“A friend’s,” I told him. “Borrowed.”
“Don’t you want it parked in front of your room?”
“Nah. In fact, if anyone comes in asking, you don’t know who it belongs to.”
“Fine with me. You wanna go back to your room, I’ll switch your laundry over when it’s time. I gotta be here anyway.”
I thought I might take him up on that, but then again, I had a pretty good view of the car and the room from a chair in the little lobby. “Know what, I gotta grab something from the car. I’ll be right back. You want anything from the diner? Cup of joe?”
The kid was happy that I thought he was old enough to drink coffee and got a big grin. “Please,” he said. “Black.”
“Yeah, I take mine with cream and sugar,” I told him.
“Yeah, me too,” said the kid, now that he had permission.
Looking at the Ford, I remembered that the Walther was still under the seat where the Cheese threw it when the cop stopped us, and I was getting a little of the heebie-jeebies about someone being on our tail, even though we were off the main highway, so I pocketed the gat. I peeked into the room before I headed back to the front desk. The moonman was in his chair, tuning his death ray with a pair of pliers. I called to the Cheese that I was going to watch the laundry. I looked for the pint of Old Tennis Shoes to share with the kid behind the desk, but it appeared that the Cheese was enjoying it in her bath. Oh well, probably not a great idea saucing up the desk clerk anyway. The moonman clicked at me as I closed the door, like “not to worry.” I was worried.
I grabbed a couple of coffees from the little diner next door and sat in the lobby talking baseball and movie dames with the kid until my laundry was done. The kid noticed that I was looking out.
“You want me to buzz the room anyone starts sniffing around?” he asked.
“Can you do that?”
“Yeah, until ten. After ten, I just turn on the no-vacancy sign and there’s no one on the desk till morning.”
“That would be swell, kid.” I slid a buck on the counter for his trouble and headed back to the room with my bundle of laundry. When I let myself in, the Cheese was reclining on the bed in just her slip. The moonman was nowhere in sight.
“I built him a nest,” said the Cheese. “In the bathtub.”
I snuck over, eased open the bathroom door, peeked in. The moonman was relaxing among some pillows and a blanket, just the top of his gray noggin showing over the edge.
“What about his blaster?” I whispered.
“Wrapped around it like it’s his teddy bear. He’s asleep. Sleeps with his eyes open, but you can tell because he snores a little. Kind of creepy.”
“I could use forty winks myself,” I told her, stretching.
“Yeah, me too,” she said. “But not quite yet.” She patted the spot next to her on the bed, toasted me with the water glass she was nursing with an inch of bourbon in it. I put the gun on my nightstand and I was down to my boxers and beside her in two blinks.
“That bathroom got a lock on it?” I asked.
“From the inside,” she said.
As if the moonman had heard the cue, the lock clicked.
“You think he can read our minds?”
“If he can, right now he’s reading about giving you the razzmatazz,” she said.
“What if he has given us superpowers, like in the comic books?”
“Could be. You do know your way around a clitoris.”
“I read a lot when I was a kid.”
“That why you furrow your brow when you’re at it?”
“That might be the moonman’s fault.”
“He doesn’t even have eyebrows,” she said.
“Inspiration, then,” I told her.
It was different than before. Not so hungry. Sweet. We fell asleep in each other’s arms. I woke up with the barrel of a .45 jammed in my temple.
* * *
I jumped to a sitting position but the goon in the black suit and sunglasses pressed the gun to my forehead. “Easy,” said Black Suit.
Stilton came awake with a start, but before she could draw a breath to scream, Black Suit said, “You make a sound, he gets it.” She settled, pulled the sheet up around her neck.
“Who’s in here?” said a guy in a blue suit and sunglasses, rattling the bathroom doorknob. A blue suit? These were not the guys I saw outside of Sal’s. This was a different team of tax men.
“No one,” I said. “I accidentally locked it when I got up to take a leak.”
Blue Suit shrugged, like, yeah, right. He shouldered open the door and I could hear the jamb crack. I took the opportunity to look for the Walther on the nightstand. It wasn’t there.
Blue Suit shook his head. “Nothing.”
Did he look in the tub? He was a government agent or something. He would look in the tub, right?
“Where’s the subject?” asked Black Suit, stepping back from me so he could cover both of us with the .45.
“What subject?” I said. “It’s just us.” I noticed there was no light coming in at the side of the curtains and I couldn’t get a look at my watch on the nightstand, but I guessed it must be past ten o’clock and that’s why the kid at the desk hadn’t warned us. Or maybe they croaked the poor mug. I got kind of sored up at the thought of it.
“Maybe you should hit him,” said Blue Suit.
Black Suit backhanded me across the eyebrow with the .45. There was a flash of pain, the Cheese screamed. I could feel blood running into my eye.
“Stop it, you fucks,” said the Cheese. “I put it in an ice machine at the Bohemian Grove and then I hightailed it out of there. That’s the last I seen of it.”
I felt my heart sink. Our only chance was if we hadn’t seen the moonman. Black Suit looked at Blue Suit, then at us. He said, “We can take you with us, make you show us.”
“Just leave us alone,” she said. “It’s there.”
“We don’t have to take him,” said Blue Suit.
“What’s with the blue suit?” I asked. “They give you hand-me-downs? You haven’t earned your black suit yet?”
“There are no rules,” said Blue Suit.
“Yeah?” I said. “Then why do you mopes wear sunglasses at night?”
Then I spotted it: The Walther was on the wingback chair where the moonman had been sitting. They must have just thrown it there. A long way to go with two goons with .45s between me and it, but it was loaded and the safety was off, just like I left it.
“None of your business,” said Black Suit.
“I suppose you are the ones who crashed the general’s plane. What I don’t get is why you put Sal in there? He was already dead.”
Black looked at Blue, Blue looked back at him. They didn’t even know why.
“And why did you put Pearl in there?” asked Stilton. “She didn’t even see your stupid moonman.”
“That was irregular,” said Blue. “Orders from someone outside the organization. Not under our normal purview.”
Black looked at him like he was going to shoot his partner. That’s when I was sure we were not going to get out of there alive. Their .45s weren’t cocked. I’d have maybe one second to dive across the room, get the Walther, and hope they missed the first shot they could get off. I took a couple of deep breaths, thinking of a distraction.
Like she read my mind the Cheese said, “Hey, fuckstick!” and threw the sheet off her in one grand swoop.
They were stunned for an instant. I tried to make it across the room in a dive, cover maybe twelve feet, over the edge of the bed to the chair, hoping my hand would land on the Walther as I fell to the floor. I leapt, eyes on nothing but the gun. Stilton screamed. Blue Suit stepped back and sighted me in as Black Suit trailed me and cocked his weapon.
Which is when the moonman came through the door and blasted the cocksuckers.
24
Two P-Phooms
P-PHOOM! P-PHOOM!
Blinding flashes, then great fed-scented mushroo
m clouds were washing across the ceiling. There was enough heat from the flashes that I felt like most of my small hairs on the side where Blue Suit used to be were singed. Where a second ago stood federal agents now were two little piles of white ash, each with a pair of sunglasses resting in it. The tax men, guns and all, were gone.
The moonman clicked furiously in celebration, or to ask us if we were okay, or something. Who knows? He clicks when he’s happy. I hoped. Maybe where he’s from they just go out vaporizing stuff for fun and this was like bowling for him.
“You okay?” asked the Cheese. I was in a tangle on the floor between the bed and the chair. She got out of bed and knelt over me, brushed her thumb over my eyebrow, which smarted more than somewhat.
“Ow!”
“You might need stitches. I’ll grab a washcloth, I can’t see how bad it is.” She got up, went to the bathroom. The moonman clicked.
“Maybe put your slip on or something, Toots. The moonman is getting an eyeful.”
She came back with a warm washcloth and wiped at my eyebrow as I winced and acted brave. “Oh, it’s not so bad,” she said. “You might have a shiner in the morning. Hold this on it until it stops bleeding.”
I did. I finally got a look at my watch. It was one in the morning, which explained why the kid at the desk hadn’t warned us. I took a peek out into the parking lot. Looked like there was one other car besides Jimmy Vasco’s Ford coupe and the big black Chrysler the tax men came in.
“Stilton, can you drive?”
“Absolutely,” she said. She was pulling on her dress, and had definitely gotten the message that we couldn’t hang around.
“I hope they left the keys in that,” I told her.
I got dressed and grabbed some change off the nightstand. “Look, I need to make some calls. Can you sweep up these guys? The moonman is tracking them all over the place.” The moonman was tracking fed ashes all over, leaving his little three-toed footprints on the green linoleum.
“I live to clean up your messes,” said the Cheese. Turns out, she didn’t have a naturally crooked smile; that was just the look she had when she was busting my chops, which it appeared was most of the time.
“He can help,” I told her. “It’s his mess.”
Like the kid on the desk had told me, there was no one in the office after ten, so there was no one to work the switchboard. I wanted to make an outgoing call, I had to go to the phone booth out by the road. Felt a little spooky standing out there in a glass box in the dark, on a deserted road with the stars splattered out over me like a suicide’s brains on the ceiling, the neon no-vacancy sign buzzing like a barber’s clippers, but I was comforted by the fact that a creature from outer space was helping my girlfriend sweep up two vaporized government murderers in our room, so it was highly unlikely that things were going to get much weirder in the near future. I dropped some coins and called Jimmy’s Joynt. Jimmy wasn’t there, but when they asked who was calling and I told them, Butch, the host, came on the line.
“Jimmy told me to tell you that she’s with your lonesome friend until further notice. That mean anything to you?”
“Yeah, Butch,” I told her. “Thanks, I owe you a drink when I see you.”
I jangled some change, talked to an operator, and Lone Jones’s mother came on the line. “He at work, Sammy. You want to talk to this little fella?”
“Yes, ma’am. Please.”
Jimmy Vasco came on the line. “Yeah,” said Jimmy, “I shoulda listened to you. Myrtle forgot some of her girlie things, so she came by the club to pick them up in the morning. Luckily your pal Lone came with her. Those mugs you warned us about showed up and your pal scrambled their eggs for them good. Left them in their car with stars and birdies flying around their noggins. Thought it was a good idea to lay low here until the coast is clear.”
“Good call, Jimmy. You and Myrtle okay?”
“Yeah, didn’t even scuff our shoes. How about you? You find your squeeze?”
“She’s with me now. Fine as frog fur.”
“Myrtle will be glad to hear it. She’s been worried sick.”
“We’re coming back to town. Hold tight until you hear from me.”
“Will do, but I need to get back to work. Place ain’t called Jimmy’s Joynt for nothing.”
“Soon,” I told her. I rang off, juggled some more change, talked to an operator who connected me with Sal’s. Bennie shoulda been winding down his shift. I looked up and saw the Cheese coming across the parking lot, her red-on-white polka-dot dress and blonde hair catching the moonlight, making her shine against all the gray gravel and black asphalt like the ghost of razzmatazz past. She stepped into the booth with me, crushed me against the glass, and closed the door.
On the line, Bennie the backup bartender said, “Sal’s.”
“Bennie, it’s Sammy, you got anything for me?”
“Yeah,” said Bennie. “Just a second.” I heard late-night bar sounds in the background, a murmuring slur of sad. “Here you go. A guy named Lonius called when I first came in. Said to call him. And another guy called a couple of hours ago, wouldn’t say who he was, but he said you’d know. He said you can reach him at your place. He said he has the kid. You got a kid, Sammy?”
“Nah, Bennie. Thanks.” I hung up.
“They have the kid,” I said to the Cheese.
“Oh no!” said the Cheese. “What kid?”
* * *
“You stinkin’ wallabies are in hot water now,” said the kid.
Hatch looked to Bailey, confused. “Small kangaroo,” Bailey explained.
“No it ain’t. You’re a dirty liar,” said the kid, who was bound to a chair with some of Sammy’s ties.
“Can we gag him?” asked Hatch.
“If we gag him we can’t interrogate him,” said Bailey.
“I ain’t telling you nothin’. I ain’t a rat fink. You wait till Sammy finds out about this. He beat a mug to death once just for talkin’ jazz at me. Didn’t even break a sweat.”
“Can we just shoot him?” asked Hatch.
“Sammy hit a guy so hard once, he pooped his kidneys out. Right out his butt.”
Bailey wished for the tenth time since the morning that the giant lesbian hadn’t taken their guns.
“I told my uncle Howie about you guys last time you was here and he said you guys were probably morons from Salt Lake City. Stupid black suits. Morons, that’s what you are.”
“No, kid, we’re not,” said Bailey.
“My ma had a record of that Moron Tallywacker Choir singin’ Christmas music. Sounded like someone hurtin’ a dog. I broke it and melted it on the radiator.”
“Why don’t you give it a rest, kid?” said Bailey.
“What, you think Sammy’s gonna call? You don’t even know how smart he is. He’s way ahead a you morons. You’re probably in his trap right now.”
The phone rang. Bailey picked it up. “Yeah?”
“That you, Sammy?” the kid yelled. “I didn’t tell these dirty bungalows nothin’!”
“So you got him,” Sammy said. “What do you want?”
“You have the subject?”
“Your moonman? Yep.”
“Shh, shh, shh,” shushed Bailey. “The subject.”
“Don’t shush me, you son of a bitch. You kidnapped a kid.”
“Fine. You want to see the kid alive. We want the subject.”
“That might work,” Sammy said.
“It has to work. Is the subject in the same condition it was in when you—when you first encountered it?”
“Meaning what? Dead? Yeah, it’s still dead.”
“It is?” Then the report about the enlarged lesbian will need to be amended, he thought. The venom might have been a passive ability. The subject didn’t have to be alive to poison the saloon owner. “Right,” Bailey said. “Look, you have to be careful moving the subject.”
“Yeah, the subject is pretty hard to move,” Sammy said. “I don’t know . . .”
“We’ll handle it. Just avoid contact with any venomous spines or—try not to touch it.”
“Don’t give ’em nothin’, Sammy!” the kid yelled. “I got these cocksuckers on the ropes.”
“Well, sounds like you have everything under control,” Sammy said. “I’ll call you later.”
Bailey looked at the phone receiver, looked at Hatch, looked at the kid, looked back at Hatch.
“What?” asked Hatch. “What? What? What?”
“He hung up,” said Bailey.
“He’s got ya now, ya rotten backhoes,” said the kid. “You goons are gonna die like dogs in the dirt. And he’s gonna kill you slow and watch you suffer.”
Hatch looked to Bailey. “You don’t think he’d come here, do you? I mean, we don’t have weapons. Maybe we should change locations.”
“Then who’s going to answer the phone when he calls?”
“Maybe I can procure some weapons,” said Hatch.
“He’s a bartender, not a gunfighter,” said Bailey.
“Like dogs in the dirt,” said the kid.
* * *
“What happened?” asked the Cheese.
“They need some time to think,” I told her.
“But they got the kid from your building?”
“They want the moonman in exchange.”
“They can’t have him.”
“Thing is, these guys have never seen the moonman. On the phone just now, one told me to avoid any poisonous spines.”
“He doesn’t have spines.”
“Exactly. They don’t know what he looks like. And I got the feeling they’re not sure if he’s dead or alive. I think they think the moonman killed Sal. The two tax men the moonman blasted didn’t have any idea why they put Sal’s body on the plane. They weren’t the ones who took Sal’s body. The guy on the phone was the one that saw Sal. I guess, because I had him on ice already, they must have thought I was preserving him for an autopsy or something, and when the tax men saw the snakebite, they thought the moonman did it.”
“But the moonman was still in a cooler up at the Grove then.”
“I don’t think they know that. These guys are all working in the dark. They got some powerful friends, but whoever they’re working for isn’t telling them everything. They aren’t even talking with their own guys.”