When Pigs Fly (16 page)

“Oh my goodness, no. We’re here already and thought you could meet us for dinner. We have something special for you.” Mack suggested a restaurant in Tucson, and they agreed on a time to meet there. “Tell Dad to wear a tie,” he said.

Mack put the phone back in his pocket and looked at Cal, mystified. “The folks are in town. Do you mind them joining us for dinner?”

“You mean would
I
join
you
folks for dinner. Thanks, but I’d be the odd one out.”

“No, you’d make it even. Think of it as a double date.”

The roses hadn’t worked. Juanita had to get out of bed when Zippy came home with them, even though the sun hadn’t gone down yet. She set the flowers in a glass of water, then went back into the bedroom and locked the door, where he heard a man’s voice smothered in passion. It had to be Mack Durgin again, he decided, but instead of knocking the damn door down, he stormed out of the apartment. A plan began to gel.

Later that afternoon, Zippy hid his Hummer behind a rock outcropping and walked around it to look at Mack Durgin’s adobe house about a hundred yards away. The house had a cactus cluster in the front yard and a gravel driveway leading into a carport. Zippy had slathered SPF-40 on his skull and waited for signs of life while he smoked cigarettes, drank beer and relieved himself on a prickly pear cactus. It was hot enough to bake a rattlesnake, dry enough for Zippy to go through a six-pack of beer. There was an annoying whine that was either the mating call of horny beetles or the aftereffects of last night’s mescaline. The edge of Tucson shimmered in the heat several miles across the desert, and even the highway that cut through it was quiet. The nearest other houses were fifty yards away, and there had been no sign of life on the street for the last hour.

The easiest way to take Mack down would be with a rifle and a scope, but what was the fun in that? Zippy put the palm of his hand on the sheathed knife that hung from his belt. Wait for Durgin in his house, scarf up his food and greet him from behind the front door with a snap of his neck and a blade through his jugular. Reach out and cut someone, that was Zippy’s new motto.

He slipped on a pair of latex gloves, checked up and down the street one more time and headed toward the house. Chances were good he would have to wait a while longer, and he didn’t want his prints all over the place when the cops began investigating the bloody beating of Mack Durgin.

He walked around to the back, hopped a short wall and landed in a shaded patio that had a grill, a glass table with an umbrella and a couple of webbed chairs. A sliding glass door was locked, no obstacle for a man with steel-toed boots. He kicked the door into a thousand satisfying shards. A couple of pieces hit him in the leg and the chest, but flat so they didn’t cut. It was all technique, he thought, don’t you kids try this at home. Zippy’s boots crunched on the glass. He had made a hell of a mess, but Mack wouldn’t live to notice. The sucker had humiliated him twice. Now it was Zippy’s turn.

But he had an ugly feeling, standing there in the silence of the kitchen, a stupid and paranoid feeling of being watched. Last night the place had been empty and the slider unlocked. Then he had let himself in and left immediately, waiting in the shadows to see if the cops responded to a silent alarm. They hadn’t.

The kitchen was small and cluttered with unwashed pots and pans on the counter and a round table with two chairs, one dirty plate, a couple of crumpled paper towels and the
Arizona Daily Star
. Zippy opened the fridge. Mack at least ought to have beer or a little weed for his guest, but he didn’t. One or two more beers would boost his courage so he’d be able to stand the sight of blood. The smell of beef burritos hung in the air. That could mean only one thing: Mack had just been here—no, Zippy would have seen him leave. So he was still here, hiding in a closet, maybe with a cell phone dialing 911.

The living room had the usual living-room junk: a couch, a TV with rabbit ears, a stuffed chair, a half dozen empty beer bottles on the floor. There was an office with a desk, a computer and a couple of bookcases. Nothing there. In the bathroom he pulled back the shower curtain. Nothing there. He checked a hallway closet. Nope, nothing. He pushed open the door to the bedroom. Surprise, a bed. He knelt down to look under it, probably just like the old guy to—

He suddenly rose off the floor and up toward the ceiling. One unseen hand lifted him by his belt and another pulled him up by the scruff of his neck. He held onto his combat knife, for all the help it was to him now. The hands shook his whole body, his gold chain swung from his neck, and his wallet fell out of his pocket. Then he flew like Superman until he crashed against the wall. He hit the bed’s headboard on his way down and rolled to a soft landing on Mack’s mattress.

He was dizzy, but still held onto the knife. Standing over him was a monster who looked like a pro wrestler with a bandanna on his head and a ring in his left earlobe.

“You’re trespassing, dude,” the guy said. “Bad idea.”

Zippy slashed at the man’s face, missing his nose by an inch. The crazy goon didn’t even blink. Worse, he smelled like a garbage truck. “Hand me the knife,” he said, reaching out. “Handle first.”

Zippy spit through a gap between his front teeth. The guy had to be at least three hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and grease, but eight inches of serrated chromium-steel blade made the two men equal. Zippy rolled off the bed and landed on his feet in a combat crouch, his dicer ready to draw first and last blood.

“Nice artwork on your dome,” the guy said, pointing with a fat finger. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Zippy stroked his scalp. “You mean it about the tattoo? A lot of dudes make fun of it.”

“Bet a lot of dudes are dead. I go by Diet Cola. Who are you?”

“I’m the guy with no name. I’m the last guy Mack Durgin’s ever gonna see. I’m the guy who’ll make him gurgle blood.”

“I like your spirit. Bold, direct. You’ve been across the street about an hour, casing this place, picking the right time to make your move. Then by crap, you did it. Now tell me your name.”

“Zippy. You saw me?”

Diet Cola belched a foul cloud into Zippy’s face and nodded. “From the living room window. You were out there roasting like a chicken while I was drinking the last of his beer. How do you know Mack Durgin?”

“We had a beef.”

“That much I figured. You can’t kill him, though. My prints are all over this place, I’d look bad.”

“You don’t want him dead, what are
you
doing here?”

“Business. After the successful conclusion of which you can feel free to kill him all you want.”

Zippy opened the refrigerator. “Doesn’t this asshole keep anything to eat or drink in here?”

Diet Cola put his hand on his stomach. The roast beef was great, but next time he’d pass on the hot peppers. “Have a glass of water,” he said, “then sit down. You wanna make a coupla grand?”

“Why not?” He filled a glass with tap water and sat down at the kitchen table.

“You can work with me. Mack Durgin’s got an urn with a guy’s ashes inside. His widow wants them back.”

“What, like cigarette ashes?”

Diet Cola thought how lucky he was to find a partner like Zippy. “Yeah,” he said. “Twenty years of Lucky Strikes. Can you believe it? The only memento she had of her old man, and Mack Durgin won’t give it up.”

“What the
hell
does she want that back for?”

“Hey, I’m just snapping your jock. There’s really a hundred million bucks inside—Hah! Gotcha again! Look, it’s a family dispute. The old man got cremated and Mack stole the ashes, thinking he could hold them for ransom.”

“The prick. How much?”

“Twenty-five grand, which the lady won’t go over ten. She says her husband screwed around on her, so he wasn’t worth any more than that. You help me out, you get half once I collect.”

They shook on the deal, then Zippy washed his hands in the sink.

Diet Cola wondered if he’d find the lottery ticket while it was still any good. It had been pretty quiet outside; if he’d heard anything, it would’ve been the friggin’ pavement boiling. He sure hadn’t expected to hear a clank and a grunt from the direction of the carport, so he slipped out the back door and walked around the side to see what was going on. A car sat in the street and the bozo who presumably owned it tinkered with the inside of another car, this one with Massachusetts plates and in the shade of the carport. Diet bent down and pulled the guy out by the seat of his pants. The wimp yelped like a puppy. He looked exactly like Elvis except for his face and his hair. He had the sideburns, but his hair was scarce on top. His face and neck looked like they’d taken a serious hit from a meteor shower or smallpox, take your pick. The boozer’s nose, the giant purple blotch on the left side of his face, the brown moustache, the half-assed squeal of fear, none of those were the King, but who else wore a jacket with sequins and shoes that looked like blue suede?

Diet stepped on them. Elvis only stopped screaming when Diet closed his good hand onto the sucker’s Adam’s apple until his face went red.

“Mack Durgin? Where’s my ticket?” Diet eased his grip.

“I’m not Mack Durgin. Honest to God I’m not.” Diet slapped his face.

Zippy watched from the other side of the car, laughing as he lit a cigarette. “That’s not him. Mack Durgin is bigger and older and doesn’t look like such a moron.”

Of course, Zippy looked like his brains were falling out, but Diet Cola let it go.

“What’s this about a ticket?” Zippy asked, but Diet had already opened the wallet he’d pulled out of Elvis’s back pocket.

“Elvis J. Hornacre, Massachusetts license,” Diet said. “So you
are
Elvis.” There was plastic wiring on the floor that he hadn’t noticed before. He had looked over every inch of the inside, looking for the lottery ticket. “You can’t be here to repo this piece of junk, and I’d bet a dozen donuts it doesn’t belong to you. So what brings you here?”

“It’s mine. It is.”

“Your name’s not on the registration, nitwit.”

“Well, uh, no. The car’s in my girlfriend’s name. Cal Vrattos.”

“She broke up with you, right?”

“Naw, she wants me to fix something.”

Zippy walked out to the street to Elvis’s car and in two minutes came back holding up a black electronic box with wires dangling in the air. “Fucker had a souped-up GPS system out there.”

Diet Cola smiled. “That’s why she had a homing device inside her door panel. Lover boy here was tracking her. You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?”

“Naw. Naw, I’m just gonna—”

“You’re just gonna undo whatever you got wired up in there. Right now, I don’t have much time left.”

“I—but I can’t, it could blow.”

“That’s okay, Zippy and me will stand back.”

“No! It’s too dangerous.”

“No more dangerous than trying to get past me and Zippy. You blow that car, you wreck more than a piece of machinery, more than some poor babe’s life. You also place my business plan in severe jeopardy. Zippy, you want to move his car out of sight while I supervise Mister Elvis here?”

Elvis nervously removed a gray wad of what Diet Cola guessed was Semtex or C4 attached to a couple of wires. The damned thing probably would have cratered the house and attracted every cop within a hundred miles. “You’re a homicidal maniac,” Diet Cola said, placing an arm around Elvis, who tried unsuccessfully to pull away. “And I mean that in a good way.”

That evening, Mack and Cal walked into Tucson’s Golden Burrito Restaurant and asked for the Durgin party. A wooden wall contained a collage of neckties nailed like the scalps of overdressed patrons. The hostess wore high-heeled leather boots, thigh-high leather pants and a pink shirt with heavy stitching that looked like a mole burrowing just under a layer of fabric. The restaurant logo, an improbably gold image of a burrito, showed lines of curly steam above her right breast. She led them to a table where his parents waited. His father wore pressed slacks, a sport coat and a blue shirt with the stub of a red silk tie cut off just below the knot. Mother wore a pink dress that clashed with the jeans and shorts that other patrons wore. Mack hugged them both, then introduced
my friend Cal
. They all sat down and placed their drink orders with the waitress.

Brodie placed her hand on Cal’s hand. “You look lovely, dear.”

Cal beamed. “Thank you.”

“Nivea works wonders, doesn't it?”

“Beg pardon?”

“The facial cream we sent you, Mary. It just melts away those wrinkles.”

“I'm not Mary. I’m Cal.”

“Oh.”

A pain stabbed Mack's heart. “Mary died last year, Mom and Dad.”

“Oh my God, no!” Brodie gasped. “Mackenzie, I am so sorry! Why did you keep this from us, son?”

“I didn't, Mom. You both went to the funeral.”

“Then who is this woman?”

“I introduced her just now. Cal is my friend.”

“Is she your girlfriend?”

Mack squeezed a slice of lime into his Tecate beer. “If it develops that way, I'll call you, Mom.”