by Rehder, Ben
Ernie Turpin shook his head and said he couldn’t comment on that. Hell, this all sounded pretty interesting to Red. Kind of sci-fi and weird. You wouldn’t see Dan Rather offering this kind of coverage.
Rudi thanked the deputy for his time, and Red could tell the interview was coming to an end. He figured he owed it to the world to tell what he knew. “Hey, Rudi!” he called out. “We was with that Meski—uh, that Mexican that was hit by the truck on Sunday. The one what saw the chupacabra.”
Rudi looked his way, and so did the rest of the crowd. “You mind sharing your story with us?”
“Heck no!” Red elbowed his way through to the reporter, dragging Billy Don along. “Red O’Brien, ma’am. This here’s Billy Don Craddock.”
“Nice to meet you both.”
“Awwbllghf,” Billy Don said, apparently choking on his own tongue.
Red couldn’t blame him. Up close, this Rudi Villarreal was one hot broad, and Billy Don wasn’t as comfortable talking to a classy piece of tail as Red was.
Red said, “See, what happened was—”
Rudi cut him off. “Give us just a minute, please, Mr. O’Brien.” She said a few things to the cameraman, using terms Red didn’t understand. “Here, stand a little closer to me, please.”
“I’ll stand as close as you want, darlin’.” Red leered, giving her his best smile.
She asked Billy Don to move to her other side, and then the interview began. “Tell us about your experience with the chupacabra,” Rudi said, holding the microphone in front of Red.
“Well,” Red said. “What happened was, we was working on some masonry with this wetback and—”
Rudi lowered the microphone and covered it with her hand.
“What?” Red asked.
“Mr. O’Brien,” she whispered, “I would thank you if you wouldn’t use that term.”
“Masonry?”
“No. Wetback. It’s very derogatory, you know.”
Red couldn’t remember what derogatory meant, but he figured it wasn’t good. “What should I say instead?”
“How about ‘day laborer’?”
Red nodded. “That’ll work.”
“Okay, let’s start over,” Rudi said, back to her normal tone of voice. “Tell us about your experience with the infamous chupacabra.”
“Well,” Red said, “We was working on this masonry job with a, uh, day laborer when he ran into the woods to take a dump and—”
Rudi lowered the microphone again. She whispered, “Mr. O’Brien, you have to remember that we’ll be broadcasting this during the family hour. Could you please be careful how you phrase things?”
By now, the crowd was giggling. Red couldn’t imagine why anyone would have a problem with the word dump. It sure beat the alternatives. “I’ll do my best,” he said.
Now the camera guy was saying something to Rudi. She glanced down at Red’s Wranglers. “Did you know you have a large stain on your pants?”
“Yes, ma’am, it’s chocolate. Wanna taste?”
12
DUKE PULLED THROUGH the entrance of the Macho Bueno at 10:30.
He’d stopped by to see Gus, and everything was fine. Duke had made Gus promise again that he wouldn’t leave the house. Then, just for peace of mind, Duke had gone out to the box on the utility pole and unplugged Gus’s phone line. That would keep the retard from making any calls.
Kyle’s driveway forked just before it reached the house, and the right path led to the garage on the north side. Duke stayed left, which led to a circular parking area in front. He parked and followed the pathway around the south side of the house. Kyle was usually in the hot tub by now—if he wasn’t taking a nap. It turned out he was doing both. Duke found Kyle snoozing soundly while the water bubbled around him.
Duke sat in a patio chair and pulled out the revolver he’d brought with him—Oliver Searcy’s gun, which he still needed to ditch. He figured he’d just fire a round right into the tub. That would make Kyle wake up and come to Jesus, yessir. But then he thought of something even better.
He stood and walked into the house.
“Cheri! You here?”
No answer.
“Cheri! Get your skanky ass out here!”
Seconds passed. All quiet. Good. He didn’t need that slut hanging around, whining.
He went through the kitchen and out into the four-car garage, where he found a hundred-foot extension cord. Walking back through the house, he grabbed the toaster off the kitchen counter.
He found an outlet on the side of the house—but instead of plugging the cord in, he laid it on the ground. Then he trailed the remainder of the cord over to the hot tub.
Kyle was still sleeping like a baby.
Duke plugged the toaster in and slid the knob down to the TOAST position. He stood at the edge of the hot tub and dangled the toaster over the water, holding it in such a way that Kyle wouldn’t be able to see that the elements weren’t glowing red.
Then he fired the gun into the tub.
Kyle woke with such a start, Duke had to stifle a laugh.
“Damn!” Kyle sputtered. “Duke, Jesus! Are you fucking crazy?”
“Don’t get out of the water, Kyle. Don’t even move.”
Kyle’s eyes went to the toaster. “Whatever you say, man. But what the hell’s going on?”
Duke gave the toaster a little swing. “You know how Gus turned out when he got a little too much voltage.”
“What are you doing, man? Be careful. Please.”
Duke smiled. “We’re going to have a little talk, Kyle. You tell me the truth and maybe this thing won’t go in the water.”
“Yeah, man. Yeah.” Kyle was as white as a deer’s belly.
Duke took his time, enjoying the power. “Okay, first question: What did you tell the cops?”
Kyle didn’t answer right away, and Duke didn’t like that. “What, you mean the game warden?”
“Him and the sheriff.”
“Man, it was just the game warden that came out. Not the sheriff.”
That was news to Duke, but he saw no reason why Kyle would lie about that.
“Okay, so what did you tell him?”
“What do you mean, what did I tell him? There wasn’t anything to tell.”
“Come on, Kyle. About Oliver Searcy.”
Kyle was nodding now. “Yeah, the dead guy. He asked if I’d ever heard of him. That’s all.”
“What’d you say?”
“I told him no. Because I hadn’t ever heard of the guy. Least not till he asked me. Did you know him?”
Duke ignored the question. “Did he ask about me?”
“Yeah, at first. He wanted to know if you were still guiding out here.”
“And?”
“Well, I told him yeah, sometimes. Nothing official.”
Duke reached over with one foot and pressed a button beside the hot tub, turning the jets off. The water slowly settled and it was much quieter now.
“He ask you if I guided Searcy?”
“No, not specifically,” Kyle said. “I think that’s what he was wondering, though. He said Searcy had made some calls to you, that’s all. And he wanted to get hold of you.”
“So you wanted to be a good citizen and gave him my cell number.”
Kyle looked at the toaster again. “Well, yeah. I mean, I didn’t have any reason not to. He didn’t ask what kind of animals you were hunting out here, and I figured that was the only thing that might get you in trouble.”
Duke believed him. It sounded like the cops had just wanted to ask Duke about the phone calls. Maybe he’d already been through the worst of their questioning.
“You didn’t know Searcy, right?” Kyle asked.
Duke lowered the toaster, and now one shiny metal corner touched the surface of the water. “Did you tell him I did?”
Kyle was as far back against the rim of the tub as he could be. “No, man, I swear. I didn’t say nothin’.” He was starting to blubber now. “I didn’t ev
en know nothin’ to tell. I swear.”
Okay, then. It wasn’t as bad as Duke thought.
“Dude, please,” Kyle said, “lift that thing up a little.”
The water was almost up to the bread slots.
“What, this?” Duke said. “It’s not even plugged in.”
He smirked and dropped the toaster into the tub.
And everything went all wrong.
Sparks shot from the toaster, and Duke jumped.
Kyle bucked and jerked, letting out a low wail. He went stiff, head back and feet straight out. Blood poured from his nose.
“Son of a bitch!” Duke grabbed the cord off the ground and yanked the toaster out of the water.
Kyle’s body went limp and slowly settled into the water.
Duke was in a panic now, and he knelt to pull Kyle out of the tub. But then he heard something. A car engine, from the driveway in front of the side-entry garage.
Duke ran in that direction, even changed his course and went around the other side, the way he had come in. The driveway went south from the house, and this path would give him a better chance of catching the car as it left.
He raced around the corner, gasping for breath, but he was too late.
All he could see was the rear of Cheri’s car as it sped away.
He yelled, “Cheri!”
She flipped him the bird.
Oh Christ. Duke couldn’t believe what had just happened.
That little bitch. That crazy little bitch.
Duke waited for doom to come, and while he waited, he had a chance to think.
Cheri’s car had been parked in the driveway in front of the garage. That’s why he hadn’t seen it. She had been inside the house when he had called her name. She must have been watching through a window while he was taunting Kyle with the toaster.
Then she went out the front door, snuck around the side, and plugged the extension cord in. That had to be the way it had happened. She was setting him up. Duke had nearly forgotten, but she was Kyle’s wife now, even if Kyle had viewed the Vegas wedding as a joke. She stood to inherit everything Kyle owned, and the conniving little bitch was setting Duke up. He had to admit, it was a pretty good move.
He was certain the cops would show up any minute now. She must have called them, right? He could just imagine her on the phone: Hurry! Duke Waldrip just killed my husband!
That made two now. Two people Duke had killed—both by accident.
If he ran, he’d never make it out of the county. He had no choice but to wait for the cops, and then tell them the total and absolute truth. Even all of his hunting scams. It was the only option he had left, and it was a damn shitty one. Prison time for sure. Maybe the needle, if nobody believed him.
So he waited. And he waited some more.
The odd thing was, the cops never showed.
The phone was ringing in Marty Hoffenhauser’s house when he walked through the front door. He’d just gotten home from the emergency room, and he didn’t feel like talking to anybody right now. He didn’t need any more headaches after the morning he’d had, so he let the machine take it.
He heard a familiar voice. “Hey, Marty! It’s Drew. You around? Pick up, pal.”
Just great. Drew Tillman, Marty’s silent partner, calling from Los Angeles.
Marty picked up and tried to sound nonchalant. “Drew! What’s up, buddy?”
“I figured you were there. Mr. Hotshot Director, screening your calls.”
Marty chuckled politely.
He and Drew were partners—on paper anyway. But they both knew that Drew held the upper hand in the relationship. After all, Drew had saved Marty’s career. And what a career it had been.
In the late seventies, Marty had written, produced, and hosted one of the hottest game shows on daytime television—Show Me You’re Nuts! On the show, contestants performed some of the most harrowing, grotesque, and obscene acts imaginable. Feats involving the mouth were always popular. One guy swallowed a live rat, then regurgitated it, still alive. Another man French-kissed his own grandfather. In one of Marty’s favorites, two young ladies from Newark performed mock fellatio on Popsicles made from Hudson River sludge.
One would think—in an environment as bizarre as Show Me You’re Nuts!—that just about any type of behavior would be tolerated. Marty found out the hard way that this wasn’t the case. Scandal erupted when he was caught banging two cheerleaders backstage. As it turned out, they weren’t really in college, as they had said. They were high schoolers. Juniors, not even seniors. Marty was charged with statutory rape. He lost his job, was ostracized by the public, and was lucky to avoid prison. His days as an on-camera personality were over.
His problems, however, didn’t prevent him from working behind the camera. In fact, from what Marty discovered, plenty of disgraced celebrities who disappeared from the public eye wound up working as producers. And that’s what Marty did for two decades. The problem was, he wasn’t very good at it. Over the years, he slowly slid in the ranks, going from executive producer to producer to production assistant. He knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be lucky to find work as a grip. He decided it was time to quit the business. It was the late nineties by then, and the dot-com frenzy was reaching its peak. Marty was only fifty years old, but he had ridden the Internet wave perfectly, bailing out before everything crashed. He had plenty of money saved up. So he had moved back to his home state of Texas. He had been born and raised in Austin, then moved to the West Coast when he was nineteen. Austin was bigger and busier now, though, like a miniature L.A., so he decided to relocate just an hour west of town in Blanco County.
He had been enjoying his retirement for exactly one week when Drew Tillman—one of Marty’s oldest industry friends, a man who had stood behind Marty during the cheerleader scandal—tracked him down. And he had a very interesting proposition.
“How do you feel about adult videos?” Tillman asked.
“I, uh … What do you mean?” Marty replied, wondering what the question was leading to.
“You watch ’em? You think they’re okay?”
“Sure, I guess. Why not?”
“How do you feel about Asians?”
“Well, the whole Pearl Harbor thing was kind of uncalled for,” Marty replied, joking.
“But you’re not, like, a bigot or anything?”
“Of course not.”
“How do you feel about little people?”
“Little people?”
“You know, dwarves.”
“Well, gee, Drew, I never really thought about it.”
“But you have no problem with them, either?”
“No, I … What are you getting at, Drew?”
“Let me throw three words at you, chief. Chinese dwarf pornography. How’s that hit ya?”
“Chinese dwarf pornography.”
“It’s huge, Marty. The hottest thing in the industry right now.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I kid you not, my friend. See, in the porn industry, there’s something for everybody. The straight stuff, sure, but if you happen to have a thing for women with facial hair, say, or transvestites in wheelchairs, believe me, it’s out there. And right now, the big thing is Chinese dwarves.”
Marty thought about it. How large could that particular market segment possibly be?
Drew read his thoughts. “What’s going on is, somehow these flicks have become all the rage at fraternity parties. It’s like this big joke, having this funny little skin flick running in the background. And man, it’s spreading all across the country. Sales are booming, buddy, and I’m getting in on it.”
Drew described the situation. He and some of his “associates” wanted in on the new craze. They had decided to open their own production company, and they needed a director. Marty had never directed before, but, as Drew had said, how hard could it be? “It’s not like you’re shooting Gone With The Wind or anything. It’s just your standard porn. Well, on a smaller scale. B
esides, you’ve always had a knack for showmanship, Mart. Just like on Nuts. I think you’re the man for the job.”
Marty didn’t know what to say. So he said yes.
Since then, Marty had directed some of the highest-grossing adult films ever made. He was quickly becoming a seriously wealthy man. Everything, on every film, had gone as smoothly as possible—until this morning’s fiasco with Mike. Now, though, the entire operation was in jeopardy. And Marty would have to tell Drew all about it.
“How are things in Texas?” Drew asked.
These calls always followed a pattern. Drew would make small talk, pretend he was listening to Marty’s answers, and then get down to what he really wanted to know: how the production was going. Everything revolved around the production. Are we on schedule? Are we on budget? Are you getting some good footage? How are the dwarves? Tell ’em I said hi.
After two minutes of forced banter, Drew finally asked about Fortune Nookie.
“Well, I’m afraid we’ve hit a bit of a snag,” Marty said, fiddling nervously with his ponytail.
Silence. Then: “Snags are no good, Mart. What sort of snag?”
Marty’s inclination was to lie, to conjure up some fake problem, like Wanda Ho having a cold or Mike Hung eating some bad sushi. But Marty owed a lot to Drew Tillman, so he told the truth. He described the fight between Mike and Willie Wang that morning, and the resulting trip to the hospital.
Again, he was met with silence.
Finally: “So now Willie has a broken arm,” Drew said. “What are we going to do about that?”
“I guess we’ll film around it.”
“You guess?”
“No, I mean we will. We will film around it. I’ll even write it into the script. I’ll write a fight scene or a car crash.”
“Car crashes are expensive, Marty.”
“It doesn’t have to happen on-camera. We’ll show Willie speeding toward an overpass or something, maybe getting a hummer. He’ll get distracted, lose control of the car, and then we’ll cut to him in a hospital bed. No big deal.”
