Saguaro Riptide

SIX

Woodrow’s blood was much darker than sandstone, and it flowed like the night itself.

He stared down at his left hand. Both of them. He blinked furiously. Each blink sent an angry jolt of pain through his skull, as if his eyelids were made of iron. But blinking did no good.

The illusion persisted. Two left hands. Both of them bleeding.

His stomach churned. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He’d cracked his head. That was all. In a moment, the dizziness would pass. And when he opened his eyes he would only have one left hand.

But it would be bleeding.

He couldn’t delay.

He had to do something about that.

He opened his eyes.

Thankfully, he only had one left hand.

He wasn’t going to worry that it seemed to have three extra fingers.

Woodrow turned on the tap in the kitchen sink. A stream of cold water rinsed the blood from his hand and stirred a brittle ache in his palm that made him momentarily sympathetic to the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

Momentarily was the key word here, for Woodrow’s sympathy was generally fleeting when it came to the suffering of others, especially the sufferings of Christian martyrs.

Simply put, he had his own problems. He examined his hand, turning it this way and that. His vision sharpened, and the illusory additional digits faded away.

Back to five fingers. His head continued to throb, but that pain was nothing compared to the agony of his hand. Four angry puncture wounds puckered his flesh. Two on the back of his hand, roughly along the ridge of tendon behind his first knuckle. Two on his palm, piercing his lifeline. However, the latter bit of irony did not distress Woodrow any more than the wounds themselves. They were simply part of the job, a result of the ever present element of risk engendered by same.

But blood had spattered the cuff of his left shirtsleeve. That simple fact distressed Woodrow. His shirts were expensive. Tailored specifically for his frame, as were all his clothes. Loose enough to allow the athletic mobility often required by his profession, but tight enough to create an aura of fitness and, by extension, professional competency.

Woodrow did not enjoy shopping for clothes. Therefore, he was as meticulous about maintaining his wardrobe as he was about maintaining his weight, which never crept above 175 pounds.

As a result Woodrow ate a lot of salads. Quite often he was hungry, especially when he was in the presence of food. . say, in a supermarket or a restaurant. But at present he was not hungry at all.

His stomach churned again. Just thinking about food had been a mistake. He closed his iron eyelids and fought off the pain, concentrating on the cool rush of tap water.

Minutes passed. He felt a little better. Good enough to open his eyes. He turned off the tap. Immediately, four thin streams of blood pulsed from his wounds. Soon scarlet droplets pattered against the stainless steel basin.

Woodrow watched a pattern take shape as if he were back in the prison psychiatrist’s office at Rahway examining a Rorschach test.

One Rorschach test. . then two. . two strange creatures in the sink. Tarantulas covered with blood, their hairy legs scrabbling over stainless steel. .

No. He closed his eyes. He would not see these things. God, if he actually had a concussion … if he passed out here, in Jack Baddalach’s condominium. .

Those thoughts were negative. Woodrow erased them from his consciousness. He drew a deep breath and held it, searching for the oasis of peace that Allah nurtured within his soul.

A moment later he exhaled and opened his eyes, assuring himself that he was once again in control. A neatly folded dish towel with a wagon wheel and cacti pattern hung over the refrigerator door handle. Woodrow wrapped it around his wounded hand.

At the same moment the front door of Baddalach’s condominium swung open.

Woodrow reached inside his coat. The fingers of his right hand closed around a Colt.45 Double Eagle Combat Commander nestled in a polished black leather shoulder holster.

Johnny Da Nang entered Jack Baddalach’s condo and closed the door behind him.

Almost immediately, he wished he hadn’t done that.

Because there was a broken lamp on the living room floor, and the coffee table had been busted in two. Frankenstein was lying there amidst the rubble, drooling blood, thick bands of duct tape encircling his legs, his poor battered head practically mummified in the stuff.

Johnny blinked. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a slight movement in the kitchen.

He started to turn.

“Don’t do that,” someone said.

Johnny’s well-cultivated South Central LA street instinct informed him that this was the kind of voice that meant business. A voice that sounded polite on the surface, but a voice that might as well have screamed Don’t fuck with me, slope because underneath the clean polish was a history of mean and dirty streets.

“Come here,” the voice ordered.

Johnny did as he was told, hands held before him, the left one empty and Baddalach’s key in the right. He wanted to be sure the guy saw that. Just like he wanted the guy to notice that he was taking things nice and easy and slow. Smiling, too, like what could possibly be the problem?

Bits of broken lamp crunched beneath the heels of Johnny’s James Brown-style cockroach killers. He stepped over the mummified dog, and Frankenstein whined a little, and the singer in Johnny detected a tremulous vibrato of pity in the plaintive sound. Like the mutt with the monster’s name was saying, Don’t mess with this guy Johnny, not for all the Kibbles ’n ’ Bits on the planet.

That was when the guy stepped out of the kitchen nook, into the living room. Johnny noticed the gun first-a fistful of polished steel that made a real impression. Then he noticed what was in the guy’s other hand-a dish towel, well on its way to being drenched in blood. Frankenstein must have put up a fight, not that you could tell anything from the guy’s expression-George Foreman staredown, circa 1975, just before he bounced Smokin’ Joe Frazier all over the ring.

Johnny checked out the guy. For a second he almost laughed, because the brother was decked out in a black sharkskin suit that made him look like one of the Blues Brothers imitators over at the Imperial Palace.

Then Johnny noticed the little black bow tie.

The African hat.

Shit. This mother was a Black Muslim.

And right off Johnny could tell that he was a point yourself toward Mecca and pray five times a day kind of Muslim, because even though he had the solid drop on Johnny he stuck with the staredown, didn’t even crack a grin. Just stood there, stoney, serious as prostate cancer.

So Johnny grinned for him. “Hey, bro. How they hangin’?”

“Right now they are hanging heavy.” The man aimed his pistol at Johnny’s face. “And I am not your brother.”

It had been bad enough, the dog attacking him when he first gained entrance to Baddalach’s condominium. The animal had waited until he moved into the living room, springing as Woodrow turned, slamming against his chest and knocking him back into the entry hall.

Where he had slipped on slick tile and cracked his head on same. He had passed out for an instant, but only for an instant, because when that instant passed a thunderbolt of fresh pain brought him fully conscious. Teeth ripping at his hand, jaws grinding, holding firm even when Woodrow wrestled with the animal, smashing it through a lamp and a coffee table, finally cracking its head on the tiled floor in the kitchen until the canine was unconscious.

Still, Woodrow had felt no real animosity for the beast. It was only doing its job-protecting its master’s hearth and home. This Woodrow could admire. So he had bound the dog with a roll of duct tape he found in the kitchen drawer.

Had Baddalach returned to the condominium at that moment, Woodrow would have executed him without pause. Had a woman entered-say, a girlfriend-Woodrow would have held his gun to the dog’s head, threatened its life. Certainly, this would have garnered specific information concerning Baddalach’s whereabouts, because women were notoriously softhearted when it came to dogs or any other dewy-eyed quadrupeds. Once Woodrow had obtained the information he was after, he would have executed the girlfriend and dropped the dog at a veterinarian on his way to kill Baddalach.

Those would have been his options had he confronted Baddalach or Baddalach’s girlfriend. But the Vietnamese kid was something else entirely.

The Vietnamese kid distressed Woodrow. The kid was talking. . talking. . talking. He wouldn’t shut up.

“Look, let’s cut to it, okay?” the kid was saying. “I grew up in South Central. I’m not stupid. I know what you’re after. You want Baddalach, right? The promoter who got his tongue amputated sent you to kill him.”

Woodrow’s head began to throb anew. He wanted to tell the kid that he didn’t have to shout.

But the kid took the initiative. He held up his hands, eyes on Woodrow to show that everything was hunky-dory. Then he slowly dipped the fingers of his right hand into his shirt pocket and fished out a slip of paper.

“I’ll make it easy,” the kid said.

Woodrow dropped the dish towel and took the slip of paper in his bloody grasp. The letters seemed to swim across the page, bleeding before his eyes, but he marshaled his resolve and forced his eyes to focus on the note.

Baddalach’s name was at the top. Beneath was the name of a motel and an Arizona phone number. Woodrow’s mind had barely processed the information when he realized the kid was talking again.

And he had moved. He was at the dog’s side, loosening the duct tape.

“Don’t do that,” Woodrow said, aiming the Combat Commander at the Vietnamese kid’s face.

“Remember what I told you.” The kid’s voice was firm. “I grew up in South Central. I’ve had guns pointed at my face before.”

“Not by me you haven’t.”

The kid shrugged. “I figure if you’re gonna kill me, you’ll kill me whatever I do. And its not like I’m planning to sic the dog on you-I figure he’s learned his lesson, anyway. But if it’ll make you happy, I won’t take the tape off Frankenstein’s legs. I gotta get it off his muzzle, though-I think you broke the mutt’s nose, and I don’t want him to suffocate.”

Woodrow didn’t say anything. He jammed the slip of paper into his pocket. There was a taffy-pulling machine locked inside his skull, working on his brain. His shirt was stained with blood. His left hand was dribbling blood onto the carpet. The pistol suddenly seemed very heavy in his right.

Woodrow slipped the Combat Commander into his shoulder holster. He was getting tired of aiming it at the Vietnamese kid, anyway. And the dog was whining, its dewy puppy eyes pinballing in terror at the sight of Woodrow.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” the kid said. “If you let me live, the first thing I’m going to do is call Jack Baddalach and tell him you’re looking for him. But let me warn you-you go after Baddalach, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“Uh-huh.” The sarcasm sailed over the kid’s head like a Stealth Fighter. “I’ll tell you all right.”

The kid looked Woodrow straight in the eye. “I’m a people person,” he said. “They fascinate me. I study ’em, the way some scientists study gorillas in the Congo, stuff like that.”

Gently, the kid tugged the tape off the dog’s muzzle. “People are just like animals. They’ve got behavior patterns. Baddalach’s got ’em. Take this dog, for instance. There’s a reason he named it Frankenstein. You got time to hear the story?”

Woodrow felt a little woozy. Now the kid was asking him questions, taking things for granted. Like his survival. Woodrow wondered if he should reach for his pistol, or at least hit the kid-who wasn’t much bigger than a Munchkin-give him a little negative reinforcement and take control of the situation. Perhaps it was the loss of blood, or the taffy-pulling machine working on his brain, but Woodrow couldn’t decide-

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the kid said. “See, Baddalach goes down to the gym one day. There’s a new guy hanging around, a cutman who’s looking for work. No one’s ever heard of him, so no one’s going to give him any business.

“That doesn’t stop the guy, though. He says. Wait a minute. I got something that’ll change your mind. So he goes out to his car, comes back with a runty little bulldog pup. The dog’s face is shaved, and it’s crisscrossed with so many scars that it looks like a sadist has been playing connect-the-dots. The cutman leashes the dog to the ring post. The poor thing’s shaking on its runty little legs. Obviously, the butcher’s been using the dog to practice his technique.

“To a man, the gym rats are pretty quiet. The cutman is beaming. He lines up his Vaseline, his Q-tips, his avetine and thrombine and adrenaline chloride 1-1000. He opens a straight razor-the dog’s whining by now-and he says. Watch this.

“Baddalach moves in just that fast and takes the razor away from the cutman. Puts it to the guy’s throat. Walks him around the ring. Has a real quiet conversation that nobody else hears. When they’re done talking he slips the guy five bucks, slaps him on the back, all grins now, saying. Gee, Mister, I sure am glad you came in here today looking to sell your dog.”

All of a sudden, the kid shut up. Stared, like he was waiting for Woodrow to say something. But Woodrow couldn’t think of anything to say, and he had the uneasy feeling that the kid had planned it that way.

“So now you know what kind of guy Jack Baddalach is.” The kid pulled the last of the duct tape from the dog’s muzzle. “I’ll tell you this much-when he finds out what you did to his dog, he won’t be a happy camper.”

“Tell him.” The words spilled from Woodrow’s mouth automatically. “Do not omit a single detail. Inform Mr. Baddalach that I enjoyed every second.”

The kid smiled now, and it was a wide smile, self-assured. “Oh, I’ll tell him, all right. As soon as you leave.”

Woodrow straightened. Suddenly, it was the oddest thing. Like the kid was dismissing him. Like he was the one in charge of the situation. Woodrow had the gun, and he was the trained killer, but the kid was the one staring him down, making him sweat.

Woodrow hesitated, wondering what to do.

Then it hit him.

There was only one thing to do. The way things stood, he had to let the kid live. Because if he killed the kid he’d look like a punk, like he was afraid to let the kid warn Baddalach.

Woodrow’s head was really pounding now. Full boogie disco throb. The little runt had manipulated him. Woodrow knew it and the kid knew it, but no way Woodrow was going to let the kid know that he knew.

So Woodrow worked up his best tougher-than-Rahway voice and said, “You tell Jack Baddalach that he is a dead man.”

Then he whirled, full of purpose now. Slammed out the door, even though the noise was pure murder. Got in his Saturn and hit the road, and he didn’t give a damn if sometimes he saw one road and sometimes he saw two, just so long as both of those roads led to Pipeline Beach, Arizona.