As the dog's nose disappeared beneath the hem of the bum's checkered kilt, Mr. Gash's forefinger tightened on the trigger. He was waiting for the bum to react—to recoil in surprise, yell in protest, shove the dog away. Something. Anything.
But the bum didn't even flinch; wouldn't take his good eye (or the.357) off Mr. Gash. He merely stood there smiling, a smile so luminous as to be visible on a moonless night.
Smiling, while a filthy 128-pound hairball sniffed at his privates! Mr. Gash was disgusted.
"You're one sick bastard," he spat at the bum.
A voice from behind Mr. Gash: "Look who's talking."
He turned to see Desie at the car door, modeling his snakeskin corset. Assuming that the perverted bum would be transfixed by Mrs. Stoat, Mr. Gash decided to seize his chance.
"You're all sick!" he snarled.
In the moment between uttering those words and pulling the trigger, something unexpected happened to Mr. Gash. The bum shot him twice. The first slug clipped off his right kneecap, toppling him sideways. The second slug, striking him on the way down, went through one cheek and out the other.
Flopping about, Mr. Gash felt a large boot descend firmly on his throat, and the semiautomatic being pried from his fingers. He began to choke violently on a gob of mud, and he was slipping into blackness when a huge fist snatched him by the hair and jerked him upright to a sitting position. There he coughed volcanically until he was able to expel the gob.
But it wasn't mud. It was an important segment of Mr. Gash's tongue, raggedly severed by the bum's second bullet. Only when he endeavored to speak did Mr. Gash comprehend the debilitating nature of his wound.
"Zhhooo zhhaa off mah fugghy ung!"
The bum tweaked Mr. Gash's chin. "Not bad, sport. You could've been a rap star."
"Zhoooo zhhuuhh of a bizhhh!"
The bum hoisted Mr. Gash by the armpits and heaved him headfirst into the leering grille of the Buick. Mr. Gash crumpled into a grimy naked heap on the ground, and he would have preferred to remain there indefinitely until his multitude of fiery pains abated. The bum, however, had other plans.
Twilly was no longer floating down a river. He was lying flat on a tailgate. The good news was, his vision had returned, more or less. Two silhouettes hovered over him: Mrs. Desirata Stoat and a tall hoary stranger with silvery twines growing from each side of his face. The stranger was using a finger to probe the gurgling hole in Twilly's thorax.
"Hold still, son," the man advised.
"Who are you?"
"You call me captain, but for now shut up."
Desie said, "Honey, you lost some blood."
Twilly nodded dully. It wouldn't have surprised him to learn he'd lost every drop. He could barely hoist his eyelids. "You OK?" he asked Desie. "He hurt you?"
"Nothing that three or four months in a scalding bath won't cure. But no, he didn't get what he was after," she said, "thanks to you and McGuinn and this gentleman."
Twilly swallowed a deep breath. "Somebody's been shooting a gun. I smell it."
"Son, I told you to hush," the captain said. Then to Desie: "You got something clean I can use on him?"
She retrieved her bra from inside the car. With a pocketknife, the captain cut a swatch of padding from one of the cups. He folded the foam into a makeshift plug, which he gently worked into Twilly's wound.
"Somewhere in my raincoat," the captain said to Desie, "there's a phone. Can you get it for me?"
Twilly shut his eyes. Moments later Desie took his hands, her touch supernaturally hot. He was losing it; slipping under. He heard the beeps of a keypad, followed by half a conversation. The captain's voice trailed Twilly into a dream, his third ever. He believed it might be his last.
"Jim, you awake?"
In the dream Twilly was on a beach that looked very much like Toad Island. It was straight-up noon.
"Listen, how many helicopters they got waiting around on the governor these days?... Because I need to borrow one. The fastest they got. "
In the dream Twilly was chasing after a black dog, and the dog was chasing after a man. They all were running hard.
"It's the kid, Jim... Gunshot to the chest. Be nice if they could round up a doctor for the ride. "
In Twilly's dream he somehow caught up with the dog, passing it with a terrific kick of speed. Rapidly he gained ground on the man who was running away. Drawing closer, Twilly saw that the man was wearing baggy Jockey shorts and a sleeveless undershirt. He looked scrawny and old, too old to be moving so fast.
"We're still on the island. He can set the chopper down on the beach. "
Twilly tackled the man from behind. He rolled him over in the sand and was about to uncork a punch when he saw it was his father. In the dream, Little Phil Spree blinked up at his son and chirped, "The coast is clear! The coast is clear!"
"I've got the man who shot the boy... I haven't decided yet, Jim, but don't you worry your pretty head."
In the dream the dog began to bark madly and spin; a frantic feral spell. Twilly Spree pulled away from his father and sprung to his feet. All along the shore, as far as he could see in both directions, were shiny mustard-yellow bulldozers. Poised on every dune! Blades Clinting in the sun, the dozers were aligned in ready position at identical angles, like a division of panzers. "The coast is clear!" crooned Twilly's father.
"The woman's doing all right. I expect she'll want to ride along in the whirlybird... She's nodding yes. Also, there's a station wagon here that oughta be disposed of pretty quick. "
Twilly ran headlong for the water. The black dog followed him in, baying insanely. The Gulf was chilly and mirror-calm. When the dog finally quit barking, Twilly could hear his father chanting mindlessly on the beach—and also the fearsome rumble of the bulldozers, chewing up the island. In the dream Twilly waited for the dog to catch up, and together they struck out for the horizon. The sky over the water darkened with birds that were spooked from the island by the din of the earth-moving machines. As he swam farther and farther out to sea, Twilly grew afraid that the gulls and terns and skimmers would start tumbling down like before, blood-spattered and broken. If that happened, he wouldn't be able to bear it—he was too weak and too lost. If the birds came down again, it would be over, Twilly knew. In such a morbid rain, he would drown. He would not survive his own dream.
"Good news. I'm coming in on that chopper, too... I got a little errand to run and you're gonna help me, Lieutenant... Because you wouldn't want to miss it for the world, that's why."
25
Oh, Mr. Gash put up a fight.
Not a great fight, but then again, he was minus a kneecap and most of his tongue. So pain was a factor. Plus he was stark naked, which seriously compromised his freewheeling style of personal combat. Nonetheless, he managed to get off a couple of right hooks that would have knocked most men to their knees.
The punches had no discernible effect upon the bum in the checkered skirt, who at the time was lugging Mr. Gash down the slope of a hill. The hill was not a natural formation, for Toad Island was as flat as a skillet. The hill had been created by earth-moving machines. It was a steep mound of scraped-up soil, scrub and tree stumps; the debris of a road-grading incursion through the pine woods. The bum had slung Mr. Gash over one shoulder, like a sack of lime, and charged down the soft-packed bank. He seemed to be in a hurry. Mr. Gash slugged at him frenetically, landing at least two monster blows—one to the ribs, one to the kidneys. Nothing; not even a grunt of acknowledgment. The bum kept to his mission. Mr. Gash flailed and spluttered incoherently. He knew something bad was coming. He just didn't know what.
At the bottom of the hill, the bum dumped him and turned to go back up.
Now what? thought Mr. Gash. He made one last ferocious swipe at the man but came away with only the pinned-together checkered skirt, which turned out to be a flag of the sort waved at the finish line of automobile races. Mr. Gash used it to sop the blood from the holes in his cheeks. The stump of his tongue stung like a
mother. He lay in the mulch and pondered his options, which were limited. Because his mangled right leg was useless, escape by running, walking or crawling was impossible. He would have to wriggle, and wriggle swiftly, assuming the bum was not finished with him.
With a mournful effort, Mr. Gash rolled himself over. He reached out both arms, dug his fingers into the sodden grit and pulled himself forward until his chin touched his knuckles. Total linear progress: Two feet, max.
Mr. Gash thought: This sucks. He felt the tickle of an insect on his buttocks and flogged at it awkwardly. From the other side of the man-made hill came the chug-chugging of an engine, too rackety to be a car. Steadily it got louder. Mr. Gash craned his neck, squinting into the gloom. Of course he knew what he was hearing. He'd driven one of the damn things himself, the night he took care of that troublemaker Brinkman. Now the rig loomed directly above him, on the crest of the slope. Mr. Gash recognized the blocky square-edged outline. He could smell the acrid exhaust. A tall figure emerged from the cab, then reached back inside—undoubtedly to release the brake.
"Fuugghh me," Mr. Gash groaned.
The bulldozer jolted clangorously downhill. Rabidly, Mr. Gash tried to drag himself out of its path, and he almost made it. Only half of him got pinned under the track; the lower half.
So his lungs still worked, which was encouraging. Another positive sign was the surprising lack of pain below his waist. Mr. Gash concluded that the bulldozer had not crushed his torso so much as embedded it in the spongy turf. His immediate concern were the diesel fumes being belched into his face. His eyes burned and his stomach roiled—obviously the dozer's exhaust pipes had been damaged in the descent. Eventually the machine would run out of fuel and its engine would cut off, but Mr. Gash wondered if he could stay conscious until then, inhaling from a noxious cloud. He felt simultaneously sleepy and convulsive.
A pair of dirt-caked hiking boots appeared before him. Then the bulldozer hiccuped once and went silent. As the smoke dissipated, Mr. Gash raised up on his forearms and drank in the fresh breeze. Crouched beside him was the bum, his glass eye gleaming like a polished ruby in the starlight.
"You're gonna die out here," he said to Mr. Gash.
"Ungh-ungh."
"Yeah, you are, Iggy. It's all over."
'Iggy'? Now the fucker's making fun of my hair! Mr. Gash boiled.
"You're dying even as we speak," the bum said. "Trust me. I know a thing or two about roadkill. You qualify."
"Ungh-ungh!"
"In case you haven't noticed, your ass is lying under a Cat D6. That's twenty tons of serious steel," said the bum. "I don't know about making peace with God, but it might be a good time to tell the young lady you're sorry for trying to hurt her. Want me to go get her?"
Mr. Gash said, "Fuugghh oooh, popff."
The bum stood up. "That's a mighty poor attitude," he said, "for a man who's bleeding out of both ears. Now, if you'll excuse me, Iggy, I've gotta go track down some fool dog."
"FUUGGHH OOOOH!"
Mr. Gash's head sagged. Soon he heard the crunch of the bum's heavy footsteps fading into the woods.
What an idiot, thought Mr. Gash. He should've shot me! I'll be out of here by dawn!
Hastily he began trying to dig himself out from beneath the track of the bulldozer. The task was arduous. Being pinned on his tummy, Mr. Gash was forced to reach behind himself and work his arms like turtle flippers. After twenty grueling minutes Mr. Gash quit in exhaustion. He fell asleep with a centipede skittling across his shoulder blade. He was too weary to slap it away.
Hours later a helicopter awakened him. It was daylight; a high rose-tinged sky. Mr. Gash couldn't see the chopper but he could hear the eggbeater percussion of the rotors as it landed nearby. He lifted his head and gave an unholy wail; pain had found him. Horrible, nerve-shearing, bone-snapping pain. He observed, despairingly, that all his frantic digging had accomplished little. A pitiable few handfuls of dirt had been scalloped around each leg, upon which the Caterpillar D6 remained steadfastly parked. Mr. Gash could not drag himself a single millimeter out from under it. After a third attempt, he gave up.
Instead of escape, he now focused on survival. The helicopter, of course. It would be lifting off soon—Mr. Gash could tell by the accelerating whine of the engines. Anxiously he scanned the ground within his reach, searching for something, anything, to draw the pilot's attention. His eyes fixed upon a silky-looking wad in the muck. It was the crazy bum's skirt—the checkered racing flag, now lavishly spotted with Mr. Gash's dried blood. He snatched it up and shook off the loose dirt.
With a head-splitting roar, a black-and-gray jet helicopter appeared over the spires of the pines. With both hands Mr. Gash raised the checkered flag. He began a wildly exaggerated wave, flopping his upper body back and forth like a rubber windshield wiper. It was a completely new experience for Mr. Gash: desperation. He swung the flag with the fervor of a drunken soccer hooligan, for he feared the pilot couldn't see him, grime-smeared and half-interred beneath a bulldozer.
He was right. The chopper circled the clearing once but didn't hover. It banked sharply to the north and hummed off.
The flag dropped from Mr. Gash's hands. He was in the purest mortal agony. From the waist down: dead. From the waist up: every cell a burning cinder. His head thundered. His arms were cement. His throat was broken glass on the scabby nub of his tongue. Sickening trickles ran down the fuzz of both jaw-lines, all the way to Mr. Gash's chin—warm blood from his ears.
That fucking troublemaker of a bum had been right. It was over.
Or maybe not.
Mr. Gash noticed a small object on the ground, something he couldn't have spotted in the dark. It lay a few precious feet out of reach, partially hidden by a palmetto frond.
It was black and rectangular and plastic-looking, like the remote control of a VCR, or the clip to a Glock.
Or a cellular telephone.
Mr. Gash used a broken branch to retrieve it. Woozily, he mashed at the power button with his forefinger. The phone emitted a perky bleep and lit up with a peachy glow. Mr. Gash stared at the numbers on the keypad. A desolate smirk came to his whitening lips.
Palmer Stoat said, "Good news, Bob."
"Better be."
They met at noon in Pube's; this time in a champagne booth reserved for private friction dancing.
Stoat said, "Remember the other night we were here? Well, I got a date afterward with one of the Pamela Anderson Lees."
"You're a pig," Robert Clapley remarked mirthlessly.
"Back to the bachelor life for me. I'm moving on!"
"That's your news?"
"No," said Palmer Stoat. "The news is big."
Clapley looked as if he hadn't slept in a year. Sullenly he fingered the gold link chain on his neck. A dancer approached the table and introduced herself as Cindi with an i. Clapley gave her a ten and sent her away.
Stoat said, "I take it you haven't found your Barbies."
"They called me."
"Hey! It's a start."
"From the residence of Mr. Avalon Brown." Robert Clapley took a slug of bourbon. "Mr. Brown is recruiting investors for his newest feature-film project. Katya and Tish thought it would be nice of me to help out. They, of course, would get starring roles in the movie."
"Which is titled... "
"Double Your Pleasure."
"Ah. An art film." Palmer Stoat smiled commiseratingly. "And how much have you agreed to invest?"
"For a hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Avalon Brown promises to make me a full partner," Clapley said. "For a tenth of that, I could have him killed."
Inwardly, Stoat shuddered. A messy homicide scandal could wreck everything: the Shearwater deal, Dick Artemus's reelection chances and (last but not least) Stoat's own career.
He lay a consoling hand on Clapley's shoulder. "Bob, for the last time, forget about those two tramps. You've got to move on, the way I'm moving on."
"I can't."
"Sure you can. Join me o
n the Palmer pussy patrol."
Clapley said, "Know what I've got in my pants?"
"Dolls?"
"Righto."
"How many?" Stoat asked dispiritedly.
"Two in each pocket."
"These would be the Vibrator Barbies?"
"Screw you. Palmer. I miss the twins. I want them back," Robert Clapley said, waving off another dancer. "They say I don't help with the movie, they're cutting off all their hair and moving to Kingston."
"Sunny Jamaica."
"World headquarters of Avalon Brown Productions."