Wild Horses (18 page)

“Would you look at this.” Madeline peeled it, tape and all, from the inside of the window. She began to laugh while reading the poster. “This is her. This is the bitch who killed my fern.”

“Maybe she was off her medication that day.” He continued to read over her shoulder. “I wonder if she’s sick, for real.”

“Oh, go look up today’s word in the dictionary, Gunther, if that’s all the sense you have. Look up
ruse
, why don’t you. Whatever the truth is, do you really think he’d put that down?”

“‘Call for Krystal or Mr. Wackermann with information,’” he read from the bottom. “Mr. Wackermann — what the fuck?”

“Sounds about like the kind of alias Boyd would come up with.”

“That sand nigger at the motel was right on the money, then. Krystal … doesn’t that sound like a hooker name to you?”

The trip to Mississippi aborted, they returned to Las Vegas. Gunther called as soon as he walked in the door, found it was an answering service that would not budge an inch on the identity of its client. Bureaucratic civilians — there were ways around them.

This morning Gunther had gone down to Two-Eyed Jacks, to its sanctum of private offices. In accounting toiled a slight man with allergies to nearly everything that grew, and a hairline that receded more each fiscal quarter. Joseph Farraday was employed by Two-Eyed Jacks the same way Gunther was — little more than surface only, to legitimize his income. For sixteen years he had worked as a skip tracer for credit and collection agencies, electronically running down deadbeats across the country, sometimes even across international borders. Then he smartened up, found he could do the same job for Toby Costas and make better money. Joseph Farraday had gone to work for Costas three years ago, bringing along thousands of dollars’ worth of pirated software, and earning the inevitable nickname “Joey Ferret.”

Gunther shut the door and slid the flyer onto Joey Ferret’s desk. “This is an answering service. Can you dig me up anything else on this number, who it might be answering for?”

The Ferret went to work, pecking two-fingered at the keyboard of one of his computers. Took no time at all.

“Here we go. Sundowners Answering Service,” he said. “I know that name. They do a lot of business with call girls.”

“What about this Krystal name on here? Can you find out who that is?”

Joey Ferret said he’d give it a whirl, that it would take a bit longer, for Gunther to have a seat. He peered into the screen with fingers flying, trying one thing, then cocking his head for a moment of analysis, then attempting another.

“You still banging that pit boss from the Ivory Coast?” the Ferret asked during a lull, and Gunther said he was. “I just don’t get you. Out those doors and on those stages are girls got asses that squeak, they’re so compact, and you barely even look at them anymore.”

Gunther brushed it off. “Maddy’s seasoned. I like seasoned.”

“You don’t think there’s such a thing as being
too
seasoned? I mean, I like salt on my eggs, but I don’t go dumping the entire shakerful on them.” The Ferret pecked out another few keystrokes, then shook his head. “I can keep trying later if you want, but it’s looking like Sundowners keeps its phones and its local area network totally separate, so I couldn’t even begin to crack its database from outside and see who’s who. Which is smart of them, really. You consider some of the clients they’re taking messages for, and the business that’s about to be transacted, what you have there is prime blackmail material for someone like me.”

Gunther thanked the Ferret for his help and decided he’d just have to concoct a story that would both intrigue and mystify Boyd Dobbins, then dangle that bait until the numbnuts hooked himself.

On the way back out into the glare of day, Gunther lingered before one of the stages, let the dancers lick their lips and grind for him, hustling him for a tip. He shook his head and went on, unable to fathom the appeal of all that silicone.

*

After they’d run to Maddy’s condo so she could pack, Gunther said he had one more stop to make. He backtracked up the Strip, then took Flamingo Road to Maryland Parkway, pulled into a strip mall, and glided to a stop before a broad storefront whose windows were papered half over with bright posters and die-cut placards of masked men in skintight costumes. DISGUISE THE LIMIT was spelled out in red letters across the storefront’s overhang.

“A comic book shop?” Madeline said.

“You know I’ve been wanting to sell that boxful from a week ago.” They walked back to the trunk so he could lug out the cardboard crate. “Well, I want to get this done before we leave again. Plenty of cash in hand if we hit any snags. Get the lid, would you?”

Madeline slammed it shut. “I just thought you would’ve taken care of this before now.”

“I can look for Boyd, or I can sell comic books. Unless he’s gotten into the comic business, I can’t do both at the same time, can I?”

Madeline grinned. “You were reading them, weren’t you?”

“Just no putting one over on you, is there, Maddy? Listen, I tried taking care of this once already, but the guy I need to see wasn’t in.” She kept staring at him every step of the way. Finally Gunther sighed, giving up. “Bet you didn’t know that Batman had a lot bigger ears in 1939 than he does today.”

She opened the door for him and in they walked. Heads turned. Granted, they didn’t exactly blend. Browsers and buyers slouched before racks along the walls, scurried between rows of cardboard crates atop tables in the middle. Most of them looked like kids he had picked on in school while growing up in Philadelphia.

“Well, here’s a hot place to be on a Friday night,” Madeline said. “However did you come across this place, anyway?”

“It had the biggest ad in the Yellow Pages.”

“Most of these guys couldn’t get laid in a women’s prison.”

“Don’t you go scaring anybody. I want to get a good price.”

He set the crate on a counter that bracketed part of a wall. Behind it, holding court with some skateboard-toting kids, the man Gunther presumed to be the owner sat like Buddha, with physique to match, his T-shirt barely capable of containing its vast burden. When he deigned to suffer Gunther’s interruption, he turned his head, turtle-slow, great with body odor, knowledge most trivial, and self-appointed superiority.

“You’ve just got to be Calvin,” said Gunther.

“Well I’m not Hobbes,” he said, and his acolytes tittered. His clipped voice was haughty, adenoidal.

Gunther slapped the side of the crate. “Brought these by yesterday morning but I missed you. Guy I talked to said you’re the only one authorized to make big buys.”

“A thousand pardons, I like to sleep days.” Calvin stretched in his reinforced chair and blinked his tiny pig eyes. “Let’s see what you have, my friend.”

As Gunther pulled the top from the crate, Calvin rose like a colossus and fished his hand inside where the comics stood lined up, each in its individual plastic bag with cardboard backing.

“These feel warm, my friend. These feel
very
warm. Where have these books been?”

“In the trunk of my car.”

“In the trunk of his car, he says,” Calvin declaimed to the toadies. They shook their heads, aghast, and Gunther wished he could dunk each unwashed scalp into the nearest toilet, just like the old days. “Would you stick the Declaration of Independence in the trunk of your car, my friend? Or the
Mona Lisa
? How about the Dead Sea Scrolls? Would you stick the Dead Sea Scrolls in the trunk of your car?”

“No,” said Gunther, “but right now I’m getting a real urge to stick
you
back there.”

Calvin blinked and began to flip from one cover to the next, more attentive with each one, like a man who’d brushed aside silt to discover gold. When he spied the greatest prize, he slowly pulled it free, held it to the light as one might hold a diamond to the sun. From the hangers-on came gasps of awe.

“
Detective Comics
issue twenty-seven,” Calvin breathed, and clutched his chest. Beneath his T-shirt, flabby man-tits jounced and jiggled. He slid the comic from its plastic bag onto the counter, then began turning pages with tweezers, meticulous as a jeweler. Calvin begged for a moment to compose himself, and sat, stealing glances at Gunther that alternated between unease and greed. He guzzled from a sweaty bottle of Yoo-Hoo until his hands steadied. “I’ll give you two thousand dollars cash for this box, right now.”

Two grand sounded positively phenomenal for a box of funny books. He looked at Maddy, smirking at this turn of fortune. She rolled her eyes — never wanted to credit him with one damn thing.

“That one in your hand alone’s worth a lot more than two thousand, and you know it, Calvin!” said a teenager with chopped, orange-streaked blond hair. One of the few females in sight.

“You hush yourself, Amy!” Calvin glared at her. “Your presence here is detrimental to my business, so kindly take yours elsewhere.” To Gunther: “My offer still stands, my friend. Pay no attention to the delusional child.”

Amy came muscling her way through to Gunther’s side. “Maybe next time you’ll think twice before trying to pass me off a
Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman
number one reissue as a first edition.” She stuck her tongue out at Calvin, then tugged on Gunther’s sleeve. “Just make him show you a price guide.”

“Children should be seen and not heard.” Calvin tried to shoo her away, but she wouldn’t be deterred. “I’m a busy man, my friend. Now I think you’ll find my offer more than fair, but if you choose to listen to the immature rantings of—”

Anybody working this hard to prove how anxious he
wasn’t
to make a deal was up to no good. Gunther reached across the counter, making a clamp of his curled index and middle fingers and trapping one of Calvin’s thick nipples between the knuckles. He twisted.

“I got your attention now, gutbucket? Good. Reach wherever you got to reach, and let’s take a look at that price guide before I decide to go two-for-one on titty-twisters.”

Calvin proved cooperative, and Gunther continued to apply pressure as pages were flipped. Calvin then held the volume open while Gunther skimmed listings until he found the right line.

“Ninety-two thousand dollars?” Gunther cried. “You fat fuck!”

“That’s only for near-mint condition. Which yours is
not
.”

Gunther shook his head. He’d been in some weird places all across Vegas, but this one was the outer limits. He looked at Amy, who stood beaming and so vindictively triumphant that he thought if he ever had a daughter, he’d want her to be like this. Have to do something about that hair, though.

“Hey, you. Amy, right?” Gunther said. “What condition would you say this is in?”

“Better than good. But very fine might be pushing it — see all those dog-ears? I’d settle for fine, if I were you.”

Gunther checked book value. “That’s still thirty-four-and-a-half thousand. How ‘bout it, Jabba? You got that kind of money?”

Calvin paused from rubbing his sore teat. “Oh, I’m
sure
.”

Gunther repossessed the comic, slipping it back inside its sleeve. Calvin grumbled his way through the rest of the box to see what he could afford, while Gunther had Amy keep tabs with the price guide. Final bid on everything for which the shop had sufficient cash, better than half the crate, rose to $2280.

“Okay, that,” said Gunther, pointing at Amy, “plus whatever she wants in the shop. That’s the deal, chunky boy.”

Calvin buried his face in his hands and nodded. Amy whooped and sprinted for the racks. And for a moment, Gunther felt exactly like some mysterious avenger in a western town, who’d stepped in off a dusty street to right the wrongs of the corpulent and greedy land baron. All eyes gazed on him with awe. He was their champion.

Never did get his name,
he imagined the geeks would whisper for days to come,
but he sure cleaned up
this
store.

CHAPTER 11

The dream was old but had come on its own this time, instead of having to be forced while awake — horses thundering over prairie grasslands, with flaring nostrils and manes that snapped in the wind. Allison riding in the lead, bareback — no one needed a saddle in dreams — and knowing that she could ride without stopping, ride to the edge of forever, where even memories could be left behind. She clung to the reins even as the alarm clock ripped them from her hands, turned them to filaments, mist, nothing.

But she’d held them before; could always find them again.

All the aches and pains from last night’s wiping across the parking lot were waiting in ambush. She faced the bathroom mirror fearing the worst, and it was bad — bruises mostly, a few scrapes and scratches, her left eye blackened. The cigarette burn over her cheekbone was in a class of its own. She told herself she’d better get used to it, for it would probably leave a dimpled little scar, a lasting souvenir of the Coyote Ridge experience.