Wild Thing: A Novel (7 page)

That’s the problem with the goddamn Yemenis. They’re only in it to send money to Hezbollah or whatever. It’s not their money, so it’s not their problem. They don’t act like professionals.

And of course Matt and Dylan then had to go to some
bar
to hang out, where
naturally
a couple of Canada Skanks asked them if they had any cocaine. And Matt said yes because he had some
fucking
meth
on him, then made Dylan snort some too so the skanks wouldn’t think it was some kind of date rape drug.

Which, to be fair, Matt probably
had
to do. Debbie sure as hell wouldn’t accept a suspicious white powder from someone who looked like Matt Wogum—and Debbie
makes
suspicious white powders.

But
whatever
happened up there in Canada, Debbie now has no one to send to buy more pills. The mashed-up three thousand are the last of it—unless she lets Dylan live, the idea of which makes her feel sick. But what’s the alternative? Deal with the fucking
Sinaloans?

The thought makes her want to scream and then repeatedly slam her hand in the oven door.

Debbie
hates
the fucking Sinaloans. Always sending some gold-tooth midget wetback around, all
“Joo is workin for us now, lady.”
Wanting her to sell finished product up from Mexico at one quarter the profit she gets from cooking it on her own.

So far she’s gotten away with kicking them the fuck out. But if the Sinaloans ever get their shit together and stop killing each other, they could be a goddamn nightmare. They all work in the meat-processing plant in Saint James as cover, so they’re good with knives. Just out of nervousness, Debbie’s had to buy a bunch of new guns for the Boys.

And now she has to
hope
one of those dwarfy fuckers comes back? And brings product with him, so at least she’ll have something to sell?

Debbie rips a handful of tinfoil off the roll and caps the beaker of mash with it, puts the whole thing in the fridge. Fuck else is she supposed to do with it?

Starts the electric toast belt that runs through the top chamber
of the oven. Turns on the propane. Thinks to the potential mustard gas,
Oh, you just do me the favor
.

At least with the mash out of the open air she can smoke. Debbie’s been smoking too much lately, thanks for reminding her, but right now it feels like the only usable air in the room is on the other side of a lit cigarette.

As she inhales her first puff she puts the bun and the French toast on the belt, and the hamburger in the microwave. Screw that pig, even if the propane’s on. Then punches the door to the back parking lot open.

The Boys, now arranged on the low back wall and a couple of cars, fall silent. They look sulky and afraid.

“Soon as the cops are gone, take Dylan Arntz out of here and beat holy hell out of him,” she says. “Matt Wogum I haven’t decided on yet.”

The older ones, the ones who matter—probably the rest of them too—will know what this means.

Regarding Dylan, it means he gets one more chance.

Regarding Matt, it means someone better goddamn start digging a hole.

Ford, Minnesota

Still Thursday, 13 September

Debbie, assuming that
is
her name, puts our plates down. Mine has a burger on it, Violet’s the previously frozen French toast. Otherwise both plates are blank.

Garnish: the life crutch you never appreciate till it’s gone.

The burger looks good, though. Or at least the bun’s toasted, which gets you halfway there on its own. “What else for you guys now?” Debbie says.

Violet says “Can you tell us anything about White Lake?”

Debbie turns outraged so fast it’s like a split-second werewolf movie.

“
What?
Motherfucking WHAT?”

“Uh…” Violet says.

“WHAT did you just say? You people come in here pretending to be
cops
, and—what
are
you, anyway? Goddamn
reporters?
”

“No,” Violet says. “We’re scientists.”

“Sure you goddamn are. And you just
happen
to come in here, asking who I am, asking about the goddamn White Lake Monster—”

I’m out of my bench seat by then, but I stop. “Did you say—”

“I didn’t say
shit
. And I sure as hell didn’t say it to you people.”

“But—”

“You two just get the hell out of my restaurant.
Get
.”

“Can I just—”

She picks up my plate and smashes it to bits on the table. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY RESTAURANT!”

By the time the burger parts hit the floor I’ve got Violet out of her own seat and am scanning it in case she’s left a purse. She hasn’t. Violet Hurst, alone among women wearing cargo pants, actually uses the pockets.

At the door I turn back for one more try. “Can—”

“You want a monster? Go find Reggie Trager!” Debbie yells, winging the other plate at my head.

I get the door shut just as the plate bursts against the plywood.

“Jesus
fuck
,” Violet says as we back toward our rental. The car’s a chunky station wagon from a division of GM that I thought went out of business five years ago. “What the fuck was that about?”

“Lady doesn’t like scientists,” I say.

“No shit. It’s too bad: the French toast looked good.”

“It was frozen.”

“Really? That bitch! How do you know?”

“I saw her take it out of the freezer.”

Violet stops with her hand on the handle of the passenger door. “Were you going to tell me that?”

“I thought you would enjoy it more if I didn’t.”

“That’s some kind of joke, right?”

Luckily, just then there’s a noise from behind the restaurant like someone knocking a bunch of garbage cans over while they or someone else shouts in pain.

I slide the keys to Violet over the roof. “Start the car and stay here.”

“Fuck
that
.”

“Do it. If I’m not back in three minutes, call the cops.”

Out back there are a dozen or so teenage boys stomping the shit out of what looks like another teenage boy, though it’s hard to tell because they’re packed around him pretty tightly and his face has blood all over it. Not a lot of technique happening, but the enthusiasm’s good.

I ignore the attackers and let the blood pull me through to where I’m kneeling over the kid on the ground and shielding him. He’s unconscious but breathing. Laceration over one eye you can see bone through. A bunch of less serious cuts on his face and scalp. His skin is strangely cool.

His eyelids start to flutter. “Don’t move,” I say.

He scrambles onto his back. Touches his face and sees the blood on his hand. “Aw, shit!”

So much for a C-spine check. While he’s distracted, I pick a
gory canine tooth off the asphalt and put it in my jacket pocket. “Stop moving. Tell me if this hurts.”

“It hurts!”

“Wait till I start.”

“Hey!” someone shouts. “Mister!”

I look up. Despite my ignoring them, the other teenage boys don’t seem to have vanished.

They’re a weird range of ages. Thirteen and childlike to about seventeen and shaggy. Different species from each other, practically, though they all have on the same outfit: oversize coat and baggy jeans, both so covered in brand names they look like downtown Los Angeles in
Blade Runner
. At least these kids seem healthier than the born-to-be-wired lardtards I usually see dodging their grandparents on the cruise ship. Like they spend a lot of time outdoors, even if it’s just to kick someone’s ass.

On the other hand, a lot of them are now pointing guns at me.

Mostly shotguns and hunting rifles, but—particularly among the older kids—some expensive-looking handguns as well. The kid who seems oldest, in the center, has a Colt Commander that’s as shiny as a disco ball.

“Yeah, you,” this kid says. “Mister
Dumbass
.”

I have no idea what to do.

Nonviolent crowd control is the hardest part of the martial arts. You can’t spend your nights just heart-punching the heavy bag in the officers’ gym and expect to stay good at it. You have to practice your joint locks and your leg sweeps and so on—something I can’t really say I’ve been doing, at least not to the level where I feel confident I can defuse ten close-together firearms without someone getting hurt.

And it
is
kind of important to me that no one get hurt here.
Does not Sensei Dragonfire tell us, “Control rather than hurt, hurt rather than maim, maim rather than kill, kill rather than be killed”? Ought not I, of all people, to take that admonition personally? And did I not inject myself into this conflict in order to
keep
a child from being injured?

I decide to bluff it out. “That’s
Doctor
Dumbass to you,” I say, standing up with the injured kid in my arms.

The kid with the Commander blocks my way. “I thought you had to have brains to be a doctor.”

I step around him. “That’s a common misperception.”

“It’s none of your business!” he whines.

“You’ve made it my business.”

I’m almost past him—and by extension, I’m guessing, past the rest of them too—when he steps in front of me again, this time jamming the Colt into the left side of my neck.

It’s a very stupid move. The thing it causes to rise up in me doesn’t give a
fuck
that everyone around me is a child, or that so many of them have guns. The thing wants me to throw the kid in my arms to one side, pull
this
kid’s gun past my head, step on his left foot while kicking his right knee out sideways, then palm-strike his throat and hold on. So that when I stomp his chest and he goes backward, both his gun and his larynx come off in my hands. Take it up with Sensei Dragonfire later.

The thing scares me more than the gun. Particularly since Colt Commanders are single-action, and this kid’s neglected to pull the hammer. I shrug past him, causing him to jump out of the way of the feet of the kid I’m carrying.

When I’m almost to the edge of the building, Violet Hurst appears from the other side. Holding her cell phone up and yelling “Nobody move, you fucking cocksuckers! I’ve got the cops on the phone
right now
.”

“You get
reception
here?” one of the kids behind me asks. He sounds genuinely astonished.

I hear the kid with the Commander say “Fuck!” as he tries to pull the trigger on us. Then I bowl into Violet, taking us and the kid in my arms back around the corner just as gunfire tears open the plaster, showering it all over our backs.

Violet’s a badass about it. She lands on her feet, turned around and already running. We pass Debbie, who’s standing in front of the plywood door, one hand shading her eyes, and screaming “Don’t shoot the fucking restaurant, you assholes!”

“Give me the keys,” I say to Violet.

“They’re in the ignition.”

Like I say: badass. I throw the kid in the back and start the car with the gas so flat we jump the curb in front of the parking space before we fishtail out of the lot.