Saguaro Riptide jb-1, page 9
part #1 of Jack Baddalach Series
It all seemed so unreal.
Woodrow hadn’t seen another car for at least fifteen minutes. He examined his left hand and was pleased to find that the bandage he had taken from the first aid kit in the trunk was holding firm. Though his hand still ached in spite of the aspirin he’d swallowed, the dog bite was no longer bleeding.
He had cleaned the wound thoroughly with astringent, of course. Still, it occurred to him that the dog bite might become infected. He did not wish to consider such matters as rabies. His knowledge of canine diseases was extremely limited, and he did not care to expand it through personal experience. Woodrow sincerely hoped that Jack Baddalach took his animal to the vet on a regular basis.
Perhaps he would ask Baddalach about that before he killed him.
While considering how best to pursue that particular line of questioning, Woodrow fiddled with the tape deck control knobs.
Sonny Rollins’s sax stabbed a sharp riff through Woodrow’s eardrum. It was a singularly unpleasant sensation. Quickly, Woodrow turned off the tape deck and turned up the air- conditioning.
A moment later, he found himself shivering.
His hand ached persistently.
He pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
The Saturn roared forward.
The horizon did the mambo.
Something in it, up ahead, danced to the tune.
A building.
A gas station.
***
The pump jockey looked like a poster boy for the Aryan Brotherhood, but Woodrow didn’t pay him any mind. He parked his automobile at the pump, whispered “fill ’er up” to the cracker through lips that betrayed not the slightest tremor of hatred or disdain, and went in search of a restroom.
He wandered past a Coca-Cola machine and continued around the side of the gas station, where he confronted two doors.
Both doors were metal. Long ago they had been white. Now they were pockmarked with rust spots the size of quarters. Woodrow wondered how anything could rust in an environment of such unremitting dryness, but he didn’t wonder for long because he could spare no time for idle speculation.
His need was unquestionably urgent.
He tried the door to the MEN’S. It was locked.
Tried the WOMEN’s. Locked as well.
Woodrow returned to the front of the gas station. Mr. Aryan Brotherhood was sitting in a lawn chair crisscrossed with orange and turquoise straps. He didn’t look up as Woodrow approached. Instead, he stared at the highway.
No cars in sight, but he stared just the same.
Woodrow said, “I need the key to the restroom.”
The man did not utter a word. Neither did he look in Woodrow’s direction.
“The restroom key,” Woodrow said, slowly this time, with just enough edge in his voice to provide an unmistakable emphasis. “The doors are locked. I need the key.”
The man’s head jerked quite suddenly. He looked at Woodrow, a slash of a smile on his face, a ribbon of sweat on his upper lip.
“Guess someone’s in there,” the man said. “Guess you’ll just have to wait.”
Woodrow stared at the man. But the man had already looked away, once more directing his gaze toward the road.
There was nothing to see but the desert, the heat.
Woodrow took a few steps toward the restrooms.
“Hold on,” the guy said.
Woodrow turned.
“Pump’s self-serve.” The man gave Woodrow a look that was all ice. “And you gotta pay first.”
“When I’m ready,” Woodrow said.
Woodrow’s Saturn waited at the pump. The only other car on the lot was a beat-up Camaro. Woodrow could not read the license plate from his vantage point, but he speculated that it would be something clever, like GRZMNKY or WHTEPWR.
It was very quiet.
Just Woodrow and the cracker.
There wasn’t anyone else at the gas station.
Knowing this, Woodrow stood in the heat, his eyes trained on the locked bathroom doors.
Waiting with a heavy bladder.
It seemed that he would wait for a very long time.
Time afforded him the opportunity for introspection.
It had started bad with the kid at Baddalach’s condo. The kid went yack yack yack while Woodrow stood there listening, knowing all the while that, upon reflection, he would loathe his indecisiveness.
He hated that feeling worse than anything else. The feeling that he was a wriggling fish with a hook in its mouth, and someone else was jerking on the line. And the kid had played him for all he was worth. Without question, the kid had caught him off guard-his head had ached terribly, a result of the fall he’d taken while battling Baddalach’s dog-but that was no excuse because Woodrow was a professional. He should have been able to adjust to the situation, no matter how fluid it became.
But he hadn’t. The kid had landed and gutted him with nothing but a torrent of little barbed words. In the end, the Combat Commander had been useless against the kid’s mouth.
And now there was this hillbilly. He wasn’t as smart as the kid, but he was every inch as calculating. Like that ofay bastard they’d tossed in Woodrow’s cell in Rahway, everything sliding sideways out of his cracker mouth as if his brain were greased with K-Y Jelly. Push push push, until push finally came to shove.
At Rahway, Woodrow had put up with it way too long. And then one day he began to loathe himself for putting up with it at all. That was when Woodrow sharpened his toothbrush and stabbed the cracker.
He’d done it in the showers. Stabbed the man twenty-seven times. Every wound was distinct in his memory to this day. Stabbing and stabbing. Scarlet blood everywhere, the cracker’s white skin going whiter and whiter, excrement dribbling down his leg as he fouled himself, not one word issuing from his cracker lips …
Afterward, Woodrow’s only regret had been that you couldn’t cut out a man’s tongue with a sharpened toothbrush. That particular regret troubled him to this day, and he realized it was a direct result of his hesitation in dealing with the situation in a timely fashion.
In retrospect, Woodrow could see how he should have handled the situation. If he had bitch-slapped the cracker the first time the white man entered the cell, he wouldn’t be thinking about him right now. .
If he’d shot the kid in Baddalach’s condo the second he opened his mouth, his gut wouldn’t be churning this minute. .
But no, he had waited, waited until those little things piled one on top of another, waited until all those little things added up to something big.
Something unforgettable.
A memory to churn up on very bad days.
The cracker came around the corner of the gas station. He was holding a tire iron. The sun was behind him, and Woodrow noticed for the first time that the sun was very bright today.
A grin was smeared on the cracker’s face-that Crisco grin they all had.
Woodrow’s head began to throb. The light was very bright. And there was a hum behind it-
“You better go now,” the cracker said.
Woodrow’s bladder ached. “That’s exactly what I’d like to do.”
“I mean you’d better haul ass.”
“I haven’t relieved myself” Woodrow did not blink, even though the light was burning straight through his eyes, singeing his brain. “And I didn’t get my gas.”
“I’m real sorry about that,” the cracker said, still grinning. “But the fact is I’m closed now. We Westerners, we like to take our afternoon siestas. But if you want to wait around for an hour or so. .”
The cracker shrugged, slimy smile coming on, but it was suddenly eclipsed by the glaring white light, and the taffy-pulling machine in Woodrow’s head started working again, kneading his brain, and his eyelids were once more as heavy as iron and he blinked once. . twice-
The desert seemed different behind the gas station. No ribbon of highway, no Coca-Cola machine. Only what Allah had put there a long time ago.
Woodrow kind of liked it that way. Quite suddenly, he had developed an appreciation for the alien world he’d discovered through a tinted windshield.
This world seemed beautiful. Almost like the Valley of Fire. Earth the color of his first love’s skin. A blue ocean of sky. Tumbleweeds dancing on the wind.
Razor-wire tumbleweeds. Yes. But their beauty was undeniable.
Woodrow admired the scene as much as anything he’d observed in an art gallery.
There was no sense soiling such magnificence.
He grabbed hold of the dead cracker’s overalls and dragged the corpse to the side of the gas station. His headache was nearly gone now. Nothing more than a dull whisper. And the sun was washed with a flat haze. The blinding brightness was gone.
In truth, Woodrow could not recall killing the cracker. But he knew he must have done it, for he still held the cracker’s tire iron in one hand.
Woodrow took a handkerchief from the dead cracker’s pocket. He wiped down the tire iron and tossed it into a pile of twisted auto parts heaped near the cracker’s Camaro.
Still not a car in sight. Woodrow popped the Camaro’s trunk, hoisted the redneck’s corpse, and deposited it in a nest of Eager Beaver magazines and empty Budweiser cans.
Woodrow urinated. Slammed the trunk.
He gassed up the Saturn. Then he purchased a Diet Coca-Cola from the machine next to the locked rest rooms. The can seemed very cold in his hand.
Woodrow popped the top and stared at the desert while he drank. The Coca-Cola was very cold, and the fingers of his left hand tightened around the can. The coldness lessened the pain of the dog bite on Woodrow’s palm.
He took his time, properly quenching his thirst.
Without question, he had never enjoyed a Coke quite as much as this one.
NINE
The woman in the black bikini swam laps and the former light-heavyweight champion of the world sat on his butt and watched her.
She said her name was Kate Benteen. Major Kate Benteen. Late of the United States Army.
Jack thought it over. Maybe Major Benteen knew Komoko from her days in the military-Freddy had said something about Komoko being some kind of war hero, hadn’t he?
Sure he had. But that didn’t mean anything. Just because the woman in the black bikini said she’d been a major, that didn’t make it so. People said all kinds of things.
And she said more than most. Jesus. She said she’d been a movie star, even an Olympic diving champion. All kinds of crazy shit.
She’d really nailed that jackknife, though. Jack had to admit that. But just because she could dive into a swimming pool without sending up a cannonball-sized splash didn’t mean she’d won Olympic silver.
Baddalach’s battered Timex ticked off fifteen minutes while he tried to sort the whole thing out. As the second hand began another circuit and the woman began another lap, he faced up to the truth-sitting on his butt and contemplating his navel while Kate Benteen played Sub-Mariner was getting him nowhere fast.
With some difficulty. Jack extricated himself from the chaise longue. Kate Benteen didn’t show any sign of slowing down. He left her sunglasses on top of the chair, got the stuff he’d bought at the Pipeline Beach Five-and-Dime from the Range Rover, and climbed the stairs to room 22.
The accommodations didn’t come close to the Mirage or Caesar’s. Truth be told, they didn’t even come close to Freddy G’s aged Casbah. But they’d do.
Jack went to take a leak. A band of white paper encircled the toilet seat, just to let you know that no one had been pissing in your toilet since the maid had finished cleaning it. Freddy G liked to rag on the things. He called them ass-gaskets and swore that they were a sure sign of a low-class establishment.
Jack thought maybe it would be interesting to see Freddy debate that particular observation with Sandy Kapalua-Dayton. Judging by his first impression of Sandy, Freddy might even rate odds in such a matchup.
Jack tore the ass-gasket loose and took care of business. Zipped up, flushed, then checked things out. The room held absolutely no surprises, but that was good because Jack wasn’t in a surprise me kind of mood. On the plus side there were plenty of free postcards, free HBO on the TV, plus a Munchkin-sized coffeepot that was a twin to the one he’d found in Vince Komoko’s house. And a few minor inconveniences to balance things out-the TV remote was bolted on a swivel which in turn was bolted to the nightstand, like someone was going to run off with it or something. The only real problem Jack saw was that the ice bucket was much too small. That was okay, though. The garbage can under the obligatory desk was bigger.
The ice machine was downstairs. Jack made the trip and tried to ignore the fact that Major Kate Benteen was still hard at it. Swimming back and forth, back and forth.
A sarcastic sigh passed Jack’s lips. He figured Benteen was probably pretending that she was Flipper. Yeah. That’s what someone who was so stuck on old TV shows would do. She’d imagine that she was a dolphin that had its own theme song.
This week’s episode-Captured by Marine World, Flipper must escape and rescue Bud and Sandy before they suffocate in a bathysphere where they’ve been trapped by wily dolphin poachers.
The sarcasm didn’t take. Jack admitted to himself that overt displays of discipline made him jealous. The only option was to ignore the good major.
Jack filled both the petite ice bucket and the garbage can with ice and returned to his room. There was a little area off the postage stamp-sized bathroom with all the stuff that didn’t fit therein-a sink, a counter, a mirror. Jack set the garbage can on the countertop and jammed the Molsons into the ice. The bottles were piss-warm after being locked in the Range Rover all day. Jack didn’t even want to think about what the beer would taste like.
He took a shower and felt a little better. Ripped into the packs of underwear and T-shirts he’d bought at the Five-and-Dime and got dressed. Almost opened the drapes that covered the big window next to the door but was afraid that by now Benteen would have worked her way up to a spectacular finish-diving through flaming hoops, doing that famed Flipper- cackle just for him. Hell, his ego had taken enough bruising for one day, being locked up by a woman sheriff named Wyetta Earp. He didn’t need to see phase two of some GI Josephine’s gung ho act.
He checked the beer. Still miserably warm. Checked out the telephone. Damn. Local calls were free, but it was going to cost him a buck every time he made a long-distance call. Plus the long-distance carrier was some company he’d never heard of-probably one of those outfits that skinned you for a buck a minute if you called anyone beyond walking distance.
Jack figured what the hell. It wasn’t his problem. The room was on his corporate plastic.
He dialed Freddy G’s number.
Deputy Rorie Holloway admired her boss. Wyetta Earp was a woman who made her way in the world completely on her own terms. She didn’t take shit off of anyone. Spend a day with the sheriff of Pipeline Beach and you knew for sure and for certain that a woman could scorch her own personal brand on a public office.
Rorie had seen it happen with her own two eyes. She’d watched Wyetta put the fear of God into a swarm of politicians before lunchtime, bust up a ring of horse thieves before dinner, top off the day by kicking some wife-beater’s balls into his throat. The lady deputy figured that the lady sheriff could do just about anything she set her mind to and do it pretty damn well, to boot.
Except decorate a house, that is.
Wyetta owned a big adobe outside of Pipeline Beach. Inside and out it reminded Rorie of a castoff set from an old John Wayne movie. Longhorn skulls were mounted over most of the doorways, countless Remington statues featuring bucking broncos and cowboys in twisted positions that defied the limitations of both human and equine anatomy, rough pine cabinets stocked with enough Winchesters and Sharpes and Remingtons to hold off Victorio and every damn Apache warrior who had ever lived.
Rorie liked it better when they went to her place. She’d bought all her furniture at Sears. At Wyetta’s she always felt like she should be wearing a gingham dress while she bustled around in the kitchen, rustling up a mess of chuckwagon biscuits and sonofabitch stew. But there was no arguing with Wyetta, especially not tonight. Not after the way things had gone in the last forty-eight hours.
Wyetta hadn’t said one word since leaving the office an hour earlier. They’d left in separate cars, of course-Rorie in her Camaro and Wyetta in the bashed-up Jeep Cherokee the county provided (and boy oh boy Rorie knew she better keep her mouth shut about that). Things hadn’t gotten any better when they arrived at Wyetta’s place-no conversation, not even a God it’s been a tough day kiss. Wyetta had taken the time to get Rorie an O’Doul’s out of the fridge, but that was it.
And now Wyetta just sat there in a cowhide chair with arms and legs made from the horns of dead cattle, her face washed in the dull leathery glow of a Conestoga wagon lamp with a jerky-colored shade. The sheriff was working on a fistful of Jack Daniels on the rocks, but there were damn few rocks in the big tumbler that weighed heavy in her hand. Rorie didn’t like to see Wyetta drink so much-the sheriff was on her third tumbler in less than a half hour.
Wyetta’s drinking seemed to be getting worse ever since the Komoko thing had started up. Just last week Rorie had found a bottle of JD stashed in the filing cabinet in Wyetta’s office. Not that she was snooping or anything-she’d opened the cabinet at Wyetta’s direction, looking for a file. But she hadn’t dared say a word about the bottle because she knew what Wyetta would do.
She’d get mad. Accuse Rorie of invading her privacy. And then Rorie would be the one who’d end up feeling guilty, like she’d done something wrong.
She wondered if the boozing was what the sheriff was thinking about right now. Wyetta looked sure enough disgusted. Maybe she was disgusted with herself. Maybe she was about to say, “Okay, Rorie. This is gonna be the last one. Ever.” Slam it down her gullet, savor one long and appreciative sigh, then throw the bottle into the fireplace with the cactus andirons that she’d ordered from that Ralph Lauren catalog. And maybe she’d just forget all about the Komoko thing while she was at it, and then they could get back to the way things used to be.
