The Ten-Ounce Siesta

FOUR

By the time Jack and Angel reached the highway off-ramp, the sky was electric with colors usually only seen in tropical fish tanks.

Jack braked as the Celica reached the spot where pavement gave way to dirt. The windshield was dotted with dead insects, but the sunset was something to see. It painted the hood of the Celica in mirrored tones. The rust spots shone the way they sometimes did under the neon lights of Vegas, like deep pools of Captain Morgan’s spiced rum.

“Beautiful,” Jack said.

“Not now it isn’t,” Angel said. “But it will be later.”

“Later it will be gone.”

Jack punched the trip meter odometer and it registered at zero. The dirt road angled off in a straight line, spearing the great white nowhere called the Mojave Desert. The guy in the plastic-wrap shirt had said that the Lynch sisters lived forty or fifty miles out. Jack wanted to know when he was getting close to the place. He didn’t want the gang to know that he was coming. He didn’t want to stumble in with headlights blazing. If the moon cooperated, he might even drive the last five or ten miles without lights.

Jack shifted into first gear and started out. The first five miles were pretty smooth. Jack accelerated and cruised along in fourth gear, the tac running just a little bit lower than he would have liked.

Then the potholes started.

They weren’t bad at first-Jack held steady in third gear-but as sunset gave way to night the potholes became harder to see. Eleven miles from the highway. Jack took one hard. The front left shock screamed bloody murder, and Angel said, “Slow down, Jack. We’ll get there.”

“Okay,” Jack said. And then it was the low end of third or the high end of second, dodging potholes as they came.

Twenty miles of that and he had a stiff neck from gripping the wheel while the potholes bounced him around. The Celica sure didn’t have four-wheel drive. Not even close. Jack began to feel pretty stupid for bringing it.

“Maybe we should have brought your car, Angel.”

“Uh-uh. I’ve got a rental. Mazda Miata. It’s built low to the ground-a real highway hugger. We wouldn’t have made it this far.”

Five more miles and Jack abandoned third gear altogether. He remembered the Jeep Cherokee parked outside the porno guy’s studio. He wished he’d stolen the damn thing.

A couple more potholes jarred him good and he stopped wishing. Instead, he berated himself for not stealing the Jeep.

Jack didn’t mention the Jeep to Angel, though. He didn’t want to give her the chance to agree that he’d made a mistake.

Jack rolled his neck and strangled the steering wheel. The engine whined in high second gear. No use hitting third, though. The potholes wouldn’t let him hold it, and he was tired of shifting back and forth.

Five more miles. Headlights washed the white road. Jack couldn’t turn them off. Darkness had fallen, but the moon wasn’t up yet. And he had to see those potholes.

Two more miles and Angel offered to drive.

“No,” Jack said. “It can’t be much further.”

He glanced at the trip meter. They’d traveled thirty-eight miles since leaving the highway. Rancho Lynch couldn’t be much further. They had to be-

“Jack!”

WHAM! The undercarriage of the Toyota smacked something hard and the steering wheel seemed to jump in Jack’s hands.

“What was that?” he asked.

“A rock. I think so anyway. A big rock right in the middle of the road. I don’t know how you missed it.”

“That’s the problem. I didn’t.”

But the car seemed okay. Jack kept his hands on the wheel and held tight to second gear.

He hadn’t clicked another tenth of a mile when the engine started to knock badly.

Then the Celica died.

“Shit,” Jack said. “Shit.”

He got out, lay down on the road, and peered under the front end.

The Celica wasn’t going anywhere.

Angel stepped out of the car. “What’s the deal?”

“That rock took out the oil pan. We’re screwed.”

“No we’re not. We can walk. How much further can it be?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Jesus, Jack. I’m not walking thirty-plus miles back to the highway. If we go to the Lynch place, at least we’ll have a chance of swiping a car or something.”

Jack thought about that. They’d notched thirty-eight miles since leaving the highway. The porno producer had said that Eden’s place was forty or fifty miles off the main road.

They had to be close.

Two miles if they were lucky. Twelve if they weren’t.

Jack grabbed his pistol and jammed extra ammunition into his pockets. Angel did the same.

“Let’s get started,” Jack said.

Eden lay in her bed, wearing nothing but a red satin sheet. Candles made from the rendered fat of a black ram guttered low on her dresser, flickers of blue flame reflected in the big mirror above. Three incense sticks stood waiting in a human skull, ready to fill Eden’s bedroom with the intermingled scents of vanilla, sandalwood, and jasmine at the touch of a demon’s hot claw.

For so many years she had waited to be strong. Everyone told her that she wasn’t. Mama, Daddy, Tura and Lorelei. . even Harold. Time and time again she was forced to confront her weaknesses, each time accepting lies from the lips of those who claimed to love her. She was weak. She was no child of Satan. She was not even a child of her own mother, who disowned her with the last words she spoke on this earth.

Mama’s words couldn’t hurt her now. Eden was too strong for that. But the words had cut her when Mama spoke them in the chapel, just as so many other slights and reprimands had cut her over the years.

Eden was a good girl. She accepted every slight. Every reprimand. Every punishment and reproach. Until the very last one that spilled from her mother’s lips.

If I had it to do over again I’d rip you from my belly with a coat hanger. That’s what I’d do. By Satan, I would.

Those words broke Eden. In their wake, she was weak. Too weak to do anything. Too weak to fight the sisters who abused her. Harold saw that when he undid the handcuffs Tura and Lorelei used to chain Eden to her bed.

And then Eden lost Harold too, breaking down in front of him, so that his only recourse was to flee into the night.

That was the greatest blow of all. The pit of weakness called to her, and she plunged into it. She hit bottom. And it was only then that she heard His voice. Only then, for the first time in her life, that she truly took Satan’s hand.

For it was Satan’s hand who guided her own.

Satan fitted Eden’s hand with a pistol, and she shot her mother in the heart, and she was strong. Satan slipped a straight razor into her waiting palm, and she slit her father’s throat, and she was stronger still. With a rusty knife from Satan’s pit she stabbed her lover in the back and felt his strength quiver on the blade as she spilled his blood. And with a dead man’s pistol she killed her sister-yes, even this she did-and strength fairly pulsed in her veins.

And soon she would crucify the heavyweight champion of the world to the glory of Satan. Surely the dark one could not receive a greater gift than this. Eden had stolen this prize for Him. Alone, she had captured the strongest of all men. And she would slay him and revel in Satan’s glory, but she would not do these things alone.

Satan would send her a demon, for no man could satisfy her now. No mere mortal could hold sway with a woman of her strength.

Of course, the mere mortals in Las Vegas did not recognize the true nature of Eden’s plan. The fools would pay her ten million dollars for Tony Katt’s safe return, and she would pocket the ransom money and sacrifice her captive.

Eden would sacrifice Jack Baddalach, as well. For she would demand that he alone deliver the ransom.

She had not forgotten the Harold Ticks Shuffle. Harold might be gone, but she would keep something of him, even if it were only his treachery.

And when she had that ten million dollars and Jack Baddalach was dead, she would burn his bones and sow his grave with salt. And her demon lover would dine on Tony Katt’s flesh and grow strong, and from Katt’s naked bones Eden would fashion a gate to the great pit of hell which yawned in a Mojave Desert chapel. And all who came to worship at the place called Hell’s Half Acre would see this gate. And all who came would know of Eden’s strength. .

Hot as hell’s promise, the night air drifted through the open pillbox window. The moon hung high in the sky, a ball of fierce blue light shining upon the earth, fierce blue light that licked Eden’s body like the flickering flames of black ram candles.

Upon the desert sands, she heard a heavy tread.

A shadow passed before the moon.

Eden sat up, fearing an intruder. She almost reached for Harold’s.357 Magnum, but the hot breeze blowing through the pillbox window stilled her hand, for carried upon it was the scent of hell.

The smell of balms known to Satan’s children filled Eden’s lungs. Oil of dog and attar of black roses. Eau de Sodom and essence of iniquity.

Eden breathed deeply and tossed back the red silk sheet.

Down the hall, the front door swung open.

Naked, she waited. Her chest rising and falling as anticipation pounded in her blood, the scent of demonflesh searing her lungs.

A heavy tread slapped the tiled hallway floor. Eden smiled and stared into the darkness.

The hallway stretched before her, a study in gray and black slivers of light. Then a huge silhouette appeared, coming closer, closer. .

“Here, my lord,” Eden said. “I await-”

He came to her, his great arms outstretched.

“Yes, my lord,” she said. “I have waited so very-”

Tony Katt snapped the crazy bitch’s neck.

“Who’s stronger now?” he whispered. “Huh, bitch? Who’s stronger-”

Oh, God. That was it. Tony dropped onto the bed. He had burned himself down to cinders. He didn’t have an ounce of strength left.

Weird. Tony felt every damn thing. Every ache, every pain. Every cut, every blister, every open wound. That fucking tree had rubbed him raw. But he felt the satin sheets, too. Cool on his tortured flesh, slicked tight against his back by ribbons of blood.

It fucking hurt. Sure it hurt. But pain was the only thing that had kept him alive.

The buzzards had pushed him over the edge. Oh, he’d known pain before they came. He remembered that.

Hell, he would never forget it.

The dull Percodan edge fading. . fresh waves of pain sharpening his senses. . from the tiniest discomforts on up to nuclear shockwaves of misery. . from chapped lips and dry mouth through blistered skin right on up to barbed-wire punctures and flayed flesh, Tony felt it all. . and just when he thought he couldn’t stand one more sliver of agony the vultures swooped down, pecking his head with stony beaks. . sharp knifing nips on his busted nose until it was almost like he could breathe through the damn thing. . nip nip nip. . and the taste of blood wetting his lips as the vultures tore through the leather mask and ripped at his cheek, their talons digging into the flayed flesh of his shoulders as the birds’ clawed feet fought for purchase and Tony couldn’t stand it anymore, not one second more because the pain was Jesus on the cross kind of shit. . and he couldn't even scream, all he could do was tell himself that he was the heavyweight champion of the world the baddest man on the planet Tony the fucking Tiger King of the fucking Jungle and it was way past time for him to rear up with every ounce of strength he had and. .

One of the yucca limbs broke loose and slipped from his arm in a bloody tangle of barbed wire. Tony started to fight. He skimmed those damn birds with his fist, grabbed one by the throat and squeezed its fucking avian neck and it shit all over his shoulder but he squeezed and squeezed until its fucking black scavenger eyes nearly popped out.

He tossed its dead scavenger ass into the dust. Yeah. He was Tony the Tiger. He was King of this fucking Jungle. Nothing with a brain the size of a walnut was going to treat him like so much fucking carrion. No butt-ugly bird was going to make a meal of his eyeballs.

Soon the Tiger was loose. He stumbled to the canteen. Thank God it was still half full. Tony drank thirstily, then dropped the empty canteen in the dirt.

It landed with a sound like a bell stoppered with cotton. It was only then that Tony noticed how quiet it was. Eden Lynch was nowhere in sight. Only those dead women bound to the other trees. Christ, he didn’t want to end up like them.

He almost had ended up that way. He wouldn’t now.

He needed to get out of sight. Just long enough to catch his breath. He stumbled into the shack. Jesus. Another dead guy. This one with his throat slit from ear to ear. It was some old guy. Not Harold. Tony wondered what had happened to his homeboy. But he couldn’t think about that now. He had to worry about his own ass.

Quickly he looked around. A knife lay on the floor. Yeah. Bloodstained and rusty, but at least it was something. And there was a jug of water in one corner. Tony took a deep drink and kept it close.

A bunch of shelves on one wall. Crazy labels on this shit. Dried leaves and herbs, mostly. . but there were some lotions, too. Tony unstoppered a few bottles and smelled the contents. Not bad. He oiled up his sunburned flesh, greasing his wounds. Oh, man, that felt good. Cool as ice. Oh, man. .

Some other bottles on a low shelf. Prescription bottles. Tony sorted through them. Shit. Some of this stuff was real nasty. He hoped the bitch hadn’t fed him any of it.

All right. There it was. His Percodan.

He’d just take one. Only one, and then he’d rest some. That cave on the back wall. . even if Eden noticed his escape, she wouldn’t look for him there. He’d sit in the dark, drink some more water. Drink it slow so it wouldn’t make him sick. Then get the hell out of here. There was a truck parked by the bunker, a couple cars, too. Maybe one of them had the keys in the ignition. If not, he’d find the keys. And if that meant going in the big concrete house and killing the bitch, so much the better.

He had to check out that house, anyway. Maybe the bitch had trapped Harold in there. His brother might still be alive. And Tony wouldn’t pussy out on him. He remembered Harold taking that bullet for him in the slams. So he needed to get up, get started, and he needed to do it right now. .

For a second Tony was back there in that cave, thinking these thoughts all over again. Like he hadn’t done any of it yet. But he knew he had. The bitch lay next to him on satin sheets, and she was dead.

Tony thought about getting up. Oh, man. He hadn’t seen any sign of Harold, but he had to look. His brother might be bound and gagged, might be suffocating this very minute. .

Maybe if he slept. Just a little. . No. Hell no. He wasn’t going to sleep with any dead bitch. He had to find Harold and get the hell out of here.

All he had to do was get up. Yeah. That was all he had to do. .

Tony lay on red satin sheets with a dead bitch at his side.

He couldn’t move at all.

Burned down, man. That’s what he was.

Cinders. Just cinders.

“This must be the place,” Angel said. “Here’s another one.”

Jack looked away from the redhead’s crucified corpse. Angel stood before another yucca tree. The old woman with the cantilevered breasts was tied to this one. Again, the killer had used barbed wire.

“She was one of the dognappers,” Jack said. “I think she was running the show. She had a voice like a drill sergeant.”

“She’s not going to be using it now.”

“Yeah.”

Jack held tight to his Colt. Angel was sweating, and so was he. They’d had a long walk. Nearly six miles separated the Celica from this spot.

Jack shook his head. As they humped the last two, Angel had complained of blisters. Vociferously. And she was wearing those Doc Martens. She wore hiking boots, but she’d never hiked a day in her life. Her boots weren’t even broken in.

The way Jack saw it, you just couldn’t figure people. There wasn’t any use trying. Like these corpses. Man. Who would do something like this? Murder was murder, but this was overkill. Some kind of rage killing. The killer wanted to make a point.

What that point was, Jack didn’t know. But he wasn’t going to figure it out by standing in the middle of nowhere.

The moon was large and white, and the desert was painted with an indigo glow. About a quarter mile distant stood a huge concrete bunker. There was a little shack off to one side of it. It looked like a place where a kidnapper might stow a kidnappee.

Jack nodded toward the shack. “Let’s check it out.”

Angel agreed. Moving quickly and quietly, they threaded a path through the yucca forest. But neither one of them noticed the tree with the broken limb as they passed by or the tangle of bloodstained barbed wire that clung to its trunk.

Angel went through the door first, holding her pistol in the style of a combat shooter. Jack followed her closely, clicking on a flashlight as he entered the shack.

A dead guy lay on some kind of altar. Jack recognized the stovepipe hat that rested on the old man’s chest.

“Jesus,” Angel said, pointing at the deep slice on the corpse’s throat. “Whoever did this nearly cut this guy’s head off.”

“He’s the rattlesnake man,” Jack said. “Another member of the gang.”

“Jack, what the hell is going on here?”

“I don’t know.” Jack sighed. “Do you think it might be a hit? Maybe Freddy’s bird dog tracked the gang, then had them killed without telling us about it.”

“No way, Jack.” Angel pointed to the corpse’s cupped hands, which were blackened with soot. “The Mafia doesn’t go in for satanic rites.”

Jack nodded. He played the flashlight beam along the walls of the shack. Harsh white light revealed bottles filled with powders and potions, aged spell books coated with Mojave dust, and stripped bones, both human and animal.

Finally the flashlight beam fell on Angel. She had a death grip on her.45. “I don’t know about this, Jack.”

“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.