Saguaro Riptide

ONE

Rorie hated coming out to her sister’s place. Not that she hated her sister. She loved Priscilla. In truly sisterly fashion, too. The person Rorie hated was Priscilla’s husband. Ellis Aaron Perkins. One look from him and she felt like some little cutie out at the Spahn Movie Ranch being sized up by Charlie Manson himself.

Which was another way of saying that as a brother-in-law the guy really bit it. And it wasn’t that he’d been an Elvis impersonator-Rorie could have lived with that. Nor was it the fact that he’d lost his voice to cancer and spoke through a machine that made him sound like some big oI’ talking Elvis doll that had had its cord yanked once too often.

No. What bothered Rorie was that Ellis was a real creep. He was mucho possessive about Priscilla, and Rorie suspected that he’d hit her sister on a couple of occasions. Not that Priscilla would admit to anything. But Rorie had seen her share of battered women during her years with the sheriff’s department, and she knew that her sister showed some of the classic signs.

Of course, Priscilla was cattin’ around on Ellis with Vince Komoko. Had been, anyway. And while Rorie hated to admit it, that little fact made her think that maybe her sister kind of got what she deserved when it came to Ellis’s conjugal behavior.

No, damnit. Thinking like that was medieval. Damn near insane-

Rorie bit her lip. Hell, Wyetta had slapped her a couple of times. So maybe she was projecting. She’d read an article in Cosmo where a psychiatrist discussed that kind of thing- projecting your own problems onto someone else’s situation.

But Rorie didn’t know what to think of Cosmo anymore. Not since Kate Benteen had spouted all that crazy feminist shit at the Saguaro Riptide.

Rorie had to admit that all that shit was pretty exciting, though. That Benteen chick. She really had some strange ideas. And she looked pretty damn outstanding in a black bikini.

Rorie’s lower lip was getting sore. She realized she’d been chewing it. Maybe she should drive across the highway and check on Priscilla. See how her sister was holding up under the strain. Make sure that everything was okay-

No. Wyetta wouldn’t like that. Not now. Not when they were handling business.

And this was business. Rorie recognized that. At first she hadn’t thought much of it-Ellis’s phone call interrupting Wyetta’s interrogation of Kate Benteen. Ellis had been known to fly off the handle for no reason at all. But when Wyetta told her that Ellis claimed he’d had a run-in with the former light-heavyweight champion of the world, that naturally got Rorie’s attention.

It damn sure got Wyetta’s attention, too. She was bulldogging the problem, talking to Ellis on the sand-covered porch of his own personal Graceland.

Rorie almost laughed at the two of them. Ellis in Presley-esque leathers circa 1968 and Wyetta in her best Annie Oakley-wear-fringed Cavalry gloves, snakeskin Nocona boots, and a cedar-handled.44 that was a twin to the pistol Wyatt Earp had worn in Tombstone. Together they looked like the stars of some weird Elvis time-travel movie. Viva Rio Bravo! or something.

Rorie listened to Ellis’s busted Hasbro voice as he answered one question after another. But it didn’t matter how many questions he answered-just the fact that Jack Baddalach had come to Graceland meant that the boxer was cutting way too close to the bone.

And the way he’d come here-now that told her something else.

He hadn’t arrived in that Range Rover he’d rented up in Tucson. He’d come in another car, and he’d left it here-a shot-up Saturn that blocked the middle of the road.

Blown front tire. Windshield riddled with buckshot. The damage didn’t matter, though. Not to Rorie. What mattered was the license plate number.

She didn’t need to run that baby, either. She remembered it. She’d written it down just this morning. The Saturn belonged to that weird black guy who’d been busted up in the parking lot at the Saguaro Riptide.

The guy said the Saturn had been stolen.

Baddalach had driven it here.

But why would Baddalach steal a car when he had one of his own?

The whole thing was enough to make her head spin. She wanted someone to set it all straight for her.

Only one person came to mind.

Rorie glanced at Wyetta.

The sheriff was headed her way.

'What’s up?” Rorie asked.

Wyetta shook her head sharply. “Not here.”

She got an evidence bag from the Cherokee. Opened the passenger door of the Saturn. Took a pencil out of her pocket and fished a pistol off the front seat of the car. A Colt.45 Double Eagle Combat Commander. She bagged the gun and returned to the patrol car.

Rorie took the passenger seat. Wyetta slipped behind the wheel and handed Rorie the bagged pistol.

“What’s the deal with this?” Rorie asked.

Wyetta said, “Insurance. I figure that’s Baddalach’s piece. Ellis said he didn’t touch it. Maybe it’s got the boxer’s prints. If it does, it could come in handy.”

Wyetta started the engine and made a U-turn. Ellis watched from the porch of his unfinished palace. He didn’t wave at Wyetta. She didn’t wave at him.

She drove down the dirt road that led to the highway.

"Talk to me, Wyetta.”

The sheriff shrugged. “He says Baddalach showed up looking for your sister. Says he scared off the pug with his shotgun. Says he wants us to pick up the boxer for trespassing. Says he’s leaving to make his flea-market rounds tonight, that he’s gonna be gone for a couple days and he doesn’t want anyone messing around with Priscilla.”

“Jesus. Do you think he’s serious?"

“He’s your brother-in-law, darlin’. You tell me.”

Rorie shook her head. “So. . was Baddalach alone? Or, did he come out here with that other guy. . Woodrow what’s-his-face?"

“Ellis says the pug was solo. No sign of Ali Baba.”

“So what do you think?”

“Damned if I know. Maybe Baddalach did bust up Ali Baba and steal his car. Or maybe our buddy Woodrow is Baddalach’s boy Friday. Maybe they figured they could turn the pug’s run-in with Ellis into a plus. Figured they could report the car stolen, get us to nail Ellis for car theft and assault. Get Ellis’s gyratin’ blue suede ass away from the property so they could hunt for Komoko’s money without fear of getting their asses full of buckshot.” Wyetta shook her head, getting comfortable with the idea. “Maybe the two of them are in cahoots. Hell, maybe they’re back at the motel, takin’ turns bangin’ Kate Benteen. Maybe they’re all three of ’em in cahoots.”

“You really think so?”

“I don’t have a clue, cowgirl. But I aim to learn the truth before I let any one of ’em leave this town.”

A pale cloud mushroomed behind the sheriff’s Jeep Cherokee as it headed for the highway.

Women cops. Now there was one slice of nineties reality that got Ellis Aaron Perkins all shook up.

Elvis Presley had been a law-and-order man. Ellis Perkins knew that. The King had compiled a collection of law enforcement badges and credentials from all over the country. Even got a DEA agent’s badge from President Richard Nixon himself. Elvis hung out with cops, too. Went on drug busts with them down in Memphis. Illegal drugs. The King only used prescription medications. That was a different ball game.

Ellis knew that. Himself, he liked those diet pills. That’s what the King had used in the early sixties, mostly. If the King would have stuck to that stuff, he would have been fine. They gave a man the energy he needed. Elvis had had a whole lotta energy goin’ on back in the sixties.

They hadn’t had women cops in those days. Ellis Perkins knew that, too. Back then, women had known their place.

Ellis knew a woman’s place. Priscilla was there, right now. Home in the trailer. And she wasn’t going goddamn anywhere without his say-so. He’d fixed that for sure, and his fix was as solid as solitary confinement at San Quentin.

Uh huh-huh. Priscilla wasn’t going to say a word about it, either. He’d slapped six inches of duct tape over her mouth himself, and he didn’t figure it was coming off until he was good and ready.

He’d show her what it was like, not being able to talk. It was horrible. He knew that. When he lost his voice to cancer, he thought he’d never talk again. The doctor’s had shown him the little throat-buzzer things that patients used as artificial vocal cords. The devices set up a vibration against your throat, gave you a little robot voice. But Ellis didn’t like the ones the doctors had. Every one had a whiny tremolo that drove him nuts… Besides, lots of cancer survivors used those things, and they all sounded the same as a result. Ellis didn’t want to sound like everyone else. He wanted to have a distinctive sound, even if it was robotic.

So he made his own throat-buzzer. Went looking for something with a deeper buzz, a slower vibrato. And it was a stroke of genius, finding the right thing. Because one day he was in a sex shop, and he noticed the vibrators. . and the wheels started turning up there in his brain. .

Like they say, necessity is the mother of invention. He customized the sucker, of course. Painted it silver. Covered the head with a hunk of black foam rubber that looked like a microphone cap, so no one could tell that the thing had been a vibrator. And then he had his own voice. A distinctive voice. Even if it was the voice of a robot.

So anyway, he’d slapped the duct tape over Priscilla’s mouth, just to remind her how much he’d suffered. It was kind of good, seeing ’Cilia that way. Slapping some tape over her mouth always made her eyes that much more lively. Put a little teary gleam in ’em that was kind of sexy. Fact was, a little tape over her mouth and ’Cilia could have passed for Ellis Aaron Perkins’s idea of a perfect woman.

Nova in those first two Planet of the Apes movies. That woman Big Chuck Heston fell in love with when those talking gorillas tossed him in their zoo. Now there was a woman with real lively eyes. She also had dark hair. Plus she looked real good in animal skins. And the topper was that she couldn’t talk a lick.

’Cilia wasn’t going to do any more talking, though. Not for a good long while. She knew better than to peel off that duct tape when her husband had a mad on. And the fact that she’d set up a meeting with the ex-light-heavyweight champion of the world had definitely made him mad. Not that she knew how he knew about it. Hell, she probably believed what he told her.

"THE NIGHT. . HAS A THOUSAND. . EYES BABY.”

Uh-huh-huh. He had to tell her something, didn’t he? He couldn’t tell her that he knew about Baddalach. Tell her about that and he might as well admit that he knew about Komoko, too. And that would ruin everything.

So he’d hit her with an explanation that was really no explanation at all. Let her worry about how much he knew. He’d just play it frosty.

Ellis checked his sideburns in the rearview of his scar-colored Caddy, smoothed them down. They needed trimming, and some white was showing through at the roots. Looked like he was about due for another dye job. The Caddy could use something, too. Man, painting it with pink Rustoleum had been a bad idea.

But what was done couldn’t be undone.

Ellis knew that.

Return to sender, address unknown. Think about it. No way you got anywhere with that one. Uh-huh-huh.

The cop cruiser turned onto the highway, leaving the mushroom cloud behind. Ellis watched the cloud dissipate as it drifted over ragged yucca spears.

That goddamn sheriff. She was so goddamn willing to believe that he was such a goddamn idiot.

Like he hadn’t figured out what was going on.

Like a guy who was smart enough to rig up his own electronic throat-buzzer wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to tape his wife’s phone calls when she started playing around with some velvet-voiced dickwad who ran mob money out of Vegas.

Like a guy who was smart enough to do those things wasn’t smart enough to fill in the blanks when he listened to those phone calls and got a bonus-the calls his wife made to her badge-carryin’ dyke sister. Like a guy who could put that puzzle together wasn’t smart enough to kick his own plan into gear when he figured out what the whole bunch of them were up to.

Like a guy like that couldn’t figure out how to send a jerkwater sheriff on a wild goose chase.

A torrent of dry laughter crossed Ellis’s lips. He sounded like that damn dog in that damn cartoon. Stupid little dog with a wheezy laugh. He couldn’t remember its name.

It didn’t matter, anyway.

He popped the Caddy’s trunk and grabbed a shovel.

He looked around. The mushroom cloud was gone. No people around anywhere. Nothing but desert as far as the eye could see. Real clear. Everything right out in plain sight.

Ellis put the pieces together. A duster had blown up the night Wyetta and Rorie killed Komoko. He’d heard Rorie tell Priscilla all about it during one of the phone calls he’d taped.

A duster. . now, a man couldn’t move too far in weather like that. Especially a velvet-voiced dickwad like Komoko. Hell, a Vegas lounge lizard like Vince Komoko probably couldn’t find his ass in the dark with both hands.

It was purely obvious that Wyetta and Rorie didn’t have Komoko’s money. If they did, they wouldn’t have come nosing around the minute Ellis mentioned that a stranger had shown up at Graceland. And the ex-light-heavyweight champion of the world didn’t have it, either, or he wouldn’t have come looking for answers about Komoko.

So it had to be that Komoko’s money was still around here somewhere.

Ellis Aaron Perkins was going to find it.

Uh-huh-huh.