God Is a Bullet (12 page)

Bob tosses the coins as Case goes over to the picnic table where she left the guns. The dogs glide along beside her, following the smell of food. “You’re making that poor motherfucker toss the coins,” she says.

The Ferryman has Bob repeat the toss till he has the proper configuration of lines and half-lines for the correct hexagram or sign, which he then begins to artfully paint onto Bob’s skin above each taloned edge of the wing, or shroud.

When the Ferryman doesn’t answer she hits him with, “Fortune-telling bullshit.”

“Shut the fuck up, girl. I’m doing nothing. He throws the coins. He decides the fate. I only report the facts.”

“Fortune-telling bullshit.”

“You told me to do a good job here and—”

“I know. How much longer?”

He takes another hit off his joint. She can see he’s totally ripped. And when he’s like that he could go on forever, or till he runs out of flesh.

“Shut the fuck up, girl,” he says again, mouthing silently the words.

She sits on the edge of the table and wraps some bread around a piece of sorry-looking spiced chicken. She tries to get a little food down, watching that stoned fuck go about his business. She gets a flash. In her pocket she can feel the snapshot of Lena she stole clip against her skin as the dogs grab at the space around her till they are one beastly shape with half a dozen heads snarfing up the crumbs that fall across her jeans.

Bob watches Case put the plate down and begin a final quality-control check of the weapons. She takes the revolver first. He’s got a pretty good eye for guns and can see the pistol she’s holding might be a Ruger, a 100 maybe, with some kind of modified grip that looks to be partly chipped.

A revolver’s beauty, beyond its durability, is its simplicity of operation. It looks clean enough as she puts the wheelgun
through its paces. He watches the cylinder turn, the trigger and hammer click-clock in a smooth crisp motion.

But it’s her hand and fingers that he notices most. She goes about her chore with a grace and ease that is disturbing in its beauty. Her face is not taut, her muscles do not stretch. She is like a moment from some cooled-out Zen school.

Case lays the revolver down and takes up a smaller automatic. Maybe a Smith and Wesson, or a Firestar. It could be a Walther .380. Whatever it is, she’s no fool. She has picked two always guns.

She takes a magazine pouch from her pocket, slides an extra magazine into it, then hitches it to her belt. She takes the automatic and goes through the reloading process. He watches her every move checking the weapon’s performance: palm down on the floor plate, index finger extended down the mag pouch, thumb circled around the body, goddamn her—her hand comes up quick, the index finger offhand and even with the top bullet in the mag, the gun turned in the shooting hand to let the thumb depress the mag release—god-fuckin’-damn, she’s going through your basic government-issue speed reload, and those ex-junkie’s fingers have at it, and she’s not watching the gun, either, she’s doing it like a blind state trooper. Her hand flats the top of the slide and tugs it back, and she’s ready to hot-load some ass.

There is a rawness to how she moves. Hand and weapon turn a series of mechanical moves into some poetic dance. She is sweating from the sun, sweating under her arms. Even the shiny metal of the gun has begun to look a little wet with her perspiration. And Bob’s not immune to it. It’s as if some door marked “forbidden” had opened just a breath and he saw something, felt something, before it closed again.

When she’s done she lays the automatic beside the revolver. She takes another piece of chicken and sticks it between
her teeth. She squats down and goes face-to-face with the mangiest scrap of dog in the pack and lets it snap the meat right out from between her teeth.

She stands and, taking a weapon in each hand, approaches Bob. She holds both weapons up. “Well, Bob Whatever, which one of these is you?”

He sees the automatic is actually a lightweight Colt .45. He glances at the revolver.

“That a Ruger?”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll do.”

“How would I have guessed that would be your choice?”

The gun does a half loop between her fingers, and she hands it to him, grip first.

“I see they’re both always guns,” he says.

“If you can’t hide them in your skivvies, they ain’t worth dick.”

She nudges up to the Ferryman. “How much longer this poor bastard got with the needle?”

The Ferryman is working the sixth talon up with a sign of the I Ching. “One more after this.”

Case slips the automatic into her belt, reaches for the pack of cigarettes in Bob’s shirt pocket. She lights the cigarette, heads over to the trunk where the guns are kept. “Fortune-telling bullshit,” she says.

The Ferryman kicks back. “Bob Whatever rolls the coins. I don’t ask. I don’t answer. Time does that for me. For us all.”

He leans forward as if to share a secret, but he says nothing. Using his claw as a roach clip, he rubs his nose across the upcurling smoke. His breath chugs through a healthy snort. Then he winks at Bob. “Last stop before the big dance. Right, Bob Whatever?”

“Just get this over with.”

“Okay, Bob Whatever.”

Case balances herself on the rim of the trunk, and sitting there rummages through boxes of ammunition till she finds
.45 shells. She starts loading her extra magazines. “Fortune-telling bullshit,” she repeats.

“That’s not what Jung said, girl. Nope. He knew that divining techniques were seen as foolish arcane games. But to him there was a sublime connection. As a matter of fact, he said they were based on the sound principles of synchronicity.”

Case finishes finding a home for the bullets. “That’s a lot of fuckin’ cha-cha. You got too much smoke in your head.”

The Ferryman eyes her coolly. “Let’s look at this by way of example. Take you two. Just a couple of pilgrims driving down from Mallsville to pick up some groceries and be on your way. Who knows what you’re looking for? Who knows what you’ve found? Who knows was this just a random stop?”

Case sees now he’s fucking with her head just enough to let her and Bob know the game isn’t happening without him knowing. Bob’s had it. He sits forward.

“It’s done.”

“One more throw will tell it.”

Case gets up. “Leave it.”

“You won’t be able to leave it undone. No way. You’ll have to know.” Bob pushes away the Ferryman’s arm. The Ferryman twists around like some disordered aesthetic and wipes at the sky with his needle. “I have seen too many helicopters dance through spitfire and not fall. And others yet they fall … I always wondered what is the chance chance plays in any of it. There’s no difference. There’s always more helicopters. And more spitfire.” He begins to riff Dylan: “ ‘And I just sit here, watchin’ the river flow.’ ”

Case comes over and takes the needle from the Ferryman. They stare at each other. The wind ripples over the tarp awning, which lifts and bellies like a snake traversing soft ground.

Bob goes to get up. Case stops him. Then she straddles him and sits on his lap.

“What are you doing?” he says.

“One final touch.”

She brings the electric needle up toward his face. He stops her cold, pushes her hands away.

“Not my face.”

“Come on, daddy. You’re gonna be in good company. All my lovers have one.”

Bob sits alone in the cab of the Dakota daubing his cheek with a handkerchief bathed in alcohol. He looks into the rearview mirror. Beneath his left eye, about three quarters of an inch long, are the two wavy parallel lines Case put there. The symbol of the Nile, of the Egyptian god Hapi. The sign of Aquarius. Her month, her mark. With one slight vamp. The top line is black, the bottom line red.

She walks over and leans in the cab. “Time for money.”

He reaches under the seat where he keeps his money belt hidden. He starts to peel out two thousand in bills.

“I need three.”

“ID, two handguns, two shotguns, and a pair of backup handguns … two thousand. That was the deal.”

“Still is.” She leans forward, glances at the Ferryman. He is moving slowly with his dogs. A bottle of tequila hanging from his claw, his fancy Bijan pistol in his hand. The sun is arcing down behind him. Murderous red. The Ferryman has himself a shot of tequila, then begins to fire off into the distance. The dogs go wild on the concussion and begin to leap and squirrel and kick up dust.

“What a piece of work,” says Bob. Then, eyeing Case, “Why the extra grand?”

“He knows.”

Bob stiffens up in his seat. He starts forward. Case puts a hand against his chest.

“You take a walk. Let me deal with him, okay?”

“And if he doesn’t deal?”

“We take his arm and leg. Then we start killing the dogs one at a time. He’ll get the picture.”

“Alright,” says the Ferryman, “let’s put all the friggin’ chitchat into perspective. What are you doin’ here with that sheep?”

Case stands beside the Ferryman looking out toward Furnace Creek. She can make out Bob walking the ruins of the old trailer where Cyrus was raised and then heading on toward the stone chimney. They are all half lost in the falling light. Just incidental pieces of some greater darkening headlands. She takes a roll of bills, twenty hundreds round, and holds them up. The Ferryman hoists his tequila bottle up under his arm and claws the money.

“Well, why you with that sheep? You’re up to something. Syncro-fuckin’-nicity, Case. What were you looking for in the house?”

“See if this math works.” She reaches into her pocket and takes out a folded-up newspaper article about the Via Princessa murder. She flips it open and holds it up against the wind for him to see. “One,” she says. Then she reaches into her other pocket and takes out the snapshot of Lena and holds that up. “Plus one … equals Cyrus.”

“Holy Christ, girl.”

“Twelve … twenty-one … ninety-five. It’s right there in your handiwork.”

“Did you drop through the looking glass or what, Alice?”

“Right through. Bad news, too. They’re humming the same bleak story at both ends of the rabbit hole. I need to find them.”

The Ferryman works the money into his pocket, then gets his claw around Case’s arm. “I don’t give a shit what happens. Not to you. Not to Cyrus. Not to the world. But, you’re just starting to get it together. Do you have a death wish? Screw the sheep. Cyrus, too. He’s just another breed of
sheep. I thought you saw through all that bullshit when you split from him. But this … They will leave your ass behind, girl.”

Case reaches into her back pocket, takes out another roll of bills, one thousand round.

Bob has started up the hill toward them. It’s time for the Ferryman to decide. He knows if he doesn’t graciously take the money, things will get a lot less gracious.

He takes the money.

“Where is he?”

“Doin’ rat patrol.”

“And the girl? Was she with him?”

“She was alive two weeks ago. But it wasn’t pretty. And the sheep, Bob Whatever.… Who is he in this?”

“Interested third party,” she says.

“How interested?”

“Blood and bones, baby doll. It’s all crossing-over time.”

While the Ferryman considers what he’s just heard, Bob makes the crest of the hill. He spots the Ferryman slip the cash into his pocket. A funny silence falls over Case and the Ferryman as Bob approaches.

“How we doin’ here?”

“Just talking a little philosophy,” says the Ferryman. He stares at Case. “I believe staying selfish is the key to survival.” He turns to Bob. “What do you think, Bob Whatever?”

Case watches Bob to see how he’ll handle himself.

“I think you don’t give a shit what I think,” says Bob. He looks at Case. “Business taken care of?”

“Taken care of.”

The Ferryman turns and starts to walk out farther along the ridge.

“Well?” Bob asks.

“She was alive two weeks ago.”

Bob’s flesh tightens across his whole face.

“The game is on, Bob Whatever.”

“Cyrus?”

“Cyrus.”

He starts for the truck. She stops him. She points to the old trailer. “That’s where he was raised. Cyrus.”

Bob looks back out into the valley. Only a few last frills of scrubland run with light, the rest is part of yesterday.

“Did you ever hear of the Furnace Creek murder?” she asks.

The last they see of the Ferryman as they drive away, he is standing on a bald plate of rock at the precipice. He is naked now, swigging tequila and firing his pistol into the heart of the sky, his prosthetic arm and leg twitching madly with each shot. A strange seaman on the boat of the wind.

“What did the Ferryman mean, rat patrol?”

“It’s a mock on some old TV show,” Case says. “Cyrus goes on down to the border. The desert between Calexico and Yuma. Works as a middleman, picking up drugs brought across the line by wetback mules. Plays army while he’s at it. Gets himself some high-tech equipment, night-vision goggles, the whole trip. Then, most of the boys, the carriers, after the delivery, he sends them to ‘spic heaven,’ as he calls it. Sometimes he kills ’em quick, but sometimes … he makes a kind of game out of it. Other times, some fool out there stumbles onto Cyrus. Some farmer or prospector or hunter. It’s the slaughterhouse after that. Ground up, canned, and delivered.”

“Is that where we’re goin’? Calexico, Yuma?”

“Escondido first. Cyrus has places he shacks at when he’s
working the desert. People he gets equipment from. If that’s a bust, we’ll try Bombay Beach out at the Salton Sea.”

They do the hard drive south in the cool dark of the freeway desert. Anxious roadside light waves up through the front windshield, flashing the names of restaurants and service stations that burn out like matches in the rear window as they punch their way along Route 15.

They swing down through Victorville and Apple Valley and Cajon. A template of saloons and transmission shops and billboards parading Roy Rogers’s museum and his stuffed pony, Trigger. A real tribute to chump-change identity.

“What did the Ferryman say about Gabi?”

“How do you mean?”

Bob half whispers, “You know what I mean.”