The Ten-Ounce Siesta

THREE

Dry. . parched. . desiccated. . barren. .

Like the vast Sahara. Like a mummy baked in desert catacombs. Like a creature with peeling wallpaper skin hung by the Devil himself. Like something that had been dead, yet conscious, for a very long time.

Tony Katt tried to swallow. His Adam’s apple bobbed against a barbed-wire spike. He wanted to scream, but his parched throat wouldn’t allow more than a rattling whisper.

God, but he was thirsty. The woman had removed the bandages and cotton from his broken nose, but it didn’t do any good. He could get more air sucking on a crimped straw.

So Tony breathed through his mouth. . Every inhalation flared like wildfire in his tortured throat. . His mouth became a dry desert burrow, a trap-door spider’s hole. .

Tony could almost feel it. The spider. Crawling over his chest, along his neck, furry legs crossing the pulsing carotid artery and the SS lightning bolts tattoo, fat arachnid body squeezing between Tony’s cracked lips and over his tongue, down his throat until its fat body became stuck and he started to suffocate-

Sharp sliver cuts split Tony’s dry lips as he opened his mouth. This time, the scream had to come out, no matter how dry his throat. Hot air baked in his lungs tore his windpipe like a dull razor.

The scream was short, and not very loud.

Tony was awake again. So was his kidnapper.

She had been dozing in the shade by the tumbledown shack. She raised her chin and looked at him, eyes invisible behind dark sunglasses.

“Okay, Tiger,” she said. “Don’t get your shorts in a bunch.” Then she grabbed the canteen and walked in his direction.

Tony couldn’t move, of course. She’d tied him to a yucca tree with a length of barbed wire that speared him every time he so much as wriggled. His arms were bent at odd angles, mimicking the twisted branches. Thick, sharp leaves and gnarled scabs of bark dug into his naked back.

Tony heard water slosh in the canteen as the woman approached. Instinctively, he leaned forward, barbed-wire spikes tearing his flesh.

“Want another drink?” the woman asked.

Tony only moaned.

“You know the price.”

Tony remembered. He opened his mouth. Her gloved fingers brushed his dry tongue as she jammed several pills between his bleeding lips. He thought they were Percodans, the pain pills he was taking for his broken nose. But it seemed like he was hallucinating, too. All that shit with the spider. Maybe the heat was the cause of that. Or maybe his captor was feeding him world-class mind-benders, too.

She tilted the canteen and gave him a long drink. He swallowed thankfully. Then she returned to the shade. Leaning against one wall of the dilapidated shack, she unscrewed a dark bottle and oiled her pale skin with creamy white sunblock.

Tony’s tattoos flared like melting neon on sunburned flesh. The woman had stripped off his shirt while he was unconscious. He figured he was out of it for a good long while. She must have drugged him at his house, slipped something into the kamikaze she mixed soon after he invited her inside.

Tony didn’t regain consciousness until she peeled the Colonel Sanders tattoo off his shoulder with a combat knife, and by that time it was too late. He was already wired to the tree.

His kidnapper had placed some kind of mask over his head. The mask had openings for his mouth, his eyes, and his nose. It was terribly hot, tight as a second skin, but for the most part the mask kept the sun off of his face.

Other parts of his body were painfully exposed. His naked chest had begun to blister. His arms burned, biceps and triceps fiery slabs of useless meat. In a strange way, it was the barbed-wire cuts that saved him. Dried blood wasn’t the best sunblock in the world, but it was doing its job. Anything was better than flesh roasted by unforgiving Mojave Desert sunshine.

Anything was better. . anything. . because pride was useless here. Without strength, pride couldn’t exist.

It didn’t exist.

“More water,” Tony whispered. “Please.”

The woman sighed and capped the bottle of sunblock. “Okay, but not too much. I don’t want you getting any ideas.” She smiled, walking toward him, the canteen sloshing with every step. “After all, you are the baddest man on the planet, and I’m just a weak and frail woman. I certainly wouldn’t stand a chance if you managed to get loose. Right?”

The kidnapper held the canteen just short of Tony’s torn lips. He wanted to tell her exactly what he’d do to her if he got loose. He wanted to say that he’d rip her limb from limb and piss on her corpse.

But Tony couldn’t say that at all. All he could say was, “Unnngh. . Wattttterrrrr. .”

“First things first. I asked you a question, Tiger. A girl like me, I wouldn’t stand a chance against the heavyweight champion of the whole wide world. Right?”

“You. . you would.” Tony said those words, all the while telling himself. Pride doesn ’t exist.

“I couldn’t quite hear you. Tiger.”

She was so close. If he could just get his hands on her. .

“You want a drink, you’d better answer me.”

Tony could barely remember the question.

“The other night.” She slapped his cheek. “Who was stronger? You or me?”

“You were,” Tony began, because he really needed that fucking drink. “You outsmarted me. . and you were stronger”

“I guess I did get the better of you that night, Tiger.” She laughed. “But you were drunk. And you weren’t expecting any trouble.” She patted his skinned shoulder very lightly, and an electric jolt of pain threatened to blow several circuits in Tony’s brain. “That’s why I’ve got to keep you weak,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you getting any ideas about escaping.”

“I won’t get ideas,” Tony said. “I can’t escape. . but I need a drink. .”

No pride. Not here. Pride doesn’t exist. Only the tree exists, only the barbed wire and the memory of the knife. .

The woman tipped the canteen against Tony’s lips. He sucked greedily, managing a long swallow. His tongue was wet now. It felt wonderful. Water cooled his aching throat. For a moment he felt a little stronger.

A cool oasis nestled under his ribs as the water hit his stomach. . cool. . and inviting. . the waters deep, and dark. .

Tony remembered the price he’d paid for a drink of water. The pills were dissolving in his gut. Soon a slow numbness spread to his arms and legs and iced his flayed shoulder.

Tony started to drift.

No, he couldn’t let that happen. He had to fight. God. If he could just get loose. If he could only wrap his hands around this bitch’s slender neck. If he could manage one hard twist, just one. .

The yucca trees stretched far in the distance.

The sun burned down.

Tony blinked against the great white ball, head lolling on his thick neck.

A blinding glint as sunlight slapped the woman’s knife.

She touched the blade to Tony’s other shoulder and began to carve.

Tony couldn’t move. He moaned, soft and low, because his throat was dry all over again.

The woman didn’t say a word as she worked. Tony closed his eyes. He moaned low. . a seashell moan. . and his blood flowed hot and wet, droplets raining on dry desert sand. . pattering, pattering in the seashell silence.

Jack drove through a quiet neighborhood-industrial park redux-which was okay with him. He didn’t say a word. Neither did Angel.

He pulled to the curb just as a starved-looking brunette stepped though the glass doors at 36 Arroyo Blanco. She yawned, pulled at her microminiskirt, and slipped behind the wheel of a battered Malibu.

A moment later she was gone. One vehicle remained in the parking lot. A Jeep Cherokee. Jack hoped the owner of the Jeep would know something about the kidnappers.

Jack figured the faster he could get to the gang, the better. He needed Tony Katt in one piece. Was that selfish? Sure. But Tony Katt was no prince. If the Tiger didn’t have the heavyweight title, Jack would let the kidnappers have their way with him. It wouldn’t be any skin off Jack’s ass. Or Tony’s shoulder, as it were.

But Jack really wanted that title. And he had to admit that he wanted the kidnappers, too. They had screwed him once, with Angel’s dog. That was plenty. They’d damn near killed him with a rattlesnake. And now they were trying to screw him again. Jack didn’t like that much. He didn’t want anyone thinking that they could make a habit of doing him like some chump.

He remembered the kidnapper’s note. Remember, the difference between champ and chump is “U.” Jesus. These people were nuts. Either that, or they wrote Rocky movies for a living.

Jack pulled into the lot and parked the Celica. The air conditioner kicked off as he killed the engine.

“I guess this is it,” Angel said.

“Yeah. I guess.”

Jack grabbed his pistol and stepped out of the car. Man, it was hot. He started sweating almost immediately.

Angel glanced around to make sure no one was watching. Then she pulled the nylon stocking over her head.

“You’re kidding, right?” Jack said. “Angel, its too hot for this shit. I put one of your stockings over my head, I’m gonna suffocate.”

Angel checked her.45 and walked toward the building. “Do what you want, Jack. Just remember that you’ve been on television all week long. Anyone with an IQ above plant life is bound to recognize your face, even an idiot who makes porno movies for a living.”

Jack pulled on the stocking. Man oh man, he could hardly breathe-

Angel angled toward the door, peeking through a window, her gun raised.

Jack adjusted the stocking, smiling as he filled his lungs with nylon-filtered air.

Calvin Klein’s Obsession.

Angel Gemignani. She was something.

When it came to perfume, she had really nice taste.

As the sun settled low in the sky, Eden finished peeling the tattoo from Tony Katt’s shoulder The heavyweight champion of the world was unconscious, his body a study in sunburned flesh and spilled blood. So too were the heavens, violent shades of red staining the horizon the color of a dark bloody smear.

Eden entered the chapel. Daddy lay on the altar. Oh, but his expression was so peaceful. She brushed flies from his wounds and straightened his arms. She opened his hands and pressed them together at waist level, palms facing upward, gnarled fingers slightly bent.

Two hands. Daddy’s right hand. The Devil’s left hand. And now they were one. A callused cup that lay open and waiting on Daddy’s belly.

Eden laid the tattoo in Daddy’s palm. An odd-looking man, staring at her from a patch of singed flesh. And those words below his face: That which does not destroy us makes us stronger.

Yes. These words were indeed true. Eden recognized that. For she was much stronger now.

But not nearly as strong as she wanted to be.

Eden opened the old spell book. It was written in the last century by Estrellita Dolores Refugio Cavendish, a blind witch of some notoriety who had spent her last days in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Eden flipped to the correct page and studied the text. For mortar and pestle: a dead man's hands and a reprobate’s thumb.

She had Harold’s thumb. It would do.

Combine the tattooed flesh of a crucified sinner. A green pear and a whore’s hair-

Eden had a lock of Tura’s hair, fragrant with coconut shampoo. She’d bought the green pear at a grocery store on her way to kidnap Tony Katt.

— the powdered tongue of a hyena that has laughed its last. . and fat from the back of a baboon, boiled down to a pound dinner spoon.

Daddy’s shelves were jammed with elixirs and nostrums and potions of every description. Magical ingredients gathered from the four corners of the earth stood next to prosaic products such as Ban Roll-On, Del Monte Prunes, and Poligrip. A wide assortment of prescription drugs filled one shelf. Daddy had stolen these from sacrifice victims, hijacked truckers, and other unfortunates who had crossed his path over the years.

Eden ignored the drugs. Impatiently, she sorted through jars and phials and cruets until she found the magical ingredients she wanted.

Baboon fat and hyena tongue. Daddy had them both, two small jars jammed in a small wooden casket bearing African stamps.

Eden sliced the pear into small bits and laid it on the face of Friedrich Nietzsche. She added her sister’s hair, powdered hyena tongue, and baboon fat. Gripping Harold’s thumb tightly, she mixed the ingredients in Daddy’s weatherbeaten palms.

Eden glanced at the yellowed page. One last time, just to be sure.

She was sure. Tonight, true strength would be hers. Satan’s strength would protect her forevermore. No one would ever hurt her again.

She closed the book and left the chapel, but she took the witch’s words with her.

The fat will fire and flare so bright.

Burn cinder and ash the center,

Satan’s hot breath rides the pale moonlight.

His strength, a demon, will enter.

The place was a warehouse filled with sets for porno movies. B amp; D stuff. . a trapeze. . lots of couches with peculiar stains. Jack didn’t even want to think about it.

The guy was holed up in a little office the size of a broom closet. He wore black Armani slacks and a shiny Lurex shirt, the kind you could use to wrap leftovers if you ran out of plastic wrap.

He didn’t even look up when Jack and Angel entered the room. “No more auditions today, Sheri,” he said. “Tell ’em I’m too tired.”

Jack said, “I think Sheri went home early.”

Angel nodded. “She looked kind of tired herself”

The guy looked up and saw their guns.

“Oh, Jesus. Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

Jack tossed the Little Bitches video onto the guy’s desk. “Jo, Amy, and Beth. We want to know where they live, and we want to know right now.”

The guy stared at the box. “I made this one last year. The girls have moved since then. They’re sisters. I know that much.”

Angel laughed. “You’re telling us that you don’t know where they went?”

“Yeah. . that’s what I’m saying. Jesus, they were a weird bunch. It wasn’t like I was going to send them Christmas cards or anything.”

“Weird how?” Jack asked.

“Every which way. The two older sisters were gun nuts. Real Soldier of Fortune centerfold girls. The younger one was okay, but she had problems, too. Carpal tunnel syndrome. It got so bad that she could hardly give a guy a hand job without whimpering, so I had to let her go-”

Jack laughed, and so did Angel. She said, “Do you believe this?”

“Not hardly,” Jack said.

The guy threw up his hands. “It’s true! I swear to God! Every word!”

“I don’t know.” Angel looked at Jack. He hardly recognized her with that stocking pulled over her head. Her features were all mashed up. She kind of looked like Ellen Barkin.

Angel said, “I guess we’re wasting our time. You want to go?”

“No.” Jack shook his head. “We’d better kill him first.”

“You want to do it?” Angel asked.

“No. I killed the last one.”

“No, you didn’t,” Angel insisted. “You killed a Komodo dragon. That doesn’t count. I killed the redhead.”

They looked at the guy. He was all thawed out under that plastic-wrap shirt, sweating like he’d just stepped out of a microwave.

Angel pointed her gun at the guy’s head. Jack aimed for the heart.

The guy nearly sprang out of his chair. “They live out in the fucking desert, okay? I’ve never been there, okay?”

“Never?” Jack cocked his Colt Python. “You sure about that?”

“Okay!” The guy sputtered. “Okay! I took Eden’s boyfriend some money one time. His name is Harold Ticks. I met him at this highway off-ramp. I got there early. He drove down this dirt road. He said that Eden and her sisters lived on some kind of ranch or something about forty miles out. Maybe fifty. But he didn’t invite me for a fucking visit. . Okay? I’ll draw you a fucking map if you want.”

Jack turned to Angel. “What do you think, partner?”

She smiled. “A map would be good.”

The sun was down, and the woman was gone.

And Tony Katt was conscious again. The doped-up feeling was almost gone. He had sweated it out or bled it out.

But that was dangerous, because Tony was beginning to feel the pain.

He knew he couldn’t take it once it hit him full force. He pulled at his bonds. Barbed wire tore his skin and he grunted but made himself pull again. Yucca leaves scratched his flesh and broke loose, skittering down the tree trunk. The great yucca groaned. . and pain seared Tony’s flesh. . pain he could feel. .

He eased off, sweating hard now, bleeding from fresh wounds. He sucked a deep breath through his mouth.

That was when he saw it. The canteen. His captor had left it by the tumbledown shack.

Maybe it was empty. Probably it was. But if it wasn’t. And if he could get to it. . oh, how he wanted a drink right now.

Tony closed his eyes. He could do this. He was the heavyweight champion of the world. Despite the broken nose, despite the tortures he had suffered while lashed to the tree, he was strong. He’d been training for six weeks. Running six or seven miles a day in the desert sun. Sparring with guys who could take your head off with a single punch. Pounding the bags, doing drills for speed and endurance. .

During that time, he thought he was training for a fight. Now he knew that he had been training for something else.

This was the main event. In this corner: Tony Katt. And across the ring, in the opposite comer: a fucking yucca tree.

And to the winner? Why, a canteen that might very well be empty.

Tony closed his eyes. In just a minute, he’d hear the bell, and he’d come out for round one.

But he didn’t hear a bell. He heard something else.

Some kind of screech.

Tony opened his eyes.

Above him, circling in the red sky, screeching. .

. . circling lower. . and lower still. .

Vultures.