When Pigs Fly (4 page)

Diet Cola felt like somebody’d chipped through his skull with an ice pick. Who knew a simple robbery was so freaking hard? Who had hit him? And
why,
for chrissake? All he wanted was the ticket that was rightfully his. Now would the cops track him down and hit him with a pair of murder ones? Carrick Durgin was dead. Nobody got Diet Cola’s ass in their face and lived to tell about it. The woman, what was her name? Yeah, Brodie. He couldn’t remember clearly whether he’d finished her off or not, his head was such a mess. Maybe he had killed her. Yeah. He must have.

Anyway, could the ticket really be in Arizona? The whole year he’d thought about the winning lottery ticket he’d stashed inside the urn at the Durgins’ house. You’re dead, you’re dead, right? Nobody expects your ashes’ll ever move again, right? And nobody’s going to move you, right? All that’s supposed to happen is they feather dust around you on the freaking mantel.

He checked his wall calendar—wrong year, but that didn’t really matter. The drawing date on the ticket was August 1 of last year, and here he was on July 7 of this year, with only three weeks left to find the ticket and stake his claim.

Right now, he needed money damn quick. He went over to the fridge and found most of a steak and cheese sub that was wrapped in white paper, everything warmish since there was no electricity in the dump. The food was left over from breakfast, and the shredded beef was coated with congealed grease. No wonder he was so famished. He’d been so excited about getting his ticket that he’d forgotten to finish his meal. So he washed it down with the rest of the six-pack and let out a single, massive belch.

A roach scurried across the floor. He stomped at it three times with his work boot and missed. That rattled the kitchen table enough that a glass slid off the edge. At the same time, the insect stopped and turned around and raised one of its tiny legs—flipping Diet Cola the bird was what it looked like. Then the glass crashed squarely on the roach, just like the sky on Chicken Little. He walked over to the shattered glass where the injured roach wriggled for mercy, and he closed his eyes and imagined himself holding that hundred-million-dollar ticket while he stomped Mack Durgin’s brain into pea soup. His heel ground the glass into the linoleum—die, you son of a bitch, die, Mack Durgin, you stupid roach. There, he felt a little better.

He sat down on his beaten-up couch, avoiding the coil that stuck through a cushion like a steel enema. The couch groaned under his weight; it was a piece of junk he’d picked up from the sidewalk on trash day. Crappy foreign workmanship, he figured. The roach scurried out from under the broken glass like an earthquake survivor but ran in the wrong direction, right up Diet Cola’s pant leg. This time he caught it between folds of his jeans and took it out between his thumb and forefinger on his good hand. “Gotcha, Durgin,” he said. “I’m gonna pick you clean.” One by one, he pulled off the roach’s legs and realized what he would do when he caught up with Mack Durgin and got the ticket.
Picture this: Mack Durgin with his hands tied behind his back as I empty a jar of roaches into his mouth and duct tape it shut.
Arizona was going to be fun.

No way was Diet Cola going on a plane, though, because those goddamn things were death traps when they crashed and shit like that. Plus he couldn’t bring a gun on board. Driving the GTO all the way to Arizona, out of the question—he’d be stopped before he got out of the state.

Taking a bus seemed like a good idea. Leave the driving to Gus. It was brilliant, in fact. Once it got dark, he’d hustle his ass into the Greyhound terminal in Boston. A few days traveling would give him time to plan his moves and heal his hand.

But first, he needed fast money for bus fare. He flicked the dead roach into the kitchen sink and went outside to get some help.

On the narrow sidewalk was broken cement. A skateboarding boy looked at Diet Cola and crossed the street. There was a row of tenements with fancy new siding, like a gold-plated row of garbage cans. Diet Cola opened a front door and let himself in. The place smelled like cigarette smoke and cat litter, and an old woman (she was what, sixty by now?) looked at him without surprise. She had on the same baggy dress she wore the night the cops came for him.

“You’re out early,” she said, rolling a cigarette and licking the paper. “What happened to your hand?”

“My hand’s fine. What happened to your face?”

“I thought you were doing a year.”

“I’m out on good behavior. I need money, Ma.”

Her teeth were out, and her laugh was strangled in phlegm. “Good be— Good behavior! Hoo!” She waved arthritic fingers at the living room around them. Her eyes began to water. “Welcome to Fort Knox, Mister Goody Two-Shoes! Take all the gold you can carry!”

Fido the tabby cat lay on top of her purse on the kitchen table. He pulled on the purse handle, and Fido tumbled onto a radiator. There were thirteen dollars. Fort Knocked was more like it.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a butcher knife, which she waved a foot from his face. “You’re not my son no more, so keep your pinkies out of my purse.”

“Look,” he said reasonably, “I need a couple hundred bucks for a business opportunity.”

“I don’t have it. What exactly for, anyway?”

“Plane ticket to Atlanta,” he lied. No sense telling the truth, in case she ever thought to give him up to the cops.

“I’d pay for one way if I could. You’re back in my life way too soon.”

Diet’s face flushed. “I don’t need that much.”

“You’re a sorry excuse for a man, Dieter.” His real name was Dieter Kohl, and he hated that name as much as he hated his own mother. She walked over to the pantry and pulled out couple of large plastic bags filled with soda cans and bottles. “Here, I’ve been collecting these on the street. You can cash these in. Get off your lazy ass and pick up around the city, earn your own airfare.”

Diet Cola hauled off with a roundhouse left and clipped his mother on the jaw. Just a little love-tap, since she got right up off the floor and punched him in the gut.

“Get out, you fat bastard!” she said. Her eyes blazed, and she held up a pair of scrawny fists. Which was funny, because he could take her anytime.

He picked up the bags of cans and headed out to look for more.

On the other side of the city, the officer stood in the Durgins’ living room and took notes as he listened to Carrick and Brodie. No, Carrick said, he’d never seen the man before.

“He was a devil,” Brodie added. “It took two angels and a bullwhip to stop him.”

“He was about six feet tall and well over two hundred fifty pounds,” Carrick said. “He had shaggy blond hair with a ponytail, and he smelled like last week’s cabbage.”

After the officer left, Carrick and Brodie sat together on the couch and traded brave looks. They placed shaking hands on each other’s faces. “We have to call Mack,” Carrick said.

“No, darling,” Brodie said. “Let’s go see him.”

Friday night was Elvis Night at the Bump ‘n’ Grind on the south side of Lowell. Elvis wannabes climbed the stage and exposed their appalling lack of talent to about fifty cover charge-paying, Bud-swilling customers. Calliope Vrattos slapped away a groper’s hand as she threaded her way through the tables with a tray of drinks. Apparently, some guys thought a leer was the highest compliment a man could pay a woman. She’d had enough of the touching, the noise and the smoke to last her a long, long time. Tonight was her last night, and she’d already given notice.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” The guy was bald. His sequined jacket was open, and a wig rested on the table next to a couple of empty beer glasses.

“Cal. It’s on the name tag.”

“Lordamercy, I looked right past that little plastic thing. You got the most splendid—”

“Stop it.”

“Nature’s such a wonderful thing, idn’t it? Hey, you gonna watch me up there?”

“I’ll be here.”

“The name’s Elvis Hornacre. And you know what I was thinkin’, maybe you and me could go someplace else for a couple pops later on.”

“Sorry. I’m married,” she lied.

“No, you ain’t. I checked. You’re prime, you’re fine, and you’re mine.”

“I’d rather have shingles than date you.” She turned and walked away.

“Great!” Elvis yelled. “See you after work, then.”

She served a few more customers as off-key contestants hammed it up on stage while customers whistled, cheered and booed. Hornacre, the bald Elvis, headed for the rest room, and she happened to be looking in that direction when he came back out.

Elvis Hornacre had his wig on, as well as a tuft of chest hair she hadn’t noticed earlier—how could she have missed it unless he’d just put it on? His jacket glittered, and he wore tight blue pants and blue plastic shoes. She blinked twice as she realized that his pants were unzipped and his sorry penis was hanging out.

“And now,” the emcee’s voice boomed, “our next contestant—”

Elvis winked at Cal. “My first song’s for you,” he said.

“Wait,” she said, but he bounded up to the stage as his name was called.

He strapped on his guitar and began to croon for her to love him tender. She cringed and looked away while customers howled with laughter and threw salted peanuts at the stage. Elvis looked puzzled. From several tables, a chorus of men sang “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dong.”

Cal felt bad for the poor slob as the bar closed and she walked to her car. The lot had nearly emptied. She shrugged off a twinge of discomfort; this was her last night working at this lousy dive. Then Elvis appeared out of the shadows.

“Babe,” he said to her. She fumbled in her purse for her keys as he put his hands on her waist.

“Stop or I’ll scream.”

“Lot’s empty. Who’d hear, darlin’?”

He pulled her close and planted a sloppy kiss on her mouth as she struggled. Then she pushed hard at his chest and grabbed a plastic hairbrush from her purse. She swung fiercely. The plastic shattered against his jaw.

“Ow-w-w-w!” he screamed as he fell to his knees. “You broke my jaw!”

She reached for her cell phone to dial 911, but it was dead. Damn. She looked around for anyone who might help, but saw no one.

“Gimme a ride to the E.R.,” he said.

“No. I don’t trust you.”

“I’m in awful pain here, and it’s your fault.”

Finally she relented and opened the trunk. “You have to ride here.”

“No, I’m ridin’ up front with you.”

She still held a shard of hairbrush in her fist, and she brandished it like a dagger.

“Take the trunk or hoof it, pal. That’s my only offer.”

He climbed into the trunk. Even in the bad parking lot light, she could see that a large bruise was beginning to cover the left side of his face. She let him ride to the hospital with the trunk open. “You and me ain’t finished, darlin’,” he said as she left him at the front door of the emergency room. “I know where you live!”

At home in her apartment, Calliope awoke from a fitful sleep and a nightmare involving sharp knives and Vienna sausages. The clock read 3:55. She had already packed her suitcases for her cross-country road trip. She looked into her purse. Keys, cash, credit cards, tampons, cell phone, pepper spray—had she forgotten anything? Certainly she could have called the police, but she was leaving town anyway. She was forty years old, for God’s sake, with a master’s degree in fine arts, a brand-new divorce and a very nice settlement. It wasn’t as though she had to wait tables in bars that held Elvis impersonation contests. Well, in a couple of hours she’d be in her car and on her way to California.

Her stomach grumbled. There was hardly anything left to eat in the apartment, but she scrounged up a jar of extra-crunchy peanut butter in the pantry and sat down on the couch. She dug into the jar with two fingers—who’d ever know about her guilty pleasures?

After she tossed out the bottle and washed her hands, she heard a knock at her apartment door. Through the peep hole she saw Elvis Hornacre wearing that same stupid jumpsuit and holding a bouquet of roses with the stems wrapped in a shingle. What a dope I am, she thought as she realized she’d not hooked the chain. He gave the door a steady nudge until she finally relented, figuring on ways she could knock this guy on his ass if she had to.

“I’m so embarrassed,” he said, stepping inside. He spoke through clenched jaws. His pants were zipped and his mouth was wired shut. The left side of his face had turned a grotesque purple, and the muscles around his mouth twitched. The poor man was a walking hematoma. God, what had she done to him?

“Oh, don’t be. The flowers are sweet, but—” But you’re not, she wanted to say.

“I don’t usually show the goods like that.”

“No, I don’t imagine you do.” Not usually? How often, then? She dared not ask.

“I’ll take you out tomorrow night, make up for it. I got coupons for Wendy’s.”

“That sounds hard to pass up, but I have to get my hair done.”

“Day after, then.”

“Uh, nail appointment.”

“What color they doing your nails?”

“Clear.”