"Where, exactly, is here?"
Streicher looked a little disappointed that Vickers didn't want to share his appreciation of nurses.
"Just like you were told, a desert location about sixty clicks outside Vegas."
"I've been out so long I could be anywhere."
"That's true, but you ain't."
Vicker unzipped one of his bags, looking for a clean shirt. He was surprised to see that both his weapons were right there on top. The ammunition he'd bought had, however, vanished. Streicher didn't have to be asked.
"You'll get ammunition when you need it."
"Are you going to tell me what I'm here for?"
"You look like you could use some breakfast."
Vickers had met a lot of men like Streicher. They were the perpetual NCOs. They hung securely in the middle levels of authoritarian violence. Having raised themselves from the drudgery of the common soldier, they somehow lacked the wit, the intelligence, the courage or the contacts to scale the lonely peaks of real command. Instead, they carved out miniature empires based on a capacity for unquestioning loyalty and a talent for keeping things extremely simple and, on occasion, also extremely brutal. Sometimes they were sadists, sometimes they were closet homosexuals. Almost all had problems with relationships that weren't based on regulations and orders. This was the basic Military model. Other variations were Gangster and Law Enforcement. The differences were mainly ones of style. Streicher seemed to have learned his mannerisms from watching old John Wayne movies. He also seemed to have something of a body fetish. In what Vickers estimated to be his leathery late forties, Streicher was in perfect condition except for a slight beer belly. He was tanned and his visible muscles, on his forearms and neck, stood out like ropes. His eyes were blue and calculating, his hair was cropped to little more than a suede scalp and his jaw was polished by a lifetime of close shaves. Vickers knew there was just one way of dealing with people like Streicher. If you made it very clear, very quickly, that you were the boss you could have them kissing your ass. If you didn't, they would undoubtedly force you to kiss theirs. The first rule was not to give an inch.
"Breakfast sounds good; is it that time of day?"
"It's around dawn."
"So, an early breakfast."
"You can bring your stuff. You won't be living down here." Vickers picked up one of his bags and nodded down at the other.
"You want to give me a hand with some of it?"
Streicher's gruff-but-genial mask slipped for an instant but he quickly gathered it up along with the bag and ushered Vickers out of the door. The small empty room and four others like it were part of an ultra-utilitarian basement that in no way prepared him for what he would confront when he reached the top of the flight of cast iron steps that seemed to be the only exit. Streicher laughed at his obvious surprise.
"Step back and take a good look. You don't see many places like this."
It was what had come to be known as western sci-fi, the Martian ranch, a flamboyant creation of curved glass, angled steel beams and flat, kidney-shaped slabs of floating concrete. Somewhere, back around the middle of the twentieth century, an architect who must normally have worked on ice cream parlors had had a vision of the future.
"Like something the Jetsons would live in. It was built by some Hollywood sex goddess in the early sixties. It was supposed to be her desert retreat but she took an overdose before she could even move in. Her estate sold it to a rock star and then a dozen or so years later he had to give it to his cocaine dealer when his band hit the skids. The dealer went crazy and let this cult move in. From there it went through a procession of weirdos and hoods on the lam until, somehow, the titles became the property of the corporation. When the project came up, one bright boy in real estate suggests we make use of it. We've got a heart-shaped pool out back. If we stay here long enough we'll get it filled."
"You seem very proud of the place."
"I am. I've been here four months."
"Working on the project?"
"Right."
"The project that no one will tell me about?"
Streicher grinned. "That's the one."
They'd come into a big ranch-style living room with a sunken conversation pit and a futuristic chimney in black and baby-pink marble. Blue morning light was leaking through the not quite drawn drapes on an enormous picture window. A couple of hunched figures lay asleep among the cushions in the pit. One seemed to be clutching a whiskey bottle. The air in the room was heavy with booze and cigar smoke.
"Keep things fairly loose 'round here?"
"They'll tighten up before too long." Streicher jerked back the drapes, slid open a section of window and took a deep, satisfied breath. There were curses and mumblings from the pit. He ignored them and stepped out onto a wide patio. On the other side of the patio were a cluster of guest cottages that had all the ambiance of a motel. Streicher indicated that Vickers would be quartered in one of them and they started walking toward it. Vickers looked back at the house. It really was El Rancho Mars. There was even a strange steel pylon rising from the middle of it. In the first flush of the relentless desert dawn, it looked like the forgotten set for some B feature, ray gun movie. It was set on a piece of high ground and sheltered by a few scrubby trees and coarse bushes. Beyond them, Vickers couldn't remember when he'd seen so much nothing. A scarcely defined dirt road ran from horizon to house. To the east, a line of low hills was still casting deep purple shadows.
Streicher pushed open the door to the guest cottage. It was dark inside, just two beds and lots of chaotic debris. There appeared to be two figures in one of the beds. Streicher threw Vickers' case on the spare bed and indicated that Vickers should do the same. One of the figures protested with a man's voice.
"What the fuck is going on?"
"You're getting a new roommate."
"I already got one."
"An official roommate."
"Is that the guy you kept unconscious all yesterday?"
"You shut your mouth, Fenton." He glanced at Vickers. "You can leave your stuff here and sort it out later. Let's go and eat."
They walked on around the house, past the empty heart-shaped pool. Its bottom was covered with leaves.
"When the sun gets hotter, you have to watch out for rattlesnakes. They bask."
Beyond the pool was a circle of fake Greek pillars. One had been smashed. Streicher noticed him looking at them.
"The cult put them up."
They went through an arch and into an open doorway. They were inside a long, low, tiled kitchen. A small, balding man in a chef's apron was loading an industrial-size coffee machine.
"This is Vickers, Albert."
"How d'you do, Vickers."
"Albert cooks for us." To Albert: "Vickers has been asleep for a day and a half. He's hungry."
"I heard about them bringing him in. There ain't nothing ready yet, though. You'll both have to wait."
"You can cook him up some eggs."
"Damned if I can. It's going to throw out my whole schedule. I've got twenty others to feed."
Vickers stored the tidbit of data. Streicher gave Albert a hard look.
"Just make some coffee and cook us up some eggs, Albert; don't fuck with me at this time of the morning." He turned to Vickers. "You want a drink or is it too early for you?"
Vickers took a seat at a long, scrubbed kitchen table.
"Sure, I'd like a drink."
Streicher had a bottle of Wild Turkey and two glasses.
"The others will be down in a while."
One by one they came down for breakfast. Streicher made the introductions. In each case Vickers was eyed with extreme suspicion. The first to arrive was Bronce. He was another body freak who'd already run seven miles that morning, a short brown bullet of a man with slit eyes and flat, East European cheekbones. He ignored Albert's handiwork and fixed himself a creation of carrots, celery and yogurt. As they shook hands, Vickers noticed a number of old but once serious scars on his chest and a look in his eye that suggested he wasn't quite sane. Vickers figured him for a cop who'd been busted for brutality and then found that he could live a whole lot better on the freelance violence market.