CHAPTER 16
Live, Via the Spirit World Satellite Network
Santa Barbara
Lonnie Ray Inman was sitting in a worn leather easy chair listening for noises to sift down from upstairs. He had loaded and unloaded his Colt Python.357 Magnum four times, nervously fumbling its deadly weight as he alternately entertained fantasies of vengeance and prison. Every few minutes he would rise and go to the window to see if the black Mercedes was still parked out front, then he would pause at the front closet, where he opened and slammed the door until the violence in his heart subsided enough for him to sit again. He was short and dark and muscles stood out on his bare arms like cables. The front of his black tank top was soaked with blood where he had ripped the skin of his chest with his fingernails, trying to destroy the tattoo of a naked woman, the same woman whose picture was airbrushed on the tank of his Harley, the same woman who had turned his thoughts to murder. Lonnie Ray Inman dropped six cartridges into the cylinder of the Python and snapped it shut, determined this time to make it out the door and up the stairs, where he would burst through the door and kill Calliope's new lover.
Fuck prison.
A thousand miles away, ten thousand feet up in the Bighorn Mountains, Pokey Medicine Wing watched Lonnie loading the gun. Pokey was into the second day of his fast and had been searching the Spirit World for clues to the whereabouts of his favorite nephew, Samson Hunts Alone. He had called for his spirit helper, Old Man Coyote, to help him, but the trickster had not appeared. Instead he was seeing a white city, with red roofs and palm trees, and a man who wanted to murder Samson.
Pokey's body sat, dangerously close to death, in the middle of a two-hundred-foot stone medicine wheel, the holiest of the Crow fasting places, just west of Sheridan, Wyoming. Pokey had been under the hoof of a bull-moose hangover when he began the fast, and now the dry mountain wind was sucking the last life-water from his body. Alone in the Spirit World, Pokey was unaware of his heart struggling to pump his thickening blood. He looked for a way to warn Samson, and called out for Old Man Coyote to help.
Coyote was in the locker room of the Santa Barbara YWCA when he heard Pokey's call. He had entered as a horsefly, and after watching the women in the showers for a while had changed himself into a baby hedgehog and was rolled into a ball in the soap dish, imitating a loofah. Lazy by nature, Coyote had given his medicine to only three people since time began — Pokey, Samson, and a warrior named Burnt Face, who had built the ancient medicine wheel — so it took him a while to realize that he was being called. Reluctantly, he left the hedgehog body in the capable hands of a soapy aerobics instructor and went to the Spirit World, where he found Pokey waiting.
"What?" Coyote said.
"Old Man Coyote, I need your help."
"I know," Coyote said. "You are dying."
"No, I need to find my nephew, Samson."
"But you are dying."
"I am? Shit!"
"You should end this fast now, old man."
"But what about Samson?"
"I've been helping Samson. Don't worry."
"But he has an enemy who is going to kill him. I saw him, but I don't know where he is."
"I know he has enemies. I am Coyote. I know everything. What's this guy look like?"
"He's white. He has a gun."
"That narrows it down."
"He has a tattoo of a woman on his chest — it's bleeding. He looks out a window and sees a motorcycle and a black car. That's all I know."
"Do you have any water on the mountain where your body is?"
"No. There's a little snow."
"I will help you," Coyote said. "Go now."
Suddenly Pokey was back in his body, sitting on the mountain. In his lap he found a package of dry Kool-Aid that had not been there before. He looked down at it and smiled, then fell forward into the dirt.
In the shower of the YWCA a naked aerobics instructor screamed and ran into the locker room when the loofah she was using turned into a raven. The bird circled the locker room twice and nipped her on the bottom with its beak before flying down the hall, into the lobby, and out an open skylight.
Across town, Calliope took the empty salad bowl from Sam and set it on the dresser next to a statue of Buddha. "More?" she asked.
"No, I'm full," Sam whispered. Grubb had fallen asleep in his crib and Sam didn't want to risk waking him. "Calliope," he said, "is this guy dangerous?"
"Lonnie? No. He thinks he's tough because he's in a biker club, but I don't think he's dangerous. His friends are a little scary, though. They take a lot of PCP and it makes them spiritually dense."
"I hate that," Sam said, proud because he was spiritually dense without the aid of drugs.
"I'm going to take the dishes out and check on J. Nigel. Why don't you light some candles? I don't think we should turn on the stereo, though. It might irritate Lonnie."
"We wouldn't want that," Sam said.
Outside, a raven landed on the hood of Sam's car. Lonnie Ray saw it from his window. "Shit on it. Shit on it," he said, but as he watched the raven seemed to disappear. Lonnie slammed the closet door until the doorframe splintered.
Coyote was a mosquito making his way through the air vents of the Mercedes. He flew out of the defroster vent and settled on the driver's seat, where he became a man. Sam's Rolodex was on the passenger seat next to his pack of cigarettes. Coyote lit a cigarette and flipped through the Rolodex until he found the card he was looking for. He removed it and tucked it into the waist of his buckskins.
Lonnie Ray was rattling through the kitchen cabinets, looking for liquor, when he heard the pounding at his front door. On his way through the living room he snatched the Python off the easy chair and shoved it in his jeans at the small of his back. He threw open the door and was nearly knocked down by the Indian who brushed him aside on the way into the room.
The Indian looked around the room and wheeled on Lonnie Ray. "Where is he? Where's the bastard hiding?"
Lonnie Ray recovered his balance and dropped his right hand to the grip of the Colt. "Who the fuck are you?"
"Don't worry about it. Where's the guy that drives that Mercedes?"
In spite of his own anger, Lonnie Ray was intrigued. "What do you want him for?"
"That's my business, but if he owes you money, you'd better get it back before I find him."
"You going to kill him?" Lonnie asked.
"If he's lucky," the Indian said.
"You got a gun?"
"I don't need a gun. Now where is he?"
"Chill, man, I might be able to help you out."
"I don't have time for this," the Indian said. "I'll just catch him at his house."
"You know where he lives?" Lonnie Ray asked. This was like a gift from heaven. He could send the Indian up to Calliope's to do the dirty work: no risk, no prison. If it didn't work, he and the boys could surprise the guy at his house tomorrow, no witnesses. Lonnie Ray hadn't really relished the idea of having to shoot Calliope, anyway.
"Yeah, I know where the bastard lives," the Indian said. "But he ain't there. He's somewhere around here."
"You give me his address, I'll tell you where he is."
"Fuck that," the Indian said, shoving Lonnie against the wall. "You'll tell me now."
Lonnie brought the barrel of the Python up under the Indian's chin. "I don't think so."
The Indian froze. "It's on a card in my pants."
Lonnie Ray held out his free hand. "Don't ever tell someone you don't have a gun, dipshit."