Gutbucket Quest (17 page)

“Let’s go get her,” he said.

They were on the industrial side of town. Dirty, brown and half-abandoned-looking, the old brick buildings exuded a sense of threat that even Stavin’ Chain, bandaged and limping, riding in the back of the pickup, howled at. This was Pickens’ territory, that was clear. Many, if not most, of the buildings were empty and old with living businesses, here and there scattered among the derelicts.

Their direction seemed aimless, but Slim knew Nadine was somewhere in the area. It was just a matter of being able to feel where she was and follow the pull. He began, again, to sing his finding song, his fishing song. He sang quietly to himself, trying to get a better sense of her. He worked hard to recall the feeling of her, the smell of her hair and skin, the taste of her lips, her breasts in his palms, the way her toes curled against his. He worked to recall the way her pubic bone bruised down on his, her teeth as she bit his neck or shoulder when she came, the sound of her moans and laughter. It was
all part of finding her inside himself, and then letting that point out her presence.

They drove past an abandoned motel. Stavin’ Chain started barking and, for just a moment, Slim thought they’d found it. The feeling of Nadine was there, but not quite right, as if she’d been and gone. Then, behind the motel, in the next block, he spotted a large brick building, its whitewash dim and years old. He could feel the building’s existence like a stone in his shoe. There was a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth, a taste of power. He knew, without any doubt, that that was where they would find Nadine.

“It’s that building there,” he said, pointing.

Progress pulled up on a side street about half a block from their destination, where they could get a good view. Slim started to get out of the truck.

“Wait, you.” Belizaire grabbed his arm. “Mo’ better we wait, us. We see what she look like, dis building. See what de struggle is.”

“That’s a Tejas Public Service building,” Progress said. “They generates electricity in there. Mighty powerful place to keep Nadine. Now, look there at the parking lot.”

Slim looked. Four black cars sat low and shiny in the lot.

“That means we gots to face from four to twelve Vipers,” Progress said. “Plus who’s ever in the buildin’ already.”

“Is Pickens in there, you think?” Slim asked.

“I doubts it, son. Like I told you, he don’t do his own dirty work. He’s in his office, workin’ with his money, or with other folk’s money, more like. But you can bet he’s got some strap bucklin’ plan here. We gonna have to do some coonin’ to solve this here problem.”

Belizaire sniffed the air and pulled his gun closer. “I smell death, me,” he said. “If Nadine, she in there, she in trouble, some. Dere too much power dere. It make my head buzz.”

“So,” Slim said. “What do we do now?” The power was pulling at him, drawing him to rush into the building to Nadine.

Progress looked at him, shrugged. “Darned if I knows what to do, son. I ain’t never rescued me no one been kidnapped before.”

“We gotta do
something
,”
Slim said, a little desperately. “Have a plan. We can’t just walk right in there and get her.”

“Dat a good plan, yes?” Belizaire laughed loudly, his stomach jiggling, shaking the truck. “Walk in dere and get her, us? Bon. Dat what we got to do, walk in dere open eyes.”

Slim looked at the big man, and saw nothing but good-humored confidence on his face. “Okay,” he said, shrugging and opening the pickup door. He got out, and Progress got slowly out the driver’s side. He got Stavin’ Chain out of the back and attached a leash to the hound’s collar. Belizaire clambered out after Slim, cradling the long gun in the crook of one huge elbow. Then they started walking slowly toward the building.

It was an intimidating structure, even without the power they could feel emanating from within it. A solid box of dirty white bricks with only a front door and a few high, narrow windows to show any sign of life or habitation. The blood-red TPS insignia above the front door seemed to signify, beyond any doubt, that the building was owned by Pickens.

Slim could feel the power from within the building, an almost physical pressure, as the three of them walked toward it. But the harmful effects of the power seemed to flow around them, being absorbed, somehow, by Stavin’ Chain. Slim looked down and saw the dog’s hackles were up and stiff and his mouth was curled in a snarl. He’d seen hounds before, but this was the first time he had seen one look angry or mean, the way Stavin’ Chain looked. Of course the dog had good reason, after the way T-Bone’s minions had beaten him and taken the Glory Hand he guarded. He probably smelled some of the same brutes here.

They got close to the building and Slim could hear a low hum. It made his skin crawl and he could feel oppression and despair trying to
infect him, creeping through his body, a sense of emotional and spiritual exhaustion. He knew that he had to resist it, but it was strong and so hard to fight.

They struggled their way to the front door and Belizaire reached into a pocket of his overalls and pulled out a gris-gris pouch. “I’m through the door first, me,” he said. “I take good care of de people inside de front. Den we get into de back so no one sees.”

Slim and Progress and Stavin’ Chain stood to one side as Belizaire opened the door and tossed the opened pouch inside. They heard a muffled whumpf and sensed, more than saw, a flash of violet light. Belizaire counted off fifteen seconds, and they they walked inside.

The lobby offices were smoky. A dusty, mold smell suffused the air. Slim glanced around. The offices were crowded with gray, unhappy-looking people sitting at desks and standing behind counters, but they were frozen in place, stiff and unseeing. Belizaire’s gris-gris had done its work well.

Progress tapped Slim’s shoulder. “Where to, son?”

Slim looked around the offices at the steel doors
set
in the back wall. One stood out from the rest. He pointed to it. “Through there,” he said.

They walked to the door and tried the knob. It opened easily, and they entered the back room. It was huge and dark and filled with noise. Generators were spaced in even rows in all directions, their humming and turning almost too loud to hear. Stavin’ Chain whined and cowered, and they could all feel the blast of oppression that beat down on them from the screaming machines. Belizaire brought the rifle up and held it ready, on guard.

“You go first,” Progress said, his attempt at quiet raised nearly to a scream. “You the only one knows which way through here.”

If Slim thought about it, the vision, the feel of Nadine retreated from him. But if he simply followed his feet, the tug of power, as if he’d walked this way before, his feet led him. Visions whispered
through his mind, as of things he had seen before. But sometimes the angle was different, as if he’d looked down on them from above.

The room was dry, too dry, shaped as if by spirits trying to duplicate the facade of humanity. The walls and floor were covered with sheets of black granite, worn by the passage of uncounted feet. On the floor, scattered, lay the twisted frames and shattered glass of huge lamps that had once hung from the high ceiling. All scraped along the walls was the detritus of what looked like years of trashy neglect. There were oily spills on the floor. Some had soaked in, some was fresh and glistening. There was also evidence, unrepaired, of fires in the generating plant’s history.

It was like passing through a cavern that had been transformed into a vast dwelling place for the huge machines that sat spaced and hulking on the floor. The struts and rods and boards of freestanding catwalks were indistinguishable from crowds of stalactites in the darkness.

And through it all, Slim saw nothing but the signs of ruin and decay, held together by artificial power and will. He felt the oppressiveness, as though a heavy weight of futility were being hammered into his mind. He thought he saw or heard rats or lizards, and he smelled the stench of rot. In the hot air, the hum of the generators filled his body with unpleasant vibration.

He moved forward to crouch in what he thought would be the shadow of one of the generators. Belizaire, with his gun, and Progress, leading Stavin’ Chain, followed behind him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling Nadine. It was strange for him to think about what he was doing. Was he using magic, he wondered, or ESP, or what? The power of the blues? The power of love? Whatever it was, in this world, it seemed to work, and work well, so far. He could feel Nadine’s existence, her breath and her life, straight ahead of him. With his eyes closed, looking into darkness, Nadine’s location showed as a dim blue glow that he started moving toward.

As he crept forward, so did the strange, unwanted thoughts in his mind. What if he were to die here? He’d done so little with his life and there were so many things he wanted to do. So much he hadn’t experienced. He’d never thought of death as something imminent, inevitable; never imagined it as real. Death was something that had always been somewhere down the road. He couldn’t conceive of his life ending without him making love to Nadine once more, without him knowing her, having the chance to know her. He couldn’t imagine or tolerate the thought of dying without having the time to prove he could make a relationship work, to prove to himself he could be a good husband, a good man. It would be too unfair for him to die before he’d even begun to live.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud
crack!
next to his ear, immediately followed by an even louder explosion from behind him. His eyes focused on his surroundings and he saw a man lying motionless on the floor, a few yards ahead. There was a pistol in his limp, outstretched hand. He looked back and saw a look of distaste and displeasure on Belizaire’s face. The barrel of the long gun was smoking.

“He try to shoot you, him,” Belizaire said, almost spitting the words. “He miss. I don’t.”

“Thanks,” Slim said. He wanted to say more, would have said more, but the pull he felt from Nadine was too strong, turning him around, urging him forward. The machine power made it seem as if he were moving forward in a tunnel that led only to Nadine. His attention was narrowed down to a tight line, leading him, making him all but unaware of the surroundings. Dimly, he heard Progress begin to sing, and the sense of oppression they all felt began to slightly lessen.

He walked into what fell like a wall, and was stopped dead by it. Without thinking, caught up by the power, he tried to walk through it and couldn’t, pressed so hard against it that it hurt. He could see nothing at all, but he reached out his hands and felt a solidity, a presence. It prevented him from going to Nadine and, as he looked through it, it
blurred his vision. He thought he could sense shapes beyond the wall. And he knew Nadine was on the other side.

Progress and Stavin’ Chain walked up beside him. Progress reached out and touched the wall. Stavin’ Chain sniffed at it, then scratched at it with one forepaw. Belizaire walked up to it and kicked it.

“Dis be a
trick
,”
he said.

“What do you mean, a trick?” Slim asked.

“Just that,” Progress said. “It’s a trick. It ain’t real. Not like you and me thinks of real. It’s electricity.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Belizaire said. “No matter what maybe, dere she is, yes? But, me, I got somet’ing might could fix it.” So saying, he pulled out another of the seemingly endless supply of gris-gris pouches he carried, making Slim wonder if he traveled loaded up with them all the time. Opening it, he poured a small pile of black and gray and silver powder onto the palm of his hand, then threw it hard against the barrier. Abruptly there was light, where before there had been only nothingness. They saw a thin wall, or shield of constantly moving light flashes, like a maelstrom of slow, spiraling lightning. It fought to break free of the power that held it, but it remained within the limits that had been set for it, swirling and circling and creating a barrier that, except for the gris-gris, had been unseen. But now, even though they could see it, they could find no way through it as it circled around the area they wanted to enter. Stavin’ Chain sniffed at it, then flopped down on the floor and looked up at Progress.

“Let’s all think about this,” Progress said. “See can’t we figger out a way to bust through. Son?” he said to Slim. “You think real hard. You gots you a better chance, what with your connection to Nadine and all.”

Think?
Sometimes it seemed like that was all anyone ever wanted him to do, all he ever did. He couldn’t even begin to count the nights he had lain awake thinking, agonizing. Mostly about women, always
about things that hurt or worried him. The times his heart had been broken, wondering why. The times he’d had to leave a home he loved, move, find work, start all over again, and again, and again.

There was a woman he’d met briefly in New Mexico,
his
world. He had no idea why thoughts of her were in his mind now, but he wasn’t entirely in control of his thoughts, and it might be a clue or an idea so he let it run its course. She’d approached him shyly after a gig, asking questions about music and about how she could get into the business. She’d been short and he’d gotten the impressions that she’d been cute. She was dressed like a hippie, which always attracted him. She was quiet and sad and he’d talked with her a couple of minutes and then excused himself to walk away to the girl he’d been with at that time. Later, he felt more intensely guilty than at any other time in his life. He’d realized she’d been very sincere in her questioning, and he knew he should have taken the time to try to help her. But, at the same time, there’d been a chemistry, an attraction, both physical and emotional, that had somehow scared him, even though he’d known, at the time, that the feeling was mutual. And he’d known, later, that he should have been able to get past that attraction and given the woman the help and advice she’d needed, regardless of whether anything had developed. And the funny thing was, he’d been unable to get that woman, those two or three minutes in his life, out of his mind. It was another burden to add to the many he already thought about.