Big Trouble (23 page)

WALTER was so frustrated, he was about to tear his arm out of its socket. His partner was in a
car chase
. Involving
armed robbers
. This was something Walter had dreamed about ever since he'd gotten into police work, and he was handcuffed to an
entertainment unit
. With his
own handcuffs!

Using the results of hundreds of grunting, sweating hours in the weight room, Walter gave a mighty yank on the entertainment unit, causing it to topple forward hard, its weight dragging both Walter and Arthur to their knees. The massive unit crashed to the floor, the glass shelves smashing and the stereo components bouncing across the room. But the frame remained intact; the thick steel tubes were welded solidly together.

“What the fuck did you do
that
for?” shouted Arthur.

“I'm trying to break this thing,” said Walter. “Don't you wanna get outta here? Don't you wanna go help your family?”

Arthur said nothing. The truthful answer was no.

“Shit
,
”
said Walter, yanking at his handcuff again. To Arthur, he said, “We need a telephone.”

“They ripped them all out of this part of the house,” said Arthur.

“You got a phone in the bedroom?” asked Walter. “Down the hall?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, “but how're we gonna . . .”

“Help me get this thing up,” said Walter, struggling to lift the frame.

“We can't move this thing that far,” said Arthur.

“We're gonna try,” said Walter.

“You can't make me,” said Arthur.

Walter shoved the frame hard sideways; it hit Arthur in the shoulder.

“OW!” said Arthur.

“You help me move this thing,” said Walter, “or I'll shove you into that wall and crush you like a bug.”

With great effort, most of it provided by Walter, they got the entertainment unit upright and began dragging and pushing it toward the hall, where Walter discovered that it was too tall for the hallway ceiling.

“SHIT!” he said. “We hafta get outside.”

“
What?
” said Arthur.

“We hafta get outside, yell for the neighbors,” said Walter.

“
Outside?
” said Arthur. “Attached to
this
thing? Are you outta your fucking
mind?
”

But Walter wasn't listening. He looked toward the foyer; there was no way the entertainment unit would go through the front door. So how had they gotten it into the house in the first place? He looked toward the family room, and saw the answer.

“This way,” he said, giving the entertainment unit a mighty and purposeful yank.

“YOU see anything?” asked Leonard. He and Henry were in the dense vegetation that started at the edge of the Herk patio.

“No,” said Henry. “But I'm
hearing
plenty.”

“Yeah,” said Leonard. “Sounds like they're breakin' furniture in there. Either that, or rap music.”

“Whatever it is,” said Henry, “I'm about ready to . . . Hey, look at that.”

“Jesus,” said Leonard, as the grunting, struggling figure of Walter Kramitz came into view, dragging the entertainment unit. “Is that a
cop?
”

“Miami PD,” said Henry. “Big boy. What the
hell
is he doing?”

“Looks like he's attached to some kind of . . . I'll be goddamn,” said Leonard, as Arthur came into view.

“There's our boy,” said Henry. “Leads an interestin' life, don't he?”

They watched as the large, red-faced police officer dragged the even-larger entertainment unit, trailed by the reluctant Arthur Herk, relentlessly toward the very same sliding-glass door that Henry had shot a hole through just the other night. Somebody had put a piece of duct tape over the hole.

When they got to within a few feet of the door, Henry said, “I made a decision.”

“Which is?” asked Leonard.

“Which is, I'm gonna take our boy out.”

“
Now?
” asked Leonard. “While he's attached to a
cop?
”

“Yup,” said Henry. “The cop can't do anything to us, cuffed to that thing. And I wanna get this job over with and get outta here. The longer we stay down here, the weirder it gets.”

“You got that right,” said Leonard. “This is Weirdsville Fuckin' USA, this town.”

“So we're gonna do this,” said Henry, raising his rifle, “and then we're bookin' to the airport.”

“Amen,” said Leonard, flailing futilely at a mosquito. “Airport sounds
real
good to me.”

ROGER the dog was not sure what to do. On the one hand, he had the Enemy Toad to growl at. But he also had people coming toward him from inside the house, and they might have food. Plus, the other people, the ones he'd greeted earlier at the far end of the yard, had come closer. Roger recalled, somewhere in his primitive brain circuitry, that these people had tasted pretty good. Maybe he should check them out again! But what about the toad? What about the people in the house? So many decisions!

WALTER tried to slide the patio door open; it was locked, with the kind of lock that requires a key to open.

“Where's the key?” he asked Arthur.

“I dunno,” said Arthur. He was very unhappy. His wrist was bleeding, from where the handcuff chafed.

“OK, then,” said Walter, shoving the entertainment unit so it was parallel to the patio door. “On three, we're gonna smash this through the door.”

“Like fuck we are,” said Arthur.

Walter braced himself. “One,” he said.

“WHAT'RE they doing?” asked Leonard.

“They're making an excellent target,” said Henry, sighting through the rifle scope.

“TWO,” said Walter.

“This is
glass,
you moron!” said Arthur. “You're gonna get us killed!”

“Three,” said Walter, and with all his considerable strength he toppled the entertainment unit forward. At exactly that moment, two things happend. One was that Henry squeezed the trigger. The other was that Roger, having decided that he had just enough time in his busy schedule to check in with his new friends, ran headfirst into Henry's groin. The result was that the bullet, instead of passing through Arthur's skull, passed just over it. It could be argued that this was actually unfortunate for Arthur, in light of what happened next, which was that Arthur, dragged by the heavy steel shelf through the shattering window, was hurled forward headfirst to the patio, where he landed, dazed, facedown in Roger's dish, with his lips and nose pressed firmly against the Enemy Toad.

The toad, which was not
about
to share Roger's food, immediately emptied the glands behind its eyes, emitting two substantial, milky, highly hallucinogenic squirts of bufotenine directly into Arthur's face. Arthur moaned and yanked his head out of the dish. The toad went back to eating.