The Nirvana Blues (23 page)

“Brilliant, except for one thing.”

“Which is?”

“How you gonna switch the claim-ticket stubs?”

“Egon will be helping the driver unload or something.”

Tribby said, “Even if it doesn't work, at least there'll be two suitcases that look alike in the baggage area, so that if anybody else gets wind of the loot to be had in that bag, they won't know which one to steal.”

Ralph said, “How about this—we start a fire.”

“Where?”

“In the bus station. Fortunately, all of us will suddenly arrive on the scene and help fight it. In the confusion we can grab the bag and head for the hills.”

“That makes some sense, I guess.…”

But Tribby favored the second valise trick. “I even think I know how we could switch the claim-check tickets. One of us dresses up in some kind of official-looking uniform, enters the depot, lays a rap on Egon that he's such and such a baggage inspector for Trailways International, and putters around in the baggage area, putting stickers and little chalk marks on some of the suitcases, making the switch in the process, and we're home free.”

“He knows all of us. We wouldn't stand a chance.”

“He doesn't know me,” Gloria said.

“Brilliant!” Ralph hugged her.

“Brilliant?” Joe couldn't believe he was trapped in an airplane with this gathering of terminal cases.

“Is what I would be doing considered illegal?” Gloria asked.

“Illegal, shmeagal—so what? It's what has to be done,” Ralph said.

“But I couldn't do anything illegal. What would Christ think?”

“Christ has been dead for almost two thousand years.”

Gloria rolled her eyes. “That shows how much you know.”

“Wait a minute.” Joe was perplexed. “You just took three tokes off a joint. That's illegal.”

“Jesus says marijuana is okay.”

Hollering
“Oh shit!,”
Tribby lurched them sideways, trying to avoid a collision with a buzzard which had suddenly appeared dead center in front of them. Too late, however. The enormous bird smashed into the plane, was cut in half by a steel bar dividing the windshield, and, in a gory explosion of glass, feathers, and intestinal gore, slammed back through the compartment just above head-height, clipping all the passengers with assorted bits of offal, yet miraculously killing, or even wounding seriously, no one.

Ralph cried,
“God dammit!”
Joe bellowed, “NO!” and Tribby yelped, “Oh dear!” as the plane wallowed in an airless trough, threatening to roll. Gloria said, “Oh the poor bird!” Rimpoche uncorked an eerie, petrified howl, pissed on everyone, and struggled to leap clear of the plane. They held him down like zoo keepers wrestling a mammoth python.

Wind whipped at their hair; ears popped painfully. Papers flapped around, cudgeling them like madly beating wings. Buttons popped as their shirts were torn open. The blasting currents made it impossible to open their eyes—all except Tribby: he clanged down the visor on his motorcycle helmet, and said, “Hang tight, everybody, here we go.”

“Are we going to die?” Ralph asked politely.

“Not if I can help it.”

“God won't let us die.” Gloria smiled reassuringly.

“God my ass!”

“I don't believe this is happening,” Joe whimpered. “What did I step in last night? This is insane! I've had more bad luck in the last twenty-four hours than in the past thirty-eight years put together.”

BIRD TO BLAME AS DRUG KINGPIN PERISHES IN PLANE CRASH
!
DOG IS ONLY SURVIVOR
!

Will Rogers, Buddy Holly, Rocky Marciano, and Joe Miniver.…

Joe
who
?

“Are we gonna crash?”

Tribby said, “I'm not sure. Everybody hang tight. Where did that bird come from anyway?”

Gloria started pouting. “It's not the bird's fault. It didn't ask for airplanes to be in the sky.”

“Shuttup, Gloria.” Ralph clapped one hand over her mouth.

“What kind of bird was it?” she asked, her words muffled and indistinct.

“Who cares?” What a dingbat! “How can you ask a question like that at a time like this?” Joe added. The hair battering his forehead and cheeks stung like thousands of tiny sadistic rubber whips. Rimpoche ceased to struggle and merely wailed in anguish like a dying wolf.

Ralph thought “It looked eagleish.”

“My guess is a buzzard,” Tribby opined.

Joe babbled, “As it went by me it resembled a chocolate pudding with feathers!”

“Is everybody okay?” Tribby asked. They were positively zooming down toward the mesa. “Is anybody decapitated back there? Is the dog hurt?”

“Incredibly, I think we're all right. Rimpoche is scared stiff, that's all.”

“Well, keep on hanging tight. We'll be landing in half a minute.”

“A crash landing?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“What does that mean?” Ralph asked.

“It means there's the airport … here's the runway … looks like duck soup … grit your teeth, comrades, here we go … nice and easy … theeeeeerrrreee.…”

Wheels touched, they bounced a little, veered slightly, settled, sped smoothly along the runway for a bit, slowed down, drifted to a stop.

Ralph said, “Whew.”

Gloria giggled nervously. “God saved us. Hallelujah!”

“What did God send the bird for in the first place?” Joe glowered malevolently. He actually pinched himself, astounded to be alive. Blood, gore, and bits of feathers covered them all.

Ralph said, “It looks as if a hand grenade exploded inside a haggis.”

Tribby taxied slowly across the tarmac to his parking place. “I never for a moment had any doubts,” he chortled, “that yours truly could rise to the occasion.”

The plane halted; he killed the engines. Instantly lathered in silence, they sat there stunned and grateful and trembling.

Joe said, “I'm never going up in the air again.”

“Planes are a thousand times safer than automobiles.”

“Oh yeah? You can take that myth and shove it.”

Ralph said, “We still haven't solved our suitcase problem.”

Joe balked. “I'm sorry, I can't think about that right now. Look at me. Look at you, for that matter. Look at
us.
We're covered with
guts.
”

“Maybe it was a sign,” Ralph said.

“The bird? Of what?”

“Well, it could have been a warning. Maybe we shouldn't proceed with the dope deal.”

Joe said, “What about my twelve thousand dollars?”

“What about it?”

“That's my life savings. I've risked everything to bring this off.”

“Is it worth the rest of your life in jail?” Ralph asked. “Is it worth rats nibbling on your toes? And no TV privileges? And scarred murderers and child-rapists dragging you into their cells for asshole pussy?”

Joe left them, shakily maneuvering over to his bicycle. “I'll see you guys around the campus,” he said, using his most surly tone of voice. “Forget the suitcase, I'll figure something out. I'll call you when we're ready to proceed again.”

“God be with you!” Gloria cried. “Jesus will help you if you believe!”

“Send him over to my place around midnight, then. With a little black burglary tool bag and a nine-millimeter pistol full of bullets on his hip!”

*   *   *

T
EN MINUTES LATER
, Joe had just negotiated a left onto Route 240, when a VW Beetle beeped in passing and veered onto the shoulder: Cobey Dallas hopped out, purposeful smoke streaming from his freshly lit cigar. He held up one hand, motioning Joe to halt.

“Hello, Cobey. What's up?”

“Your number, friend, if you don't watch out.” Cobey smiled to prove he was only joking. But warmth rarely emanated from that golden-boy face freckled with auto-accident scars and boozy dissipation. Joe often likened Cobey to the insincere all-American guys who starred in TV programs—bland and healthy, and forever acting. Always finagling, Cobey was friendly only according to the size of the favor he desired from his mark. And everybody, in Cobey's world, was a mark. But he had silky blond hair framing a tanned and lovely—if neutral—fizzog, and he kept his body beautiful at the health spa. His clothes were custom-cut and western—ruggedly chic and slick, like a Hollywood cowboy. The cigar, Joe supposed, he affected to create an aura of mogul.

“My number?” wide-eyed Joe replied, all innocence. “How's that?”

“For starters, I hear you've decided to enter the drug racket. Word has it you just imported enough cocaine to keep Chamisaville loaded for a millennium.”

“Oh, hey, Cobey,
please.
Where the hell—”

“Stop. Relax. Hear me out.” The entrepreneur puffed; blue smoke billowed across his intent, cool-blue eyes. “First of all, you should understand I'm on your side. You need a promoter badly, and I'm a promoter. Here's the deal. If you and that fat letch and the hippie lawyer try to go it alone, you're doomed. That's not how things work in the dope underworld. They'll pop all three of you the second you put one toe in their water. What has to happen to facilitate the matter is somebody like me needs to assemble a package that'll keep everyone happy. And I can do that because I'm the best middleman in Chamisaville.”

Blushing, Joe nevertheless insisted, “I'm not in the coke business, Cobey.”

Cobey curled one of Chamisaville's phoniest friendly arms around Joe's shoulder. “Ha ha, Joe—that's a good one. Course, I don't blame you in the least. How do you know where I'm coming from? Well, take the cotton out of your ears. Here's the riff. Ray Verboten controls the trade in our bucolic little burg. Auspiced, of course, by the Tarantula—Joe B. himself. For what cut, I dunno, that's immaterial at our level. Now, let's say you're sitting on maybe a hundred Gs of the devil's dandruff, maybe more. That's not big-time, but it's too much to ignore. Okay, Ray isn't gonna let you dump that on his territory scot-free—but he's a reasonable person. I know he could be persuaded to give you a piece of the action—maybe thirty grand—who knows? Maybe more. Under normal circumstances, that's how it'd work. Your cut would amount to what's called a finder's fee—you understand?”

“‘Under normal circumstances'?”

“Yeah. But this ain't normal. You got an extra added problem.”

“This is all hypothetical, of course. But just for laughs, what's my added problem?”

“He's a monkey freak—Ray is. And in cahoots with Nikita Smatterling, Wilkerson Busbee, and Baba Whosamadig—the Indian prune they're importing to bless the statue on Thursday. And Ray knows that the only reason you're trying to muscle a score in his territory is because you're working on a deal to buy out Eloy whatshisname, whose land the Hanumans wanna grab for their permanent gorilla shrine. So hell will freeze over—believe me—before Ray and his sharks will let you promote even Kool-Aid to that end. They'll run over you and Tribby and Sancho Panza with a battleship if you attempt to market even one gram of dope without their okay.”

Joe gulped uncomfortably, wanting to wiggle his shoulders out from under Cobey's friendly clutch. Instead, he muttered ineffectually, “This is all very interesting, but—”

“Where I can save
your
butt, Joe, is as a disinterested outside party they're not on to. You turn over the stash to me, see? The whole kit and caboodle—don't withhold even an ounce—you could get a death ride, at this stage, just for having too much powder on your fingers. What I do, then, is very simple. I approach Verboten with the entire load and we work a deal. On the legitimate up-and-up. I tell him you got scared, chickened out, and sold it to me for your initial investment. That takes you out of the land rush in Ray's eyes. In return, he cuts me into the action at face value—that's maybe a sixty-forty split in my favor. You should remember, too, that the stuff is worth twice as much if Ray's dealing than if you are. And I pass on the bucks to you, minus my cut for fronting the shit, of course.”

“And what would your cut be?”

“Approximately half of what you would have paid Tribby and the fatso—which should leave you with enough bread to buy out Eloy. Whaddayou think of that?”

“What kind of figures are you talking about?”

“How much coke came in on that Trailways last night?”

“I told you, Cobey—nothing arrived last night. This whole thing you're cooking up is a hypothetical reverie, remember?”

“Aw shit.” Cobey withdrew his arm … but recovered immediately. He grinned, and, taking another puff, considerately faced sideways so that no smoke would irritate Joe. “Hey, friend…” The arm returned around Joe's shoulders. “I know how to facilitate these things. And right now I'm your only buddy in town. I'm on your side. You gotta trust me. If you can't trust me, who in this savage little community can you trust?”

Joe said, “Suppose I told you that I know you and Roger Petrie are embezzling bread from Skipper Nuzum in the bar-and-theater racket, hoping to buy Eloy Irribarren's land and transform it into a Wrestle-A-Gator-For-Christ emporium?”

The golden-boy face went blank.
What? Who, me? Somebody is talking to yours truly?
Then Joe was astonished by a transformation in Cobey's eyes. From all-American blue they changed abruptly to a cool yellowish green while narrowing slightly.

“And suppose,” Cobey retorted with barely a hitch as his arm dropped off Joe's shoulder and he backed away toward his car, “that I was to tell you Ray Verboten, Skipper Nuzum, and three of Joseph Bonatelli's most intimate torpedoes are cooking up plans to break into the bus station tonight, grab that stupid black-watch suitcase full of tea cartons, and put a contract on your head if the goodies aren't there? So long, sucker—have a nice life.”