by John Vorhaus
Hines hustled me out of the car and removed the handcuffs. This puzzled me at first, but then I realized they were probably serial numbered, and it wouldn’t do for some random future hiker or mountain biker to find Hines’s issued equipment on my skeletal remains. I rubbed blood back into my wrists and looked around. Tire tracks in the snow showed the way we had come: along a washboard fire road that switchbacked up from a desolate stretch of asphalt. We had arrived at the road’s dead end, a heavily mudded clearing surrounded by sugar pines and thickets of sumac. On the far side, a sloppy wet trail led downhill and disappeared into a taffy pull of cloud.
Hines drew his gun and, with that flick of the barrel that gun users use, gestured me down the oozy path. I dutifully stepped off in that direction. I suppose that someone else in my situation might have made a stand right there, maybe forced Hines to use his gun, if for no other reason than to generate forensic evidence. But that’s cold comfort to the dead, isn’t it? To have an incriminating slug lodged in your decomposing corpse. Besides, this was the end of the endgame. I needed not to hurry it.
It was gorgeous in those woods. Ice and rime hung from the branches of the sugar pines. The air, cold and crisp, made my breath puff out before me as I walked. Snow and fog dampened all sounds: the cries of crows and the distant thock thock of a woodpecker. Hines walked behind me, his shoes crunching dully in the snow. I imagined that his gun was pointed at my back and felt a self-conscious tingling there, like you get at the end of your nose when someone holds a fingertip close. It didn’t take a genius to figure out our destination: some suitable precipice he could throw me off.
Okay, fine.
Do I sound blasé? I know I sound pretty blasé. I wasn’t feeling that way inside, trust me. I mean, look at where I was: wandering around the woods at the wrong end of a gun. When you get to that point—on the wrong end of a working firearm—it can certainly look like you’ve lost the plot. Granted I was impaired, but still … I could tell without turning around that Hines was grinning at how I’d fucked up. He was probably feeling pretty arrogant. I knew from recent experience that arrogance can make you careless.
Our angle of descent steepened, and anyone who tells you it’s not hard work to climb downhill has never tried it on narrow path of mud, snow, and sodden underbrush, in totally the wrong shoes, and to the accompanying drumbeat of a head injury. My thigh muscles started to burn and, cold as it was at this elevation, I started to sweat. It became difficult to breathe. Then the clouds lifted a little, and I could see a break in the trail ahead where, five or fifty years or five hundred years ago, a furious landslide had sheared away the earth, leaving a steep scarp plunging some half a mile to a pile of granite scree. I thought of the Hackmaster in my pocket. Value Town Chuck said it did tricks. Was it doing one now? Only one way to find out.
I turned to face Hines, a look of pure panic on my face. “I don’t want to die,” I said. Sweat ran down my face. “Please.”
“Begging, Radar?” he said. “Really?”
My breathing was now really labored. I could feel it coming in great, desperate, gulping gasps. My skull throbbed from where I’d been struck. “I don’t feel well,” I said. My eyes rolled up in my head.
I crumpled to the ground.
I felt the toe of his shoe prodding me ungently in the gut. “Get up,” he said. “Get up, or I’ll shoot you where you lay.”
He meant lie, of course—shoot you where you lie—but had inadvertently shifted me into the past tense. That had ironic overtones, as did the word itself, for had not the sum of so many lies led me to where I lay?
Radar, Radar, Radar, what is this obsession you have with language? Here you are facing death with your eyes closed, and all you’ve done is disappear into a word game. You’re stiff and fetal-curled, and is that a string of saliva dripping from your lip? You don’t respond to Hines’s words or his increasingly vehement kicks. It’s almost as if you’re …
… playing …
… possum ….
I heard a leathery snick as Hines holstered his gun. Next thing I knew, he had grabbed me by both feet and was dragging me down the path to its bitter end. Dirt and snow smeared along the side of my face; some went up my nose. I stifled the urge to clear it. Playing dead is playing dead, after all; you don’t get to choose your comfort level. As it was, I had two things working for me: (A) the high ground—Hines was dragging me from below—and (2) …
“You on the trail!” a sportscaster-sounding voice boomed forth from some hidden spot in the woods. “Drop that man and raise your hands!” As Hines’s head swiveled toward the sound, I seized the moment to drive a cold, hard foot into his crotch. He doubled up and fell down, and with the practiced hands of a pickpocket, I located his holster and relieved him of his gun.
Like I said, I’m not a fan of guns. They’re the bluntest of blunt instruments. But you know what they say about desperate times and desperate measures. I stood over Hines, holding his gun in two shaking, unpracticed hands. I looked like a bad accident waiting to happen.
I hoped it wouldn’t happen to me.
29.
shenanigans
W ho was in the woods? Vic, of course, using his most intrusive Uncle Joe baritone. I presumed that Allie and Billy were with him, scoping me through the trees. In my mind’s eye, I could see Billy cradling his laptop, running the application that homed in on the GPS transmitter in the Hackmaster 6000. Well, how did you think they found me? ESP? I shouted an “All clear,” and the three of them emerged from the woods, grinning like Cheshire cats. It had been Vic’s idea to use the ol’ “Look, Halley’s Comet!” I didn’t think it would work on a seasoned scoundrel like Hines, but Vic said it would, because it had (as he put it) the “elephant of surprise” on its side. Well, what the hell: Even a blind pig finds an acorn in the snow.
We escorted Hines back to the clearing, where Vic’s Song Serenade was parked behind Hines’s GI sedan. I found Hines’s handcuffs and snapped them on the wrists he obligingly stretched out to receive them. I could see the questions starting to form in his head, all of them amounting to one version or another of What the fuck?
“You’re probably wondering, ‘What the fuck,’” I said. He didn’t answer. Wouldn’t give me the satisfaction.
“At the end of the day,” said Allie, “it was a garden-variety snuke.
We all convinced you that we’d flipped on Radar, and you bought it because you wanted to.”
“It’s the sign of a good con, mate,” added Billy. “Play into the mark’s cherished beliefs.”
I have to say that for someone held in handcuffs at gunpoint, Hines didn’t look too worried. “So what now?” he asked. “Are you going to kill me? I don’t think you have the stones. Allie, maybe. Not you girls.”
“Murder is the last refuge of the unimaginative,” I said. “So tell me if this works for you: We tie you to a tree or whatnot, pack our bags, and grab the first flight to anywhere. Our last phone call before takeoff tells someone where to find you, and you sleep in your own bed tonight.”
“You’d better just kill me,” he said.
“Oh, why? Because otherwise you’ll track us down? Follow us to the ends of the earth?”
“You bet your ass I will.”
“I’m saying that’s a bad idea.” I pulled out the Hackmaster and tossed it gently back and forth from hand to hand. “Your whole sordid history is right here. And here it stays unless, you know, it doesn’t.”
“Naked bluff,” sneered Hines.
“Maybe. But you can’t afford to call. So: You keep your distance, we keep ours. It’s a big world. No real reasons why our paths should cross.”
A shadow of doubt passed over Hines’s face. “What about Scovil?” he asked, grasping at a certain straw.
“She’s sorted,” said Billy.
“Sorted?”
I flashed on the errand I’d run to the Blue Magoon. I hoped Scovil was okay. She was a bitch and all, but still …
Vic, mea
nwhile, had fetched from his car a padlock and a coil of braided cable. He ran the cable twice around a suitably girthy tree and prepared to lock the loop ends to Hines’s handcuffs.
“We’ll leave the keys over there somewhere,” I said, nodding to the far side of Hines’s sedan. “It’ll probably be dark before help arrives. I’ll tell them to bring a flashlight.”
“At least let me piss first,” said Hines. It seemed like a reasonable request, so I nodded my assent. Hines unzipped right there in the clearing, which seemed odd, but triggered the not-odd reaction of all of us momentarily looking away. As I studied a treetop, I had the vague sense that I was overlooking something crucial. Did I handcuff him right? Don’t they usually handcuff behind the back? The thought lingered on the tip of my mind, then floated away. I wondered how long I would have this butterfly brain, or indeed whether I’d ever think fully straight again.
Then I suddenly remembered what I’d forgotten.
Mirplo’s gun!
Too late. Hines already had it out and pressed against Allie’s ear.
A frozen moment opened while the shock of the reversal settled in. Mirplo took a step forward, but a growl—literally, a growl—from Hines stopped him. Allie looked stoic. Knowing her history, I figured this wasn’t the first gun she’d had held to her head. I’ve been there myself; needless to say, it’s nothing you get used to, but if you’re strong, you don’t fall to pieces. I caught her eye, and she gave me a look like, If you don’t get me out of this, we are so over. Billy, meanwhile, had taken a couple of steps to his right. For my part, I slid left, widening the angle.
This, apparently, was not an angle Hines would let us shoot. “Don’t fucking move,” he said. “Get down on the ground.”
“Well, which is it?” I said. “Don’t move or get down?”
“That’s right, asshole, keep making jokes. Trust me, there’s plenty of bullets to go around.”
Bullets. Now why did that ring a bell? Again, I had a thought I couldn’t immediately finger. I made a mental note to get a CAT scan at the first opportunity.
But you know what? If you’re in the game, you play the game, even when you’re not feeling game, so I struggled to view the situation from Hines’s point of view. I suppose he was weighing a number of factors. Like: was the Penny Skim really real, and if it was, was there any way he could trust us to deliver a decent slice? If not, what plays did he have? He could arrest us, but then what? He’d be virtually arresting himself. No man is more dangerous than when he’s drowning in bad choices. The least worst of which, unfortunately, looked like start shooting.
Except …
Bullets! Ha-ha! “Here’s what’s what,” I said suddenly, pointing Hines’s own gun at him. “You’re going to let Allie go.”
“Excuse me?”
“Uh-huh. And then you’re going to shackle yourself to that tree like a good boy. Want to know why?”
“Why?” asked Hines, belligerently.
“Because I hate guns. I hate them so much that when I have one around—stashed in my closet, say—the first thing I do is unload it. So if you’ll just be so kind as to—”
Blam! A shot whistled past my ear. It took out the windshield of Vic’s car.
“Fuck, man!” shouted Vic. “Shirley Temple!”
“What the hell?” I added.
“Fucking moron,” said Hines. “A gun can’t be reloaded?”
Oh. Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Definitely not clicking on all cylinders.
Long story short, Hines held the gun to Allie’s head till I caved in and gave up the other piece. Then he made a truss line out of Mirplo’s braided cable, bound us waist and wrist, and tossed us down together in a puddle of mud and snow. A bad mix of concussion sickness and bruised regret swamped my mind. As I sat there on the ground, snow seeping through my pants, I couldn’t help thinking, This is so fucked up. I’m not saying I made a deal with God or anything, but the thought did cross my mind that if I managed to get out of there without being dead and whatnot, I would definitely start looking for another line of work. Something that didn’t involve the risk of guns or, more prosaically, the cold discomfort of a clammy ass as you sit on the ground in the mud in the woods. I knew things weren’t entirely my fault. Elide the concussion from the equation and this endgame spins like a top. Ah, well. You can’t unbreak an egg.
There’s a certain sort of scam I’ve always hated, one where the grifter acts like a victim and preys on the misplaced sympathy of the mark. Admittedly, some of these can have a certain elegance, like where you call a bookstore masquerading as an author who’s due in for a reading this week, only you’ve been robbed, mugged, whatever, and need some Western Union succor ASAP. In a typical filigree, the bad guys stole your laptop with all those pictures of your mother on the hard drive. For some reason, that detail turns the mooks’ screws. At the end of the day, though, it’s such a lame and needy thing. Basically, you’re telling the mark that you’ve failed as a human being and that he, as a human being, somehow owes it to you to bail you out. Behind the whiff of faux desperation lies the whiff of real desperation. It’s just too pathetic for words.
But I was feeling authentically sorry for myself just then. Besides, Hines had just relieved me of my Hackmaster and smashed it to bits with a rock. As a grifter, you pride yourself on always having other cards to play, but I was definitely running down to deuces in my deck. “Hines,” I said, “can we talk for a second?”
“Kinda busy now,” he said. And busy he was—siphoning gasoline into an empty soda bottle and dousing the upholstery of Vic’s clunker. I had a premonition of the four of us packed in there like flambéed sardines.
Vic saw a different sort of vehicular manslaughter. “Hey,” he yelped, “leave Shirley Temple alone. She hasn’t done anything to you.”
Hines just sneered. “You should have thought of that before you fucked me.”
“I didn’t fuck you,” protested Vic. “He fucked you.” Meaning me. “You think I thought up any of this shit?”
Well, that was a good point, but Vic’s plaintive lameness wasn’t doing him any good now. I didn’t see anyone passing out get out of jail free cards.
Which, of course, was exactly what Hines needed. But would he take one from me? This, in a nutshell, is the downside of being such a damn lying liar. By the time you’re authentically ready to surrender, no one believes you anymore. Still, it was worth a shot. “Seriously,” I said. “We really need to talk.”
He crossed from the car and stood over me, gun in one hand, bottle of gasoline in the other. “What’s on your mind now, smart guy?”
“I’m just wondering what it’ll take to buy us out of this. I mean, you know that you have to run, right?”
“Well, obviously.”
“You’ll never see the Penny Skim. And the Merlin Game, that’s gone, too.”
“I have my own resources.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “But wouldn’t, say, a hundred thousand, cash, improve the picture?”
Hines squatted down beside me. “And where would I find this windfall?” he asked. “Tucked inside your BVDs?”
“I have it,” I said. “Buried back at my place. It’s my dash cash.” Okay, so I added a zero. You bait what hooks you’ve got.
“Your dash cash,” he repeated. “You have a way with words, bub. I’ll give you that.” He thought for a minute. “Maybe I’ll deal,” he said. “Answer one question first.”
“Shoot,” I said.
“What’s your real name?”
I answered without hesitation, “Radar Hoverlander.”
Hines stood up, accidentally baptizing me with a slosh of gas. “See, that’s the problem,” he said. “It might be. It might not be. You might have a hundred grand in dash cash buried in your backyard. You might have a dead goldfish.” He shrugged. “There’s just no way for me to know. So we’ll do things my way.” He walked back to the Song Serenade. “And oh, by the way, if you had been capable of, I don’t kn
ow, thirty seconds of honesty anywhere along the way, I wouldn’t have to kill you now.”
See what I mean?
Anyway, Hines splattered more gas inside the car and this maddened Mirplo to the point of action. He leapt to his feet, but the steel braid connecting him to us flopped him back down. He landed in the snow and mud with a goopy sploosh. Despite everything, I had to laugh.
Hines glared at me. “What’s so funny, funny boy?” Well, that made me laugh even harder. It was a syntax thing. Funny, funny boy. That just cracked me up.
I suppose I was becoming hysterical.
But whatever, it was contagious. First Vic got it, as he tried to wipe the mud off himself, but just succeeded in smearing it around. “I’m a mud man!” he shouted. Next Billy went off, muttering under his breath, “Shirley Temple? Shirley bloody Temple, mate?” Finally, Allie started, with a chuckle that morphed into a cackle, then unstoppable serial laughter. For no reason I can think of, she flicked some mud at me. It hit me just above the eye and resounded with a soft splat. I fell back melodramatically, as if shot. Thwacking down hard into the mud, I sent up a cratered cascade, much of which landed on Billy.
“Mate!” he howled in protest, and started flinging handfuls of mud at me. I returned fire. Allie and Vic got caught in the blowback, and soon joined in.
Pause for a moment to view this scene from above. Four young grifters are bound together by coils of cable cinched snugly at their waists and wrists. All of their actions are two-handed, and none of them can move far without moving the others. Being good grifters, they have a finely honed understanding that random times call for random actions. Being on the verge of death, they seem to have lost all sense and reason, but that’s bluff. They dive on each other, hurl mud, try to stand, fall down, drag each other down, flop around like beached flounders, and generally make idiots of themselves. Off to the side stands an FBI agent with two guns but no clue. Should he fire a warning shot? Into someone’s leg, maybe? Just start killing indiscriminately? He’d rather not put bullets into people if he can avoid it. Bad for the evidence trail. He can’t understand how people could take so dire a moment and turn it into a mud fight. Maybe he doesn’t know how to have fun. Maybe he hasn’t grasped what every good grifter knows: that the best offense is a good pretense. Nor does he notice that the fight is developing its own rhythm and cadence. First one grifter is standing, then brought down. Now two are up, now down. Three get to their feet; the other drags them down, reeling them in by the fistful. They’re laughing, carrying on, having a wonderful time. The fibbie yells at them to stop. His problem, he’s not a whimsical person.
