Six Bad Things (35 page)

—I’m taking his gag off.

I rip the tape away before he can stop me, but he doesn’t seem to care. He watches me, studying my moves. I pry a blood-slimed piece of cloth from T’s mouth. He chokes and grabs my hand and hisses.

—Save me.

Sid pushes Sandy at the trunk.

—Her too.

She tries to take a step back, shaking her head from side to side, her hair flailing the air. I pull her to me and slip my arm under her legs, lifting her as if to take her across a threshold, and deposit her next to T. Her eyes are huge. She’s trying to say something; another scream will burst from her mouth in a moment. I slam the lid closed, muffling her cry and cutting off T’s guttural pleas.

Sid hands me the keys and we get in, me behind the wheel, him beside me, holding his gun. We pull out of the lot, away from the El Cortez, as emergency vehicles arrive. I catch a glimpse of the other security guard kneeling next to his dead partner, and then we are back on the Boulder Highway.

Sid wants a hideout.

—Dude, twenty-four hours of cruising around in that Cavalier? Talk about ill shit. Don’t want to be on the road in a stolen car, don’t want to risk trying to steal a new one. Don’t want to park too long in one place and have people being all,
Hey, what’s with the two dudes sitting around in that car for so long?
So cruise, park, call you, leave another message, cruise some more. And talk about golden tickets? Finding your cell number written on T’s hand? Huge. I mean, dude, that’s the only reason he’s alive. I mean, if we didn’t have a way of talking to you and threatening to kill him? What would be the point, right? So it all worked out. But if I don’t get to sit still for a few hours, I’m gonna freak. Also, dude, like you probably noticed this by now, but I totally reek.

He’s on a killing high again.

Feeling real.

And he wants to take a shower.

I take him to T’s trailer.

I SLOW down as we get closer, and point at the Super 8 up the road.

—You seen any news?

—Naw, dude, told you: drive, park, call, drive some more.

—They found that car you stole.

—Yeah?

He points at the entrance to the trailer park.

—Think they found this place?

I shrug.

—Might have, if someone from the Super 8 saw you guys come over here. You want a place to rest, this is the best I can do.

—OK, dude, it’s cool. Let’s do it.

He hefts his gun.

—But, dude, if there are cops? It’s, like, blaze of glory time.

I can tell he’s into the idea. But there aren’t any cops.

HE WON’T let T and Sandy out of the trunk. That’s OK with me. It means they’re out of the way.

Inside, we flip on the TV. The local stations are covering the parking-lot killing at the Cortez. They don’t know about Rolf yet. Soon, someone will see the dreadlocks on Rolf’s corpse and realize he’s the guy in the police sketch going around, and then CNN will pick up the story.

Sid makes me come into the bathroom with him. I sit on the toilet. The crank I sniffed at the hotel is peaking. My knee is bouncing up and down while I grind my jaw. He stands in front of the door and starts to strip, his gun on the edge of the sink right next to him.

—That was hairy back at that chick’s house, dude. Seriously, I didn’t know what the play was gonna be, but when your dude showed up with his huge dog? That was whack. What kind of dog was that?

—English Mastiff.

—Dude, that was a big dog.

—Sid?

He puts his right foot up on the sink.

—Dude?

—Why did you kill Rolf?

He starts to unlace his moccasin.

—Dude.

He pulls off the moccasin, switches feet, and starts to unlace the other one.

—He was being a dick.

He pulls off the other moc and stands there, looking at it and fiddling with the laces.

—He was, you know, pretty cool to me and my sis when I was a kid. And it was cool when I visited him in Mexico that time. And I thought it was awesome when he showed up and asked me for help. But. Shaaaw! All he was about was getting paid and getting high. And I started remembering things? Like, how, when he was hooking up with my sis, how he used to like to pick on me and be all Mr. Cool, like he
always
knew
everything.
And. And nothing was, like,
real
to him. Like, he wanted to kill you, right? After. After you left us in the desert, all he could talk about was how we’d find you and then get your money and then
I
was supposed to kill you? But. Dude. I. I didn’t want to. I mean. Dude, I was pretty, I don’t know, hurt by that, you splitting. But I understood. And even after you blew us off again and Rolf was all,
OK, that’s it, his ass is dead and fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck,
and all. Even then? I kind of had an idea of what you’re about and why you had to leave us.

He strips off his pants. Standing there in his Fruit of the Looms, looking like the skinny kid he is.

—I mean, it’s like. I meant what I said before, about being a fan. And. More than that? A, like, a admirer? And I also felt like I understood, because you’re like, all about
survival,
and I get that. Like, you’re all,
Whatever I have to do to stay alive I’ll do it and fuck everybody else.
And that makes total sense to me, and what Rolf was about didn’t. Make sense. And I didn’t want to kill you. Because. Because it seemed like being with you was real and honest, and being with Rolf was a lie. And I just want to lead a real life and do real things that affect people and change things. And then. Dude. While we were driving around? He was treating me like I did something wrong. He was all,
Where were you and why didn’t you shoot him and what’s wrong with you?
And at the hotel back there? He was, he was being such a dick. He was doing shit just like my dad used to do to me. Picking. Asking questions that he
so
already knew the answer to. Like to make himself feel big. And it totally doesn’t matter what you say because he’s gonna beat the shit out of you no matter what. I know all about that game and. And.

He rubs his eyes.

—And, I guess, I just realized that Rolf was full of shit, and you’re not. So I shot him.

He pulls off his underwear.

—Sit on your hands.

I sit on my hands. He picks up the gun and pulls the bath curtain open and steps onto the mat between the toilet and the edge of the tub. Still facing me he reaches back and twists the hot water knob. The pipes wheeze and gurgle and spit a jet of scalding water onto his arm, shoulder, and neck.

He flinches away from the water, turning his head, and I kick him above the knee. His feet skid on the bath mat and he tumbles into the tub, clunking his head on the tile and falling into the stream of boiling water.

—Fuck! Fuuuuck!

He still has the gun. He’s flopped in the tub sideways, his legs hanging out over the rim, blood starting to well from the cut on his forehead where he smacked it. He’s trying to draw a bead on me and get out of the way of the scorching water. His skin is already turning bright red.

I drop from the toilet seat onto the floor as he pulls the trigger, exploding the toilet tank. He kicks at me as I reach through the billowing steam and grab hold of his gun hand. The long sleeves of my shirt give me a moment’s protection, and then the water has soaked through and is burning my arms, droplets splashing onto my face and eyes as I try to grip his slippery, naked skin.

He’s flailing at me with his feet, kicking me in the ribs as I lean over the edge of the tub, one hand holding his wrist and the other peeling his finger back from the trigger, bending it. He’s slapping at the hot water knob with his free hand, trying to turn it off, but he twists it the wrong way and it pounds down on us, scalding the side of my face. His finger snaps and I bend it until it’s pressed flat against the back of his hand. He lands a kick on the side of my head that sends me falling backward into the cold toilet water pooling on the floor.

The sudden cold makes me feel just how bad my burns are and I scream. Sid’s mouth is wide open, but a whistling rush of air is the only sound coming out. He pulls his legs into the tub and gets them underneath his body and starts to stand up. The water is still crashing on him and he’s twisting the knob with his left hand. I reach back into the tub and grab one of his legs. He points his gun at me, but his broken trigger finger dangles uselessly. The stream of water fades to a dribble and I yank on his leg and he falls back into the tub, swinging the gun at me on the way down and cracking me in the skull.

The world flips.

The world rights itself.

The gun has bounced out of Sid’s hand and landed in a puddle of steaming water at the hair-clogged drain. Sid paws at it with his lobster-red left hand and shoves his mauled right hand in my face, trying to hold me at bay. His broken finger slips into my open mouth and I bite it. He screeches and slaps his left hand against my right ear, setting off an explosion of pain. I swing my right arm up in an arc, wrapping around his left arm, bring it down, and squeeze my elbow into my side, pinning his arm in my armpit. He’s on his back now writhing in two inches of seething water. His right hand is squirting blood into my mouth, the other is trapped, and his legs are useless inside the tub. I punch him in the face with my left fist, and throw myself on top of him in the tub.

He’s pinned beneath me. He pulls hard on his left arm and it starts to slip free. The flesh at the break in his finger is starting to tear between my teeth. I wrap my left hand around his throat and let his left arm free and he grabs my lower lip and pulls down, trying to free his other hand from my jaws. I reach beyond his head into the puddle of hot water and wrap my fingers around the butt of his pistol. Too late, he realizes what is happening and grabs at my right arm. I lean all my weight into my left arm, squashing his throat. His mouth flies open and I shove the gun inside of it until I feel the tip of the barrel hit the back of his throat and he starts to gag on it.

I pull the trigger. Water drains from the new hole in the bottom of the tub.

WHEN I open the trunk Sandy hits me in the arm with the lug wrench. I take it from her and we get T into the back seat. I give the keys to Sandy and she gets behind the wheel and drives us to Tim’s apartment.

The only place left to hide.

SANDY PLAYS nurse. She gets us inside, puts T in Tim’s bed, fills the tub with cold water, and cuts the clothing from my body with a scissors from Tim’s desk. Once I’m in the tub, she empties all the ice trays into it.

My right arm and hand are raw and red and dotted with white blisters. My knees are also scalded, but not as bad. I know the right side of my face and neck are bad, but I can feel the pain, so the tissue damage can’t be too deep. My vision is speckled with black dots and I don’t remember what happened right after I shot a hole in the back of Sid’s mouth. I try to remember some details and the black dots blur into a single huge dot and I find myself choking on ice water. Sandy pulls me up, out of the tub before I drown. I get up and stand on the linoleum floor while she blots my skin dry as gently as she can. I think it’s a safe bet that Sid aggravated my concussion when he smacked me with his gun.

There’s no burn cream in Tim’s bathroom, but there is a bottle of aloe. We smear that over my scalded skin. There’s nothing to use as a burn bandage except some Saran Wrap from the kitchen. Sandy carefully wraps it around my knees, arm, shoulder, and neck. My face and hand will have to go without. She drapes a sheet around me like a toga and helps me into Tim’s room and I sit on the edge of the bed. T’s awake.

—My dog.

—I’m sorry, T.

—My fucking dog.

—I know.

—Gonna kill the fuckers.

Too late.

Sandy has already stripped him and wrapped a towel around his calf. It’s still bleeding. My hands are shaking from the speed and I don’t think I could hold a needle in my burned right hand anyway. And I could just black out again at any moment. Sandy shakes her head when I ask if she thinks she can sew him up. We have to stop the bleeding.

I give T two Percs and he goes out. I tell Sandy to try and clean up his face and I go in to the kitchen. I want two Percs. Really, I want all the Percs in the world, but I’ll have to live with the one I took back at El Cortez. In the kitchen I find a serving spoon. I turn one of the stove’s gas burners to high and set the handle of the spoon in the flame and go back to the room with a whiskey bottle. We unwrap T’s leg and bathe it in Tullamore Dew and I have Sandy hold a clean towel around it while I go for the spoon. I hold it, the glowing handle sticking out of a wet rag, and press it into one end of the hole in T’s calf. He jerks and I tell Sandy to hold the leg tighter and she gags at the sound and the smell and then it’s over. Then we do it again, cauterizing the other end of the hole, as well.

That’s all I can do for my friend. There’s a murdered body at his home and his car was seen speeding away from the scene of another murder and soon the cops will be after him, and when they catch him they will send his ass back to California and lock it up for the rest of his life.

So he has to go now.

SANDY DRESSES T in a pair of Tim’s shorts and a Les Paul Live at the Iridium sweatshirt. I find a pair of overalls that touch as little of my burned skin as possible.

T comes to as we slide him into the backseat of the Chrysler.

—What the fuck?

—Hey, T.

—What the fuck?

—Yeah, I got that.

Sandy gets behind the wheel and buckles herself in. I sit in the passenger seat, but don’t close the door. T focuses his good eye on me.

—You look all fucked-up, superstar.

—It’s going around.

—I wanna go home.

—I’m sorry, T, you can’t.

—Fuck you.

—I’m sorry about your dog, T.

—Said, fuck you.

—Thanks for helping me. I.

I shake my head, unable to finish. He reaches out a hand, puts it on my arm, and closes his eye.