An unmistakable sound draws me back out of the house. It's the Eldorado, idling up the street. For the first time in Leona's life, she parks at the unfashionable end of Beulah Drive. Neither she nor George or Betty talk, or adjust their make-up. They don't even breathe. They sit parked under a willow and wait. Nobody, but nobody, overrides Nancie Lechuga's instructions. I watch with the ladies as Lally climbs into his car and drives away. They follow at a discreet distance. Mrs Lechuga's drapes twitch shut behind them. She's back in charge of the brigade, bless her.
Mom and Pam are fretting over the chicken by now, as Muzak boils the life out of some ole song. A two-inch pile of napkins sits soggy with their tears, under a sprinkling of salt and crumbs. I'm touched that my spirit is with them, just like the ole days, when hanging out together was like playing a favorite ole disc, reliving the tickles you got when you first heard it. Neither Pam nor my mom is saying anything relevant, that's the beauty of it. I don't know if it's on purpose, or if it's like a genetic kind of thing that folk just cruise into comfortable, meaningless ole routines when the shit hits the fan.
Mom just says, 'Well but they've moved things around since last time.'
Pam says, 'Lord, you're right, the cashier used to be over there.'
All I can say is they must've moved it in about five seconds, for the time these gals spend out of the joint. But where's Vaine? She's usually so punctual when it comes to chicken.
I race like a breeze over my ole stomping grounds, through Crockett Park towards Keeter's. Lally can't help chuckling when he reaches Keeter's corner. He can't stop laughing as he bounces up the track, and he's positively howling by the time the den comes into view, as the elephant dose of hallucinogens starts to warp his perception. His last steady action is to fit the key into the den padlock, pull back the hatch, and haul out my daddy's rifle. My ole lady bequeathed me that rifle, on condition I never bring it near the house. I had to act fast the day Daddy disappeared. Mom was real antsy. She got over it by shopping for garden furniture—go figure.
Thunder from an approaching helicopter nudges the acid in Lally's bloodstream to a peak. The vista starts to liquefy before his eyes. He's a drug-crazed, homicidal maniac, loose in our community. He turns his back on sunlight beaming low over the escarpment, only to find a spotlight pinning him from the other side.
'Drop it!' barks a voice. It's Vaine with her SWAT team. She shields her eyes against dust from the settling chopper.
Lally reels in a wild circle, confused, caressing the rifle, erasing Mom's fingerprints, and her worries, forever. As Taylor Figueroa ducks out of the helicopter with a news cameraman, Lally raises the rifle and cries in an unearthly tone. 'Ma –mi,' he bawls, finding the trigger with both hands. 'Mamб!'
Watch out Taylor, like—oh my God!
'Open fire!' Vaine screams to her team.
Lally's face is a mask I fucken adore, suspended in time forever as slugs whistle and pierce the evening sky. He dances mid-air as chunks of his body pelt down like rain, before the bulk of him thuds twitching to the ground. Leona Dunt's Eldorado has to swerve off the track to avoid him.
'Wow, but is it supposed to be hidden, like—in the shit?' asks Leona, pouring out of the car in a cloud of tobacco smoke.
'I think Nancie means the story about the shit is what's valuable,' coughs Betty, ashing a cigarette into the dust. 'Just the evidence of the shit, the story rights …'
'Honey,' says George, 'a bonanza is a bonanza, whether it's in or on or about the shit, now hand me that flashlight …'
'Golly,' says Betty, scraping through the bushes around my den. 'Looks like somebody's been here already …'
My vision dissolves, my mind shimmers back to the gurney and I find myself still alive, teeth clenched into a smile. That's some fucken anesthetic, boy. I look over to see the guards nod to each other in readiness. As the day's first thunder crackles outside, I turn to wink at Ella through the glass. Then I close my eyes. I wait for the deep to claim me, for the cool in my arm to turn icy, or not to turn at all, to just vanish through the glare with everything around, including lumpy ole asshole me.
Suddenly, a cannonade of noise swells through the windows and cracks, down the stairs and ducts of the jail, a thousand voices and fists and feet triggered by some invisible cue. My eyes pop open to see if God, or the devil, has come to claim my slimy soul. Instead, Abdini bursts into the witness area, followed be a horde of cameramen. The whole jail must be watching it live on TV. Abdini has a dirty brown ball of paper in one hand, and a melted candle in the other. He holds them up to the glass, singing, jumping. It's Nuckles's notes, the ones I used to wipe my ass that fateful day. 'Test prove it!' he cries.
A phone rings out back. After a moment I crane to see Jonesy toddle into the chamber, shaking his head. He leans over the end of the gurney, cups his hands to his mouth.
'Little—your pardon came through.'
Twenty-Seven
The ladies study the envelope like it was the body of a dead baby.
'Definitely one of those Italian cars, a Romeo and Juliet or whatever,' says George.
'I know,' says Betty, 'but why send the brochure to Doris's?'
'Honey, it doesn't say Don's on the front, it says Leona. Just the address is Doris's.'
'But why?'
George shakes her head. 'Loni wants us to know she's getting one of those sports cars, I guess.'
Betty tightens her lips, and tuts awhile. 'I know, but why doesn't she just come over, like always, or even just call? Maybe she went to have the implants after all …'
George blows a plume of smoke, finishing with a ring that travels up and over the Central-Vac box on the rug. 'Betty, don't piss me off, okay? You know damn well why.'
'Oh Lord,' scowls Betty. 'But that's her ex-ex-husband, the tragedy was nothing to do with her...'
George rolls her eyes. 'I know, I know, but some people might question the quality of a marriage that left a man chasing teenage boys for kicks—you have to admit that's out there even for Marion Nuckles, never mind the phony shrink he hooked up with. And goddammit to hell, Betty, now you've got me saying "I know."'
'I know.'
George clicks her teeth. Then their eyes meet, and they start to froth with helpless laughter.
'Girls, it's here!' calls Mom through the kitchen. 'It's the side-by-side!' She tries to keep her mouth pointed down, in mourning for Lally, but her eyes give her away. My ole lady just loves being in mourning. It's one of her needs, I guess. Bent ole kitten.
I hear Brad hollering up the hall, so I slink into the kitchen where a pile of media paperwork sits on the bench, along with some contracts from my agent. On top of the pile is a faxed cover of next week's Time magazine—the headline reads: 'Stool's Out!' The picture shows the dried remains of my crap, wrapped in Nuckles's class papers, sitting in a scientific laboratory. Behind it, Abdini proudly holds up the note Jesus left in the den, for Nuckles and Goosens, the lovers and internet entrepreneurs. 'You sed it was love you batsards,' reads the note, in his ole baby scribble. My eyes drop for Jesus. One thing, though: his note inadvertently granted a big ole want for Nuckles and Goosens. Now they'll have all the boys they could wish for, up there in prison. Somehow you sense they might be doing a little more receiving than giving, though. But hell. As Nuckles himself would say—'Beggars can't be choosers.'