John Shirley - Wetbones (25 page)

Garner once had a jones on heroin himself, in earlier years, and he remembered the insistent discomfort that just got worse and worse and worse till you were like a plucked but still-living turkey turning on a spit over a slow fire.

Have to see if he could cop some of that, later.

''What you staring at that bitch for?" Gretchen asked.

"Maybe I get my money's worth, I go to her," Garner said, though he had no such intention.

"You think I should've put out for you last night? You think you'd've been able to get it up then? No way,

that stoned. You think so, you don't know rock. But you had some sleep, you could do it now - we could get a rock and, before you lose your hard-on, we could get down together . . ."

Garner shrugged. He felt like shit. He felt like an old, old man; he felt wrung out and vastly depressed; his brain scorched and his self-disgust an inflamed, pustulant sore in his gut. And that was from smoking the stuff she was now proposing he buy for them once more. Already, the stuff was killing him.

But he could almost taste it in his mouth. He could picture melting the crack, the smoke; he could picture inhaling it. He could imagine the rush - which his addict mind told him would be good again, though deep down he knew it wouldn't.

There was really no choice about his decision at all; none that he could perceive.

So this is what Aleutia went through, he thought, as he followed Gretchen down the street, and into the Projects, where only the stupidest white drug users venture without an armed guard. Here, there was no thinking about Constance. Not while he was being crushed alive himself.

Near Malibu

"This fence a motherfucker," Orphy grunted, pulling himself up onto the top.

"Just keep going," Lonny whispered. He was already waiting on the other side of the fence. He'd scratched his right arm and one thigh rather badly, going over the top where the sharp wire-ends of the fence-weave stuck up; the wounds burned, and his heart thumped. They still had another fence to go over: the smaller, black iron fence.

It was a pretty dark night out, Lonny noticed, now, looking around. It hadn't seemed so dark up on the road. Maybe they should have done what Orphy had suggested: drive the ripped-off truck right through the gate, bash it in, bash into the next gate, then right up to the house, guns blazing, yelling for Mitch and Eurydice. But that kind of shit, he was fairly sure, only worked in movies.

There was only a sliver of moon, and the stars seemed interested but didn't shed much light. The stars just wanted to watch.

Oak trees and some pines and little Manzanita grew around the borders of the place; there was a sickeningly strong smell of roses from where they overgrew the front fence. There was a guard over there, so they'd snuck around, outside the fence, to the flank of the place. Here, between the two fences, was sage and yucca and thatches of dry yellow grass and grotesquely twisty manzanita that seemed to shift and hunch toward him . . . No, that was the breeze that had been coming up. One of those Santa Ana winds. Warm and kind of weird. It picked up again, skirling dust around his ankles and making tree branches scratch out off-key notes against the chainlinks.

The inner fence should be easier. But they had to hurry, a place like this would probably have . . .

He heard their running feet, coming through the brush, before they started barking: Guard dogs. Probably
attack
dogs.

"Get your ass down here, Orpheus, goddamn it!" Lonny yelled. "The fuckin dogs are comin'!"

Orpheus was just lowering himself to drop when he heard the dogs snarling and Lonny yelling, "Look out here come the fuckin dogs!"

"No way man I'm goin' back over!" Orphy shouted,

his voice panicky. He tried to scramble up the fence again, his shoes ringing the links, as the dogs bounded into view. Sleek, dark animals, streamlined as sharks.

Lonny drew the .45 from under his coat, as the bigger dog went for him, the other one bounding to leap at Orphy's legs where he dangled from the fence. Orphy screamed as Lonny fired - and for a moment Lonny thought he'd somehow shot Orphy but then the bigger dog folded up in mid-leap and fell at his feet, convulsing, jaws frothing blood. He couldn't see where he'd shot it.

Orphy was screaming "
Shit shit shit motherfucker!
" as the other sleek, slick-furred attack dog tugged at his ankle, gnawing and pulling with nasty jerkings of its whole body, putting its weight into jerking him off the fence - he fell onto his butt, and the dog lunged for his throat.

Lonny had spent the last ten seconds aiming carefully, for fear of hitting Orphy. He fired, putting a round into the back of the dog's head, and it collapsed with a single yelp on Orphy's legs. It lay there, splayed and quivering, like a cartoon of a dog sleeping contentedly on its master.

Orphy gave a grunt of disgust and rolled the dog off him, then peeled his bloody socks away from his ankle. It was rent in three places but not deeply. "Fuck! I hope that shit-eating hound wasn't rabid, man!"

"They ain't gonna keep no fuckin' rabid dogs to guard their place, dude," Lonny said. "Oh fuck - here comes the guard now."

He was a big, dark silhouette with a blaze of light at his gut like the light of an oncoming train bearing down on them. Orphy scrambled to his feet and followed Lonny, sprinting into the brush between the chainlink fence and the black iron one.

They expected the guard to follow - Lonny could see the shotgun in the guy's other hand, a black bar in the dimness - but the dude ran to the dogs, babbling and bawling. Lonny couldn't make out what he was saying. "Dude sounds fucked up on something, to me," Lonny said.

"Maybe he just crazy for those dogs."

"Maybe both. Come on . . ." He crept in a halfcrouch back out the way they'd come, coming from behind and one side of the security guard. By the time the guard heard Lonny coming and looked around, Lonny had the muzzle of his gun three inches from the corner of the dude's jaw. "Drop that shotgun, motherfucker, or you are dead meat in two seconds." He didn't hear Orphy behind him. He wondered if the son of a bitch was backing him up like he ought to be.

Clunk, the shotgun fell to the ground. The guard said, "You ain't gettin over on shit! You try to rob these people, it just ain't gonna happen, these people here, you illin to fuck wid em. I know, I seen some shit, bro -"

In the backlight off the flashlight, Lonny could see the guy's eyes, the pupils small, for it being so dark out, and his face glistening with sweat. Maybe it was just because of the gun in his face, but something about the dude, like he was going to go off like a hand grenade, made Lonny think there was more happening here. "What you loaded on?"

"Dust," the guy blurted. "Or you wouldn't a got the drop on me."

Great. PCP. This guy was still dangerous. "Sittin up here smoking dust joints all night? We ain't here to rob shit. There's a boy in there, his name Mitch?"

"Up at the house? You the third people to ask about him. Was his brother up here, then a private detective,

I told em I don't think he's here. Denvers say he's not here - but what I know? I never even been to the house."

"Bullshit!"

"It's true! I never been up there! That's part of the deal. I never cross that inside fence - I'm not supposed to, unless I see someone climb over it. You the first to get past the outside fence." The dude's voice getting higher-pitched, babbling faster, like he was working himself up to something, "Fuck yeah I see it, I know some shit, I seen some shit, but I never ask nobody nothin.They pay me three times what I get working in town, then you motherfuckers come and murder my poor hounds and you - now you
fucking up my motherfuckin JOB!
"

A blaze of light blinded Lonny as the flashlight swung and thunked hard into the back of his gunhand and he felt the .45 fly from his fingers and then the guy was reaching for him -

Crack, crack
. Two red fingers of light and two shots: the guard staggered back, Orphy's .38 smacking him in the gut. The guard groaned and dropped the flashlight. Lonny grabbed it up, swung the beam to find the .45 as the guard went stumbling off wailing something about "Now you fucked up, you done hurt me -"

Blood singing in his ears, dizzy from hyperventilation, Lonny pointed the .45 at the guard's back, in a sudden panicky need to blow somebody away. But Orphy stepped up, shoved Lonny's gun-hand down, and hissed, "No forget it, let him go. He don't matter. With the shooting, the people at the house probably already call the cops by now - if they going to. Let's get over the fucking fence.

The guard had gone ahead of them, stumbling through the gate up toward the house, looking for

help. They could hear him cursing as he crashed through bushes.

Orphy and Lonny were within sight of the house. Looked like two houses, a smaller one in back; you could just see a corner of it from this angle. They saw no lights.

Orphy muttered, "I think my ankle's swelling up."

"Can you walk?"

"Yeah. You know what? It looks to me like nobody's home."

"Bullshit. They switched off the front lights when they heard those shots, so we'd think so."

"I don't know, man, that don't -"

"Just come on, Orphy. Let's hurry and get it done. We doing all right. I watched your back, got that dog; you came in for me with that asshole, we doing okay. We got the juice on, so fuck it, let's do it."

With the flashlight doused they followed a path toward the house; it was an old brick path, the cracks between the bricks lumpy with moss; Manzanita and miniature palms and a riot of bird of paradise crowded in thickly on both sides.

About fifty yards from the darkened columns of the main house, the trees and brush were cleared for a lawn that had gone to seed; the yellowish grass was knee-high now, and clumped with thistles. The brick path skirted the lawn on this side - on the far side of the lawn was a gravel driveway, thatchy with weeds beside it, an old, stone watering trough and a plaster jockey lawn ornament. Lonny saw no cars and wondered where they kept them.

To Lonny's right was a passageway of trellis, heavily coated with rose vines and morning glory. There was a statue of a woman that had become overgrown with the rose vines. He found himself staring at it.

Then the statue moved. It was a woman. A woman stuck in the vines.

Orphy saw her first. "Jesus Christ . . ." Lonny followed him up to the woman and switched on the flashlight. Thinking it would show she wasn't real; was some kind of dummy.

When the light hit her she squirmed and chuckled miserably to herself. "Fuck!" Lonny breathed. She was nude except for a tattered, brown-stained bra. She looked like she'd been wedged into the vines, but some of them seemed to have grown in around her. Which was almost possible; she was so emaciated - her skin more blue-gray than pink, her skeleton pushing through - she might have been there for weeks or months, if someone was feeding her. The thorns had dug permanent pockets into her skin, which was streaked brown with old blood. When she squirmed, fresh blood runnelled down . . .

Lonny shone the light on her face. It wasn't Eurydice. It was some white woman, who had maybe once been blonde. Her hair was mostly gone now, and her right eye was scratched out. A shiny green-black centipede ran from the light back into its home in one of her nostrils. She shuddered and sneezed.

Orphy was cursing him. "Get the fuck away from her, man . . ."

Lonny lowered the light; it pooled at her crotch. One of the thicker vines ran up between her legs, wedged deeply in her crotch . . .

"Jesus, lady!" Lonny burst out, trying to pull a vine free from her.

"Don't!" she rasped. With that sound giving out a smell of supreme rot. "Go . . . way."

Orpheus took Lonny's arm. His tone humbled now

as he said, "Let's go. We get her out later. Police or ambulance or something."

Lenny let Orphy pull him onto the path. "These people are fucking illin', Orphy." His voice breaking; tears burning his eyes. What he'd seen was only just beginning to sink in. "They're sick motherfuckers."

But fear gave way to repugnance when he saw, only a few steps farther on, the men on the other side of the trellis. He couldn't see much more than their silhouettes, dappled with starlight and twisty with vine-shadow. Most of them wore clothing but at least two of them were naked. All of them were men - no, there, a woman moved into view. She wore a dress but no underwear. She stood with her legs well apart, her hips thrust forward, the skirt lifted, her gray pussy caught in a patch of thin moonlight. Like the others, she was masturbating.

"Fuck!" Orphy burst out. "They're all . . ."

They all were. Jerking off.

Lenny shone the flashlight on them just enough to be sure that none of them were Mitch or Eurydice. The woman had her hand in a hole dug in a tall, hollow-eyed man's side; he was standing there wobbly and shaky as she worked her hand around in the wound up to the wrist . . .

Lenny quickly took the light off them. They whispered to Lonny. He wasn't sure if he was hearing the voices, imagining them - or if they were just coming into his mind from somewhere . . .

"Some of this . . .?"
The woman asked, in a whisper.

"Hey little boys, have you ever wanted to see the roots of your own penis?"
A man's voice.

"
You guys like to party down, right? That's what you party animals like, huh? Party party party party party
 . . ." Another man's voice.

"
Hello, hello, how are you today, taking a walk, taking a walk, come to visit, come to visit? Look at this, look at this!
"

No human voice.

Lonny pointed the gun, fired convulsively through the trellis. A fully bloomed rose became a fireworks burst of petals as the bullet passed through it and someone whispered, "
Good. Again!
"

Orphy was dragging Lonny along, then, in a run down the path toward the house. Lonny's palpitating heart telling him, This is the wrong way, you should be running to get the fuck out of here!

But they kept going. They almost stumbled over the security guard lying half in the grass, his legs sprawled across the walkway. They made the mistake of pausing to look. There was a woman squatting over the guard's face . . .