When Pigs Fly (25 page)

“The pig is wearing it,” Ace said as he helped dig.

Poindexter didn’t know he had Elvis Hornacre’s favorite jacket, the one into which Elvis’s mother had lovingly sewn each sequin by hand, the one Elvis had worn the one and only night he’d ever been laid, in the back of a lemon-yellow Cadillac with pink plastic seats, a push-button shift and magnificent tail fins. He just knew the sun wasn’t on him so much, and some two-footed crazies were chasing him. Screaming. Throwing rocks.
Ow! Ow! Ow!

This was turning out to be a day of rejection and disappointment for Poindexter, who didn’t look for much out of life—a few grubs, a little TV, a rear view of a lady javelina. Instead, he was running for his life, scrambling up a hill, getting screamed at for reasons that he couldn’t fathom.

Tiring after being endlessly pursued, he found temporary refuge in a tangle of jojobas while the crazed two-footers made an assortment of strange noises.

“Hey, I’m wiped out. We gotta stop.”

“We can’t, man. This jacket is
my life
. This jacket is
me
.”

“I don’t see it anywhere.”

“When I find that goddamn pig, I’ll turn him into goddamn pork rinds.”

“Ain’t really a pig. You notice those big teeth? They’ll tear new assholes two at a time.”

They were all breathing heavily, as was Poindexter. The jacket felt good on his back as he quietly drooled and listened.

“You never thanked us for saving you.”

“Thanks. Find my jacket and I’ll really thank you. I’ll be your friend for life.”

“Which won’t be a long time. We’re wicked lost.”

“What you come to Arizona for?”

“A broad named Cal Vrattos. I’m trying to win her back. You?”

“We’re here on business. Should we tell him, Ace?”

“Mack Durgin has something worth a huge amount of money, we don’t know exactly what it is. Naturally, we plan to relieve him of it.”

“So you two Einsteins don’t even know what you’re looking for?”

“We know it fits inside a can about so big by so big, and we know Mack Durgin has the can. We also know Diet Cola wants it more than all the pepperoni on the planet.”

“I help you find it, do we share?”

“Sure. Okay by you, Ace?”

“Why not? Right now you’ve got a third of nothing.”

“I’ll tell you my guess. You want to hear my guess? Durgin’s got a million-dollar lottery ticket.”

“Nah. Too farfetched.”

None of which made a bit of sense to Poindexter as he snuggled in the safe, cool dirt and began to doze. In his dreams he saw the girl carrying a plate of Brussels sprouts. Then he was locked in mortal combat with the dominant male of a family of wandering peccaries. Tusks flashed and spittle flew. Soon Poindexter stood triumphant on the chest of his dead rival.

Poindexter felt content. He loved naps, because his greatest accomplishments took place when his eyes were closed. Now the widowed sow stood bathed in sunlight, waiting patiently for her new master. She exuded love-scent from the glands in her flanks as he propped his cloven feet on her back and prepared to have his way with her. He let out a deep snort of satisfaction.

“Jesus! What was that noise?”

“What? I didn’t hear anything.”

“The pig! I hear it somewhere.”

“He’s here in this bush!”

Poindexter’s eyes snapped open as a rock hit his rump. Through the bushes was the face of an angry two-footer. He turned and saw another, then twisting around in a panic, saw yet another. They were yelling, reaching, trying to grab him. There were three of them, which Poindexter didn’t realize—each time he looked he’d forgotten that he’d seen that face a second before—and the army of hostile two-footers multiplied with each terrified turn of his head. He tried to make a dash for it, but caught a tusk in the underbrush. He roared in his most fearsome voice and charged forward again, this time taking most of the bush with him. There was a good deal of screaming and shouting in the two-footer language, but as Poindexter clambered higher up the rocky slope, the noises grew quieter.

This presented a curious state of affairs. The pursuers seemed to be gone, but Poindexter wanted to get out of the tangle of bush right now. For this, the simple solution was to run. Unfortunately, he always seemed to be just on the edge of the bush no matter how far he went. He ran faster, but never made any progress in leaving the bush behind him. Running, stumbling, never quitting, he kept his elusive goal in sight. Presently, he arrived at a ledge at full tilt and kept on going, flying through the air as well as a wingless pig might expect.

Diet Cola had had no idea what Sedona would look like, but its stunning beauty pissed him off. The little shops and cafés, the women with their nice figures and tans and happy smiles, the kids and their dads strolling without a care, the red rocks with their sheer cliffs rising into the sky only reminded him of all the good things in the world that he didn’t have.

He felt desperate now, with only two days to go before the deadline for cashing in the ticket and with diminishing hope he could ever pull this caper off. Even if he got the ticket from Mack, he’d have to kill all the Durgins and Zippy too—the whole damn bunch of them, so they wouldn’t talk. This time, there would be no burying them up to the neck like he did with that nitwit Elvis impersonator. No, this time he would put a bullet through each one’s temple and get it over with. Ace and Frosty were still on the loose, of course, but nobody would ever listen to those clowns.

Zippy seemed too comfortable as Brodie Durgin rubbed more aloe onto the top of his skull. “Turn here,” Diet Cola said. They turned onto a side road, where he hoped to find an isolated spot to kill them all.

“Where we going, D.C.?” Zippy asked without much concern.

“Mister Cola. Mister Cola?” Brodie Durgin said in her high-pitched, old lady voice.

He ignored her. He’d apparently made a good choice with this road, as the pavement had ended and given way to a long stretch of rutted red dirt. A couple of bends in the road put the group well out of sight of the town. Damn straight he’d kill them all. He had a plane to catch.

“Ouch!” Brodie cuffed Diet Cola on the ear; he turned and grabbed her neck. This time the wacky old bat was scared, and he let her go immediately.

“Don’t you
ever
touch me!” he said.

“I’m simply reminding you that it’s lunchtime. My husband is buying.”

Diet Cola’s stomach grumbled. “It can wait,” he said with great effort.

“A taco platter,” Carrick said with a forced grin, “so big even
you
couldn’t finish it.”

“Nothin’s that big.”

“With the most sinful mountain of sirloin strips and guacamole one might imagine,” Brodie said. “A haystack of fries.”

“Shut up,” Diet Cola said. The last thing he needed now was to think about food, but his stomach growled.

“Melted cheese dripping off the side of the plate.”

“Endless baskets of tortilla chips with bowls of salsa.”

“And plenty of beer to wash it down.”

Zippy looked into the rear-view mirror. “And chocolate cheesecake with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert,” he said. “I can just taste it now.”

Diet Cola’s stomach churned with food lust. He trembled at the temptation to turn back and eat, though he knew in his heart that killing them all was the right thing to do. Was he imagining the scent of char-broiled steaks and fried onions? Did he have the strength of character to stick with his mission? He pressed the button to close the power window and he cranked up the a/c to high so the smell would go away. It didn’t.

“An All You Can Eat Special,” Brodie said, “until two o’clock.” She smiled and pointed at her watch. “That’s in ten minutes.”

Mack and Cal hurried back to the car, relieved to finally hurry through the canyon with its narrow, winding road. “
Ach, mein Gott! Was ist loss?”
The damn Germans still stood rooted in the middle of the road, and Mack pounded his fist into the palm of his hand. What natural wonder had these starry-eyed Europeans seen this time? It looked like something tumbling down the hill. “Good God, a poor pig,” Cal said. She was back out of the car before Mack could slip the car past Fritz and his Frau.

“Javelina,” Mack said. The animal lay on the road’s soft shoulder, entangled in an impossible knot of brush and shreds of sequined cloth. It was breathing but apparently unconscious and Fritz started clicking his Nikon again. Cal stared and gasped in wordless horror.

“Let’s go! My parents’ lives are at stake!” Mack blinked at the motionless animal. “Is that Elvis’s jacket it’s wearing?” Cal nodded.

Mack sighed, opened the trunk of their car, picked up the javelina, put it in the trunk and slammed it closed, hoping the tourists would lose interest and get the hell out of his way. Then he and Cal got into the car. He revved the engine, but the tourists wouldn’t move. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out his .38, just making sure that everyone saw it.

“My parents are going to die because we stopped for a pig dressed like Elvis.”

“Your parents aren’t going to die.”

“Damn right they’re not.”

Cal placed a hand on Mack’s arm. “Mack, take a deep breath.”

“There’ll be time for that later.”

“We can’t chase this Kohl creature if we don’t know where he is.”

“You’re right. We need time to think.” Mack and Cal were silent for the rest of the drive through the canyon.

Soon they were in Sedona, and from the sounds in the trunk, the javelina was coming around. Mack had no idea where to look for his parents and Dieter Kohl. Apparently, the battery on his parent’s cell phone had died.

Mack suddenly realized he had no idea where to turn, so he stopped at a veterinarian’s office on the main road. Maybe he could gather his thoughts. By the time a veterinary assistant helped Mack get the animal out of the trunk, it looked like it was recovering from a three-day bender. From its neck hung a plastic tag marked
Poindexter
. Someone’s pet must have gotten loose. The poor animal smelled disgusting.

“Just put this little guy in a pen,” Mack said. “Clean him up and feed him, and I’ll be back in a couple of days. Save the pieces of the Elvis getup for me.”

“There’s a story behind all this, isn’t there?” the assistant said.

“This stupid outfit looks familiar,” Cal said. Mack paid for two days in advance.

As they hurried back to the car, Cal poked him in the arm. “Why, Mack?”

“Why what?”

“We’re looking for your parents. Why all this trouble for a stupid pig?”

The question irritated Mack. “It was in the way, all right? It was hurt. Besides, the suit might tell us something.”

Where should he look to find his parents? He pulled into a parking space in the center of town, not even knowing what kind of car to look for. “Let’s walk,” he said. They walked for a block, and Cal grabbed his arm. “Here’s an Internet café,” she said. “Give me the ticket info and I’ll do some research.”

“I’ve already done that. The ticket’s a loser.”

“Won’t hurt to double check.”

He shrugged and gave her the information. “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

“I need twenty, Mack.”

“Okay, I’ll pick you up in fifteen.”

“Deal.” They traded smiles. “Take heart, Mack. Your parents are going to be okay.”

He glanced at her slender legs as she went into the café, but promptly shut down that line of inquiry. A pink Jeep drove by with camera-laden tourists headed for the dusty back roads and Indian ruins. He scanned the populace, knowing there was little likelihood he would see his quarry driving by. Possibly Kohl and Zippy were hiding on a back road with Mack’s parents, but there were too many paths and byways to check them all. Finding them would be like winning the lottery. No, if Mack really had something worth extorting, then Kohl would find him. At least Kohl could recharge the battery and call Mack again, assuming he found a charger. Mack remembered seeing an ElectroShak on Coffee Pot Road and got their number from Information. Had they sold any phone chargers in the last hour?

“May I ask what this is about?”

“I was talking to a guy and his phone died. I’ve got to reach him.”

“Well, if he bought a charger, I assume he’ll get back in touch with you. Or you with him.”

“This is life and death. I need to know.” For all Mack knew, he was wrong about Dieter Kohl heading for Sedona. This at least would lend credence to his hunch.

“Just a minute, please. I have a customer.” As Mack waited on hold, he started his engine and headed down the street, scanning for likely places where Dieter Kohl might have taken his parents. Of course there were too many possibilities and too little time for a random search. What if they’d been hurt?

“Sorry to make you wait, sir. I’m afraid we haven’t sold any chargers in the last couple of hours. But if you’d like to come in, we can set you up with a nice cell phone.”