Saguaro Riptide, page 19
Man, that was a hell of a note.
Ellis pulled to a stop in front of the trailer. He knew that it would be hotter than Ann-Margret inside but didn’t really care, because that’s where the beer was.
He climbed out of the car. His goddamn leather coat was a mess. All covered with white dust. He looked like a goddamn ghost. And sweaty—man, there wasn’t even a rumor of the Old Spice he’d used to wax down his pits that morning.
Manly odor wasn’t his only concern, though. He hoped his pit-juice hadn’t short-circuited the batteries for his vibrator throat-buzzer. That would be a damn shame with him having to go on the road tonight and all. He didn’t have time to play Mr. Fixit.
Didn’t have time to get the coat cleaned, either. And he wanted to wear it, because all his jumpsuits were at the cleaners. Hell ... he didn’t have time for any of this shit. He’d just beat off the dust, run a quick check on the throat-buzzer, dump some Hai Karate on the coat, and hope for the best.
Now that he was going. No avoiding that. He had to go on the flea market trip, because he was about busted. Of course, if he’d found Komoko’s goddamn money, he wouldn’t have to go anywhere at all.
Heat waves shimmied on top of the trailer like the ghosts of frenzied go-go girls. The place sure wasn’t any Graceland. Just a leaning hunk of tin in the middle of nowhere. Tinfoil on the windows just the same way the King had done it, both because he was nocturnal and also needed his privacy. But Ellis Aaron Perkins was up in the middle of the day and nobody was begging for his autograph, and on this cracker box tin-foiled windows just looked like that much more tin because Ellis hardly had a goddamn dime to his name.
Ellis studied on it until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Then he reached into the backseat of the scarred Caddy and grabbed the shovel that had been so goddamn useless and threw it as far as he could.
“Goddamn,” he said, and with all that plumbing missing out of his throat the word couldn’t even be called a whisper.
***
He sure needed that beer.
Ever since that Vegas doctor had cooked him straight through with all that radiation, his throat had been drier than a popcorn fart. Always had a taste in the back of his mouth like he was gagging down a hunk of burnt tinfoil, and he could never wash that taste away. Just couldn’t get enough spit up, no matter how hard he tried.
He couldn’t help but try, though.
Grimacing, Ellis swallowed dry. It wasn’t any good. He slammed through the front door.
Priscilla was standing right there, waiting for him, a can of Coors in one hand. She popped the top and handed it over.
He didn’t quite know what to say. The way he’d left her this morning ... he figured she’d be sulking.
He took a deep swallow, then jammed the vibrator against his neck, “THANK . . . YOU NUNGEN,” he said.
Elvis Presley had always called his Priscilla Nungen.
Ellis figured Priscilla might have smiled when he thanked her, but he couldn’t really tell with the duct tape on her mouth.
Ellis wondered what she was thinking about—him, or Komoko, or maybe Jack Baddalach.
Or maybe she was thinking about Komoko’s money, the same way Ellis was.
She turned before he could get another look at her face and headed for the kitchen.
Ellis stepped away from the open door. A slash of sunlight slapped Priscilla’s backside, lit up her dark hair real nice.
She moved away from the light. It caressed her, traveling down her backside like Ellis’s hand sometimes did, real slow, glinting on the leg-iron around her right ankle just as she disappeared into the shadowy kitchen with its tinfoil-lined windows.
She was gone. Ellis watched the chain playing out from the eyebolt drilled in the living room floor.
She could only go so far.
***
The living room was done up kind of like the Jungle Room at Graceland. Lots of furniture with leopard spots and zebra stripes.
Ellis put a record on the turntable. Moody Blue. The King’s very last album.
The heavy-gauge plastic sofa cover made a crinkling sound as he sat down. He sipped the beer and set it on the coffee table. He wasn’t crazy about having plastic covers on everything. But Priscilla said that they needed them if they were going to keep so many cats in the house.
Ellis liked the cats. There were twelve of them, each one named after a different member of Elvis’s Memphis Mafia. Charlie Hodge and Lamar Fike were fluffy Persians, while Joe Esposito and Gene Smith were calicos. Red West was a big old tabby with a flame-colored belly. Sonny West was blacker than the ace of spades. Dave Hebler was a Siamese. Ellis liked the last three best, even though in real life they had betrayed Elvis by writing the first tell-all book, the one that had been published just before the King’s death.
Elvis had wanted those boys to kill Mike Stone, the karate expert who stole Priscilla Presley’s heart. But those boys refused to do it. After all the things Elvis had done for them . . . they wouldn’t even do him a little bitty favor like that.
Besides the cats, Ellis didn’t have an entourage. Still, he knew some folks who didn’t have a problem when it came to committing murder. Wyetta and Rorie. Not that they’d intended to murder Komoko for him, of course. That was just the way it had worked out.
Wyetta and Rorie had done him a big favor by chopping Komoko. He wondered if they’d do him another favor, maybe chop this Jack Baddalach character. Hopefully the boxer would get in their way and end up dead, just the way Komoko had.
Damn. That would sure enough simplify the situation. With Baddalach dead, there wouldn’t be anyone left to phone Priscilla.
Purring, Lamar Fike rubbed against Ellis’s legs. Ellis bent down and scratched Lamar’s big ol’ tomcat neck. Lamar was always hungry and took the opportunity to whine for a treat.
Ellis figured he should open a can of food. But the cat food was in the kitchen, and so was Priscilla. Suddenly Ellis was real nervous about being close to her. The way she’d given him the beer ... he just didn’t feel right about it, what with her having the tape on her mouth and the chain on her leg and all.
Kind of guilty. That’s how he felt.
He knew what Elvis Presley would have done. Elvis would have gone out and bought Priscilla a fancy car or some expensive jewelry or something. The King always gave expensive gifts as a way of apologizing. Never said he was sorry or anything.
But Ellis couldn’t afford to apologize that way.
He couldn’t say he was sorry, either.
And why should he?
She had cheated on him, running around with that Komoko fella every chance she got. She’d been perfectly happy doing that until she figured out the guy was an asshole who never intended to run off with her. Then she called up her sister and her sister’s dyke lover, and together they figured out how to cash in the asshole’s chips.
Maybe Ellis could live with that. Really. If he was the one to find Komoko’s money, he could pretend the whole thing had never happened. Pretend he hadn’t heard the velvet-voiced asshole say all those things to Priscilla on the telephone tapes. Pretend, when he lay with his wife in their bed, that she didn’t have anyone else on her mind.
If he found the money, he’d tell her that he’d made a big score with the cellular phones or something. Give her a wink like there was something more to it that he couldn’t talk about.
She’d buy it. Sure she would.
And he’d have that damn money.
Two million bucks. He could get the hell out of Pipeline Beach. Take Priscilla back to Vegas. Get her away from that goddamn sister of hers.
He’d buy a new house, something in North Vegas. Air-conditioned. And he’d still have money left over. Enough for a whole mess of authentic Presley-size “I’m sorrys.”
***
Ellis got cleaned up. Took a shower. Waxed down his pits with that Old Spice Stick. Doused the black leather coat with Hai Karate.
Sometimes he thought that everything would be okay if he could still sing. Sit out there on the porch at night and serenade Priscilla, look her dead in the eye, watch her shiver as he ripped her up with “Loving You” or “Treat Me Nice.”
He thought about it. It would sure be nice. He really missed being able to sing. But even two million bucks couldn’t buy you a voice if you were missing half the plumbing in your goddamn throat. Ellis knew that.
He combed his hair and wandered to the kitchen. Caught the smell of dinner cooking.
Couldn’t believe it.
First the beer at the door and now this—the unmistakable aroma of fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
The King’s favorite meal.
It seemed like someone was turning over a new leaf . . .
***
. . . or someone was feeling real guilty.
Ellis loaded the cellular phones into the trunk. He wouldn’t have to do any legwork this trip—he was getting a reputation and had buyers lined up all over Phoenix.
He had a long drive ahead of him.
But he couldn’t quite get moving.
Because he couldn’t stop thinking.
A beer at the door wasn’t a gold bracelet. And a peanut butter ’n’ ’naner sandwich sure wasn’t a new Cadillac.
But add ’em together and they sure as hell seemed to be some kind of apology.
Or maybe they were a sign of guilt.
Ellis thought it over. He’d stripped the tape off Priscilla’s mouth so she could eat dinner. But she hadn’t said a goddamn word, except to ask him when he’d be back from Phoenix.
He said he’d be home soon enough. And then he made a trip to the living room, put a CD on the stereo. Some of Elvis’s Vegas stuff.
When “Suspicious Minds” came on, Priscilla wouldn’t look at him at all.
Ellis slammed the Caddy’s trunk and glanced over at the shed next to the trailer. He kept his tools in there.
The tape recorder was in there, too. The one he’d spliced into the phone line.
Maybe he should check the recorder before he left.
See if anyone had called while he’d been out treasure hunting. See if his wife had dared to peel that tape off of her mouth.
He wandered over, real casual, and opened the door.
It was dark in the shed.
The flashing red light on the tape recorder was the size of a pinprick.
But there was no way he could miss it.
Or what it meant.
WYETTA TOOK ONE LAST SWIG FROM THE JD BOTTLE AND THREW IT into the desert behind her house.
Three silhouettes waited among the towering saguaros. Three pairs of unblinking eyes were trained upon the sheriff of Pipeline Beach.
Wyetta stared them down. She was alone. Rorie had gone home. Said she needed some rest. Wyetta had said okay, because what she had needed was a drink and she didn’t want Rorie looking at her with sad puppy-dog eyes while she had one.
Or two.
The sun slipped behind the jagged horizon to the west, painting the desert with fresh shadows. Black shadows over white sand—the same palate of colors that had shaped the generation weaned on Have Gun Will Travel, Rawhide, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.
The three figures came clearer in the soft shadow of twilight. Standing stiff and straight, expressions set as if for eternity, waiting for the sheriff without a word.
No words were necessary. Wyetta knew why they were here.
A sawed-off shotgun lay on the picnic table to her left. Wyetta held her left hand aloft, smiled at the figures, then reached down slowly and took hold of the shotgun. Eased it off the table, aiming its barrel at the ground as fast as she could.
And then she came at them, not too fast, not too slow. Like a knight without armor in a savage land. Moving into range. And she didn’t blink once. Her gaze traveled everywhere. From their guns to their hands to their unblinking eyes.
Wyetta said what Wyatt had said a long time ago: “You sons of bitches have been looking for a fight.”
Not one mouth opened. The three of them stood there, waiting for her as if they were mystery contestants on some strange outlaw game show. Desperado #1, Desperado #2, and Desperado #3.
Wyetta closed the distance.
One last step. Quiet tread of Nocona boots over Arizona sand.
One last breath, a deep one.
And then the fingers of Wyetta’s right hand closed around the red cedar handle of her .44 American and she yanked the big pistol and opened fire.
The first bullet slammed Desperado #1 in the chest. The second opened a hole in Desperado #3’s belly. Neither man made a move; Wyetta hadn’t stopped moving. Again and again, she pulled the trigger.
Bone-colored splinters flew as a bullet carved a hole in the forehead of Desperado #3.
Wyetta’s next shot hit him in the belly. Her last two bullets drilled holes in Desperado #1 and then the .44 American was back in its holster and her free hand closed around the shotgun’s slide-handle and she fired left-handed, sending a load directly through the belly of Desperado # 2.
His legs did not move. But he toppled from the belly up, his plywood torso sending up a puff of incense-colored dust as it pancaked the desert floor.
***
Jack Baddalach, Kate Benteen, and Woodrow Ali Baba. It didn’t matter if the three of them had teamed up. Wyetta would finish them the same way Wyatt and his men had finished Desperados #1 thru #3 at the O. K. Corral.
Wyetta wandered over to the bisected figure of Frank McClaury. Turned over his torso and stared into his painted eyes. Part of her had hated to blow Frank in half, because he and his two plywood compadres had been a gift from a sheriff buddy of hers up north. He’d had them painted up special the year Wyetta won an award at a meeting of Arizona law enforcement officials. Giving Wyetta plywood figures of the badmen who had met their demise at the O. K. Corral was kind of a joke, but kind of an admiring tip of the hat, too.
Blasting Frank McClaury with a shotgun reflected Wyetta’s passion for historical accuracy. That was exactly what Doc Holliday had done to Frank at the world’s most infamous gunfight. Plus, blowing the plywood figure in half made Wyetta feel pretty damn good. Ventilating Billy Clanton and Tom McLaury had felt pretty good too. And, as with Frank, the placement of her pistol shots jibed with historical accounts of the gunfight at the O. K. Corral.
Wyetta grinned. Yep, she was one pretty tough pistol packin’ mama, and she wasn’t about to lay her pistol down. Not yet.
Not until this Komoko business was settled.
Boy howdy. If she could only figure out where Komoko had hidden the money. She and Rorie hadn’t had a bit of luck finding it the night they’d put the little Vegas pissant out of his misery. She was sure it wasn’t hidden in Graceland, because they’d damn near torn the place apart. Of course, their search outside had been tougher, because the sandstorm got in the way of things.
They’d checked Komoko’s car though. The money wasn’t there. They’d even checked to see if he’d registered over at the Saguaro Riptide before coming to Graceland. But Sandy said she hadn’t seen him in a month.
Komoko hadn’t made a reservation, either. Not that he’d need one at the Riptide. Still, Wyetta wondered if Sandy was telling the truth. Maybe Komoko had checked in. And maybe he’d left the money in his room. Sandy might have played dumb, got hold of that money herself . . .
No. That was crazy. Sandy didn’t have a clue about Komoko.
Unless Priscilla had let something slip during one of her Riptide rendezvous. Unless—
Wyetta shook her head. This was crazy. If she wanted to worry about someone beating her to the money, she shouldn’t be worrying about Sandy. And if she wanted to speculate about who knew exactly what, she needed to think about Baddalach, and Benteen, and Woodrow Ali Baba.
And that bunch was making less sense every minute. Take for instance Ali Baba’s car being out at Graceland, and Ellis swearing that Jack Baddalach was the guy who’d driven it there. Sure, Ali Baba had reported the car stolen, but the question was why would Baddalach steal it? He had a rental car—that Range Rover he’d been driving when they’d arrested him at the five-and-dime.
Maybe Ali Baba and Baddalach were partners. And maybe there was a heaping teaspoon of dissension in the ranks. Maybe—
Wyetta swore. The pieces of the puzzle wouldn’t fit. Either that, or she had too many goddamn pieces. Or—
Frank McClaury stared up at her, refusing to blink. Suddenly, Wyetta did not like the amused grin the artist had painted beneath Frank’s bristling moustache.
God, she wanted another drink.
But another drink and she wouldn’t be thinking at all.
So she spit in Frank McClaury’s eye and kicked corpse-colored dirt over his face.
Wyatt would have done the same thing. If only she could talk to him about Komoko’s money. If only she could ask his advice.
And then, quite suddenly, she remembered that she could do just that.
***
As it turned out, Rorie was too upset to take a nap. She couldn’t eat, either. So she closed the drapes and settled in with the TV, hoping to take her mind off her troubles.
She channel-surfed for a while. Lots of news and game shows and even more talk shows. But what Rorie liked was show shows. Movies and that kind of stuff.
She found a pretty good one on HBO. She’d missed the beginning, so she didn’t know the name of it. But it was pretty cool. Some woman archaeologist had been kidnapped by Middle Eastern terrorists, and the terrorists were doing these awful Middle Eastern things to her. The archaeologist was trying to escape, but she wasn’t having any luck.
And then a chopper landed in the desert. A black one. And someone got out, all alone. Dressed in black leather, wearing a chopper pilot’s helmet with a mirrored face.
Man, it was too cool.
And then came the best part. Because the chopper pilot took off that helmet, and it turned out the pilot was a woman!
Way too cool!
The pilot shook out her auburn hair. Kind of a Louise Brooks look. Very tough. She backed a motorcycle from a compartment in the chopper’s belly and loaded it up with a bunch of guns and grenades and stuff.
Ellis pulled to a stop in front of the trailer. He knew that it would be hotter than Ann-Margret inside but didn’t really care, because that’s where the beer was.
He climbed out of the car. His goddamn leather coat was a mess. All covered with white dust. He looked like a goddamn ghost. And sweaty—man, there wasn’t even a rumor of the Old Spice he’d used to wax down his pits that morning.
Manly odor wasn’t his only concern, though. He hoped his pit-juice hadn’t short-circuited the batteries for his vibrator throat-buzzer. That would be a damn shame with him having to go on the road tonight and all. He didn’t have time to play Mr. Fixit.
Didn’t have time to get the coat cleaned, either. And he wanted to wear it, because all his jumpsuits were at the cleaners. Hell ... he didn’t have time for any of this shit. He’d just beat off the dust, run a quick check on the throat-buzzer, dump some Hai Karate on the coat, and hope for the best.
Now that he was going. No avoiding that. He had to go on the flea market trip, because he was about busted. Of course, if he’d found Komoko’s goddamn money, he wouldn’t have to go anywhere at all.
Heat waves shimmied on top of the trailer like the ghosts of frenzied go-go girls. The place sure wasn’t any Graceland. Just a leaning hunk of tin in the middle of nowhere. Tinfoil on the windows just the same way the King had done it, both because he was nocturnal and also needed his privacy. But Ellis Aaron Perkins was up in the middle of the day and nobody was begging for his autograph, and on this cracker box tin-foiled windows just looked like that much more tin because Ellis hardly had a goddamn dime to his name.
Ellis studied on it until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Then he reached into the backseat of the scarred Caddy and grabbed the shovel that had been so goddamn useless and threw it as far as he could.
“Goddamn,” he said, and with all that plumbing missing out of his throat the word couldn’t even be called a whisper.
***
He sure needed that beer.
Ever since that Vegas doctor had cooked him straight through with all that radiation, his throat had been drier than a popcorn fart. Always had a taste in the back of his mouth like he was gagging down a hunk of burnt tinfoil, and he could never wash that taste away. Just couldn’t get enough spit up, no matter how hard he tried.
He couldn’t help but try, though.
Grimacing, Ellis swallowed dry. It wasn’t any good. He slammed through the front door.
Priscilla was standing right there, waiting for him, a can of Coors in one hand. She popped the top and handed it over.
He didn’t quite know what to say. The way he’d left her this morning ... he figured she’d be sulking.
He took a deep swallow, then jammed the vibrator against his neck, “THANK . . . YOU NUNGEN,” he said.
Elvis Presley had always called his Priscilla Nungen.
Ellis figured Priscilla might have smiled when he thanked her, but he couldn’t really tell with the duct tape on her mouth.
Ellis wondered what she was thinking about—him, or Komoko, or maybe Jack Baddalach.
Or maybe she was thinking about Komoko’s money, the same way Ellis was.
She turned before he could get another look at her face and headed for the kitchen.
Ellis stepped away from the open door. A slash of sunlight slapped Priscilla’s backside, lit up her dark hair real nice.
She moved away from the light. It caressed her, traveling down her backside like Ellis’s hand sometimes did, real slow, glinting on the leg-iron around her right ankle just as she disappeared into the shadowy kitchen with its tinfoil-lined windows.
She was gone. Ellis watched the chain playing out from the eyebolt drilled in the living room floor.
She could only go so far.
***
The living room was done up kind of like the Jungle Room at Graceland. Lots of furniture with leopard spots and zebra stripes.
Ellis put a record on the turntable. Moody Blue. The King’s very last album.
The heavy-gauge plastic sofa cover made a crinkling sound as he sat down. He sipped the beer and set it on the coffee table. He wasn’t crazy about having plastic covers on everything. But Priscilla said that they needed them if they were going to keep so many cats in the house.
Ellis liked the cats. There were twelve of them, each one named after a different member of Elvis’s Memphis Mafia. Charlie Hodge and Lamar Fike were fluffy Persians, while Joe Esposito and Gene Smith were calicos. Red West was a big old tabby with a flame-colored belly. Sonny West was blacker than the ace of spades. Dave Hebler was a Siamese. Ellis liked the last three best, even though in real life they had betrayed Elvis by writing the first tell-all book, the one that had been published just before the King’s death.
Elvis had wanted those boys to kill Mike Stone, the karate expert who stole Priscilla Presley’s heart. But those boys refused to do it. After all the things Elvis had done for them . . . they wouldn’t even do him a little bitty favor like that.
Besides the cats, Ellis didn’t have an entourage. Still, he knew some folks who didn’t have a problem when it came to committing murder. Wyetta and Rorie. Not that they’d intended to murder Komoko for him, of course. That was just the way it had worked out.
Wyetta and Rorie had done him a big favor by chopping Komoko. He wondered if they’d do him another favor, maybe chop this Jack Baddalach character. Hopefully the boxer would get in their way and end up dead, just the way Komoko had.
Damn. That would sure enough simplify the situation. With Baddalach dead, there wouldn’t be anyone left to phone Priscilla.
Purring, Lamar Fike rubbed against Ellis’s legs. Ellis bent down and scratched Lamar’s big ol’ tomcat neck. Lamar was always hungry and took the opportunity to whine for a treat.
Ellis figured he should open a can of food. But the cat food was in the kitchen, and so was Priscilla. Suddenly Ellis was real nervous about being close to her. The way she’d given him the beer ... he just didn’t feel right about it, what with her having the tape on her mouth and the chain on her leg and all.
Kind of guilty. That’s how he felt.
He knew what Elvis Presley would have done. Elvis would have gone out and bought Priscilla a fancy car or some expensive jewelry or something. The King always gave expensive gifts as a way of apologizing. Never said he was sorry or anything.
But Ellis couldn’t afford to apologize that way.
He couldn’t say he was sorry, either.
And why should he?
She had cheated on him, running around with that Komoko fella every chance she got. She’d been perfectly happy doing that until she figured out the guy was an asshole who never intended to run off with her. Then she called up her sister and her sister’s dyke lover, and together they figured out how to cash in the asshole’s chips.
Maybe Ellis could live with that. Really. If he was the one to find Komoko’s money, he could pretend the whole thing had never happened. Pretend he hadn’t heard the velvet-voiced asshole say all those things to Priscilla on the telephone tapes. Pretend, when he lay with his wife in their bed, that she didn’t have anyone else on her mind.
If he found the money, he’d tell her that he’d made a big score with the cellular phones or something. Give her a wink like there was something more to it that he couldn’t talk about.
She’d buy it. Sure she would.
And he’d have that damn money.
Two million bucks. He could get the hell out of Pipeline Beach. Take Priscilla back to Vegas. Get her away from that goddamn sister of hers.
He’d buy a new house, something in North Vegas. Air-conditioned. And he’d still have money left over. Enough for a whole mess of authentic Presley-size “I’m sorrys.”
***
Ellis got cleaned up. Took a shower. Waxed down his pits with that Old Spice Stick. Doused the black leather coat with Hai Karate.
Sometimes he thought that everything would be okay if he could still sing. Sit out there on the porch at night and serenade Priscilla, look her dead in the eye, watch her shiver as he ripped her up with “Loving You” or “Treat Me Nice.”
He thought about it. It would sure be nice. He really missed being able to sing. But even two million bucks couldn’t buy you a voice if you were missing half the plumbing in your goddamn throat. Ellis knew that.
He combed his hair and wandered to the kitchen. Caught the smell of dinner cooking.
Couldn’t believe it.
First the beer at the door and now this—the unmistakable aroma of fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
The King’s favorite meal.
It seemed like someone was turning over a new leaf . . .
***
. . . or someone was feeling real guilty.
Ellis loaded the cellular phones into the trunk. He wouldn’t have to do any legwork this trip—he was getting a reputation and had buyers lined up all over Phoenix.
He had a long drive ahead of him.
But he couldn’t quite get moving.
Because he couldn’t stop thinking.
A beer at the door wasn’t a gold bracelet. And a peanut butter ’n’ ’naner sandwich sure wasn’t a new Cadillac.
But add ’em together and they sure as hell seemed to be some kind of apology.
Or maybe they were a sign of guilt.
Ellis thought it over. He’d stripped the tape off Priscilla’s mouth so she could eat dinner. But she hadn’t said a goddamn word, except to ask him when he’d be back from Phoenix.
He said he’d be home soon enough. And then he made a trip to the living room, put a CD on the stereo. Some of Elvis’s Vegas stuff.
When “Suspicious Minds” came on, Priscilla wouldn’t look at him at all.
Ellis slammed the Caddy’s trunk and glanced over at the shed next to the trailer. He kept his tools in there.
The tape recorder was in there, too. The one he’d spliced into the phone line.
Maybe he should check the recorder before he left.
See if anyone had called while he’d been out treasure hunting. See if his wife had dared to peel that tape off of her mouth.
He wandered over, real casual, and opened the door.
It was dark in the shed.
The flashing red light on the tape recorder was the size of a pinprick.
But there was no way he could miss it.
Or what it meant.
WYETTA TOOK ONE LAST SWIG FROM THE JD BOTTLE AND THREW IT into the desert behind her house.
Three silhouettes waited among the towering saguaros. Three pairs of unblinking eyes were trained upon the sheriff of Pipeline Beach.
Wyetta stared them down. She was alone. Rorie had gone home. Said she needed some rest. Wyetta had said okay, because what she had needed was a drink and she didn’t want Rorie looking at her with sad puppy-dog eyes while she had one.
Or two.
The sun slipped behind the jagged horizon to the west, painting the desert with fresh shadows. Black shadows over white sand—the same palate of colors that had shaped the generation weaned on Have Gun Will Travel, Rawhide, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.
The three figures came clearer in the soft shadow of twilight. Standing stiff and straight, expressions set as if for eternity, waiting for the sheriff without a word.
No words were necessary. Wyetta knew why they were here.
A sawed-off shotgun lay on the picnic table to her left. Wyetta held her left hand aloft, smiled at the figures, then reached down slowly and took hold of the shotgun. Eased it off the table, aiming its barrel at the ground as fast as she could.
And then she came at them, not too fast, not too slow. Like a knight without armor in a savage land. Moving into range. And she didn’t blink once. Her gaze traveled everywhere. From their guns to their hands to their unblinking eyes.
Wyetta said what Wyatt had said a long time ago: “You sons of bitches have been looking for a fight.”
Not one mouth opened. The three of them stood there, waiting for her as if they were mystery contestants on some strange outlaw game show. Desperado #1, Desperado #2, and Desperado #3.
Wyetta closed the distance.
One last step. Quiet tread of Nocona boots over Arizona sand.
One last breath, a deep one.
And then the fingers of Wyetta’s right hand closed around the red cedar handle of her .44 American and she yanked the big pistol and opened fire.
The first bullet slammed Desperado #1 in the chest. The second opened a hole in Desperado #3’s belly. Neither man made a move; Wyetta hadn’t stopped moving. Again and again, she pulled the trigger.
Bone-colored splinters flew as a bullet carved a hole in the forehead of Desperado #3.
Wyetta’s next shot hit him in the belly. Her last two bullets drilled holes in Desperado #1 and then the .44 American was back in its holster and her free hand closed around the shotgun’s slide-handle and she fired left-handed, sending a load directly through the belly of Desperado # 2.
His legs did not move. But he toppled from the belly up, his plywood torso sending up a puff of incense-colored dust as it pancaked the desert floor.
***
Jack Baddalach, Kate Benteen, and Woodrow Ali Baba. It didn’t matter if the three of them had teamed up. Wyetta would finish them the same way Wyatt and his men had finished Desperados #1 thru #3 at the O. K. Corral.
Wyetta wandered over to the bisected figure of Frank McClaury. Turned over his torso and stared into his painted eyes. Part of her had hated to blow Frank in half, because he and his two plywood compadres had been a gift from a sheriff buddy of hers up north. He’d had them painted up special the year Wyetta won an award at a meeting of Arizona law enforcement officials. Giving Wyetta plywood figures of the badmen who had met their demise at the O. K. Corral was kind of a joke, but kind of an admiring tip of the hat, too.
Blasting Frank McClaury with a shotgun reflected Wyetta’s passion for historical accuracy. That was exactly what Doc Holliday had done to Frank at the world’s most infamous gunfight. Plus, blowing the plywood figure in half made Wyetta feel pretty damn good. Ventilating Billy Clanton and Tom McLaury had felt pretty good too. And, as with Frank, the placement of her pistol shots jibed with historical accounts of the gunfight at the O. K. Corral.
Wyetta grinned. Yep, she was one pretty tough pistol packin’ mama, and she wasn’t about to lay her pistol down. Not yet.
Not until this Komoko business was settled.
Boy howdy. If she could only figure out where Komoko had hidden the money. She and Rorie hadn’t had a bit of luck finding it the night they’d put the little Vegas pissant out of his misery. She was sure it wasn’t hidden in Graceland, because they’d damn near torn the place apart. Of course, their search outside had been tougher, because the sandstorm got in the way of things.
They’d checked Komoko’s car though. The money wasn’t there. They’d even checked to see if he’d registered over at the Saguaro Riptide before coming to Graceland. But Sandy said she hadn’t seen him in a month.
Komoko hadn’t made a reservation, either. Not that he’d need one at the Riptide. Still, Wyetta wondered if Sandy was telling the truth. Maybe Komoko had checked in. And maybe he’d left the money in his room. Sandy might have played dumb, got hold of that money herself . . .
No. That was crazy. Sandy didn’t have a clue about Komoko.
Unless Priscilla had let something slip during one of her Riptide rendezvous. Unless—
Wyetta shook her head. This was crazy. If she wanted to worry about someone beating her to the money, she shouldn’t be worrying about Sandy. And if she wanted to speculate about who knew exactly what, she needed to think about Baddalach, and Benteen, and Woodrow Ali Baba.
And that bunch was making less sense every minute. Take for instance Ali Baba’s car being out at Graceland, and Ellis swearing that Jack Baddalach was the guy who’d driven it there. Sure, Ali Baba had reported the car stolen, but the question was why would Baddalach steal it? He had a rental car—that Range Rover he’d been driving when they’d arrested him at the five-and-dime.
Maybe Ali Baba and Baddalach were partners. And maybe there was a heaping teaspoon of dissension in the ranks. Maybe—
Wyetta swore. The pieces of the puzzle wouldn’t fit. Either that, or she had too many goddamn pieces. Or—
Frank McClaury stared up at her, refusing to blink. Suddenly, Wyetta did not like the amused grin the artist had painted beneath Frank’s bristling moustache.
God, she wanted another drink.
But another drink and she wouldn’t be thinking at all.
So she spit in Frank McClaury’s eye and kicked corpse-colored dirt over his face.
Wyatt would have done the same thing. If only she could talk to him about Komoko’s money. If only she could ask his advice.
And then, quite suddenly, she remembered that she could do just that.
***
As it turned out, Rorie was too upset to take a nap. She couldn’t eat, either. So she closed the drapes and settled in with the TV, hoping to take her mind off her troubles.
She channel-surfed for a while. Lots of news and game shows and even more talk shows. But what Rorie liked was show shows. Movies and that kind of stuff.
She found a pretty good one on HBO. She’d missed the beginning, so she didn’t know the name of it. But it was pretty cool. Some woman archaeologist had been kidnapped by Middle Eastern terrorists, and the terrorists were doing these awful Middle Eastern things to her. The archaeologist was trying to escape, but she wasn’t having any luck.
And then a chopper landed in the desert. A black one. And someone got out, all alone. Dressed in black leather, wearing a chopper pilot’s helmet with a mirrored face.
Man, it was too cool.
And then came the best part. Because the chopper pilot took off that helmet, and it turned out the pilot was a woman!
Way too cool!
The pilot shook out her auburn hair. Kind of a Louise Brooks look. Very tough. She backed a motorcycle from a compartment in the chopper’s belly and loaded it up with a bunch of guns and grenades and stuff.
