22.

I knew my luck wouldn't hold. A woman's voice, one that sounded harsh but half-familiar, said, "What is it?" through the door. I tried to imagine what Big Boy might sound like when he talked, lowered my voice a bit, and mumbled, "Hey, I forgot the house keys." The voice behind the door made exasperated noises, but the knob turned, and the door opened. I pushed the door hard as I heard a string of muttered curse words and then saw, of all people, Alice from the hippie diner. Her eyes widened and she snarled, "You again?," as the door swung open, throwing her off balance.

"Yup, me again. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find you here, since your buddy Fat Boy is hanging out too. Really, you guys are breaking my heart. I thought the Counterculture scene was better than this."

"Fuck the Counterculture," she said, "And fuck you too. What do you want from us? You some kinda narc?"

"Don't play innocent with me. You know what I’m up here for. Not too long ago you were pretending to help me. " We stood in the middle of the front room, staring each other down. It was an uneven stare; the little pistol was in my hand, though I couldn't remember pulling it out of the waist bag. "I know you've got Red Henshaw tied up back there, and I'm getting him loose. Or, rather, you're getting him loose for me. What have you got against Red anyway? I'm pretty sure I know what Tracy's beef is, even though she's overreacting, but you've got no dog in this fight."

She stood her ground against me, probably playing for time. I had no idea where the other three had gone in the van, but they must be coming back, or Alice would have given in by now. At least that's what I thought. I didn't know Alice all that well, but I knew she wasn't a wimp.

"Overreacting? What do you know about what she went through? Listen, big bad shithead with a little gun, did you think that Tracy was the only girl that…that ever happened to? My father was a shithead too. He's a dead shithead now, so I'm safe. But I don't take kindly to living shitheads who don't care what happens to other folks. So take your little gun and fuck off. I’m not untying your old shithead friend, and you can't untie him without putting down the gun, and you know I'd grab it in a minute. And, you're not enough of a shithead to shoot me in cold blood, so fuck off!"

She had a point. It was a point worth considering, but the ragged sound of a motor straining up the hill made the argument academic. The van was back.

Car doors slammed outside. I pushed Alice aside and got behind her, with the wall behind my back. I had caught a glimpse of Red in the next room as I maneuvered and had given him a quick wave with my gun hand. It looked like he was awake, but seeing that he was all tied up with duct tape over his mouth, there wasn't much he could do beyond raising an eyebrow. I was sorry he'd seen me; it might have given him false hope. I'd barged in too soon.

Alice recovered gracefully from my shove, which I regretted hadn't been a little harder. She was a sturdy girl, body and soul, and if Tracy and Big Boy shared her character I was in trouble. I was in trouble anyway. Tracy strode into the room with quick, firm steps, greeted Alice with a careless wave, and stopped in her tracks when she saw me leaning against the wall pointing the .32 their way. Big Boy shambled in behind her, his eyebrows still pulled together in a worried look. Big Boy didn’t look any happier up close than he did seen through a dirty windshield. He stopped too, his mouth hanging open slightly. No one else came in through the door. They must have dropped Fat Boy and his gun off somewhere. That was probably about as good as my luck was going to get. We all looked at each other in silence for a moment. No one knew what to say. Those books on etiquette our parents made us read never got around to covering this situation. Alice smiled at Tracy, Tracy frowned at me, and they both ignored Big Boy, who loomed over them like a trained bear who's finished his dance and is only waiting for the cookie. The cookie was probably me.

Someone had to say something, and I was the first idiot to open my mouth. "I suppose you're wondering why I called this meeting."

Alice rolled her eyes. Tracy crossed her arms and glared at me from under a fringe of dark hair. Big Boy's eyes, I finally noticed, were focused on the gun. Not an iron-gray hair on his knobby head trembled. Neither did my gun, though it wanted to.

"All I want is the old man you've got tied up back there."

"Kinky tastes, eh?," Alice sneered. "You some kind of grandpa groupie?" Now she was putting on a show for the Odd Couple.

"You know what I want. We discussed it over lunch today."

"And you know why we've got to do what we've got to do."

"Red's innocent," I said. "…That was Jim who…did that."

Tracy piped in with her delicate feminine snarl. "And Red protected him! Red's still protecting him. Red and Cindy both."

I kept the little pistol leveled at them. "No one's protecting anyone. Jim's dead. He's been dead for years."

"I know that," Tracy said. "I read the papers just like anyone else. He was only the most guilty. And I got cheated out of killing him myself." She hesitated, her dark eyes doubtful under the sweep of hair. "He got what he deserved…just not from me…."

"If it makes you feel any better, a woman killed him. A homeless woman he was trying to rape for the third time. Red and I heard it from her own lips. And Red let her go. He could have turned her in."

"That's great for her. And you just left her on the streets, right? Did it make her life any better?"

It hadn't. It hadn't at all. I kept my mouth shut, but she saw it in my eyes.

I hoped Denise was running for help by now. I hoped the sun and the smell of trees hadn't soothed her into sleep. I hoped someone was home nearby, someone who would let an odd frantic girl use their phone. I hoped she was frantic, and hadn't gotten scared and left the scene. I didn’t know how long I could hold them there before something happened. But the only thing that happened was Alice butting in.

"How'd you find us anyway? I thought when I sent you to that man-hungry little cunt at the gallery that she'd keep you busy all afternoon…. You gay or something?"

"We just didn't click," I lied. I looked at William Robert Paterson standing dully in his grandpa's house, and figured he was halfway out of their game already. Maybe I could push him the rest of the way. "But Billy Bob there seemed to like her just fine. Ask him what he was doing in his van after lunch. Seems he isn't quite so happy with that trailer bitch girlfriend of his as you might think…."

Alice turned to Tracy, who turned to Big Boy with a snarl. Big Boy's eyes widened, and his mouth turned mean in his iron-gray beard. I'd pegged him wrong, or maybe he objected to my diction. He picked up a chair, pushed the snarling Tracy aside, and came at me, ready to swing it. This was more of a reaction than I'd hoped for, but at least it broke up the stalemate.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the heart to shoot him dead, so I aimed for his right shoulder and pulled the trigger. He was moving, and the shot went high; still, I saw the leather jacket twitch and a small bloom of red appear. With luck, that would slow him down enough for me to get in a second shot.

And then I noticed, the way you do when things start to move in slow motion, that the wallet chain on his pants looked out of place. As he lifted the chair over his head, I realized that Big Boy was a lefty. He threw the chair one-handed with angry grace and considerable power, as I noted a second later when it struck my upraised hands. I kept it from hitting my head, but it knocked the pistol out of my hand, and an instant later Big Boy had me by both arms, keeping them pinned against my sides. I could see through the hole in his jacket that the bullet had barely grazed him. From the look on his face I worried that he might try to bite my nose off. Maybe he wasn't so unhappy with Tracy as all that. I wondered how I'd look without a nose.

"Calm down, Robert. Just not too much. Are you hurt bad?" Tracy, speaking with the slightest hint of tenderness in her voice. "Alice, bring me the medicine bag."

Alice bustled off to the room where Red was still sitting tied to a chair. Tracy walked calmly to the corner where the pistol had fallen and picked it up. She carefully thumbed the safety on. "This," she said dreamily, "will come in very handy when we pick up that fat bitch wife of his. Robert, you'll be staying here to make sure there's no more trouble. How's your shoulder?"

Alice handed her the medicine bag. She worked part of Big Boy's leather jacket off his shoulder and cleaned the wound with deft competence, then taped gauze over it. Big Boy never let go of me. His face, which I now saw was slightly pockmarked, stared into mine. There were a three or four strands of white in his hair and beard, and one in his right eyebrow. His breath was stale, but it was softened by a whiff of perfume from Tracy as she worked on his wound. "We’ll get you another jacket, Robert, when all this is over. And we'll forget about whatever happened this afternoon, okay?" I didn't believe that, and I don’t think Big Boy did either, but at least it gave him hope. It did nothing of the sort for me.

Then Tracy reached into the bag and brought out a syringe and a vial. "Bring him to the other room, please, Robert? Alice, you bring that chair." Alice obeyed with a smirk. Big Boy, wincing a bit from the shoulder, half lifted, half dragged me to the room where Red sat tied up. He kept his hands on my arms and carried me as easily as you'd carry a tall mirror, but with considerably less care. Red's eyebrow went up again. Alice scurried in ahead and placed the chair carefully next to Red's. I was closer to the center of the room and could see the front door. Someone, Alice I guess, had closed it. No one passing by would notice a thing. We were just a great big happy family quietly planning murder, with Red and me, and eventually Cindy, as guests of honor.

Big Boy sat me roughly down in the same chair he'd thrown at me. I didn't bother protesting; the mechanics of the situation were far too obvious. Or so I thought.

Tracy crouched down by me with the syringe and carefully inserted the needle into the vial, drew out a dose, pulled out the needle, and pressed the bubble up. She handled the needle with the practiced ease of someone who had worked in nursing, but I suspected that her plans for me didn't involve a complete recovery. "Let's see…a slim boy like you, I'd guess you weigh about a hundred and sixty-five pounds, right?" She had it wrong, but I didn't say anything. It was about fifteen pounds more. "Lucky you," she chirped. "You're getting something for free that others have to pay for!"

"Well, then," I said. "I'm glad you're not a prostitute…."

She carefully put the vial back in the medicine bag and then slapped me across the face with her free hand. She was a small girl, not much bigger than Denise, so it wasn't much of a slap. Still, it might be all I had to remember her by. She didn't bother with an alcohol swab, hovered the needle briefly over my arm, then pushed it delicately in and slammed home the plunger. "Sweet dreams, busybody. Have a good nap. Alice and I have to run down to LA to pick up the fat bitch, but Robert will be here to keep you company when you wake up. And then…." She smiled. "Tonight we'll all go for a midnight swim! Won't it be wonderful?"

The room suddenly became elastic, dancing from side to side as the walls rippled like silk curtains in a breeze. Colors faded, the light from the picture window turned gray, then, then everything shrank down to a tiny glowing point, like an old-fashioned television when you turn it off, and then the universe became a smooth dark-gray nothingness, and that was all….