The Devil_s Workshop

Chapter 40

When Caesar rode through the crowded streets of Rome, Buddy had heard, he'd always kept a slave standing next to him on the shaded litter. As the crowds cheered, the slave's job was to whisper into the Emperor's ear, "Caesar, thou art mortal."

Buddy had never had someone performing this mind-leveling function. Quite to the contrary, Buddy's slaves seemed to constantly bring out the worst in him. The more he paid them, the more obdurate and demanding he got.

Now he was sitting in the "command" chair, directly behind Billy Seal, who was driving the thirty-seven-foot motor home that Buddy's assistant, Alicia Profit, had rented. He was screaming at the black stunt driver, pointing frantically at a turnoff on the Interstate. "You fucking asshole, that's Interstate 20," he shouted, as they flashed past the connecting ramp, while Billy slowed looking for a place to turn around.

The motor home was full of "Brazil Nuts," his affectionate yet degrading term for his inner circle of employees.

Alicia Profit was on the cellphone, which was always attached to her head like a bracketed utility. She was rearranging the new dubbing schedule on Deadwood County Countown, a feather-covered gobbler that Buddy should never have shot. He was trying to rush it into the theaters so that it could perch on the screen during January, with all the rest of the major studio turkeys. January was the dumping ground for bad pictures in the film business.

Seated next to Alicia was Rayce Walker, dressed as always like a rodeo contestant in faded blue jeans, a silver conch belt, and dusty rough-out boots the color of sandpaper.

Then there was John Little Bear, who rarely spoke. His black eyes burned with intensity from a flat brown face that looked like it must have been hit at birth with the wide end of a shovel. John Little Bear had balls the size of cantaloupes. Buddy had seen him drive trucks off motel roofs, do high falls from twenty stories into air-bags, and set himself on fire. Crackling like a Christmas log, he would run out of an exploding building, the flames consuming him until the director yelled "Cut!" and the stunt safety team smothered him with blankets and doused him with fire extinguishers. With his hair and eyebrows already singed, Little Bear would shrug and repeat the life-threatening stunt if the director wanted a second take. All of this impressed Buddy, but he still failed to show John Little Bear any respect. Nobody told him when he was acting like an asshole, so Buddy abused them all like helpless orphans, his raging ego always out of control.

"This fucking guy has this Prion shit, and we're gonna find out where he's goin' and get our hands on it," Buddy blurted. He'd already said this three times before. "He can't be hard to trace. There are fifty people in his fucking congregation. He's a wild-eyed evangelist with silver hair. He'll leave a trail two miles wide… Crank me up," he shouted at Alicia, who whispered something into the phone and hung up. She got her compact of cocaine out of her purse and expertly chopped two lines. While Buddy zooted the load, the Brazil Nuts tried not to notice, looking nervously out the window at the passing landscape.

He wiped the residue from his nose and glared down at a map, waiting for the rocket blast to hit. "Shreveport is just twenty-five miles up ahead. Rayce, when we get there, we go to the cops and show 'em your badge, see if they'll escort us to the jungle where these hobos all hang. Then we bust chops until somebody talks."

Rayce had a New Mexico Sheriff's badge, and it had been Buddy's "get out of jail" card more than once.

The Shreveport P. D. was in a brick building on Lee Street, in the old section of town. Heavy, gnarled oaks overhung the sidewalk and rested their twisted limbs on the low eaves of the police annex, leaning like tired soldiers after battle.

Buddy and Rayce were on the third floor of the building, in a cluttered two-man office with no window, talking to Detective Beau Jack "Bobo" Turan. He was a heavy-set cop who looked to Buddy like he would sweat in the middle of an Alaskan blizzard. Bobo was listening patiently as Buddy finished introducing himself, managing to get in three of his hundred-million-dollar-domestic-grossing pictures.

Rayce Williams's badge lay open in its leather case in front of them on Bobo's desk. "We just happen to be having a special on hobo assholes today," Bobo grinned. "First somebody killed that yard bull, then somebody else killed one of those jungle buzzards just four hours ago. I got a fuckin' roomful downstairs, all of 'em rummy-eyed dick-brains with memories like Nazi war criminals. I was just getting set to close the case, say my dead hobo killed my dead yard bull, call it a trick, and kick the whole sorry bunch loose."

"Killed a jungle 'bo?" Buddy asked.

"Yeah. The way I get it, the perp blew town already. Got in a fight in the jungle down by the river an' chilled the vie. Some fudge-packer named Ben Brook Bob, took him two hours t'die. Broke his windbox, Special Forces-style."

Buddy looked at the Shreveport cop, but said nothing about Cris Cunningham. "My son, Mike, was killed riding the rails," Buddy finally said, looking at the sweating cop. "I'd like to talk to the men you have downstairs. I'm trying to find out who killed Mike. Maybe somebody down there…" He let it drop in mid-sentence because Detective Bobo Turan started smiling. "I said something funny?" Buddy asked softly.

"This ain't a fuckin' movie, Mr. Brazil. These people, they don't stand around talkin' to guys in five-hundred-dollar shoes about who killed who. I got the dead asshole's butt-boy down there cryin' like an unwed mother, an' even so, the little faggot won't even give me the time of day."

"You tried paying for the info?" Buddy asked, letting a snide smile inadvertently fuck up a pretty good suggestion.

"Yeah, sure, that was gonna be my next move. The Shreveport P. D. gives me thousands in hustle money t'drop on these douche bags. I just ain't gotten around to it yet." Sarcasm was dripping like humidity on a flower shop window.

"My son died in the Oklahoma panhandle," Buddy persisted. "That's way out of your jurisdiction, so it's nothing you have to worry about, but I need closure here." Buddy reached into his pocket, pulled out a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills, and started peeling them off. When he reached ten, he dropped them in a pile on the desk next to Rayce's badge.

"What's that for?" Bobo Turan asked, cocking an eyebrow dangerously.

"That's for the widows and orphans of dead Shreveport police officers, or the Police Betterment Society, or it's for your new backyard patio barbecue. You choose. But me an' Rayce would very much like to spend a few minutes with the guys you have downstairs."

Bobo looked at them and shook his head sadly. "You Hollywood people think you own the whole fuckin' world, don't ya?" When Buddy started to retrieve the money Bobo looked at him sharply. "Leave it be. You got five minutes," he said, snapping up the cash faster than a frog hitting a swamp fly.

Buddy thought the room full of hobos smelled worse than a sock hamper. Rayce, who had actually spent five years as a cop in New Mexico, isolated the group, quickly cutting it down to four people. He saved the sniveling Pullman Kid for last.

When Buddy started passing out hundreds, they found out that two members of Fannon Kincaid's Christian Choir had been at Black Bed Jungle around ten that same morning. One of the hobos in the room mentioned that a skinny tattooed man named Robert Vail had said that the Choir was heading to Harrisburg.

"Why Harrisburg?" Rayce asked the hobo with tattered clothes, brown teeth, and a slight stutter.

"Da-don't know, fu-fucker wouldn't say. Ju-just said, 'Harrisbu-burg.' "

The Pullman Kid was useless. He sat in front of Rayce and Buddy, sniveling. "I wanna go home," was all he said, over and over, until Buddy wanted to hit him.

"Let's get outta here," he ordered Rayce, and they walked out of the holding area. Bobo Turan was waiting in the lobby.

"You solve my 'who cares' murder?" the fat detective asked, grinning.

"Nope," Buddy said.

"Them fuckers down there don't have much movin' around in the way of brain matter."

"Sounds like the Writers Guild," Buddy sighed, then he and Rayce moved past the detective, out of the police building, and into the sunlight.

They crossed the sidewalk to the blue-and-white thirty-seven-foot motor home. Billy Seal had kept the motor running and the air-conditioning on. They entered the cold RV and Buddy slipped into the command chair behind the driver's seat. "Harrisburg," he ordered.

The motor home moved away from the curb, went down the road, turned left, and took the state highway north. There was still no one standing behind Buddy whispering in his ear, reminding him he was mortal.