It Takes a Thief (The Bare Bones MC #7), page 17
I pulled back and smiled. I kissed him soothingly on the forehead. I was afraid he’d just been through an intense experience and was only kissing me out of confusion. “You’ll figure it out,” I said reassuringly, and left the sweat lodge.
I stood by the plate of godly food, stomach growling. I breathed in deeply. Icy air roiled all around me, but I was firm in my beliefs.
Nothing works as hard as the heart! Why was mine being tugged in so many directions?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FORD
I rode up and down that crappy Highway 191 looking for Noodlum. I realized he could be any fucking where, especially after he no doubt saw me shading my eyes at him. From Hubbell Trading Post, he could’ve gone east to Ganado or west to Steamboat, even south to Greasewood. There were shitty little roads networking all over that Rez, and Noodlum just might know them better than me.
Searching for Noodlum was wearing me down. What if my highway job finished, but I hadn’t been able to bury Noodlum? I’d followed so many leads, people who told me they saw so-and-so wearing a Cutlass cut going east, west, north or south on such-and-such a road. I sent brothers out to track these leads. A couple of times they’d found actual Cutlasses, but upon being beaten, believed their stories that they had no idea who or where Noodlum even was.
We found their real lousy clubhouse just south of the meteor crater. I staked a couple men out there, but no Noodlum. By that time, my rage had morphed from aimed at all Cutlasses to aimed directly at Noodlum. Zelov went across the street to beg my men not to bomb his pathetic shack of a clubhouse, and by that time, I agreed not to. We talked on the phone. He said Noodlum had gone cowboy and he hadn’t even seen him for a week.
Would that brain-addled thug move on and find someone else to harass? I didn’t really want him to. I wanted to end this, and end it my way.
I hated leaving Maddy behind. I rode into P&E feeling twenty years older than I was. Just fucking bone-weary. I wouldn’t blame Maddy for serving me with divorce papers. I’d never find another old lady as fine as her—never. I’d just remain a weary, bitter old bachelor like my old man did, after spitting out half-Yazzies all over several Rezzes. Maddy was the best thing that could ever happen to me, and I didn’t feel free to move forward with her until I’d smoked that ditzy bastard Noodlum who had threatened the very foundation of my life.
I didn’t curse or blame the club. This was part and parcel of being in a club. We’d been through hell and back, my brothers and me. We’d faced down the Outfit, the ATF, sicarios with see-through bones, cartels and too many other bloodthirsty clubs to count. We’d expanded our base, actually. We’d pretty much put the Ochoas out of business, just as I’d almost put our favorite “Kindly Sicario” out of business by cold-cocking him. I’d had to grovel a little to get him back on our side.
What I’m saying is, a couple hippies talking about vortices weren’t top on my list of priorities. I didn’t make it to The Bum Steer until the next day, by which time said hippies were gone, of course. Sock Monkey was tending bar for no one other than Wolf Glaser and Knoxie, who were playing pool, maybe a few sweetbutts. A couple of citizens ate grilled cheese sandwiches at a tall table.
I ordered a grilled cheese from Sock Monkey and lifted my hand in greeting to my brothers. Knoxie set down his pool cue and came over first. “Ford, I got to tell you. These hippies here yesterday were pretty damned adamant about that vortex calendar we keep as a joke behind the bar.” He went behind the bar to get the thing off the wall. It was something put out by Shirley MacLaine or one of those woo-woo organizations that follow shit like that. Sometimes we got tourists at the Bum Steer who were fascinated by the energy channels alleged to dot the whole P&E area, so each bartender was well-versed in the ins and outs of the whole tree-hugging thing.
Knoxie held out the calendar. “I didn’t follow it exactly, but it had something to do with Saturday the twenty-third of November. Day after tomorrow.”
He jabbed his finger at it, and I grabbed it from him. Some moon phases and other astrological junk were printed on that day, along with the loony words, “Red Rocks Showdown.”
“This could mean anything,” I said with disgust, slapping the calendar back onto the bar.
“I was here yesterday,” said Brandi, a sometime Bare Bones sweetbutt. I think she flew choppers for EMTs when she wasn’t out here playing darts and giving skull jobs. She was one of the higher-class ones. “I think those hippies are onto something.”
“Like what?”
She shrugged. Her reddish curls bobbed around her shoulders. She had a very distracting neck tattoo of Betty Boop with giant tits riding a cartoon bike. “I’d say pay attention to that date. One time, the calendar said ‘Bell Rock’ so I went out to that vortex. I saw colored orbs.”
“Colored… orbs?”
“Yes. The energy I exuded brought them to me. I tuned out my mind and tuned in my heart.”
I refrained from making a giant lip fart. Brandi always helped out at fish fries and Toys for Tots runs, so I didn’t want to piss her off.
It was Wolf Glaser who put down his cue and came forward, lured by the talk of colored orbs, I guess. “Yeah. The hippies here yesterday were the ones that helped with my compost pile and the organic garden. They say that our old runway mesa’s got the most colorful orbs around.”
I sighed patiently. “Okay. But what are orbs?”
Brandi said excitedly, “They’re interdimensional angels! Look, I took a picture of one once.” She started swiping around on her phone.
“I did, too,” said Wolf. He was the first to hand me his phone. Someone in a deep canyon had shot upward toward the rim above, and a bright circular area appeared. “Course, I know it’s just camera flare. I didn’t really think it was an orb.”
“Oh yeah?” I laughed. Sock Monkey slid my sandwich plate to me. “Why not?”
“Well, you can see real orbs before you take the photo. Camera flares just appear afterward, when you’re looking at the photo.”
“So you believe in angelic orbs, then?”
Wolf made a sound like “pshaw!” But he didn’t directly ridicule the idea. “You know, it’s highly doubtful they can actually be photographed. It’s a bit of a reach to think they’d appear right next to your head when they’re supposed to be, you know, more angelic than we are…”
“Knoxie? What you think? About the calendar, not the orbs.” Knoxie had spent time saving some folks from a local guru up in the mountains. If anyone knew woo-woo, it was Knoxie.
To my surprise, he didn’t completely blow off the whole drum circle concept. “I think we should pay attention and be on our guard on that date. But this calendar doesn’t give a location. Just says ‘Red Rocks Showdown.’”
Then it struck me. Our official club name was The Bare Bones MC, Red Rocks Original. I put down my greasy sandwich. “Sock Monkey. Wolf. Can you find these hippies who were yammering about this shit yesterday?”
“On it,” said Wolf, who evidently had the hippies on speed dial. Everyone watched him as he wandered away, phone glued to his ear. “Hey, Sunshine? Yeah, it’s me, Wolf, from the Citadel. Oh, thanks for checking the temperature of the compost pile. I added a bunch of worms I dug up from a borrow area. Don’t worry, I washed the clay off. That’s how I’m rocking, man!”
Knoxie rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable.”
“I’m starting to wonder,” I said, picking the sandwich back up. Two people were coming in the door, so I put it down again.
“Oh, I do that all the time!” declared Tobiah, holding the door open for Tracy. “The grow room temperature is hugely important to the photosynthesis of the plants.”
“Exactly,” Tracy said firmly. “If it gets too cold, it reduces the evaporation through the leaves.”
Knoxie and I shared a look. Even Sock Monkey stopped endlessly wiping a glass to glance at us in terror. Uh-oh. This spells trouble.
“Uh, hey, Tobiah?” Knoxie tried to say. “Someone’s here you might want to avoid.” He nodded in the direction of the back hallway that led to the bathrooms, where Wolf was still chattering away about Composting 101.
Tobiah’s face went slack. “Oh, God.”
“Oh, God,” said Tracy.
If there was nothing to hide, they wouldn’t have had that reaction. Knoxie, Sock Monkey, and I sat back. We eagerly awaited the drama that always ensued when these two men collided.
Knoxie even murmured, “My money’s with Wolf.”
“Then I’ll go with Tobiah,” I said.
Wolf appeared in the hallway, still on the phone. “I didn’t know you could add dryer lint to a compost pile. We do have a dryer in the airplane hangar, but I don’t think you’d want the lint from these guys’ clothes. Probably full of explosives or gunpowder. Ha ha, yeah! Or pot smoke!”
Wolf’s face was drained of all emotion when he saw Tobiah. Eyes narrowing, he muttered, “Math magician.” His voice dripped with disgust. “What? Oh, nothing. Are you almost here? Good, I’ll tell them.”
Tobiah said to Tracy, “Maybe we should be moseying along now.”
“I think it’s too late for that,” whispered Tracy.
“Well, well!” boomed Wolf, replacing his phone in its holster. Wolf Glaser suffered from Utility Belt Syndrome, a drastic ailment that had him strapping on every device known to fucking man. Right now he was traveling fairly light. Dangling from his waist were only some binoculars, a water bottle, Bowie knife, brass knuckles, and nunchaku. This was his everyday wear. He usually had a taser and grenades swaying from his belt too. “If it isn’t Byte Boy. Tracy, what are you doing with this Woody Allen? You lose your internet girlfriend, dweeb?”
Tracy tried to step between the two men. But I could see Tobiah’s chest puffing up, his spindly arms tensing with anger. Tracy splayed her hands out in a calming manner.
“Wolf. Don’t get all worked up. Tobiah and I were just discussing how one of the grow rooms was a little too cold up at the plantation.”
Wolf put a hand on her shoulder and shoved her aside. “Oh. Is that all this is? An innocent meeting in downtown Pure and Easy to discuss temperatures? I’ll bet it is. Oh, I’ll just bet it is.” Wolf was about a foot taller than Tobiah, so it was easy for him to look down his nose at the nerdy CFO.
Tobiah’s eyes were slits. “Yeah. An innocent meeting. We had coffee.”
“Oh, so you called her?”
I was of the mind that Tracy was equally as guilty in this transaction. Nobody had forced her to have coffee with another man, if that was something that Wolf forbade. Especially not that other man, Wolf’s nemesis. But it was manly to accost the other fellow in this triangle. He could deal with Tracy later, in private.
“I called her,” Tobiah admitted, his lower jaw stuck out. “Is there something you’re gonna do about that?”
Wolf probably wouldn’t have done anything, but Tobiah just had to go and add,
“Mr. Virginity Shield.”
“Oh, that’s it, all right!” yelled Wolf, and the game was on.
Knoxie and I stood up for a better view as Wolf began his ducking and bobbing routine. Fists up, he sidestepped in a counterclockwise fashion around Tobiah, as though this would make it harder to see him. Tobiah put up his dukes, too, and even swung a few uppercuts that connected with air. Meanwhile, Tracy hopped up and down in place, squeezing her skull between her fists.
“Men! Stop!”
“No, don’t make them stop,” laughed Sock Monkey. “This is too priceless.”
“A hundred large on Wolf,” said Knoxie.
“Propellerhead,” yelled Tobiah, taking another swing at nothing.
“Krelboyne,” snarled Wolf, expertly dodging the blows.
Tobiah hunched down, mirroring Wolf’s movements. They looked like two extremely weak sumo wrestlers sizing each other up, ready to pounce. “I’ll bet you got a royal flush all the time in high school.”
“Oh yeah? You’re the wirehead who ran the yearbook club,” Wolf retorted.
“The yearbook committee,” growled Tobiah.
And then the swinging front door hit him in the ass.
Tobiah went staggering forward, arms flung up like a devout guy salaaming. “Whoa!” cried Wolf, and salaamed himself out of the way just in time, as Tobiah did a faceplant on the floorboards. Overjoyed, Wolf jogged a little victory dance, although he hadn’t really done a thing to merit it.
“Did you see that?” he crowed joyously. He even talked to the girl who had banged her way in the door. “Did you see this fourth Stooge fall smack on his face? He’s gonna need braces again when I’m done with him.”
When I took note that the new girl had long, ash-blond hair braided with fake flowers and beads, I stood. “Knoxie, keep Tobiah occupied,” I instructed.
Just in time, too. Tracy had rushed right to Tobiah’s side, squatting next to him, brushing chunks of his bowl haircut out of his eyes. His enormous eagle’s nose was bloodied and his eyes were even crossed, but he tried to stand to attack Wolf Glaser once more.
“I’ll fucking get you, you fucking wally!”
“Tobiah, don’t,” Tracy urged quietly.
There was obviously something hot and forbidden between them, but Wolf was distracted by the hippie. He wasn’t paying enough attention to reality. That was the problem. It was literally bugsmashing him in the face, and he just walked away, grinning like an oblivious gomer.
Then it struck me, that was what I was doing. Walking away from Maddy like an oblivious gomer. I was addicted to work—addicted to the club. “Sunshine?” I asked the hippie. “Wolf said you had some ideas about this calendar. Red Rocks Showdown.”
“Yes,” said Sunshine. She was so mellow, it took her several seconds just to say that one syllable. She took the calendar and pointed at the showdown date. “My little brother and I were sparking up a blunt out back yesterday. He told me he’d seen a symbol on your vortex calendar that was funny, man. This symbol here appears to be that of Tyranitar.”
“Tyranitar?” I repeated dully.
“Tyranitar!” cried Wolf, whipping out his phone. I don’t know how he avoided whipping out a flashlight or a grenade instead. He swiped with the professionalism of a major propeller head. “He’s a Pokémon character. See?”
Wolf showed me his screen. “Yeah! His bite has STAB! Right, Sunshine?”
Sunshine shrugged. “I guess. My brother would know.”
The cartoon character was a spiky dragon with no pupils. It was sort of cute. I asked, “What’s ‘stab’?”
Wolf was completely unashamed that he knew this stuff. “STAB is ‘same type attack bonus.’ You get more damage for a move of the same type.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Tyranitar’s the greatest Pokémon for offense and defense.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Got any weed?” Sunshine asked me. “Wolf told me your brother owns a pot plantation.”
I hated it when people asked me that. Just because Lytton owned Leaves of Grass didn’t mean I walked around with a few ounces in my pocket. I moved away from the bland girl when the front door banged open again and about four or five people piled in. They weren’t wearing cuts, as usually happened. In fact, they were sort of clean-cut student types, and all of them were holding their phones up, looking around at the animal heads and animated Hamm’s beer signs on our walls like they’d never seen a dead jackalope before.
“I don’t see it,” said one.
“Neither do I,” said another.
“What’re you looking for?” asked Sock Monkey.
One of the guys said, “This bar and grill is supposed to be a PokéStop.”
“Seriously?” asked Wolf, his face wrinkled. “Let me check.” He furiously thumbed his phone.
I gathered this had something to do with Wolf’s game. “Let me see your phone.”
I rudely snatched the kid’s phone away. He’d been looking at a regular Google map-type thing of downtown P&E, but with cartoon characters popping up all over the place. Several were within a couple block radius of the Bum Steer.
“This is amazeballs,” said Wolf. “Our building says users can capture Tyranitar here.”
“Okay,” said Tobiah, who had been listening attentively since the students had entered. “This is just too weird. Who the hell would suggest us as a PokéStop?”
Wolf and I looked at each other, stunned. I said it first.
“Someone with bite and STAB.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MADISON
“Did you ever read Dostoevsky?”
I had to admit that I hadn’t. But my husband had. He’d read a large chunk of the classics on his own before he’d been Special Ops in the Navy. “No.”
Ellis said, “Well, of course he’s got a bunch of people raving against God, just like we are tonight. The youngest brother, Alyosha, is a novice in a monastery. His brother Ivan, by describing news accounts of tortured children, gets Alyosha to admit he can’t condone the moral world he’s devoted his life to. Ivan says, ‘It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.’”
“What do we do if we conclude that innocent torture is too high a price to pay?” For that day in the ER, we’d dealt with two children unable to breathe, hearts pounding out of their chests, contorted into the most impossible pretzels of anguish, all because they’d drank some of their father’s “Montana Gin.” This sky-blue concoction of hairspray and water was for people unable to afford alcohol.
Both children died.
I said, “Being unable to do anything in the face of another’s pain is the biggest suffering of all. I think being angry with the universe isn’t the sin it’s made out to be. I doubt God is so delicate, so devoid of empathy, that He’d get offended at our anger.”
