The Ten-Ounce Siesta

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.

The woman was twisted too, but Harold figured the Devil hadn’t done it. Truth be told, he didn’t believe in the son of a bitch.

Mama stood against a dead yucca tree, her arms lashed to the twisted limbs with lengths of barbed wire. As usual, her mouth was open.

But she wasn’t going to say a word this time. She was all done talking.

And the vultures had started in on her face.

Harold swatted at the vultures with his pistol and they flapped away on lazy black wings. He eased Mama’s jacket to one side and saw the bullet wound drilled through the left cup of her black leather bikini. The blood hadn’t dried. In fact, a fresh scarlet gout pumped from the hole and streamed down Mama’s brown belly.

Harold stood hypnotized, watching the blood.

“Uhhhrrrhhh,” Mama groaned.

Harold nearly jumped out of his skin. He stumbled back.

Mama’s head bobbed, the length of barbed wire wrapped around her neck cutting a fresh trench in her suntanned flesh as she moved. Her eyelids flickered, eyes rolling blindly beneath them, eyes that were coated with a bleached-white sheen. .

“Hellllll. .” she groaned.

“Fuck!” Harold said. “Fuck!”

Mama gasped, a spike of barbed wire tearing her trachea. “Hellll. .” she whispered. “Helllllppp. .”

Then she was dead.

Harold’s gaze was everywhere at once. The concrete bunker. The tumbledown chapel. The shooting range. The cars and the surrounding ridges and the old dirt road that stretched forty miles to the highway.

But there was nothing. No movement at all except the vultures circling above, patient and black and hungry.

Sweat poured off Harold’s bald head and trickled down his neck. What the fuck had he been thinking, anyway? Angel Gemignani belonged to a Mafia family. He had fucked with them. Seriously. And he had come up short. And now they had found him. And when it came to blood vengeance and torture that made you pray for death, no one outdid the Mafia.

No one even came close.

The vultures circled lower and lower. Soon one landed, talons scrabbling as it balanced atop Mama’s head.

Harold turned away, his gut lurching. The bunker. He had to check it out. If Eden was still alive, that’s where she would be. And right now all Harold wanted was to be with her.

Even if the bunker was full of Mafia hit men. Even if Eden was already dead. He wanted to see her one last time.

He wanted to say that he was sorry before the end came.

But the bunker was empty. There was no sign of Eden or her Daddy. No sign of Tura or Lorelei. And not a single Mafia hit man, either.

Harold stepped through the front door. The sun beat down relentlessly. Man, today it was hot on top of hot. Harold couldn’t remember another day like this one.

He started toward his Chevy. Maybe the Mafia guys had taken Eden with them. Maybe they were going to use her for bait so they could round up the rest of the gang.

Harold didn’t know if he could rescue her. There probably wasn’t much of a chance. He wasn’t exactly a fucking knight in shining armor. But he had to try-

The creaking sound came from behind him. He whirled, pistol raised in his right hand just as the chapel door swung closed.

Maybe the door had been closed all along. Maybe the movement he’d seen out of the corner of his eye was just an illusion-a false image planted in his brain by rippling heat waves. With this heat, it looked like damn near everything was alive. Today had to be a real record-buster. If Harold stayed out in the sun much longer he would no doubt witness a first-class mirage-an oasis, camels, leaning palms, harem girls. .

Harold’s clothes were sticky with perspiration. The.357 was growing hot in his hand. The pistol grips were so slick with sweat he was sure he’d drop the gun any second.

No sign of movement from the chapel. The door didn’t budge. Harold stared at the sign above the door, the snakeskin letters on blistered black enamel that proclaimed: hell’s half acre church of SATAN.

Magnum held high, Harold walked toward the chapel. His feet were heavy, like he was wearing weighted diver’s boots. Walking through heat waves instead of ocean waves, kicking up little swirls of dust. .

He knew what he was going to do before he did it. And he knew how stupid it was. But he reached up and did it anyway, because at heart he was still a good Catholic boy.

Harold Ticks crossed himself and entered Satan’s church.

The place stunk of dead things. Old bones. Books bound in human flesh. Rattlesnakes frozen in threatening poses by the taxidermist’s art.

And then there was the sound. The lazy buzzing of fat black flies. The insects cut slow patterns through the musty air, never leaving the chapel, always returning to the same spot.

Daddy Deke lay on the altar. Unlit candles surrounded him, trickling lazy ebony droplets as they melted in the afternoon heat. The top hat with the rattlesnake band was balanced on his chest and his string tie was cinched up tight, but he did not look at all peaceful. His eyes were open and glazed, and his thin lips were drawn back over yellow teeth, and the fat black flies buzzed in and out of his open mouth.

Harold spotted the rattlesnake bite on Daddy’s cheek as he drew nearer, but he wasn’t sure that the bite had killed Eden’s father. Someone had bound the old satanist to the altar with barbed wire. You didn’t bind a dead man.

Someone had bound Daddy, and then that someone had sliced Daddy Deke’s throat from ear to ear.

Harold could see that now. A fly crawled into the open wound. A moment later the same fly buzzed out of the corpse’s mouth, its black body wet with blood.

Harold retched, dropping to one knee. Coffee and bile burned his throat and he tried to choke it back but couldn’t. . his mouth opened and he vomited a hot black stream.

His pulse pounded beneath the SS tattoo on his neck. Sweat bathed his brow and burned his eyes. It was too damn hot, and the taste in his mouth was awful, and whoever had killed Mama and Daddy Lynch probably had taken Eden, and who the hell knew what the sick fuck had done to her.

Or would do. .

But where would the killer take her?

Mama was outside, lashed to a yucca tree. Daddy was in the chapel, bound to the altar. And Eden. .

Harold stared at the back wall of the chapel-the old mine shaft that cut a black hole in white Mojave soil.

No, he thought. . No way I’m going in there. . That’s it. That’s all.

Harold crouched on the floor. No woman was worth this. He should have never come back. He should have kept on driving east. Hell, even Salt Lake City was better than this shit.

He’d get the hell out of here. That’s what he’d do. He’d drive east.

Harold stood and wiped his face. He stepped toward the open door.

Outside. A sound.

Tires whispering across Mojave soil.

Harold retreated into the darkness, clutching his.357.

Someone was here.

Tura screamed like a demon when she saw her mother’s corpse cinched to the yucca tree.

Harold watched Eden’s sister through a crack in the wall. Man, she’d flipped. The crazy redhead was pacing back and forth in front of the twisted yucca, that Steyr AUG gripped tightly in her hands. .

Tura aimed it heavenward and let loose with a long burst of gunfire. “Come out, you bastards! I’m here! I’m waiting!”

Harold watched her. Jesus. He couldn’t believe it. No way was he going out there. Not with Tura acting like this. She would probably think he fucking killed her mama. .

And wait until she saw Daddy. Jesus H. -

“Hi, honey.”

Harold nearly shit himself. “Eden! You’re still alive!”

She stood at the mouth of the mine shaft, wearing black leather, lace-covered wrist braces, and her carrion beetle sunglasses.

“What happened?” Harold asked. “Where have you been?”

Eden set a glowing kerosene lantern on the altar next to Daddy’s head. “Daddy told me that I should take a walk. I did. I’ve been down in the mine. Just walking, like Daddy said. You know, he was right about the mine shaft. It leads straight to hell.”

“What?” Harold glanced through the crack in the wall. Tura fired another burst and screamed. “Look, Eden, you need to get a grip on things. Your daddy’s dead, honey. And we have to-”

“I saw it,” Eden said. “I saw the River Styx. I bathed in its black waters. And I saw the dog.” She laughed, short and hard. “I don’t mean the Chihuahua. I mean the one with three heads-”

Jesus. She was gone. Gone. Harold glanced through the crack in the wall. Tura was headed this way.

“Honey.” Eden held out a hand. “Come take a walk with me.”

“Eden, we don’t have time for this-”

“Sure we do.”

She plunged the rusty knife into Harold’s back again and again.

Harold dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Eden stepped to the wall and peered through a knothole. Tura was coming, reloading the Steyr AUG as she walked.

Eden picked up Harold’s.357 Magnum.

“No rest for the wicked,” she said.

Eden jammed the pliers into her pocket. Tura was cinched up tight, lashed to the yucca right next to Mama. But that was only right. Tura was always Mama’s favorite.

Eden sat down in the dirt. It was real hot today. She would have to put on more sunblock. Especially if Lorelei showed up. Tying a grown woman to a yucca tree with barbed wire was tough work, and the noonday sun was not at all forgiving.

Still, she hoped Lorelei would come. She wouldn’t mind the extra work. Not really.

She felt strong. Really strong. For the first time in her life.

Eden sat in the spiked shade of a yucca. She squinted over her sunglasses. The sky was so very blue today. Not one cloud, only a few jet trails left by airliners headed for the bright lights of Las Vegas.

Hot, clear, and blue. She didn’t much like it, so she pushed the sunglasses high on her nose. That was better. Everything was dark, dark green. Almost black.

Eden imagined that she wasn’t in the desert at all. She was on the ocean floor. Dark sand stretching forever, green-black waves driving the tides. .

It was so quiet. Eden could hear herself breathe. It seemed that all her life she’d been waiting to hear just that sound.

Mama didn’t say a word. Tura kept her mouth shut. Daddy didn’t preach. Harold didn’t yell. It was really, really nice.

For once, everyone was doing just what Eden wanted, not the other way around.

Still, she couldn’t sit out here forever. Boy, was it hot. A shower would feel real good. Cold, cold water, that nice oatmeal soap. Maybe Tura had stowed another bottle of that fancy coconut shampoo somewhere. Eden could surely use it. She’d worked up a real healthy sweat, and her hair had gone all limp.

Yes. She’d have a nice long shower. Then a glass of milk and a few Fig Newtons, and a nice long afternoon nap.

Eden rose and jammed Harold’s.357 under her belt. She looped the remaining barbed wire like a cowboy’s lariat.

Time for that shower.

Time to wash off Harold’s blood.