he said, liking the sound of that, wondering where he'd picked it up. Kill him if he moves.

  He popped one of Bryan 's black-and-white pill stash. If he was going to forge a one-man expedition into the storm, a "mild accelerator" was practically a must.

  ***

  Suzanne was probably dying of exposure, somewhere between his house and Price's. Dumb bitch. Art wasn't precisely sure where the urge to search for her came from. Rescue? He felt like yelling at her, maybe cuffing her face back and forth until some common sense dribbled into her brainpan. Payback? He wanted to countermand the image of himself as a talker. Time to get proactive.

  The parka increased his mass and gave the storm more to push against. Walking compelled him to incline sixty degrees versus resistance that felt corporeal, like giant hands that chased him in a circular pattern, trying to collect and lift him. Most of the shove was east to west. From the head of his driveway he could see the feebly glowing taillights of a car, and he worked his way north on the feeder road to marry up with it.

  It was a pathetic Volkswagen bug-the one he'd seen on the road yesterday-tipped onto its starboard side, its nose trenched into sand, the windscreen spiderwebbed by a huge sycamore limb that had seemingly dropped out of orbit. No occupants. Apparently some of Price's guests had gotten evacuation into their minds a tot late, and when the carapace of this vehicle proved inadequate, they'd bared themselves to the elements. Art could not make out any bodies in the immediate area; there was a good chance the Bug's passengers were huddled uphill, stuck to trees like slugs, praying to gods they didn't believe in, hoping nothing else fell on them as they froze to death.

  Bryan would not have doubled back, so Art proceeded south along the shoulder. Rain worked him over, then sprayed off his coat to the east without touching the ground, to updraft and soar around to strafe him anew. Just moving through the air had become a lot like trodding snowpack, with the same frustrating measure of retardation. He had to wipe down his goggles once every fifteen seconds; his own exertion was fogging the plastic.

  There was an excellent likelihood that Suzanne had crawled onto the beach and her own grave had blown over her. Had Bryan jettisoned her conscious or unconscious? Was she already dead, killed for some unfathomable betrayal? Unless she was close to the road, she might be no more than another pathetic missing-person statistic.

  After bulling against the storm for several interminable minutes more, he spotted her hair, spin-cycling in the blow like a dandelion hoarding its fibers in a wind tunnel. He found her clinging to an uprooted pine trunk four feet in diameter. She was naked from the waist down, knees skinned, legs streaked with mud. Her left eye was swollen shut and purple, cheekbone thickly confused. Her teeth were intact, maybe loosened in front, and she had a fat lip. She had crawled about thirty yards before giving up, but was still breathing.

  Stupid little party cooze, he thought. What have we learned? He pried her loose and turned her over. Her functional eye flinched as the rain slashed it. Maybe if he just left her here, her tiny mind might be soiled by the passage of an actual thought.

  It was too goddamned cold for ratiocination, anyway.

  At best, visibility held at a fast boil of twilight. Dense pewter clouds shrouded the sky and the downpour was darkly claustrophobic. He hefted Suzanne into a fireman's carry, mostly because if he abandoned her, that would make him exactly like Bryan, his opponent, his enemy. She wasn't that big overall, but lifting her was unexpectedly difficult for Art, who faulted the conditions and his own lack of meaningful exercise. She groaned as she was rearranged, and grip and gravity redistributed her aches.

  "Shut up,"
Art muttered.

  The storm thrashed around like a wounded reptile, mindlessly stinging and biting Art's legs and face. His goggles made the road blurry, an iron-colored swatch of runny paste. He had to stop every few yards and fight to siphon breath from the wind, his parka a bulky, movement-restricting spacesuit as he tried to freight the limp burden of her weight, which actually helped him lean against the air masses intent on pushing him back. His heart was still ramming along at ninety per. Stop, breathe, check to see if she's alive, press onward. Finding her had taken fifteen minutes. Dragging her home consumed another hour.

  Blitz had devoted himself to his guard post admirably, breaking his nine-foot perimeter only to take a modest dump on the entertainment section of Friday's Examiner. Bryan was still as unconscious as a minimum-wage watchman, respiration thin and wisping up from the cavity of his muscle-bound stomach. Blood was congealed to a shiny spray-paint layer on his arm and shoulder, the wound garish but manageable. Once, Art had swallowed more of his own blood than Bryan had lost in the last hour. Fucking wimp.

  He resisted the urge to smash Blitz's fastidious turd into Bryan 's face. It was a funny thought, though. Unlike the regular Art.

  ***

  The temperature in the house had dropped twenty degrees during his absence. He powered up the heat, thankful that Bryan 's destructive entrance hadn't taken out the generator.

  Suzanne made a few incoherent noises as Art deposited her in the guest tub and left her to simmer in hot water that quickly turned pink. He sliced off the remnants of her clothing with Bryan 's knife. Her tits were as cold as iced fruit. He balled her crap into a plastic garbage bag. She'd lost her purse again.

  In the kitchen Art poured two more beers down his neck, leaving the empties alongside the first. He was as parched as a mummy, and knew alcohol would not quench his thirst. Like he gave a shit.

  His two guests just irritated him. They weren't worth the linen, the towels, the time or the hassle.

  When Suzanne woke up, she began sobbing in deep, husking hitches of air. The hot water hurt. Every inch of her was edged in different volumes of pain. She sloshed around clumsily, her arms and legs incorrectly interpreting her brain's instruction. Art thought of a schizophrenic, suddenly waking to find herself neck-deep in a therapy basin, to ask what, where, how? He didn't want an interview, and felt fed up and spiky. He grabbed her hair and fixed her head so she would see nothing but him.

  "Hey. Listen to me. Fart around and your ass gets ejected. Do you understand me?"

  "Nuhh," she said, her eyes rolled up and stayed there.

  His mind lunged against propriety like a leashed bobcat. It took hardcore effort to keep from punching her face until she died.

  Instead, he stored her under comforters in the guest room. Pain in the butt; if he didn't restrain her, he'd have to keep checking. He wished he owned handcuffs. She did not move or make a sound when he gathered her out of the tub. Bruises all over her body had bulged and ripened to a sooty violet with coronas of poisonous ocher. Burst blood vessels had caused impact patterns to surface on her skin in serious crimson. Bad idea, to feed her painkillers in such a state. Her lower lip was swollen, split, and crusting. Her eye was congealed into a slit as tight as the line between two knuckles in a fist. If she woke up, she'd cause trouble. Half an hour after he had put her down, he looked in, mostly out of irrational fear. The covers were still pulled up to her chin and her position had not changed; her breathing was slow and steady, congested into a soft snore.

  In the last half hour his racing heart had calmed and his blood had stopped percolating.

  Another beer. He could do society a favor and put one more bullet, just one, into the center of Bryan 's brain. Leave him ditched on the roadside in his Buick. Maybe stuff him in the trunk and lose the car altogether. Or dump it into the drink, Bry-Guy and all, several miles north at the cliff provided by the Point Pitt Overlook. Or tape the corpse up in the plastic sheet-neatness counts-and deep-six him off the jetty in the middle of the night, when the weather relaxed. Then what? Every time Art stared into those formerly mystic depths, Bryan would be staring right back at him. He was thinking like a murderer.

  "Fuck!'' He hurled the empty bottle across the kitchen. It bounced off the fridge door, leaving a crescent moon dent, and shattered on the floor. Lorelle had always been so neat in "her" kitchen; it was spiteful fun to slob things up, for once. Blitz jolted, unsure of what to do. "Sit your ugly ass back down," Art told the dog. "Platz! Aber soijort jetzt, du Scheisskoter!"

  How could Lorelle have been so inconsiderate as to just subtract herself from his life? Love was supposed to transcend everything; if she was dead, why no ghostly visitations or signals from beyond? Art did not feel aggrieved so much as abandoned and unloved. What about his fucking needs, the deal they'd made for their life together? Lorelle had died bravely. Maybe that was because escaping him, even through death, was enough to make her happy. She had bailed right out of the world, leaving Art to fend for himself and clean up after her memory. Why, if she was here, right now…

  "Bitch," he mumbled, uncapping another beer. How dare she leave him like this?

  Suzanne, however, had come back. Art's temples pulsed-maybe this was payment for gulping those salt-and-pepper capsules. He felt unmoored and confused, not exactly certain of the focus of his anger. He was mad, but at whom, precisely? And how had he come to be this enraged? Was he finally boiling over?

  Was this the "harmless" effect worked by Price's house mix?

  The storm might bring others. This house was the only secure location, excepting perhaps the bunker of missile-silo-grade concrete that held up the Sundial dish, which was inaccessible. Other people might try to get into where Art was. They'd see what he'd done to Bryan, in the garage. He needed a plan. Or he could pile up bullet-holed trespassers in the carport until he ran out of ammo. He tried to dope out a plan over a few more beers…

  Sure enough, pounding on the front door woke him up. Blitz commenced his achtung bark.

  ***

  Art's eyes bleared open. He was sprawled on the sofa in the living room and his neck felt permanently sprung to the left. His nerve endings were effervescent and tender, snapping like Pop Rocks; when he moved his body, it felt distant and alien, a robot remote-controlled by a novice on the stick. The heat was still on, pulsing from the vents, and had swaddled him into a sleeping delirium. He had to thump the wall panel twice before his knuckle hit the comm button.

  "What?'' He waved the dog back. "Shut up a minute, kiddo."

  The speaker crackled with wind distortion. "My name is Captain Willowmore; could we please have a word with whoever is in there? It's colder than Eskimo Hell out here."

  Panic flooded through Art's vascular system like acid. "Police?"

  "U.S. Navy-please?"

  Art switched the alarms to standby, got a grab on Blitz's collar, and unbolted the metal door. Two figures stood in the porch foyer, sealed up in insulated rain suits, goggles on their foreheads. The weather needled around them and tried to enter the house, like iron filings pulled by magnetism. The lead man had to speak over the harsh blow.

  "Man!" Cold had thickened his speech; it sounded to Art like he had said mom. He touched the bill of his cap. "Captain Willowmore. This is Corporal Brookman." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "We came here for the dish but we ran into a problem, and yours is the only light for about a mile. Please tell me that dog doesn't bite."

  "Only when he eats," said Art, lying already. He pulled Blitz back and gave the bulky men room to enter.

  "Frankly, we're amazed that you're still here," said Willowmore.

  Brookman shucked his hood and vised his forehead as though he was suffering a tension spike. "Jesus, it's cold," he said mostly to himself.

  The abrupt entry into heat caused Willowmore's eyes to water.

  He was a clean-cut, close-cropped officer with the carriage of a Bantu tribal leader; his eyes were wide set and never missed anything. Art sensed there would
be trouble if he started snooping. His subordinate, Brookman, was a functionary, a driver, an assistant. He reminded Art of Solomon, the surfer dude at Price's, but with a Bourbon County accent.

  "I bet you guys could use something hot," said Art.

  "Only if you want us to be grateful to you for the rest of our lives,'' said Willowmore. "You mind if we get out of these jackets?'' He had to speak past Blitz's renewed barking.

  Art hung up their weather gear. "Pull your gloves and let him get a whiff of you, then you'll be okay." It was oddly pleasurable, to give orders to military guys. "Blitz-Dai sind Freunde; komm, beschnuppere sie und dann sei ruhig!"

  "Wow," said Brookman, when the dog dutifully sniffed them, then stood down.

  They skinned out of their coats. Art saw uniforms and sidearms.

  "Excuse me if I say we're surprised to find you still out here," said Willowmore.

  Art realized he was going to have to concoct a briefer and more definitive version of his story if he was going to keep encountering strangers in his own house. While he told the men the immediate essentials, he caught them exchanging sidelong looks of doubt.

  The pair gratefully accepted paper cups of instant soup, but never stopped glancing around the house like policemen. Willowmore related that their assignment had to do with manually adjusting the dish tracking for the Sundial, since remote control had been pushed to failure by the raging storm. They had arrived in a wide, flat Humvee to discover the bunker entryway submerged and the tunnel access, farther upbeach, obscured by rockfall. Mission aborted. Art told them the nature of the small avalanche-broken tombstones-and offered in trade his own story of how he had stayed to monitor the progress of his house's revolutionary design. Willowmore nodded, as though he accepted this but had further questions.