Bad Men Will Come, page 9
Billy bobbed his head excitedly. “Yeah, yeah. Open it.”
Ephraim yanked the hatch open, and only then, when it saw the shimmer of heat and the magma-colored glow inside the oven, did the frog catch on that shit was about to get real. Its body rapidly inflated and contracted and it emitted deep-throated croaks of alarm. Billy tossed it in.
The frog landed amongst the hot coals on the conveyor belt, took one hop, and its whole body exploded. For once Billy was speechless. He clapped his hands to the sides of his head as if he were in shock. His mouth fell open and he pointed toward the space where, a second ago, a frog had existed. The whole thing had just disintegrated, nothing left.
“Holy shit,” Billy said in wonderment. “Now we know.”
“Know what? What fifteen hundred degrees does to a frog?”
“Yep. I bet not too many people have seen such a thing.”
Ephraim shut the hatch and shoved the lever over to seal it. Everything up there was black and dirty from coal dust and Ephraim’s palms were black from touching the lever. He wiped them on his uniform.
“I feel kinda bad about that,” Billy said sheepishly, as though he were trying guilt on for size, see how it felt. “Maybe I should say some words.”
“Sure. Little late for regrets, though, don’t you think?”
“You’re right.” Billy nodded. “What’s done is done. Hey, I got a joint.” He fished a spliff from his pocket and held it out for Ephraim to inspect. The roll was packed fat with weed.
Ephraim shrugged. “Why not.”
Billy couldn’t get the joint sparked in the wind, so Ephraim cupped his hands to help shield the flame, and Billy got it lit. They set their hard hats on the grated floor and rested their elbows on the south-facing rail, passed the smoke between them, and looked out over the river valley. The wind blew heavy through the trees and they could hear it whistling over the noise of the machinery. The moon hung fat in the sky and reflected off the river in a million tiny glints. Far off on the horizon they could see cracks of lightning, but no accompanying thunder reached their ears. Ephraim looked at the moon and thought about his son and the telescope he’d gotten for his birthday. Maybe Caleb had found some joy in that today, at least.
“Y’all got a bunch of kids,” Ephraim said. Though Billy was a couple years younger, he married into a gaggle of step-kids whose ages ranged from preteen to low twenties, and he’d sired three of his own that were around Caleb’s age.
“You’re telling me. Sheila’s like a damn baby mill. I give her a hug and somehow nine months later a baby comes out.”
“I don’t think that’s the way that works. Maybe you should check paternity.”
“Oh, I’m not that lucky,” Billy said. “They’re mine.”
“How is Sheila?”
“Moody as hell. I could lasso that moon right there and she’d find something to complain about how I did it. You did it correct, I’m telling ya. One and done, get rid of the lady. That’s the way to go.”
“I don’t know if I’d say all that.”
“I got a theory about women.”
“This should be good.”
“Hear me out, I think I’m right about this. What I think happens is, women, you know how most of ’em don’t ever fart in front of you? They hold all their farts in, see, and what happens is, it comes out as drama.”
Ephraim chuckled. “That’s a theory, all right.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“What number y’all up to now?”
“Number of what?”
“Kids.”
“Seven by last count. Though now you say it, I’m not sure that last one’s mine. Got a funny look to him.”
“Then he’s yours for sure.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“You ever heard of a thing called PANS or PANDAS?”
“You mean like the animal?”
“No. It’s an illness.”
“No, I ain’t never heard of that one. What is it?”
“I dunno.” Ephraim flicked the ash off the end of the joint and took a long drag. He blew a thick column of smoke from his nostrils and passed it to Billy. “It’s no good. Has something to do with your brain swelling up, making you go psycho, basically.”
“You think that’s what Caleb’s got?”
“Maybe. I dunno. I typed his symptoms into Google and a bunch of shit on that popped up. Whatever it is, he’s getting worse. I gotta call the doctor tomorrow.”
“Sorry to hear that, buddy. But you shouldn’t be looking that shit up on Google. Talk about making you go crazy.”
“Yeah.”
Ephraim told Billy about Caleb climbing on top of his table at school that day, and how he screamed about Nazis killing babies and wanting the abominable snowman to murder him.
Billy hit the joint and thought about that. “Well,” he said, “he’s not wrong. Nazis did kill babies.”
“That they did.”
The two men smoked the rest of the joint without conversation. When it was cashed Billy flicked the roach over the side of the railing and they watched the dying ember arc down and vanish.
“Say, whatchoo gonna do when they fire us?” Billy asked.
“Scrounge around for some odd jobs I suppose, like last time. Try to get something under the table. I dunno. I gotta make some cash somehow. You?”
“Oh, I already know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna hock makeup and beauty products.”
Ephraim snorted.
“You laugh now, but just you wait. There’s a fortune to be made. Sheila buys that stuff all the time off the internet, and you know who she buys it from?”
“People that sell it on the internet.”
“A bunch of fat moms who all look alike. I’ve not seen one man selling that stuff. Not one. That there’s what you call a gap in the market. I’ll bet women would love to be told how beautiful they are by a man, and how beautiful they’re gonna be. Every woman wants to be made to feel like a million bucks. It’s gonna be a gold mine, I’m telling you. You should do it too. After a while, you get other people to sell it under you—they’re like your disciples—and you get a cut of their profit. It’s a win for everybody.”
“That’s called a pyramid scheme.”
“Damn right. I’m gonna climb to the top of the beauty and wellness pyramid. Get me a YouTube channel and everything. Do makeup tutorials. It’ll blow up, you watch. You ever get a gander of me in eyeliner, you better watch out. You might feel a tingle in places that make you uncomfortable with your worldview.”
Ephraim squinted his eyes and pretended to scrutinize Billy’s mug as if he were giving it an imaginary makeover. Billy twisted his body away, then whipped his head back over his shoulder with his lips puckered and cheeks vacuum-sucked in.
“Seductive as you are at present, I don’t know that I could get past, you know”—Ephraim gestured to everything above Billy’s neck—“how butt-ugly you are.”
“Could be a problem,” Billy admitted. “Maybe I’ll just be a rapper. What was that one redneck rapper’s name? Bubba Sparxxx? That’s what I’ll do. I’ll be the next Bubba Sparxxx.”
Ephraim was about done. “You ready to get back to it?”
“If I must. Hey, you think Bubba Sparxxx is any relation to Don?”
“Eh, I’d say there’s plenty of people with the surname Sparks.”
“I’m gonna ask him.”
The two men descended the four flights of stairs. Before going their separate directions, Billy dug into his pocket and asked if Ephraim needed a little pick-me-up to get through the night.
“Naw, I’m good.”
“Suit yourself,” said Billy, popping the pill into his mouth.
Since he was already out, Ephraim considered walking back over to packaging and collecting his test sample, but it wasn’t time yet, and he didn’t want to cut corners, even if he was likely to be laid off. He scanned his key card, went into the station, and checked the controls to see if there’d been any temperature variation on the fourth-level hearth. The monitor registered a forty-degree flux, probably from the increase in draft and oxygen. That’d bounce back in a jiff, with nobody being none the wiser.
There came another bang at the door. Ephraim knew it wasn’t a supervisor because they all had card access. He walked to the front, fully expecting to see Billy again, probably with another bullfrog or some other devised mischief. But this time the knocker wasn’t Billy. This time, it was Lucia.
She stood with her arms crossed, making a face like she was already ruing the decision to come there. She had her hip jutted out to sprinkle some sass over the tableau. But this stance belied the fact that (a) she’d shown up in the first place. Bismark Carbon was no hop, skip, and a jump from anywhere. Top of that, she’d had to walk damn near half a mile in the wind to get here from the access road. And (b), she’d granted his request and was still wearing her uniform from the diner, minus the paper hat.
“I thought you were gonna text me,” Ephraim said.
“I did text you. You didn’t respond, and I wasn’t gonna sit alone on that creepy-ass road waiting for a horror movie to break out.”
“Sorry, I didn’t get it. Service out here is terrible.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“It’s good to see you, though. Great to see you, actually.”
She cocked her head dubiously. “Uh-huh.”
Ephraim leaned against the doorframe. His eyes skimmed her top to bottom and he flashed a wide smile. “Well. You gonna give us a twirl?”
“Don’t push it,” Lucia warned, but it didn’t have much teeth to it.
“You say so,” Ephraim said, dialing the smile down a few notches. “It’s getting cold. You thinking about coming in, or you gonna stay out here getting windblown a bit longer?”
CHPATER EIGHT
Fat Times in Cain City
The Sundown Courts Motel was laid out in three separate buildings, each three stories tall, that formed a hard U-shape around a dingy courtyard. The courtyard boasted a pool that looked more like a lagoon at this point—pond scum germinated out from the corners, and there were a few tables and lawn chairs scattered around. In its heyday the Sundown had been the premier motor lodge off the I-64 pass, but sometime around the Clinton presidency it fell into a state of disrepair and stayed that way. From then on it was the type of place that rented rooms by the hour, or half hour if necessary. Whatever it had to do to stay in business. If junkies or the similarly downtrodden could scrape together five hundred bucks, a room could be had for the month. Occasionally it would lure in some weary travelers from the interstate, but often they’d get a look at the rooms, or the riffraff, and move on down the road.
There were only a handful of cars parked in the lot when Verbals pulled the minivan headfirst into a spot by the courtyard. Jerry Perky pulled his Chrysler LeBaron in next to it, clambered out, and moseyed into the office. A minute later, he emerged with a key card and motioned for the others to come on. Momo, Buddy The Face, and Verbals got out of the van and followed Jerry around the pool, where a plump middle-aged man and woman were reclined on the lounge chairs, nursing wine coolers. The couple watched the serious-looking men with the detached curiosity of drunkards.
“Get in your room,” Buddy barked at them. The pair didn’t protest. They walrus-rolled out of the chairs, collected their mini-cooler, and scurried away, the man repeatedly nudging the woman to move faster, she slapping his hand away.
Jerry Perky pointed out the third-floor room on the far building where the prostitutes were holed up, number 327. With Momo leading the way, they ascended the stairwell and strode down the corridor. Each man drew his gun. Buddy also had an extendable steel baton that he snapped out to its full length. The curtains to the room were closed. The TV was on inside; it sounded like an action movie was playing. Jerry slipped the key card in and out of the slot, a tiny light flashed green, and the door clicked. Momo stepped to the fore, turned down the handle, and went in, Buddy and Verbals direct on his tail, Jerry bringing up the rear.
The blue glow of the television illuminated the otherwise-darkened room. Momo quickly parsed the visual information in front of him. Two empty pizza boxes on the dresser next to the TV. Clothes strewn about. In the near bed one of the black boys lay beneath the floral-patterned comforter pulled up to his chin, sleeping. Another, on the far bed, was in flagrante with two of the girls. The one called D’Ann was attending to him orally while the one named Tracy suckled his neck. All of them stark naked.
The third girl, Janice, was perched on a stool back by the vanity sink, snorting meth off the counter. She won the superlative for best dressed, seeing as she was the only one wearing a stitch of clothing: a cutoff white tank and a pair of long fuzzy socks, nothing in between. She threw her head back after hitting the meth and was the first to notice the intruders. She smiled brightly and waved at them with both hands, fingers twinkling, as though four killers entering a room made for a nice addition to the party.
Pippen was oblivious to their presence. His eyes were on the ceiling as he mouthed noises of pleasure that sounded vaguely like the moans of a deaf seal. He had a handful of D’Ann’s lemon-bleached hair and was forcing her down to where she was gagging on him. Momo squatted down to admire their naked forms at eye level. He lingered for a moment, enjoying the show, before standing and motioning for Buddy The Face to position himself on the far side of the bed. As Buddy crossed the room he briefly blocked the glow from the TV. Pippen felt the shadow wipe across his face. As he looked to see who it was, Verbals threw on the lights.
Pippen squinted against the sudden brightness and shielded his eyes. It took about half a second for his brain to compute how much trouble he was in. Four figures, all white, all brandishing guns. The little one in front had a teeny upturned nose and far-set eyes that made him look downright amphibian. Two tall men flanked him, and on the other end of the bed was some muscled-up, Frankenstein-looking mug wearing an eyepatch. He’d never seen these men with his own eyes, but he’d heard enough of the stories—the myths—to know, instantly, whom he was dealing with. Stenders. Dread mainlined into his veins.
Tracy, ever the professional, had yet to stop sucking on Pippen’s neck. He shoved her clean off the bed, threw D’Ann’s head off his cock, and scrambled for the .32 ACP on the nightstand. Buddy The Face brought the baton down hard on Pippen’s outstretched hand. His metacarpals crunched beneath the blow, his fingers bending backward around the rod. Pippen yelped in pain. He retracted his arm and jerked into a sitting position. Buddy swept the baton across the nightstand, knocking a bottle of Crown Royale and the .32 to the floor. The liquor glugged from the mouth of the bottle.
“Hand me that, will you, darlin’?” Momo said to Tracy, who was already down there, Pippen having shoved her from the bed. She grabbed the bottle of Crown and offered it up.
“The gun, darlin’,” Momo said.
“Oh.” She dropped the liquor like a sack, picked up the silver .32 and handed it to him. Verbals helped her to her feet. Momo examined the weapon for a moment, tested its heft, felt to see how well it fit in his hand, then tucked it into his waistband.
The hubbub stirred Kevon. He came to groggily, peeling his eyes open to find the barrel-hole of a Smith & Wesson 500 leveled at his face. He bolted upright, knocking the back of his head against the headboard, and thrust his hands into the air. Verbals yanked the covers off him, saw that he was in boxers and didn’t have any guns.
“It wasn’t me!” Kevon shouted.
This got Momo and his cronies laughing. “It wasn’t me? Ain’t that a song? ‘It wasn’t me.’” Momo screwed up his face trying to remember, hummed a few bars, then started singing it. “‘Saw me fuckin’ in the ocean. IT WASN’T ME. Caught me hittin’ on her mama. Duh duh duh-duh.’ Who sang that shit?” he asked. Nobody buzzed in with the answer. “C’mon, who sang that shit?” He searched the faces in the room, got blank stares in return.
“Never heard of it,” Buddy The Face growled. “Sounds
awful.”
“I might not be doing it justice.” Momo waved his pistol at Pippen and Kevon. “You two gotta know.”
D’Ann, who was still lying on her stomach atop the bed, rolled over, swung her feet to the floor, and sat forward with her elbows on her knees. She wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist and mumbled, “They probably wasn’t even born when that song came out.”
“You drowsy from dick or what, girl? Speak up.”
D’Ann raised her voice. “I said that song is old as shit. These fools probably wudn’t even born yet.”
“Goddamn, you don’t have to yell. You know who sang it?”
“Shaggy.”
“Shaggy? Naw, I thought that was what’s his name? Caribbean dude . . . Akon.”
“Wudn’t no Akon. Some other fella sings the one part you was butchering, but it was Shaggy’s song.”
“Huh,” Momo shrugged. “Learn something new.”
“We still gonna get paid or what?” D’Ann snapped. She made a show of rubbing a crick out of her neck. “This was a long-ass day.”
Momo deferred that question to Jerry Perky, who said, “Course you are, D. Y’all are all getting a big fat bonus for this here.”
“Good. Can we leave now?”
“Hold on for a second, sweetheart,” Momo said. “We got to get to the bottom of some murderin’ and thievin’ ’fore you light outta here.” He turned his attention back to Pippen, who’d tucked his maimed hand into his armpit and had his good hand hiding his genitals. “Why you being shy? We done seen that flagpole.” Momo tilted his head to scam a look through Pippen’s drawn legs. “My, my, my-y-y-y. Anybody got a good blade on ’em? I like to slice that thing off, balls and all. Get it taxidermied. Mount it on the wall. I’d make it my centerpiece. Present it to my houseguests at parties like, ‘Have you seen my African cock?’
