Bruce turned in the cage, razor-sharp claws clicking against the metal floor. The lizard looked at Tura for a long moment, pale yellow tongue flicking in and out of its mouth.

  “Is he dangerous?” Tura asked.

  “Very,” Dr. Newman said. “Just look at those claws. And his teeth are razor-sharp.”

  “What does he eat?”

  “Komodo dragons eat meat, alive or dead. I once saw Bruce devour three suckling pigs in the space of twenty minutes. He ate so much that he literally couldn’t move for several hours.”

  “Where’d you get him?” Lorelei asked.

  “Bruce belongs to a couple of magicians who have quite a menagerie.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Bruce is getting a little old. Last year he started to develop cataracts. I’ve been monitoring his eyesight since then, and we’ve decided that it’s time to operate and correct the problem. Later today I’m bringing in a veterinary ophthalmologist from Virginia to perform the surgery. She’s the best in the country.” Newman laughed, pushing his Coke-bottle specs high on his nose. “In fact, if my eyes get much worse I might have her take a crack at me.”

  Dr. Newman glanced at Tura and Lorelei. He thought his joke was uproariously funny, but the Lynch sisters weren’t laughing at all. Obviously, they weren’t listening to a word he said.

  Tura knelt and peered into the cage. “Daddy would just love him.”

  Lorelei nodded. “And he’s got a birthday comin’ up at the end of the month.”

  “You get him anything yet?”

  “Nope. How about you?”

  “Nope.”

  Lorelei chuckled. “Could you imagine the look on his face if we brought him one of these?”

  “We’d have to change his name, though. Daddy wouldn’t want a dragon named Bruce.”

  “Yeah. Maybe we could call him Yog Soggoth.”

  “Works for me,” Tura said. “How about it, Doc?”

  Dr. Newman didn’t know what to say.

  But there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he had to say something.

  “Tura,” he began, “you have to understand-”

  The world’s greatest lap dancer leaned forward and removed Dr. Newman’s Coke-bottle glasses, placing them atop Bruce’s cage.

  Suddenly, Dr. Newman’s throat was uncomfortably dry. “No, darling, you really must listen. I just can’t let you do this-”

  “Sure you can,” Tura said. “You want my phone number, don’t you?”

  Dr. Newman couldn’t see a thing without his glasses, so he didn’t see Tura’s hand moving toward him. But as soon as he felt it, he made his decision.

  He would tell the magicians that the dragon had been stolen. Or kidnapped. Yes, kidnapped. That would be better. He’d send the magicians a ransom note-

  “The dragon is yours,” he said, and suddenly his bow tie seemed very tight indeed.

  Tura kissed the vet. He had just consigned himself to hell. He was sure of it. But at the moment he didn’t care-

  Until the door to the operating theater burst open.

  Until someone yelled, “Get your hands in the air. . and give me that Chihuahua.”

  Tura couldn’t believe her eyes. The asshole was dead. Dead. And dead didn’t come back with a Colt Python in its hand and a blond bimbo sidekick armed with a.45.

  “C’mon,” Jack Baddalach said. “Just give us the dog and no one gets hurt.”

  “Yeah.” The bimbo aimed her.45 at Tura. “Like he said.”

  Tura raised her hands, just slightly. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  She angled behind Doc Gooddoggy. He was squinting in Baddalach’s direction. Obviously, he couldn’t see a thing.

  Tura sucked a deep breath. So far so good. Her heart was out of the line of fire. So was her left hand. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled the Walther PPK.

  Lorelei saw her do it. She had a firm hold on Spike, cradling the dog over her heart. Baddalach and his bimbo wouldn’t shoot her. Not when they might hit the dog.

  “I’m not going to wait forever,” Baddalach said. “Bring me the dog. Now.”

  “Okay,” Lorelei said. “But don’t shoot.”

  Quite suddenly, Tura grabbed Doc Gooddoggy by his prissy white hair. Using him as a shield, she aimed the Walther over his shoulder and started shooting as Lorelei dumped the mutt and yanked a Heckler from the shoulder holster concealed under her coat.

  Baddalach and his bimbo dove behind a metal counter near the operating theater door.

  They rose a moment later, guns blazing.

  Warm blood splashed Dr. Newman’s face. He heard a few stumbling steps, and then something thumped to the floor in front of him.

  He heard a dog barking, claws scrabbling over tile floor.

  The pistol next to his ear barked several times, and then he couldn’t hear a thing.

  “No,” Dr. Newman moaned. “Oh please God.

  Tura yanked his hair. At least he thought it was Tura. He couldn’t see a thing without his glasses.

  She pulled him backwards, hiding behind him, until they were on the far side of the Komodo dragon’s cage. Then she yanked his hair again, and he dropped to his knees behind the cage.

  People were shouting. He knew they were. But his ears were ringing with the sound of gunfire.

  He couldn’t hear a blessed thing.

  “You killed my sister,” Tura shouted.

  Jack and Angel crouched behind the metal counter. Angel was holding Spike. Her.45 lay on the ground. Suddenly, she had forgotten all about it.

  “You blond bitch!” Tura screamed. “I’m going to make you pay!”

  Angel glanced at Jack, her face creased with worry. He shrugged. “You did shoot her sister,” he said.

  “Either I walk out of here,” Tura said, “or the vet dies.”

  “Oh, man,” Jack said.

  Spike coughed, and Angel held him tight. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’ve got the dog,” Jack said. “The vet probably doesn’t have anything to do with any of this. I don’t want him to get hurt.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t just let her go.”

  “So what do you want to do? Shoot it out? That’s great. Maybe one of us will plug the vet by accident and save her the trouble of killing him.”

  “Yeah. But if we let her go, do you really think this will be the end of it?”

  On the other side of the room, a door slammed.

  “Shit,” Jack said. “Shit!"

  Dr. Newman couldn’t see a thing. The gunshots had rendered him as deaf as Beethoven, but at least Tura had stopped pulling his hair.

  He undid his bow tie and wiped the blood from his face. Then, scooting along on his ass, he moved away from the Komodo dragon cage. He didn’t want to be too close to the bars. Bruce’s claws were sharp as a samurai’s blade. One slash and Medicare wouldn’t begin to cover all the reassembly Dr. Frank Newman would require.

  There. That was better. Bruce couldn’t reach him now. And no one had grabbed his hair to stop him from moving. That was better still.

  Dr. Newman reached out tentatively. He couldn’t remember where Tura had put his glasses. Maybe they were on the floor.

  His fingers drifted across the tile and touched cold metal.

  The door to the Komodo dragon’s cage. .

  . . and it was open.

  Dr. Newman couldn’t hear the scream that spilled over his own lips. But he could feel the dragon’s long slithering tongue as it slapped against the back of his hand.

  And he could smell the stream of urine even as it spilled down the leg of his summer trousers.

  The vet was scooting around the floor on his ass.

  The redhead lay by an open door, half her skull splattered on the wall behind her.

  The door swung shut slowly. And then Jack noticed the other door. The one to the big metal cage.

  A fucking monster came out of the cage, moving fast, little black eyes gleaming like eight balls.

  A Komodo dragon. Jesus. Jack had seen one of the big lizards on an old Johnny Quest cartoon. The damn thing had tried to devour Race Bannon, who had outsmarted it through good old American ingenuity.

  The vet might be an American, but he wasn’t in Race Bannon’s league. He just sat there on his ass, looking kind of like Pa Kettle dressed up for the county fair. Jack couldn’t understand it. Even if the vet didn’t see the big lizard, he’d have to hear the thing’s claws clinking over the tiled floor-

  The monster’s long yellow tongue flicked against the back of the vet’s right hand. Then its jaws opened wider.

  Jack raised the Colt Python and opened fire.

  Once again, blood splashed Dr. Newman’s face. Only this blood was colder.

  He reached out and touched a long, slimy hunk of flesh. Bruce’s tongue. Only the tongue wasn’t attached to anything.

  Bruce was dead.

  Bruce had been shot in the head.

  Along with an exotic dancer.

  All of it had happened in Dr. Newman’s operating theater. Dr. Newman began to cry, because none of these events could possibly occur in a Norman Rockwell universe.

  His career was over.

  And, worse than that, he would probably never see Tura Lynch again.

  The vet sat on the floor, holding the dead lizard’s tongue and crying.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Jack asked.

  “I think he’s deaf, for one thing. And blind, too.” Angel picked up the doctor’s Coke-bottle glasses and handed them to Jack. “He probably can’t see a thing without these.”

  Jack dropped the glasses on the floor and stomped them hard.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “Do you want him to be able to give the cops our descriptions, or what?”

  “Oh. . yeah.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “C’mon Spike,” Angel said, hoisting the Chihuahua. “We’re going home.”

  After a while, Dr. Newman dropped Bruce’s tongue and stumbled out of the operating theater.

  He felt his way along the wall and eventually found his office, where he bruised his thigh on the sharp corner of his desk before sinking into his plush leather chair.

  Fright consumed him, but he persevered. He reached out tentatively, exploring his desktop even as his heart raced, afraid that his fingers would brush the severed tongue of a Komodo dragon.

  They didn’t, of course. The dragon’s tongue was on the floor of the operating theater.

  Eventually Dr. Newman found the telephone. He held the handset to his ear and could not hear a thing. Without his glasses, he couldn’t see the keypad, either, but he started pressing buttons anyway.

  Three buttons each time. Then he would say he had an emergency, and give his address, and hang up and do it again.

  Eventually, he’d hit 911.

  Eventually.

  It was simply the law of averages.

  “God, I’m glad Spike’s okay.” Angel hugged the Chihuahua. “I’m glad this whole thing is over.”

  Jack didn’t say anything. He just drove.

  “Jack. . it is over, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. The woman who got away. . she’s out there, somewhere. So is Harold Ticks. And the old lady and the guy with the rattlesnakes. They’re out there, too.”

  Angel nodded. “Don’t forget Tony Katt. He probably the arranged the whole thing. And the woman with the wrist braces.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what should we do?”

  “I don’t know, Angel. I just don’t think they’ll leave it like this. You shot that woman back there. You killed her. And her sister isn’t going to forget that. She’ll probably come looking for us. God help us if she brings those other freaks with her.”

  “You think they’ll come after us?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Unless we go after them first.”

  SIX

  There were seven Randy Travis records on the truck stop jukebox. Harold was sure about that. He’d heard every damn one of them, and more than once.

  Still, anything was better than hanging out with Eden. Man, was she messed up. Harold didn’t know how to feel about that. Deep down, he really cared about her. But to see her all torn up like that, completely out of control. . man, it was scary. He just couldn’t handle it.

  Maybe things would be okay after they collected the ransom. Harold figured he could stick it out that long. Hell, he had to. The drop site was already set up. No way he could make an end run around the entire Lynch family at this late hour, even if he wanted to.

  And if things didn’t work out after that? Well, he’d said adios before. The word was definitely in his vocabulary.

  But he’d never said adios to anyone like Eden Lynch. That would be a tough one. Of course, it was easy to say that now. Eden wasn’t having a nervous breakdown right before his eyes. If she started that shit again. . all that crying and making him feel guilty shit. . well, watch out. That’s when the rubber would meet the road.

  A gear-jammer dropped a quarter in the jukebox and pressed B26. Randy Travis started singing about a love that was deeper than the holler and stronger than the river and higher than the pine trees growin’ tall upon the hill.

  Enough of this weepy redneck shit. Harold chugged one last swallow from his coffee cup. It wasn’t quite time for the rubber to meet the road, but it was way past time for the shoe leather to hit the parquet tile.

  Harold’s shoe leather did. He paid the waitress and headed for the pay phones at the gas station adjacent to the restaurant. It was almost noon. Time to goose Angel Gemignani. Get her to that safe-deposit box and then give her directions to the drop site.

  Harold punched in the Casbah number and the operator transferred him to Angel Gemignani’s suite.

  The phone rang a bunch of times. Harold was about to give up when someone answered. Some stupid Valley Girl voice. All whiny. Plus Harold could hardly hear the chick. It sounded like a party was going on or something.

  “Is this Angel Gemignani?”

  “No.” Except the way this chick said it, “no” had two syllables. Then there was a bunch of yelling for Angel, and the next voice Harold heard belonged to the rich bitch herself.

  “H’lo?”

  “Listen good, bitch. It’s time to pay the piper. I want you to get to your safe-deposit box. The one your grandfather gave you. Take out half a million bucks. There’s a pay phone outside the bank. Wait there and I’ll call you at-”

  “Who is this?”

  “This is the guy who’s got your dog.”

  Harold couldn’t believe it. The little bitch was actually laughing at him.

  She said, “I guess you haven’t been keeping up with current events.”

  Harold said, “Huh?”

  “Wait just a second.” Angel Gemignani yelled something, and someone yelled something back, followed by a chorus of laughter. Angel said, “Still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, listen to this.”

  It was quiet for a second. And then the little fucking Chihuahua started barking, and Angel Gemignani slammed down the phone.

  Harold started driving. He headed east. He had no idea where he was going. It really didn’t matter much.

  The whole deal was blown. Tony would be really pissed. Right now, Harold couldn’t even face his bro. Man, they’d planned it so good, and things had gotten fucked up, and on Harold’s end, too. Eden’s sisters had blown it, taking the dog to that vet. Obviously. But the dog was Harold’s responsibility. And so were Eden’s sisters.

  Man, how was he going to break the news to Tony?

  Maybe he should just keep driving. He’d end up somewhere. Get something going. Start over.

  The odometer notched ten miles. Then twenty. Thirty coming right up. .

  He passed the exit where he’d picked up Eden so long ago. Man, the way she looked that day. Sunburned, wearing nothing but a truck driver’s shirt and a pair of dirty white go-go boots, singing “Happy Trails” like everything was okeydokey.

  God, but she wanted to please him. She did everything he told her. She never questioned him. It was still that way. Even when she fucked things up, it wasn’t like she did it intentionally. In fact, fucking things up nearly broke her heart, that’s how scared she was of upsetting Harold.

  And who the hell knew what would happen to Eden now? Her family would be pissed. They wanted that ransom money as much as Harold did, and they were about to come up empty.

  Harold knew what would happen. Daddy and Mama would blame Eden for bringing Harold into the fold in the first place. And Tura and Lorelei. . Christ, look what those crazy bitches did to Eden for stealing a bag of Fig Newtons. Harold couldn’t even imagine what kind of punishment they’d dish out for something like this.

  He pulled over. Man, he couldn’t believe it. That fucking Randy Travis song was going round and round in his head.

  He waited for a break in the traffic, and when one came he cut across the highway and headed toward the Radiation Ranch.

  Harold nearly put his foot through the floorboards. That was how hard he hit the brakes.

  The concrete bunker loomed before him, surrounded by a dry, stunted forest of yucca trees and scrub brush. Afternoon heat waves rolled across the desert and broke against the nuke-proof hacienda like ghostwaves of an ocean that had vanished a million years ago.

  Harold pulled his.357 and got out of the car. He scanned the desert for a sign of trouble but saw nothing. No cars or trucks that didn’t belong there. No tire tracks in the dirt that seemed unusual. Not one glimmer on a distant rise that would indicate a sniper’s telescopic rifle sight reflecting the afternoon sun.

  Fully aware of his surrounding, senses painfully acute, Harold started toward the thing that had made him stop the car so suddenly.

  It was easy to miss her on first glance, because even a warped display of human flesh had a way of looking right at home in the Mojave Desert. Harold had never lived in such a weird place. In his view, every sunset looked like a bloodstain, and every empty well was a grave waiting to be filled, and every yucca tree looked strangely deformed, twisted as if it had been tortured by the Devil himself.

 

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