Thirty minutes later, as I was finishing my fourth bourbon, listening to Ted debate the virtues of heritage varieties compared to newer hybrid fruit, the bar announced closing time. Walking back to our room, the budding connection between my partners remained on full display, as well as an ongoing source of confusion to my manly virtue, currently blind, bewildered and hiding in the dark.
The next morning, keeping to the back roads, we continued our trek to Kingdom City, but rather than creating a conspicuous presence in such a small town, we opted to stop in Mexico. No shit… there is actually a burg in the state of Missouri called Mexico, a.k.a. “The Fire Brick Capital of the World.” Hey!—don’t ask me. But with Mexico only seventeen miles north of Kingdom City, Beasley’s compound would be easily accessible without drawing too much attention to our curious crew.
After finding a Motel 6 with free wi-fi and a room big enough to accommodate three, we settled in. Patty said she needed a shower before heading over to Kingdom City, so, with a little time to kill, Hendricks and I both logged on to the Internet. Paying little attention to the kid, I was checking out the news and a few sports scores when the techie suddenly let out a whoop, “WHOA! Check this out, Mr. Blood-Jet!”
Irritated at the interruption, I snapped at the kid, “Yo, Ted, drop the Blood-Jet… Okay? Just call me Frank.”
“Yeah, okay… sure… sorry… But you need to see this, Frank… Come over here.” Hendricks gestured toward his open laptop, obviously excited about something. I looked at the screen expecting to see some dumbass cat video or crap like TEN TOP REASONS TO EAT CONCRETE! but at first glance, I was stumped. All I could see was a bunch of empty rooms, a dozen or more static images, each remaining on the screen for several seconds before dissolving to the next, then repeating the pattern. Puzzled, I looked closer and as I watched, I noticed a middle-aged man anxiously pacing one of the rooms. Dressed head to toe in camo, he was smoking a cigarette in a long holder stuck between his teeth. The man appeared to be talking, but no one else was in the room.
Dumbfounded, I looked at Ted Hendricks, the computer whiz, and asked, “Is that…”
“…Crawford Beasley!” He said, answering my question before I could finish it.
“But how…”
“We’re watching a live feed from the PAGWAG surveillance system. Remembering the security scheme used by Beasley at the tea warehouses, I assumed he would have something much more elaborate at the compound and guessed that a hidden link accessing the system could probably be found within the PAGWAG website. It was a lot easier than I expected. For a paranoid, millionaire gun nut, his tech chops are pretty weak. The idiot uses ‘PAGWAG’ as his password. A ten-year-old kid could…”
“Wait… Are you saying that we have access to the security system in Crawford Beasley’s compound… whenever we want it?”
“That’s pretty much it… well, we have to have Internet access, of course.”
My mind was completely fucking blown! We now possessed intimate access to the sanctum sanctorum of a madman… access I never dreamed possible. As we watched the series of rooms flash by, I found myself sucked deeper and deeper into the lunatic’s psycho psyche. Many of the rooms were obvious and not especially interesting: a garage containing Beasley’s beloved Hummer, a kitchen, bedrooms, laundry room, etc., but some were much more compelling. One space, containing dozens of photographs, seemed to be dedicated to an older woman that I could only assume was Beasley’s mother. The dominant feature of the room was a large romanticized portrait adorned with an ornate gilded frame and accompanied by what appeared to be several dried funeral sprays, implying that the older woman was dead.
Another of the more striking spaces was one I could only describe as Beasley’s armory. Containing what appeared to be a collection of antique firearms and various weapons, it also housed his vast assortment of functioning firearms: pistols, hunting rifles and automatic weapons, as well as a limited selection of small artillery, such as bazookas, mortars and grenade launchers. When and if the apocalypse came, Crawford Beasley was prepared to hold it at bay for quite a while.
But the scene that kept grabbing my attention was the one containing Crawford himself—the madman’s control room. On one side of the space was a large map of the United States with a conspicuous route drawn from Kingdom City to an area not far from Los Angeles. The rest of the room was occupied by wall-mounted monitors accessing Beasley’s computers, along with the security system we were currently watching. But the madman’s silent, nonstop monologue was easily the most compelling feature of the room. I had to hear what he was saying.
“Ted, is there any way you can stop the picture and turn up the volume of the room where Beasley is? I want to hear what he’s saying.”
“Yeah… I should be able to do that. Wait just a second.” In no time the kid brought a small control panel onto the screen, allowing him to freeze the image on the wacko’s control room. Then, as he accessed a slider at the bottom of the panel, Crawford Beasley’s maniacal voice entered the small room:
“But I do understand why people believe in God… there are so many random occurrences in life, existing without justification, antecedents or reason, that we are compelled to classify this happenstance FOR THE SIMPLE SAKE OF SANITY! For me it was my ultimate moment of liberation, my release from the bonds of hamster hell… IT WAS WINNING THE LOTTERY! And, were I of a less uncommon mind, I would undoubtedly have labeled this occurrence as… THE MAGNIFICENT MOMENT!… THE BLESSED BOON!… THE GREAT GOODIE!… HA! But there was one more stroke of luck… Divine Intervention, some might say, enabling my unwed status when the Magnificent Moment arrived… consequently, IT’S ALL MINE! Free from the clutches of bimbo babes, the ones that demonized my days, sucked my soul and drained my dick, I was free to pursue PURITY, GRACE AND GUNS! PRAISE THE LORD! HA!”
At that point Beasley suddenly stopped, turned toward the door and left the room.
Patty had joined us as Ted and I watched Beasley’s rant about the benefits of winning the lottery. “WOW! That guy is really bonkers!” Out of the mouths of babes… sober and grounded, there was no denying the young woman’s words. Crawford Beasley was a certifiable nut.
For Patty and me, this was our initial encounter with the quasi-military madman. The guy was obviously off his rocker, but I live in L.A.—I see wackos every day. Regardless, I was not prepared for the sight of Ted Hendricks’ blood visibly draining from his face. Completely unnerved by the presence of the man whose grating and gloating voice gloried over the death of his friend Willy, the kid’s entire body was shaking.
Patty was the first to react, reaching over and grabbing the techie’s hand. “Ted, are you okay?”
Squeezing her hand, he stammered, “It… it’s okay… I’ll be all right… it… it’s just the sound of his voice takes me right back to the explosion… and Willy’s death… poor ol’ Willy…” The kid stopped, staring at nothing, haunted by memories still too fresh to process.
Understanding the depth of Hendricks’ connection to his dead friend, I said, “Hey! This is going to be hard for you… I get it. We have a map showing the location of Beasley’s compound. If you want to check out now and go home, it’s okay… we understand.” Still holding the techie’s hand, Patty nodded her head in approval.
“No… no… I’ll go on with you guys… At least as far as the warehouses and the compound. If it gets too heavy, maybe I’ll leave, but thinking about Willy makes me want to get this guy… BAD!” Passionate and determined, Hendricks then paused and looked at Patty, their eyes locking for an uncomfortably long moment.
Uncomfortable for me, at least. “Okay, guys, where are we headed first?”
Snapping back to the task at hand, the techie looked up, removed his hand from Patty’s grip and paused, obviously considering something. “But… well, something just occurred to me… what exactly are we after? I mean, we have access to Beasley’s security system… you saw the way he is. It’s easy enough for me to record these crazy rant
s. Can’t we use them as evidence against him?”
“That’s a great idea, Ted… yeah, do it. But there’s nothing illegal about making crazy statements. You know, free speech and all that. What we need is proof… especially evidence of the bomb he made intending to kill you and Willy. We have to connect Beasley to the gold Cadillac, to bomb-making supplies, to the recording he played just before the explosion… get it? This is the type of proof that will stand up in a court of law and put this guy away. And your recordings would be great support, but we have to have the hard evidence to back it up.”
“Yeah, okay, I get it. I’ll start recording him.” Lost in thought, the techie paused for a moment, then continued, “Okay, this is about the time that Beasley eats lunch at a café in Kingdom City so he’s probably headed that way now. Let’s grab something to eat and drive over there.”
An hour later, the three of us were in Patty’s Jeep headed toward Kingdom City. His nerves under control, Ted Hendricks was still leery of the uber-unpredictable Beasley: “He usually has lunch at the same place every day before supervising the delivery of tea bricks. After that he’ll probably return to the compound. Hopefully he’ll still be at the restaurant, but look… we definitely don’t want to follow him to the warehouses. The guy’s not an idiot. He spotted Willy and me pretty quick.”
DrIving along, I found myself lost in thought as Ted and Patty continued their courtship, chatting about nothing in particular. It was easy enough to say we needed hard evidence, but getting it was something else. If the techie’s description of the stronghold was true, it would be easier to get out of Fort Knox with a boxcar full of gold bars. Uncertain, I decided to interrupt the lovebirds. “Uh, hey guys… I know I said we needed real proof to put the cops on to Beasley, but, well… I don’t have a clue about how we’re getting into that compound. I mean, from the way Ted described the place, it would be easier to break into the fucking White House. You guys have any ideas?”
Apparently, the problem had not occurred to them so we all sat in silence for the next few minutes. Finally, hoping to stimulate something, I spoke up again, “Okay, we don’t have two tanks and a battalion of troops, so we’re not gonna bust our way in there. Right?” Nothing but silence until we suddenly passed a sign announcing the corporate limits of Kingdom City. “Hey! Thanks for all the input, guys…” Frustrated, I shook my head. “Okay, maybe we’ll have an idea when we get to the compound.”
Entering the tiny hamlet, the first thing we saw was Crawford Beasley’s Hummer parked around the corner from Nell’s, a small café that fed the hungry hordes of Kingdom City. Instantly alert, Hendricks’ lanky frame began to wilt. Ducking the best he could, the techie barked, “FUCK! That’s Beasley’s car! Just drive on past, Patty! We don’t want him to see us!”
“Hey Ted! Chill out, dude! The guy doesn’t know Patty or me and certainly won’t recognize her car. Just pull around the corner and stop by that feed store and I’ll check things out. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure….” Pulling into a parking spot, Patty cut the engine then glanced over at the ever diminishing Ted Hendricks. “Are you okay, Ted?” Looking up from an obviously uncomfortable position, the kid nodded, jerking his head around and searching the street at the same time.
Nearing the café, I arrived just as Crawford Beasley exited onto the sidewalk—and there he was in all his glory, fully plumed in warrior drag, cigarette holder tightly clenched between his teeth and .45 automatic at his side. Barely avoiding a collision, I stopped as Beasley turned, seemingly staring into my soul. With a hand gripping the butt of his .45, the madman eyed my bandaged nose for a long, uneasy moment, then, dismissing me as a threat, he nodded awkwardly, entered the Hummer and drove away. As the preposterous car turned a corner and disappeared, I instantly understood Ted Hendricks’ apprehension. The guy was incredibly fucking creepy.
Luckily one of the few business establishments in Kingdom City was Al’s Package Goods. Whipping into Al’s, I nabbed a pint of Jack Daniel’s and headed back to the car. I would need it.
After rejoining Patty and Ted, we decided to drive by the warehouses and, as expected, the stretch Hummer was parked outside next to a semi being unloaded by the driver. With Beasley nowhere in sight, Hendricks still scrunched his lanky frame onto the floor as Patty sped by the two buildings. The creep had obviously made a home for himself under the kid’s skin.
Apprehensive, the techie unfolded his legs and, returning to the shotgun seat, remarked, “Okay… now you know where the tea warehouses are… Let’s go to the compound.”
Patty drove us to the stronghold under Ted’s direction, after which the content screener showed us the spot where he and Willy observed the wacko entering and exiting. If anything, Hendricks had not been nearly explicit enough in describing the structure protecting the heavily fortified space. The outermost barrier was a chain link fence that must have been ten feet tall and topped by an additional two feet of razor wire. Beyond the fence was a twenty-foot no-man’s-land covered with broken glass and crisscrossed by lasers designed to detect any movement within the area. Beyond that, an eight-foot concrete wall displayed a series of gun slots allowing protected counterattack against potential invaders. Obviously no one would be entering—or leaving—Crawford Beasley’s stronghold without his knowledge and approval. But equally curious was the relatively modest appearance of the building located within these all but impenetrable defenses. Having observed an ample array of interior rooms via the compound’s security system, I could only assume that the majority of the structure was underground. The madman had built a veritable fortress for himself, obviously designed and constructed to keep interlopers like me and and my bush league cohorts out. This was a problem—and one with no obvious solution.
As we watched, the Hummer returned, easily navigating the gamut of security protecting the compound. Within moments the huge vehicle had disappeared behind the second gate, leaving me to ponder the seeming conundrum of breaking into an apparently impregnable fortress. “We’ve gotta find a way in there, guys, but it beats me. The wacko seems to have the place locked up tight. Any ideas?”
Hendricks was the first to speak, “Well, I saw this movie once where a couple of guys pretended to be telephone repairmen and got into a bank like that.”
At least it was an idea but, duh… I just shook my head. “Sorry, but no way, José. I saw that movie, too. Those guys had plenty of money and weeks to plan the caper. Try again.” Silence blanketed the car for several moments.
Finally speaking up, Patty ventured a thought, “Ted, did you see him getting deliveries? Could we sneak in in the back of a UPS or FedEx truck?”
“Yeah, Willy and I saw him get a couple of shipments, but Beasley would come out and meet the driver between the two gates and take the package. The truck never actually entered the compound.”
More silence. I kept thinking about the Hummer and its effortless passage through a pair of all but impassable gates. “You know, I keep seeing Beasley’s giant SUV gliding through those gates. If we just had some way of, like, breaking into his car and hiding…”
At that point, Ted Hendricks piped up again. “Well, we wouldn’t actually have to break into his car.”
Frustrated, I barked at the kid again. “What the fuck are you taking about, Ted? I mean, the asshole is not exactly going to leave the car wide open and invite us in, is he?” Shaking my head, I pulled out the bottle of Jack and took a slug.
“No… I expect not… but I do have a set of keys.”
“WHAT!?! Are you kidding me? Are you saying you have the keys to Crawford Beasley’s Hummer? You’re joking, right?
Reaching into his pocket, the kid pulled out a set of car keys. Casually holding them up he said, “Well, it was actually Willy’s idea. He insisted that we keep the keys in case something went wrong. He said Beasley would have an extra set… and he was right. I’m not exactly sure why I kept them but…”
“KID! Way to go!” As I patted Hendricks on the back, Patty
threw her arms around him and planted a big smacker on his lips.
It looked like we had our ticket through the gates of hell.
Later that night we were back at our motel. Patty and I sat watching some horrible crime shit on TV while Ted Hendricks, nearby on headphones, was recording Crawford Beasley ranting on his surveillance system. As the nut case stalked the compound, reciting a seemingly endless series of soliloquies concerning the evils of the world and the need to protect its most precious resource, pure, clear and clean water, the techie shook his head in amazement.
“Hey, Ted… How’s it going. What kind of stuff are you getting?”
“Well, the guy is unbelievable… I mean, he never shuts up for one thing, and he’s completely unbalanced, but some of the stuff he says can be compelling… kind of… or maybe I’m getting brainwashed… here, check this out.”
As Patty and I gathered around the techie’s computer, we watched as Crawford Beasley stood in the center of his armory cleaning the barrel of an AK-47 and speaking to the air:
“God… GOD! What a concept! Now if God was a Gun, I’d believe. If God was a Gun, I’d receive the Holy Sacrament of Gunpowder and Lead every day. If God was a Gun, I’d weave truth from lies with bullets and cries for mercy. Don’t give me the Blood of Christ as a cheap facsimile of suffering—give me instead the Crimson Rivulets of my enemies, freely flowing from the Holy Holes piercing their misguided and dying flesh. If God was a Gun, Might would be Right and Power would fill the empty hours waiting for Redemption, Truth and Righteous Targets!”
As Ted paused the recording, we all looked at each other in slightly stunned amazement. Yeah, the guy was a kook, but down in there somewhere, beneath the bluster and contempt, was the soul of a poet, pathetically buried in bullshit. “Play some more of this, Ted…” Shaking my head in shock, I continued, “Yeah, he’s nuts all right, but…”
The Brickeaters Page 18
