Prodigal Blues (29 page)

I stared out at the dawn-filtered road.
 
"Looks like it's just you and me now, sport."

"They'll be fine.
 
Arnold will have them jumping through hoops in no time flat.
 
They'll be just… just fine."

I turned toward him.
 
"How do you know?"

"Like I said before—I have magic powers; all who ride in this bus will stay protected."

"Did you make that up yourself or get it from a movie?"

"I don't remember."
 
On the highway, morning commuters were starting to cluster in the pre-rush-hour traffic, on their way to get the worm, as the early bird is said to do.

"We shouldn't have left them."

"It was Arnold's idea, not mine—I just happened to agree with it.
 
In case you haven't noticed, the wax around the windows isn't what it used to be.
 
Some of the stink is starting to get out.
 
If we'd stayed there much longer, someone would have said something to one of the security guards and then…."

He didn't need to finish it.

After several minutes of my continued silence during which Christopher kept getting more and more restless and agitated, he said:
 
"Hey, here's an idea—you ever play 'Bury the Cow'?"

"Life has denied me that thrill."

"Oh, well, then, we
have
to get a game going.
 
Isn't really a proper road trip without a few electrifying rounds of 'Bury the Cow'—it's a classic for a reason.
 
Okay, here's how you play it—you keep an eye on your side of the road, I keep an eye on my side—"

"—really not much in the mood for 'Kill the Crows'—"

"—'
Bury
the
Cow
', please keep up, and how do you know you're not in the mood until you hear all the rules?
 
You
don't
, so listen:
 
you watch your side, I watch mine, and we each count all the cows we spot on our side, then—"

"—not listening to me, I'm
really
not in the—"

"—
then
whoever has a cemetery pop up on their side of the road loses all the cows they've counted up until then, and we keep going until we stop and whoever has the most cows when we stop, wins.
 
Isn't that the greatest road game you ever heard, I ask you.
 
How
, I ask again,
how
could anyone refuse to play?
 
No one should ever travel without playing 'Bury the Cow' at least once in their—"

(…
ain't been taking his pills like he's supposed to—that's why he keeps changing the way he acts
…)

"Christopher?"

(…
and if you don't go with him
…)

"Yeah?"

(…
he'll keep not taking them and then he'll really go
…)

"You're getting a bit manic."

(…
crazy and I don't want that to happen
…)

"So what?—I'll take a pill later.
 
C'mon
, Mark, I'm trying to get the old juices going, help me out here, why don't—"

(…
that's not him, he's not really that way
….)

"How did all of you get away from Grendel?"

"I'll answer that—but
only
if you play—"

"'Snuff the Livestock', I know… all right, all right—deal.
 
Answer my question and we'll go a few rounds.
 
How did you get away from Grendel?"

He reached down and lifted the universal locater, setting it on the dashboard between us.
 
"What makes you think we were ever
away
from him?"

I stared at the blinking white dot in the center of the grid.
 
"You're telling me that he's been back there in the trailer this whole time?"

"He's been in that trailer for eight days, Mark.
 
And he's going to spend the rest of his life there… unless he goes along with the game I've got planned for him.
 
He was always making up new games for us to play, or changing the rules of old games and not telling us about it until we were in the middle of things.
 
Seems only fair that he should have to play someone else's game just once, don't you think?"

"Are you going to blow him up along with the bus and trailer?"

Christopher grinned.
 
"That'll be his decision, when the time comes."

"How did you get away from him, Christopher?"

His right leg was bouncing rapidly up and down.
 
"Do you like Tony Curtis?
 
I always thought he was a terribly underrated actor.
 
He was really creepy in
The Boston Strangler
.
 
He looked great as a woman in
Some Like It Hot
.
 
Ever see him in
The Last Tycoon
?
 
Damn
good actor."

"What the hell has that got to do with—"

"Ever catch him in
Houdini
, Mark?
 
Or see the TV movie they made with that actor who played on
Starsky & Hutch
?
 
Did you know you can learn things from books and movies, Mark?"
 
He wiped some perspiration from his neck.
 
"Did you know, for instance, that in both movies about Houdini they describe how he was able to control his abdominal muscles and gag reflex to prevent himself from vomiting up things he swallowed, like keys?
 
Keys he used to unlock himself from the restraints and chains they'd put him in before locking him in a trunk and dumping it in the water?
 
Oh, yeah—the TV movie got really graphic about it, and almost all of his biographies went into a lot of detail about how he trained himself to do it.
 
He used to say that anyone could learn how to do what he did, if they had enough discipline."
 
His right leg was going so fast now you'd almost mistake it for not moving at all.

"Well, Grendel made sure all of us had
that
kind of discipline,
didn't
he?
 
Didn't he?
"
 
His arm shot out and he hit the dashboard with his fist.
 
"No matter how much or how little we'd eaten, no matter how long it had been since we'd gone to the bathroom or how badly we
needed
to go, no matter what got shoved up inside of us, we learned how to keep control, how to maintain
discipline
.
 
I got
really
good at it.
 
As of today, providing that the object isn't longer, wider, or thicker than my index and middle fingers combined, I can hold it down my throat or up my ass
indefinitely
, doesn't matter how bad it tastes or how much it hurts, old Christopher here can
take it!
 
Not only can I take it and
hold
it, I can puke it up or shit it back out
at will
!
 
Don't even have to think about it anymore, that's how good I've gotten, it's just"—he snapped his fingers—"and out pops the prize—oh, it took time, and it took practice, but I had
lots
of both to work with."

He was past being agitated and moving toward frantic.
 
"I think I'd like to start playing 'Bury the Cow' now, please."

He hit the steering wheel with the side of his fist.
 
"Oh,
no you don't
—it wouldn't be
fair
, and being fair is
important
, fairness is what a
good person
shows another to prove that their word
means
something, and I gave you my
word
, Mark, and because I haven't
answered
your question yet we
can't
start playing 'Bury the Cow' because
that
would mean I was
going back
on my word—and, besides, now I
want
to answer
all
of your questions, so, let's see now—where
were
we?
 
Oh, right—Houdini."

I thought he was going to rip the steering mechanism, wheel and all, right out of the floor and then take a bite out of it.
 
He was beyond manic; he was in the grip of a sudden, blistering, searing rage that bordered on outright hysteria; he seemed about a breath away from insanity.

There are no words for how stark staring terrified I was right then; none at all.

I opened my mouth to speak, but a quick flash from his eyes killed the words halfway to my immediately- and wholly-dry tongue; I was so startled by that flash—how in a blink he ceased being Christopher and instantaneously metamorphosed into this possessed, snarling, livid, agonized, howling, frenzied
thing
that I knew would tear out my throat as soon as look at me—I was so shocked by it I'm surprised I didn't wet myself.

Maybe Grendel's discipline was contagious.

"All right, then," he yelled, beating a rapid drum roll on the wheel.
 
"After Houdini—but
before
Mad Max
, there was
The Great Train Robbery
—Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, Lesley-Anne Down?
 
Now
there's
a movie for you—more ways to pull off the perfect crime than you can count!
 
And Lesley-Anne Down is
hot
!
 
God
is she hot in this movie!
 
That bit at the end, when she slips Connery the keys to his handcuffs through her mouth when she kisses him—it's almost enough to make me want to touch and
be touched
by another human being again!
 
You
bet
your ass Rebecca and me filed
that
one away just-in-case.
 
But the beauty part of the whole thing was the way Donald Sutherland got an imprint of the key to the luggage car—I'd've never thought of doing it that way in a thousand years, but—
bam!
—right there it was in full color and
Grendel
handed it to us and he
never had a clue!
 
God, it was so easy once all the pieces started falling together—I mean, yeah, sure, it took a couple of
years
to
find
the pieces before all the falling-into-place part could start happening, but once it did—
pow!-zap!-whammo!
and word to your mother—he couldn't fucking
touch us!
—okay, he could
touch
us, but he couldn't get a
whiff
of what we were up to, and half the time
he watched the movies with us!
"
 
He threw back his head, hit the steering wheel again, and barked a short, shrill, ear-shattering laugh and resumed talking in a rapid cadence, nervously, like there were dashes around everything.

"
Ha!
 
Oh,
fuck
me we were on fire!—
On fire,
Mark!—He had actual antiques in the house, you know that?
 
Just-in-case.
 
You never knew—no, you didn't—you never knew who might be monitoring things, never knew if Dirty Harry and the boys might come busting in to check things out, so he had 'em, genuine antiques all over the place—a lot of them were chests and cabinets that didn't come with keys and you
sure
as hell didn't want to damage their
resale
value by messing up the locks—Grendel got himself a key-making machine and even showed Arnold and me how to work it and make keys—what the hell did he worry?—it wasn't like we could get to the
important
keys, the
special
keys, no—
those
were on his very important, very special, terribly
personal
über
-
extending
keychain that was
always
hooked onto his belt—only the thing is, there's a scene in the movie where Lesley-Anne Down has to get the impression of a key off of some skeezy-ass fat slug-of-a-slob—not the most attractive man in the world, is what I'm trying to convey—only he's always wearing his keys attached to his coat, so what she does, see—this is terrific—is she gets him alone and make like she's gonna seduce him—just ball his brains out until him and God are touching noses—and she starts taking off some of her clothes, then some of
his
, then a little
more
of hers, and pretty soon the guy's so horny the crack of dawn isn't safe—Lesley-Anne Down could make impressions of all his keys
twice
before he'd take his eyes off her truly spectacular breasts all bouncy-bouncy in the corset getup she's wearing—so Rebecca and me and Arnold and Thomas, we made sure to be on our absolute
very
best behavior at the next meeting because we had a very special, very important "One Day" list, right—like with Play-
Doh
on Thomas's and wax paper on Rebecca's—to wrap things in to make 'em easier for me to swallow—easier to get 'em back up, too—and lubricating jelly on mine—put a little of that on the wax paper and whatever's wrapped in it will
slide
down your gullet easier than a bag of White Castles—
that
got a smile out of him—my asking for the lube—me and Rebecca had been letting on we were doing the dirty-bunny bop on our downtime—and Arnold, he asked for a small box of cookie cutters because he wanted to bake cookies for the next meeting and when Grendel heard
that
, well, he just
beamed
like a proud papa on his kid's first birthday and never once asked about
anything
—he even said that we deserved everything on our lists because we had been so 'exceptional' lately—that was the word he used, 'exceptional'—and when he came back from town that day—he took Denise with him because Connie retired—when he came back, he brought us everything on our lists and some little extras—first time he'd ever done that—you'd think I'd remember what they were, but I don't, go figure—and then it was like breathing while you were asleep—hell, we probably could've done the whole thing
in
our sleep, we had it down so tight—we waited until after he'd had enough of his red wine that he was feeling all warm and chatty—then Rebecca, she asked him to watch her do this dance she was working on for the meetings—she thought it might be sexier for the group if she put on a little show for them—and while she's dancing—one of those
sloooooow
and nasty stripper dances with lots of teasing and touching—while she's doing this, Arnold is playing waiter, bringing Grendel snacks from the kitchen and always making sure his glass of red wine is full—and Thomas, he's sitting there on the floor beside Grendel just swaying from side to side and humming like he always does—off-key, naturally—did I mention he still had his legs at this point?—oh, yeah, he hadn't 'disappointed' the Big Ugly One yet—anyway—Thomas is humming and Arnold is pouring and Rebecca is dancing and me—I'm standing off to the side keeping an eye on everything because when this starts to happen, it's got to be fast and it's got to be smooth—Plan B is for me to do a Houdini and make myself suddenly vomit and between you and me, I'd rather not do this—but at the exact moment as we'd planned it, Rebecca hikes up her skirt and because she's not wearing underpants—like we'd planned—she gives Grendel a shot of the moneymaker and Arnold pours a little more wine and Thomas, he sways
way
over and uses this piece of Play-
Doh
he's been palming to grab a quick impression of both sides of the first key and that's it, one down, four to go, and the next three go just as easy as you please—Thomas can palm the Play-
Doh
with the best of them—and Grendel's getting pretty toasty but he's not about to pass out—the man never passed out, I don't care how much wine he drank—and I think maybe by this time we'd started getting a little cocky and careless because when Rebecca gives him the NC-17 pink bits this time around, she's a little
too
close and Grendel makes a grab for her—he almost gets her, too—but he's just far enough away that he misses and loses his balance and almost falls out of the chair—Arnold, he's slopping some wine over the edge of the glass—and Rebecca, she's a little off-balance, too—Thomas, he's got the Play-
Doh
palmed around the last key, but when Grendel slips forward, Thomas doesn't have enough time to
un
-palm the key—it pulls out of the Play-
Doh
and it's got a little bit of the stuff stuck in one of its side grooves—the impression of this one will be for shit, we all know it—but I'm thinking maybe we can make it work, anyway, if Donald Sutherland can do it, we sure as hell can—and Grendel, he's applauding, and Rebecca, she's curtseying, and Arnold, he's daubing up the spilled wine—but Thomas, Thomas is sitting there scared shitless because he can see—right—he can
see
that
little itty-bitty bit
of Play-
Doh
that's on the last key, and I'm thinking, It's all right, kiddo, it's okay, we'll
deal
with this, we'll manage, just put that last one down the front of your shirt—but he doesn't, he just
sits there
—I'm getting a tad concerned now, you might well imagine—really truly very deeply concerned—anxious, bothered, troubled, and vexed, even—that song, 'Don't Worry, Be Happy'?—
not
my favorite tune in the world right now—but still Thomas just sits there like Jabba-the-Lean-To and my concern—my anxiety—is reaching critical proportions now—I'm closing in on downright ruffled—when Rebecca grabs Grendel's arm and pulls him to his feet and says, 'I wanna dance on your face!'—I could've kissed her right then, really I could've—so now she's leading Grendel upstairs to his bedroom to keep him happy—and to keep him from going to Denise's room—he never went to her room the whole time she was there—and as soon as they're up those stairs me and Arnold are on Thomas, getting him to his feet—he's scared, he thinks I'm mad at him—and we get him into the kitchen—I was right, that last impression is mostly for shit but at least we got the others—and we know we gotta work fast because Rebecca can only do so much for so long and eventually Grendel's going to realize it's time to chain us up for the night and listen to his bedtime story—so Arnold and me head down to the sub-basement—there's a blowtorch down there that Grendel thinks I don't know about, right—he used it to cauterize the messier wounds—like when he sliced off Rebecca's breast then made her sauté it and eat it in front of us—oh, the happy days, what memories they leave—anyway, we grab that baby and fire her up and start melting down the cookie cutters—they melted real fast, they were just the right kind—and while we're doing that, Thomas is up in the kitchen using the oven to harden up the impressions—yeah, not the greatest way to make a mold but it works in a pinch—I saw it done once on
MacGyver
—I miss that show, don't you?—see, we'd had the oven on the whole time—whenever Arnold left the room for more snacks or another bottle, he'd increase the temperature a hundred degrees, that way when things started getting a little warm Grendel would figure it was just from all the dancing and wine, right—so the oven's at, like, 575 degrees and it was going to take fifteen, twenty minutes for all the molds to harden—I know what you're thinking—why not just steal the keys off Grendel when he's sleeping, right?—well the thing there is that those goddamn keys are
never
off his person, except maybe when he's sleeping or taking a bath—but that's out of the question because he locks his bedroom door at night and isn't exactly unconscious during his bath—sorry, I get a little scattershot when I get excited—where was I?—right, the cutters—now Arnold and me have got all the cutters melted down—this is maybe twenty minutes into a plan that's supposed to take forty, forty-five, tops—and God bless him, here comes Thomas holding the tray filled with the molds—the Play-
Doh
cooked up well enough—the trick now was to make sure that both the molds and the liquid from the metal cutters cooled enough so that one wouldn't damage the other—I figured about ten minutes—so we use the oven mitts Thomas has grabbed to hold the containers and the tray and I poured everything into the molds—we have just enough—and then it's upstairs and through the kitchen to the back room where the freezer is—we'd already dug a hole in the ice in the bottom—Grendel never checked the freezer unless he had some body parts in there—didn't have any right now, lucky for us—and we bury the molds, then make sure the oven's turned off and the mitts and pans are back in place—Grendel knew the exact spot where every item in that house was supposed to be—and everything's looking good, looking
real
good—and we're on our way back into the living room to wait for Rebecca and the Big Ugly One to come down so we can all be tucked in—we're all shaky from the adrenaline rush of the last forty minutes, it's been great but it's been rough—it's the first time in years any of us had any hope for anything at all—you have
no idea
how that felt—raccoon…"