“Yeah.” Jack thought it over. “Look,” he said finally. “We’ve got three corpses right here. And you killed the other redhead at the vet’s office. That leaves Pack O’ Weenies and the woman with the wrist braces. Our odds are better now than they were coming in.”

  Angel nodded. “I guess you’re right.”

  Jack ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, we don’t have to go through with this, Angel. No one has spotted us yet. We can probably walk out of here right now-”

  “Fifty miles back to the road?” Angel laughed. “My fucking feet are killing me. Jack. We leave here, we’re taking a car. God knows there are enough dead bastards around this place who won’t be needing their wheels anymore.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Who the fuck knows, anyway? Maybe we’re in the middle of Jonestown. Some kind of cult massacre. Maybe the whole gang is dead. Maybe the woman with the wrist braces did all the others and committed suicide.”

  Angel examined the stash of prescription drugs. “Yeah. It looks like she’d have everything she needed for a one-way trip right here. Maybe she’s in that bunker, clutching a bottle of sleeping pills in her dead hand. Let’s find out.”

  Favoring her left foot, Angel stepped through the doorway and started toward the concrete house.

  Jack followed, his brain clicking away, turning the information over and over in his head.

  But he wasn’t thinking rationally. His imagination had kicked into overdrive.

  If Tony Katt was in the middle of this. . If the heavyweight champion of the world was chained to an altar in some big concrete snake pit, surrounded by guys in black hoods who mumbled satanic prayers. . if they were going to sacrifice Katt to the Devil himself. .

  Shit. No. That was crazy.

  Angel was getting ahead of him.

  Jack hurried along.

  He didn’t realize the mistake he’d made.

  He was holding a glowing flashlight the same way those crazy villagers held flaming torches in old Frankenstein movies.

  Approaching a concrete bunker the same way those morons approached Castle Frankenstein.

  He might as well have trumpeted his arrival with a Franz Waxman score.

  Jack Baddalach was a sitting duck.

  And so was Angel Gemignani.

  Tony had checked out the house. He’d found Harold’s.357 Magnum, but there was no sign of Harold anywhere. Tony hoped his partner wasn’t dead, but Harold’s fate wasn’t exactly his first priority at the moment.

  The bathroom mirror was.

  Tony stared at himself in the mirror. Man, he looked pretty fucking gruesome. Some of the cuts on his arms and legs were really deep, and the sunburn was world-class. And his nose. . Jesus. A red mess. What was left of it, anyway.

  He fingered the hole in the side of the mask-one of those black leather S amp; M jobs with all the zippers and shit. God, it was like he hardly had a cheek under there.

  This was awful. And the mirror didn’t lie. Tony recognized his eyes all right, but he didn’t recognize the fear that burned in his irises. Man, he was afraid to take off the mask, just like that monster under the opera house in the old creature feature-

  Tony heard voices. . someone was outside. He snatched up the.357 Magnum and returned to the bedroom, where he peered through the open pillbox window.

  Two people were headed his way.

  He recognized both of them.

  Angel Gemignani led the way, limping, carrying a.45.

  One look at her and Tony’s nut started to ache.

  That little bitch Jack Baddalach brought up the rear, carrying a flashlight. He was packing heat, as well.

  Both of them, right here on Tony’s fucking plate.

  The Tiger could serve them up raw and bloody. Snuff them with some other guy’s gun. No one would ever figure out just who’d done who in the middle of this fucking abattoir. The joint was a chamber of horrors. Mickey Spillane couldn’t sort this one out.

  Yeah, it was open season.

  Tony checked the Magnum. It was packed. Six cartridges.

  He headed for the front door.

  She had that gimpy walk, but she wouldn’t slow down.

  “Angel,” Jack said. “Wait a minute-”

  It was like she didn’t hear him.

  Her hand was on the knob.

  She opened the door.

  And something grabbed Angel just that fast. It was a bloody fucking mess, big as Frankenstein, and it twisted the.45 from her hand and let the gun drop as it spun her around-

  Angel stared at Jack, eyes wide as the monster’s left hand squeezed her throat. The flashlight beam scorched the thing’s head with white light. . a black head covered with silver stitches. . some kind of mask. . and Angel’s mouth was open but she couldn’t say a word. .

  And neither could Jack. There wasn’t enough time. .

  The thing had a.357 Magnum. The barrel arced toward Angel’s head. .

  From twin black leather pits, a pair of crazy eyes stared at Jack. He didn’t recognize them. But he recognized the smiling lips beneath the eyes. .

  That baddest man on the planet smile, nestled in black leather. .

  The.357 Magnum neared Angel’s temple. .

  The Colt Python bucked in Jack’s hand before he had time to think.

  Black leather, flesh, and bone exploded in the night.

  Tony Katt’s corpse crumpled against the open door.

  Jack didn’t say a word.

  Neither did Angel.

  They didn’t have to.

  She ran to him and they embraced.

  She looked into his eyes, and he looked into hers.

  And then her hands drifted away from his shoulders, and his fingers slipped away from her hips. And in a moment he wasn’t touching her, and she wasn’t touching him.

  But they stood side by side for a long time, the bright moon hanging above, the warm breeze rushing down from the mountains, the indigo night holding strong.

  FIVE

  Jack unscrewed the Celica’s license plates and tossed them in the back of the Chevy Apache.

  Angel sat behind the wheel of the truck. “Sure your car will be okay?”

  Jack nodded. They had pushed the Celica off the main road. Tomorrow he would borrow a tow truck from his mechanic buddy, Pablo Morales, and retrieve the Toy. If anyone showed up at Hell’s Half Acre in the meantime. Jack didn’t want them connecting him to the bloodbath at the Lynch family compound through a broken-down Celica. That’s why he was taking the license plates.

  Hidden among the yucca trees, the Toy would be safe. From above, the root beer foam paint job blended with the light Mojave earth. And hell, those rust spots on the hood made good camouflage. A couple more excuses like that and Jack would never paint the Celica.

  Jack climbed into the Chevy and Angel gunned the engine. “How much further?”

  “A mile. Maybe two.”

  They bumped along in silence. The sun was rising outside Angel’s window. Jack studied her profile as she drove, her features haloed by the glow of the coming day.

  Sunny and hot. That’s what daylight would bring to the Mojave Desert. Pushing a hundred degrees and pushing it hard.

  Just another day in hell.

  They shadowed an arroyo for a quarter of a mile. On the other side of the dry creek bed, a coyote padded along with a jackrabbit clenched in its muzzle. Angel pulled to a stop and watched the predator.

  The coyote glanced at them but didn’t hurry its pace.

  “Want me to keep driving?” she asked.

  “No,” Jack said. “This should do it.”

  Jack grabbed a shovel from the truck bed. He started to dig. And he started to sweat, too. The morning heat was baking him good.

  He peeled off his T-shirt and kept at it. Angel sat on the hood of the Apache and watched him, picking at a hole in her jeans.

  “You think anyone will ever find him?”

  Jack almost laughed. “It’s a big desert, Angel. You don’t even want to know how many guys your granddad buried out here in the old days.”

  Angel was quiet for a minute. “I guess it’s really no different than that coyote. Not really. Everything dies sooner or later. Today that jackrabbit took it hard. But one of these days, it’ll be the coyote’s turn.” She smiled the same peculiar smile Jack had seen before, the one devoid of pleasure. “And one of these days it’ll be our turn, too.”

  “There’s a cheery thought.”

  “I said one of these days.” She laughed. “But not fuckin’ today.”

  “Amen.”

  They hauled Tony Katt’s corpse from the truck bed. The heels of his boots dug trenches in the dirt as they dragged him to the grave and dropped him in. Nobody was going to find Tony out here. He would always be the heavyweight champion of the world who disappeared without a trace.

  “You want to say anything?” Angel asked.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Let me do it then.” She took the shovel from Jack.

  Angel looked down, into the grave.

  She said, “See you later, Mr. Coyote.”

  Then she heaped the shovel with loose dirt and flung it into Tony Katt’s tattered face. Angel worked hard, and soon sweat poured off her the way it had poured off Jack, and the scent of Calvin Klein’s Obsession was gone gone gone. .

  Angel Gemignani was doing what she needed to do, and she didn’t need any help from Jack Baddalach. He wandered along the arroyo. Once in a while he’d turn and look at his footprints. It didn’t matter how many times he looked; he was always surprised to see them there, following along behind him.

  The sky was way past blue, the flip side of the indigo night. A lone jet trail split the heavens. Another load of tourists headed for the land of the dollar slot.

  Jack walked among the yucca trees, looping back toward Angel. He kept expecting to come upon Pack O’ Weenies, wired to a tree.

  He didn’t, of course. Who knew what had become of Harold Ticks? Jack wondered why he should even care.

  Still, he thought about the bald-headed son of a bitch. Harold Ticks, bound with barbed wire, watching the sun rise, feeling the heat.

  Pack O’ Weenies, roasting in the Mojave Desert.

  All alone.

  But Harold wasn’t roasting. Not at all.

  He lay at the bottom of a mine shaft, the one that began in the Hell’s Half Acre Church of Satan.

  After stabbing Harold in the back and hacking off his left thumb, Eden lit a kerosene lantern and pushed Harold down the tunnel in an old mining cart. Harold wasn’t stupid. He saw the handwriting on the wall. He tried to talk Eden out of it. He tried to figure out what was wrong with her. But Eden dumped him down a deep shaft before he even had a chance to say that he was sorry.

  What he could possibly be sorry for, he didn’t know. After all, Eden was the one who had fucked everything up and cost them half a million bucks. She was the goddamn tater queen in a family full of goddamn spuds. But, hell, Harold couldn’t tell her that when she was about to dump him down a mine shaft. He was a little bit smarter than that. He would have apologized for anything if only Eden would let him remain above ground.

  Creak! Dump! Wham! Not a chance, Harold.

  Harold was cold. He’d lost a lot of blood. He knew that. And his back was busted. At least he thought it was. He couldn’t move his legs at all.

  He couldn’t see anything in the dark, but he knew that he wasn’t alone. Sometimes he heard a whispering hiss that seemed very near his ear. And now and then he heard a stuttering rattle.

  Harold didn’t like those sounds.

  He tried not to think about them, but that was pretty hard. Because he had to think of something. He couldn’t just. . well, wait to die.

  So he lay there at the bottom of a mine shaft, and he tried to think.

  But only one thought entered his head, over and over, again and again.

  Eden. . Eden. . Why. . Why?

  EPILOGUE

  Viva Lost Wages

  A Week Later, Jack woke up at four in the morning.

  Wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Visions of Tony Katt and piranha and suckling pigs dancing in his head.

  He decided. What the hell, I’ll go for a run.

  Many moons had passed since he’d done that. These days he never ran unless someone was chasing him.

  But in the old days he could really run. Man, he loved the bum. Notch four or five miles and he was floating in the rhythm. He always did his running early in the morning, before the rest of the world was awake. The light-heavyweight champion of the world, putting in the time.

  Jack pulled on some old jeans and a sweatshirt, filled Frankenstein’s bowl with dog food, and headed for the golf course. The one by Tony Katt’s mansion.

  He checked in with the guard at the gate. A fighter running on a golf course in the predawn hours was not an unusual thing. In Vegas, the boxing capital of the world, it happened all the time.

  The guard wasn’t about to turn away Jack the Giant Killer. Besides, he wanted to know if there was anything new with Tony Katt.

  “Still missing,” Jack said.

  “I guess you scared him but good,” the guard said.

  “Yeah.”

  The guard flashed Jack the old thumbs up. “I know you’ll beat him in the ring. I’m lookin’ at the next heavyweight champ. I’ll bet green money on that.”

  Jack only grinned at that last part. He parked the Celica and started across the green. It wasn’t even five a.m. Not a soul in sight.

  The air was still a little crisp, but Jack could tell that it was going to be a hot one. He threw punches in the air as he ran, short hooks and uppercuts that bunched his shoulders. His breathing hit a ragged rhythm, but he loved it. His lungs hadn’t felt this kind of burn in a long, long time.

  The grass was wet, and soon Jack’s shoes were soaked through. He headed toward a little grove of fruit trees about a mile distant.

  He picked a couple of oranges and ate them in silence. The sugar hit his empty belly and it was heaven. The black sky smeared gray as he ate, and then the dawn came on.

  Jack grabbed another orange for the road. He ran another mile, and suddenly he felt like walking.

  He passed the Skull Island corporate mansion where he had danced his dance with Tony Katt. Porschia Keyes was recuperating there after her accident. At least that’s what Jack had heard. Skull Island management was being especially nice to Porschia. They didn’t want to get sued.

  So Porschia was sitting pretty. But Tony Katt would never walk through those mansion doors again.

  And Jack would never meet the heavyweight champion in the ring.

  He would never get up at four in the morning and run because he was set to face Tony Katt in a month, or three weeks, or six days. .

  He would never sit under a tree and eat an orange while he planned the traps he’d set for Katt with his quick jab. . how he’d stick and move, bip bip bip, in and out. .

  And he would never buckle that heavyweight championship belt around his waist.

  Jack peeled the orange as he walked toward the parking lot. There was no sense thinking about any of it. Just lately, it didn’t seem that thinking had gotten him anywhere, anyway.

  Because every time he needed to think things through, there wasn’t enough time for it.

  When Angel Gemignani opened that door, and Tony Katt grabbed her, Jack chose his path in less than a finger snap.

  He didn’t think about money, or the heavyweight championship of the world, or his place in the universe. He didn’t spare a second questioning the fate of his immortal soul. He didn’t wonder if killing another human being was immoral. He didn’t ask himself if a slime like Tony Katt even was a human being.

  No. When Tony Katt grabbed Angel Gemignani, Jack shot the motherfucker in the head.

  He didn’t need to think about it. He only needed to react. He only needed to draw on something that was hard-wired into his soul a long time ago.

  Jack trusted that thing, whatever it was. He really did.

  He finished the orange and tossed the peel into a garbage can. The morning was coming on fast, orange sherbet riding the flip side of indigo blue.

  Jack felt good. He didn’t know why. But he went with it.

  He wasn’t the heavyweight champion of the world. Hell, he wasn’t even the light-heavyweight champion of the world. He was just a guy named Baddalach who occasionally baby-sat consumptive Chihuahuas.

  Shaking his head. Jack unclipped the cellular phone from his belt and tossed it into the Celica. Man, was he a case.

  Maybe that phone would never ring.

  But Kate Benteen was out there somewhere. At least he hoped that she was. He still had her picture on his desk. Maybe she thought about him once in a while. Maybe one day she would stop thinking and just go with it and dial his number.

  Maybe, one of these days. Jack’s phone would ring.

  If that ever happened, he knew exactly how he’d react.

  Exactly.

  FB2 document info

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  Norman Partridge

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