The concrete wall, except for where the gate was, was in the front and on both sides, but at the back there were tangles of barb wire fence fastened to metal poles. In front of the metal poles was a wide ditch, and there was mucky water in the ditch and no telling what else. The ditch ran along the back side and draped in at the corners toward where the barb wire fence met the concrete blocks.
Inside the compound we could see cars and trucks and all manner of equipment, most of it rusted and weather-pocked. There was a Ferris wheel and sections of tracks and fragments of old rides strewn all about like dinosaur bones. The sunlight sticking through the trees coated those “bones” with a blood-red sheen.
In the center of the compound, drawn in a circle, like covered wagons defending themselves against Indian attack, were a series of mobile homes, and near them was a large wooden shed. There were ten homes, and they were all connected by slapdash ply board walls, and in some cases only by porches, from one to the other. There were outhouses out back and around the circle of homes. There was an old-fashioned satellite dish weathered to the color of dirt. There were no trees in the compound, no grass, and no sign of life.
I turned around and looked behind me. More trees, but at the top of the hill and slightly to the back of it was a weather-peeled deer stand. It was set back in some trees. From there you could look down on the compound.
“We have to decide: is it over the wall or through the wire?” Leonard said.
“Wire and that ditch are a lot of trouble.”
“Over the wall?”
“Ten feet is ten feet, and then there are the cameras and the motion-sensor lights.”
“Thing to do, I guess, is go back and tell our bunch what we’ve found and put some plan in action.”
“I don’t see a car or truck out there that looks like it could run,” Leonard said. “That may mean no one is home.”
“You wanting to investigate?”
“Best to come back at night,” Leonard said.
“And if there are traps out there?”
“Someone will be really surprised.”
“We should send Booger across.”
“I was thinking that,” Leonard said.
* * *
We worked our way back to the gate of dried brush and closed it and tried to make it look the way we had found it. After walking out, we got in my car and drove back to the safe house, but we stopped and ordered hamburgers and french fries first. By the time we got back the day had mostly run its course. The safe house was dark. Jim Bob’s truck was out front, and Jim Bob and Booger were on the front porch, sitting on the stoop. I wondered if there had been a moment of bonding. I dismissed that when I got up close and saw that neither was talking. Jim Bob looked unpleasant, and Booger looked bored.
“So, nice fun day?” I asked.
“Well,” Jim Bob said, “it’s been a day.”
“You two boys been playing pretty?”
“Shit, yeah,” Jim Bob said. “Me and him, we’re fucking.”
That made even Booger smile.
“Then there have been no harsh words, slap fights, or water spitting?” Leonard asked.
“So far so good,” Jim Bob said.
“We made some hot chocolate,” Booger said. He seemed very happy and sincere about that event.
“We did,” Jim Bob said. “I brought a few things in my rucksack. What you guys got there?”
“Hamburgers. A few extra if anyone feels really hungry.”
“I could lick shit off the sidewalk if there was undigested food in it,” Jim Bob said.
“This will be better,” I said, and we all went inside.
At the table, in the dark, we ate our meal without turning on the lights. Leonard told them all that we had found and what we feared about more booby traps beyond the ones we knew about. He explained that it would take some work to get inside.
“We just have to prepare for the mission,” Booger said. “Go prepared, go in quick, and then get out.”
“We didn’t see anyone,” I said. “No movement. No signs of life. Not a working car there. Electricity is probably from a generator or generators. No wires were visible outside the compound. Us not seeing them could mean they’re out on their various missions. Or on a singular mission together. Or they’re just real quiet. What I fear is that Dougie may have given me a line of manure, and they may just be a bunch of crazy fucks who like to be alone so they can diddle each other in the ass.”
“No,” said a voice from the dark of the living room. “It’s not like that at all.”
We all nearly turned the table over when we leaped up, grabbing at our weapons. A light was turned on by the armchair near the living room window. In the chair sat a fine-looking woman with long blond hair and a silver dress that fit tight and rode high on her thighs, rode low at her chest, revealing the tops of two creamy white mounds, as they used to say in the sex books. Her long, pale legs were crossed, and one very uncomfortable-looking white shoe with a heel designed by Masochist Incorporated dangled off the end of the toes of her crossed leg.
“Oh, they might be diddling each other in the ass,” she said. “But they aren’t just a bunch of crazy fucks, though they are crazy.”
She smiled. “Hi, Hap.”
“Vanilla Ride,” I said.
47
I have arrived,” she said.
Her message in the greeting cards had worked, and she proved she could still move like a ghost. I wondered how long she had been inside the house, in the dark. I tried to remember if I had even looked in that direction.
Booger stepped forward, ahead of us, eased into the living room and closer to Vanilla.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the cavalry,” she said.
“You?” Booger said.
“Me,” she said.
Jim Bob laughed. “I know you.”
“Yes, you do,” Vanilla said. “Not well, I might add.”
“We can remedy that,” Jim Bob said.
“It’s so sweet of you to think so,” she said.
“You look like a wispy piece of ass, you ask me,” Booger said.
“No one did,” she said.
Booger was still holding the gun he had drawn, and now he pointed it at her and walked over closer. “Shit, I could jerk you up from there, pop you like a whip. Pop you so hard your snatch will snap off and smack the wall.”
“So,” Vanilla said. “How was charm school?”
Booger put the gun in its holster. Vanilla flicked her foot. The shoe popped off and snapped Booger between the eyes. He yelled, lunged forward, ready to grab Vanilla. She was on her feet then, one foot lower than the other due to the height of the one shoe she was wearing. She reached out and took hold of the hand he was reaching with by one finger, quickly, and made a slight movement, pulling her little finger in just below the joint that connected Booger’s finger to his hand.
He hit the floor on his knees hard enough to jar John Wayne’s hairpiece, and Wayne had been dead and in his grave for years.
Vanilla manipulated the finger until Booger, who was trying to reach for his gun with the other hand, was stretched out on his belly. He made a mewing sound that was music to my ears.
Vanilla said, “Up, up, up.”
She turned his hand over, palm to the ceiling, and that made him come to his knees. She turned slightly, putting his hand against her chest next to her throat, and pressed his finger. He came to his feet with a grunt, tried to dance around her in a circle. She went under his arm, still holding his finger, and with a twist of her wrist sent him hurtling over the couch. He hit hard on the other side of it.
When he rose up from behind it he had his gun in his hand. Vanilla had one, too. I had no idea where it came from. It was very small and shiny, and the barrel was pressed up against Booger’s forehead. She said, “I think I snapped you hard enough your dick came off, don’t you?”
“You bitch,” he said.
“Now you know my middle name. D
rop your gun on the couch, or I’m going to give you a small, bullet-size ventilator shaft.”
Booger dropped the gun, and Vanilla reached out and snatched it up with her other hand. Slowly she pulled the gun back from his forehead, slipped it into the gap of the dress at her bosom. She tossed his gun into the chair where she had been sitting.
Smiling at me, ignoring Booger, she said, “Hap, honey, you have any more hamburgers left in there?”
I nodded.
“I don’t normally eat that stuff, but right now I’m hungry. It was a long flight and a long drive, and then I had to sit in the dark all by myself while you boys discussed things.”
“How long have you been here?” Leonard asked.
“Long enough. If this is your idea of security, I can tell you now, you boys are screwed, considering who you’re up against. They aren’t smart in the normal way, but they are stealthy and determined.”
“Never had anyone sneak up on me before,” Booger said, massaging his finger.
“Now you have,” Vanilla said. “And leave the gun in the chair for now, or I’ll shoot you before you can pick it up.”
Booger didn’t move.
“You know who these killers are?” I asked.
“I do.”
“How could you possibly know what we’re up against?”
“I have quite the network, Hap.”
“Baby,” Jim Bob said, “you are my goddamn dream girl.”
Vanilla gave Jim Bob one of her wide, wicked smiles.
“Girl? Girls play with dolls. I’m a woman. I play with men. I can even get them to dress up funny.”
“Better yet,” Jim Bob said.
48
Booger was out from behind the couch now, but he was moving slow. He was glaring at Vanilla. She didn’t seem to care. I knew better, though. She was aware of his every move.
“You can have your gun now,” she said to Booger.
He picked it up and eased it back into its place.
“When did you get in?” I said.
“A bit ago. Bad flight and bad food, and then a drive from the airport in Houston. I came by Harley-Davidson.”
“We didn’t hear you come up,” I said.
“I know that. I hope you boys are going to perk up, otherwise the Canceler—and he is a group, which, from listening to you talk, I see you’ve figured out—is going to have your itty-bitty testicles for lunch.”
“How long were you sitting there?” Leonard asked. “Answer straight.”
“I was here before you guys came home. I was here while Jim Bob and Sore Finger were here farting about on the front porch.”
“In that chair?” Jim Bob said.
“No. In the back, and later in the chair, when it started to get dark.”
“Goddamn,” Jim Bob said. “No one, but no one, sneaks up on me like that.”
“That’s what he said,” Vanilla said, nodding toward Booger.
“You are one lovely, mysterious woman,” Jim Bob said.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Vanilla said.
“Come,” I said. “Sit down at the table. You can have Booger’s chair.”
We all sat down at the table again, except for Booger. He came and sat on the kitchen counter with his legs hanging down. It was the first time I had ever seen him look less than confident, and maybe it was the first time he had ever felt less than confident.
“Me and the Cancelers are in the same business,” Vanilla said. “Or were. I’m what you might call semiretired. We didn’t run in the same circles, exactly, but our circles crossed now and then. Gets right down to it, they’re nothing but backwoods rednecks who like to kill.”
“You’ve done some pretty brutal things yourself,” Leonard said.
“For money. But I’m what you might called reformed. I have a new way of looking at things. Now I only kill those who need killing, or I do a few favors for friends.”
Vanilla reached out and patted my hand. God, I loved Brett, but when Vanilla did that an electricity went through me that made my pants strain at the crotch.
“How good a friends are you two?” Jim Bob said.
“Not as good as I’d like,” she said.
“I don’t get it,” Jim Bob said. “Booger you just made piss himself—”
“She did not,” Booger said.
“Leonard is queer, and Hap looks like he’s been through the mill, and here I sit, a handsome piece of meat wearing manly footwear and a cowboy crown, and you’re patting his hand.”
Vanilla grinned at him.
“I don’t understand it, either, but Hap here stirs me.”
I felt myself blush.
“And I thought I’d seen every strange thing there was to see,” Jim Bob said. “And I once saw a fellow eat a dog turd for a dollar.”
“Goddamn heterosexuals,” Leonard said. “What you guys see sexually in women confuses me.”
“It should,” I said. “But just for the record, me and Vanilla are only friends.”
“Unfortunately,” Vanilla said.
“I agree with the fag,” Booger said. “You guys are making me sick.”
“Enough bullshit,” I said. “Vanilla, you know anything about this bunch that could be helpful?”
“Basically the best thing to do is kill them all.”
“I’m liking you a little better now,” Booger said.
“How nice,” Vanilla said.
“I prefer we turn them in,” I said.
“Please, brother, please,” Leonard said. “That stuff where a guy goes into a psycho’s den and shoots the gun out of his hand and asks him to give himself up—and the guy does—is for old Lone Ranger episodes.”
“I like The Lone Ranger,” Jim Bob said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”
“But,” Jim Bob said, “I have to agree with Leonard.”
“We saw their nest,” Leonard said. “It’s a bitch to navigate.”
Me and Leonard went on to explain in more detail about it. I drew a map on a burger wrapper, drew a kind of design of the compound as we knew it. “As for what’s inside, we have no idea.”
“Seems to me,” Jim Bob said, “the weak spot is that hill you guys said you stood on. You can see right down into the place.”
“We were thinking the same,” I said. “That would be the spot for a lookout.”
“But you don’t know that anyone’s home,” Booger said.
“We didn’t see cars that looked like they would drive,” I said. “So we figure they were out. Hell, for all we know they’re killing folks in Maine right now, packing up testicles to mail home, and won’t be back for a while. They might decide to take a holiday. It could all be futile, but it’s the only plan we got.”
“There was a big building in the middle of the compound,” Leonard said. “Storage shed, maybe, or that could be where they keep their vehicle or vehicles. They may be home and are tucked up in one of those trailers playing cards or stringing their collected testicles on strings for Christmas ornaments for all we know.”
“Hap ought to be posted on the hill,” Leonard said. “He can shoot well. He’d be best with a simple twenty-two rifle. It would do fine from that range, way he shoots. He could kill them with that, and there wouldn’t be a lot of noise. It might make it harder for them to figure where the shot is coming from.”
“It might take a bit more firepower than that,” I said.
“I can do it,” Vanilla said. “I have my own gear, including a sniper rifle. Depending on how far away the hill is, Leonard’s right. A twenty-two might be the thing. These days everyone thinks they need a rocket launcher, but it’s loud and messy and may take out more than you want to take out.”
“I bet that gear of yours was rough to bring in your carry-on,” Jim Bob said.
“I don’t carry it with me. I have suppliers in a lot of places, and I have the money to buy it. I’ll pick it up later.”
“You are so cute when you talk about guns and murd
er,” Jim Bob said.
“I say we lay out the plan, get anything else we might need, and tomorrow night go out there and see if they’re home,” I said. “If they’re not, we might have to regroup at a later date.”
“This is the full run for me,” Booger said. “I just want to have fun and go home. I don’t know I could stand you people again.”
“I don’t know we’d invite you again,” I said. “And if your ass feels chapped, you can leave at any time. Vanilla promises not to twist your finger and make you cry.”
Booger frowned.
“All right, I’m in, now or later,” he said. “Let’s just do this thing.”
49
We bought some supplies the next day and then rested as much as possible at the safe house, except for Vanilla, who brought out the Harley she had hidden in the barn across the way. She told us she needed to make some preparations, that she’d be back in plenty of time. She put on purple leathers and a helmet and rode into town.
When she was gone, Jim Bob looked down the road she had taken, said to Booger, “That little wisp of a girl sure made you eat shit, didn’t she, big’n?”
“She surprised me,” Booger said.
“That’s what she does,” I said. “Surprises folks. Sometimes she surprises them to death.”
“I respect that,” Booger said. “I made a mistake. I underestimated.”
“Being underestimated physically is her greatest strength,” I said. “That and the fact she’s quick and smart and knows some tricks and carries a gun and can shoot the eye out of a gnat in the dark.”
“And she’s got that long blond hair, those sleek legs, and a face like a goddamn rodeo angel,” Jim Bob said.
“You really are smitten,” I said.
“One time with her would bring me closer to God,” Jim Bob said. “I might even start believing.”
Me and Leonard grabbed a couple Dr Peppers, went outside, leaving Jim Bob and Booger in the house. We walked across the street toward the old barn, slipped through the barb wire fence, and kept walking. We hadn’t discussed doing this, we just all of a sudden did it, somehow knowing it was something we both wanted to do.