Wild Horses (21 page)

“She caught a ride, some intense-looking guy in a black van,” he said through clenched teeth. “I don’t know who it was.”

“Not good enough,” she crooned, and he began to feel the crisp sizzle of eyelashes withering to ash.

“Florida plates, vanity plates, I saw them earlier, said ‘St. John.’” He spelled it.

Her eyebrows knitted. “I think I saw that van earlier.”

Like a malign force of nature, Gunther returned, waving both arms in frustration. “What kind of domicile is this anyway, got no fucking cleaning products around? How’s a man supposed to work under these conditions?” He stopped. “Hey. Get off him, you skank. That phase of your relationship is over.”

Madeline laughed, and the weight slid from his lap. Gunther dangled his keyring out to her. “How about you run back into town, get me some drain cleaner? Crystal Drano’s best.”

Krystal.
Boyd glanced out the window, saw with relief that the road was still empty. He hated to contemplate what they would do to her if she walked in on this.

“Tell me something, Gunther,” said Madeline. “Why is it
I’m
always the one being sent out of the room for drain cleaner?”

Boyd felt himself going pale, as it registered what they were talking about. What it would probably be used for.

Gunther pointed at him. “
He’s
for sure not going anywhere. You see anybody else around here that that leaves?”

“I’m
not
your slave, and I’m
not
your errand girl. I’m your partner in this, and I was making progress without any help from you. I don’t see why you can’t make do with whatever’s here.”

“What am I supposed to do, spray him with Windex?” Gunther stomped over to the refrigerator, flung the door open. “Hey, this is good. Half a burrito. Here, see how far this gets you.” He threw it at her, and she swatted it to the floor. “Maybe it’s just me, but burritos don’t rank very high on the truculence scale.”

“Always with the truculence!” she shouted. “You know what I need to buy you instead of drain cleaner? A thesaurus. I’m getting sick of hearing the same idiotic words coming out of your mouth. Find some synonyms, Gunther. Variety is the spice of life.”

“Oh, that’s original right there. You make up that proverb yourself?” He slammed the fridge door. “Fucking ballbuster, you want variety, how ‘bout tonight we throw that tube of K-Y jelly out the window, and see what a hard-ass bitch you
really
are.”

Boyd watched in horror, trying to melt into the chair. This was like witnessing two dinosaurs in combat, knocking down palm trees and churning up tons of earth.

Madeline gave in, trading the pistol for the keys and roaring off in a cloud of dust and fury. Gunther watched her go, mopping sweat from his forehead. Took off his sport coat and draped it over the other kitchen chair, rolled up his shirtsleeves.

“I don’t know how it is you plan on using this drain cleaner, exactly,” said Boyd, “but whoa, I’m here to tell you it isn’t one bit necessary. You want to have a talk, we’ll have a talk, let’s just leave the drain cleaner out of it.”

“No, you don’t understand. Necessary, unnecessary — that’s got nothing to do with it. I
like
drain cleaner.”

Boyd tried not to shudder, to keep a clear head.

“It’s like my personal signature.”

Boyd nodded as if he understood this mentality. Shot a glance out the window, behind Gunther, and had to stifle a groan. How much worse could this get? Plenty. Krystal was two hundred yards up the road, walking swiftly back and blissfully unaware.

Think.
Gunther was big, Gunther’s veins were filled with Freon … but he did seem possessed of the sort of single-mindedness that often meant, beneath it all, squatted an Achilles’ brain.

“Drain cleaner, what kind of signature is that?” Boyd said. “That’s no good.”

“Like you’d know?” Gunther snorted. “Believe me, it makes an impression.”

“No no no no no. That’s not what I mean. I’m talking personal style as a function of location. Something that doesn’t just say who you are, but makes a statement about where you’re from.”

Boyd breathed deeply, flying by the seat of his pants. He’d started to sweat profusely, could feel watery, reconstituted blood trickling down his cheek.

“Drain cleaner’s very reliable.”

Boyd rolled his eyes. “Sure, so’s a collie, but it’s got no style unless you’re killing shepherds. You’re from Vegas?”

Gunther nodded, seemed interested in hearing him out.

“See, that’s where your image comes apart. Drain cleaner, now that’d be fine if we were in Detroit, some industrial city like that.” A glance out the window at Krystal, adjusting her sandal in the middle of the road. “You being from Vegas, what you need is a signature that
says
Vegas. Something to do with gambling.”

“Gambling.” Gunther frowned in concentration for a moment. “Like Russian roulette, for instance.”

“That’s one possibility.”

Gunther considered this. “Yeah. I like the tie-in. Be even better if I had special bullets, painted red and black, you know. I knew a guy back when I worked Philadelphia, was a big fan of Russian roulette.” He lifted his pistol, showed it to Boyd. “So instead of getting close-up and personal with drain cleaner, what you’d rather do is play Russian roulette with a semiautomatic.”

Boyd flinched. He’d walked into that one.

“Because those one-in-one odds,” Gunther said, “that tends to take the element of chance out of things.”

“That’s why it’s not for you, then.” The sweat was really rolling now. Get out of this alive, and Krystal was going to have to submerge him in Gatorade. “I look at you, and you know what I see working for you? Cards. Cutting cards.”

Gunther looked skeptical. “Get the fuck out of here. Cards. No, I got a good thing going with this drain cleaner. I’ll stick with that.” Slowly, though, inevitably, he began to reconsider. Boyd watched the possibilities crawl across that dark Germanic face. “Cards — you really think so? Okay, maybe I can see this after all. Get kind of a riverboat gambler image working for me, you think?”

“Absolutely!” Boyd nodded with enthusiasm. “The thing is, the cards aren’t intimidating by themselves — it’s what’s at stake when you cut them. So you can see, well, the possibilities are…”

“Limited only by my imagination,” Gunther finished. “You know, you make a real solid case for this.”

Boyd nodded down at the deck on the table. “Come on, open ‘em up. Let’s try a dry run.”

Another glance out the window, Krystal less than a hundred yards away.
Don’t hurry, babe, don’t walk so fast—

Gunther shuffled. “I draw high card, I put drain cleaner in your eye. Low card, all I get to do is break a finger. How’s that sound?”

Boyd’s stomach lurched. “Doesn’t give
me
much incentive.”

“First one, this is my card,” Gunther said, and turned up the nine of spades. “Okay, now yours.” The king of hearts; fine karma abounded. Gunther nodded with satisfaction, regardless. “You know what the beauty of this system is? Really, I can’t lose.”

“Except you’d draw it out
much
worse, really make your guy sweat over it,” Boyd said. “One big mistake on your part, though: I don’t even get to cut for my own card?”

“Why should you?”

“Because letting a guy cut for his own card gives him the illusion he’s in control of his own fate. That way, he draws low, it’s not something
you’ve
done to him — he’s let himself down. He draws high, so what? You’re still in charge, you’re holding the gun. It’s like you’re the house, and you’ve still got the house advantage.” Boyd nodded toward the deck again. “Let’s try this one more time, but come
on
, let me at least cut for my own card.”

Gunther balked, said he liked Boyd packaged in the chair just the way he was. Boyd looked down at himself — what, two free hands were going to do any good when his legs were taped to the chair? Gunther relented, got the paring knife, and held the pistol to his head as a precaution while slicing through the tape at his wrists. Boyd loosened up his shoulders while Gunther shuffled.

“I draw high card” — Gunther began to laugh — ”and I cut off your balls!”

Boyd laughed along with him. “And I draw high card, I get to pork Madeline while you watch!”

Both of them roared, until Gunther waved him down — too much, much too funny. “You already did that! Months ago! I was in the closet. I almost put a bullet in your head that afternoon!”

Boyd abruptly stopped laughing, face draining of blood, as Gunther cut, held up the card. “Uh-oh, king of diamonds. Looking bad for the family jewels.”

Krystal was seventy feet away. No way could Gunther miss her if he turned around. Boyd’s heart was trying to climb his throat, and he steadied his hand, reached for his cut.

“Two of clubs,” Gunther announced. “I
love
this game.”

Boyd slipped his portion of the deck from right hand to left, all but the top card. He flicked his wrist and let the card fly, just as he’d done that night in Seattle at the groping senator.

The edge of the spinning card caught Gunther squarely in the right eye. His head snapped back and he staggered, screaming with the pain and the surprise and, Boyd supposed, the indignity. Boyd lurched to his feet, bringing his chair up with him while grabbing for the other, scuttling forward as Gunther brought the gun around and fired wildly. Once, twice — the kitchen filled with a gritty gunpowder reek. Boyd felt the third bullet whiz past his ear, and swung the chair as hard as he could, to smash it across Gunther’s head and shoulders. And still, the man tried to aim. Boyd swung again, off balance and flinching at the loud pop of gunfire. He dented the refrigerator door with a devastating blow. Felt the impact as the next bullet punched into the chair seat, then solidly swatted Gunther again to send him reeling toward the wall.

Boyd pressed the advantage, still conformed into the shape of one chair as he battled with the other. He shuffled forward like a very old and arthritic lion tamer. The chair legs caught Gunther by the chest and shoulders, to drive him crashing back through the kitchen window. He teetered on the sill a moment, then plummeted from sight with a heavy thud.

Boyd bellowed like a Viking but forgot to cut himself loose; held his four-legged bludgeon aloft and, hunchbacked, shuffled furiously for the door. Gunther’s sport coat slipped from the back of the chair to drape over his face, and the legs smacked into the doorframe above his head, and he went tumbling out the door, down the wrought-iron steps, to land out in the dirt and glare. He felt nothing, infused with adrenaline. Grabbed the dropped chair with one hand and, with the other, began dragging himself, both chairs, and sport coat across the ground, toward his fallen foe, ready to pound the psychopath into wiseguy hash.

Then he saw that Gunther was out cold, lying where he had fallen in a crooked sprawl. Each elbow and each knee was splayed in the same angle from his body. He had landed in the shape of a swastika.

Krystal fell beside Boyd, had covered the last of her trek in a sprint. She hugged him, kissed him.

“Who’s he?” she asked.

“Some homeless guy! Now could you get the knife out of the kitchen and cut me loose?”

As Krystal ran into the trailer, Boyd squirmed the final few feet to Gunther’s side, to pull the gun from his grasp. Then he disentangled the sport coat and plunged his hand into its pockets. Found an ink pen, a box of Chiclets, a straight razor, then came out with Gunther’s wallet.

A new sound up the road, the whine of an overdriven engine — what fresh hell was this? He shouted for Krystal to hurry. Sliding around the bend came the huge white Cadillac, trailing a dust cloud as thick and virulent as a plague of locusts.

Madeline.

Krystal ran from the doorway, dropped to her knees, and began to saw the paring knife through the tape.

“I brought your wallet and your comb, too,” she said, “but your cards were all over the—”

“See that car coming? We
really
want to get away from her.”

Gunther began to groan, and one arm to twitch.

When he was loose enough to manage the rest, Boyd told her to get the car. He hacked at the final bonds, watching the Cadillac’s grille come barreling down the road, then sprang from the ground, filthy tape trailing from his limbs and sides like buckskin fringe. He grabbed Gunther’s wallet and gun, kicked him in the head, and lurched around the side of the trailer.

The Cadillac slewed to a halt, Madeline trying to block the path of their Mazda, but with all this flat ground she might as well have tried blocking a driveway with a toy. She flung the door open to bolt from the car. He lifted the gun, peppering away at the Cadillac’s tires, and Madeline jumped back inside for cover. The front tire went flat in a burst of air, and he began plinking at the rear, missing until the pistol emptied.