THE FIENDS MAKE THE RIDE TO PHOENIX OVER TWO NIGHTS, with a stop in Alpine to wait out the sun. They keep to deserted back roads, hogging both lanes and rocketing through sleeping one-horse towns.
At one point they come upon a pickup truck rattling home from some late-night mischief and speed up to overtake and surround it. Eight black Harleys ridden by eight leather-clad devils materialize out of the darkness, and the truck’s driver is buffeted by the bone-jarring rumble and soul-deep throb of the bike’s engines. The Fiends laugh at the yokel’s jaw dropping beneath his cowboy hat and roar off—disappearing, the driver swears later, in a cloud of smoke and swirling sparks.
They get to Phoenix just before dawn and check into the Apache Motel. That evening Antonia calls George Moore’s man. The guy is some kind of hawkshaw, some kind of bounty hunter. He doesn’t offer his name.
“McMullin is flopping at the Sandman on Van Buren,” he says. “But he’s at a ball game tonight, at the stadium.”
Antonia hangs up and joins the rest of the Fiends by the motel’s swimming pool, drops onto a chaise next to Elijah. Real Deal, Bob 1, and Johnny Kickapoo are roughhousing in the water like unruly children. The rest of the gang slam dominoes on a round metal table with a metal umbrella hovering above it. A transistor radio blares a rock ’n’ roll station. The motel’s owner has asked them twice to turn the music down, but they crank it back up as soon as he returns to the office. Nobody’s worried about him calling the cops. The motel is lousy with hookers, thieves, and dopers.
Johnny Kickapoo climbs out of the pool. He got his nickname because he hung around the Kickapoo reservation while growing up in Oklahoma. He doesn’t have a drop of Native blood in him—his black hair and eyes come from his Italian mother, his prominent nose from his German father—but he pretends he’s part Indian, even wears a feather in his hair. He bares his ass at the other swimmers and jumps back in with his knees pulled to his chest. The resulting explosion sends the pool’s pale blue light skittering over the dying palms drooping overhead. Above them the stars, unmoved, as Antonia and Elijah discuss the hit.
Normally, the next team up in the rotation, in this case Real Deal and Yuma, would do the job and split half the payment—minus ten percent to Monsieur Beaumont—and the rest of the gang would divide the remaining half equally. The baby Moore has promised throws a wrench into the works. An infant is special for a rover. Feed on one and instead of having to feed again the next month, you can go a whole year. Something about the blood.
You’d think, then, it would be open season on babies, but in the same way that con men are known to be as gullible as their marks, rovers are a superstitious lot, and a venerable bit of lore keeps most of them away from infants: Steal a child, the warning goes, and you’ll wind up dusted soon after.
Antonia scoffs at this fear. She understands that it’s simply the childish spookifying of the real danger connected to snatching babies: The disappearance of an infant upsets the public much more than if a vagrant or a whore suddenly drops off the face of the earth. It makes people much more likely to form posses, mount searches, and scrutinize strangers, all of which could mean disaster for a rover.
But since the Fiends didn’t grab the baby in question—and in fact have no idea how Moore got it—they’d all be comfortable feeding on the child. Even if it’s shared with a partner, that’s still six months of not having to hunt, not having to wonder where your next get-right is coming from, and not having to worry about being caught draining some rummy. Six months when you could get off the road and relax if you wanted to.
That’s why Antonia tells Elijah it’s only fair they make an exception to the rotation this time and allow everyone a chance at the jackpot.
“That won’t go over well,” Elijah says.
And he’s right.
“You can’t be changing how we do things whenever you want,” Real Deal says when Antonia has gathered everyone around the umbrella table. “It’s me and Yuma’s turn. We do the job, and the baby’s ours.”
“Right,” Yuma says. “Luck of the draw. It could’ve been any of us.”
“If you two weren’t up, you’d be begging for a chance at the brat,” Pedro says.
“But we don’t have to beg,” Yuma says. “Because the rules are the rules.”
Bob 2 tosses a beer can. Pedro shakes a finger in Yuma’s face. War’s about to break out. Antonia raps her knuckles on the table to quiet the shouting.
“We’ll take a vote,” she says. “Do we stick with the regular rotation, or do we give everybody a shot at the kid?”
Everyone but Yuma and Real Deal votes to make an exception. The pair sit there steaming, but what can they do? They’re outnumbered.
“How do we decide who makes the hit?” Bob 1 asks.
“We’ll roll for it,” Antonia replies. “One person per team. Winners do the job and get the kid, the rest split the money.”
Elijah grabs a pair of dice out of the domino box. They agree to let Yuma go first. She shakes the bones and tosses them on the table, gets a seven for her and Real Deal. Johnny rolls a nine, and Antonia throws a three for her and Elijah. Then it’s Bob 1’s turn. He whispers to the dice, blows on them, shakes them over his head. When he finally flings them, he gets two sixes.
“Boxcars!” Bob 2 shouts.
The party breaks up. Too much disappointment and resentment in the air. Everyone shuffles off to their rooms except the Bobs, who celebrate their good fortune until the first rays of sunshine, leaping over the horizon, chase them inside.
“See it?” Bob 2 says.
He points out a giant rat, a foot long from its nose to the tip of its tail. The beast creeps up on a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket lying in the gutter. Poking its head inside, it pulls out a half-eaten drumstick and rears back on its haunches to gnaw it.
“What the fuck did you show me that for?” Bob 1 says. “You know I can’t abide vermin.”
They’re sitting in an ice-cream parlor across the street from the Sandman Motel. They’ve been here almost an hour, since right after sunset, came over as soon as it was safe. Their table has a view of McMullin’s room, and of the rat, which is rooting in the bucket again.
“A rat’s got to be smart to get that big,” Bob 2 says. “Got to be able to sniff out poison, fight off dogs, think on its feet.”
“Fuck ’em,” Bob 1 says. “They should all die. You never heard of the Black Death?”
“I tried to feed on a rat once.”
“Stop right there.”
“I got so desperate, I went to a dump and chased one down. It tasted like shit and didn’t help at all.”
“It’s a good thing you hooked up with me, isn’t it?” Bob 1 says.
“I was doing okay on my own,” Bob 2 says.
“Feeding on rats is not ‘doing okay.’”
The men have been partners for twenty-five years. Bob 1 was born in 1904 in Key West. He grew up working on fishing boats, got married, had a kid. At 22 he fell for a Cuban girl he met on Mallory Square, a Cuban girl who’d come out only at night. They decided to run away to Havana, and Bob had her turn him, thinking they’d be lovers until the end of time. The night before they were supposed to sail, the girl disappeared, and Bob never saw her again.
Bob 2 is from Brooklyn, born in 1923. He fought in France during the Second World War, killed a lot of men and saw a lot of men die. This triggered his first and only existential crisis: What was the point of grubbing through life when the only possible ending was death? When a hooker he was jungled up with after returning to the States confided that she was a rover and would likely live forever, he saw a way to ease his mind. He forced the girl to turn him, then dusted her so nobody in the world knew his new secret. His plan worked perfectly: He hasn’t worried about dying since.
The Bobs met in Kansas City and started traveling together. When your survival depends on hunting down and killing another human being every thirty days, it’s smart to have someone watching your back. They make quite a pair. Bob 1 is tall and thin and fair, and Bob 2 is short and round and dark. Bob 1 is kind of quiet, but Bob 2 talks enough for both of them. They get on each other’s nerves but also make each other laugh more than anyone else can.
One night a few years into their relationship one thing led to another, and they ended up rolling around in bed. It was more like fighting than fucking, and both of them felt okay afterward, so they’ve kept it up. It’s nothing they plan, just something that happens now and then. Four years ago they fell in with the Fiends, again thinking about safety in numbers, but also looking to make some money, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.
Bob 2 finishes his coffee and scrutinizes the menu board on the wall.
“The Bicentennial Special,” he says.
“What?” Bob 1 says.
“Cherry, vanilla, and blueberry on a sugar cone.”
“Knock yourself out.”
Bob 2 goes to the counter. The high-school girl scooping sundaes and working the register is scared of him and Bob 1, he can tell. Their long hair, their beards, their tattoos. Good. The more scared people are, the better.
“Gimme that Bicentennial thing,” he says.
Movement at the motel catches Bob 1’s eye. He straightens from his bored slouch and puts his face to the window. A man steps out of the room they’ve been watching. He matches Moore’s description of McMullin, and a black rover aura shimmers around him. He makes sure his door is locked, shoves his hands in his pockets, and walks toward the ice-cream parlor.
Bob 1 stands and calls to the girl, “Where’s the back door?”
He and Bob 2 dash through a storage room and out into an alley behind the shop. Hurrying to the end of the alley, Bob 1 peeks around the corner and watches McMullin enter the ice-cream parlor. A bell rings when the door opens. Bob 1 pulls his head back and takes a bag of sunflower seeds out of his pocket. He tosses some into his mouth and cracks them between his teeth.
“You aren’t gonna keep an eye on him?” Bob 2 says.
“You didn’t hear that bell?”
A few minutes later the bell rings again. McMullin leaves the shop, carrying a cup of coffee. He crosses Van Buren and gets into a Dodge Dart parked in front of his room, starts it up, and pulls out of the lot.
The Bobs dash to the Hornet they stole in order to be less conspicuous than they would on their Harleys. They keep a car between them and the Dart as they follow McMullin. He makes his way to a drive-in theater and turns into the entrance. Bob 2 pulls to the side of the road. The jittery red and yellow neon on the back of the giant movie screen dances across the hood of the Hornet.
“What now?” Bob 2 says.
“I guess we’re going to the show,” Bob 1 replies.
They join the line of cars waiting to enter the drive-in, pay the admission fee at the booth, and cruise the lot, looking for McMullin. When they find where he’s parked, they pull into an empty slot two rows behind, between a couple of teenagers in a Volkswagen Beetle and a family sitting in lawn chairs in the bed of a pickup. Bob 2 takes the speaker off the post and hangs it from the window but turns the sound down. The film has already started. Clint Eastwood, fifty feet tall, squints and draws his gun.
Bob 1 watches McMullin’s car while Bob 2, imitating a play-by-play announcer, keeps up a running commentary on the action in the Volkswagen.
“Here we go, folks,” he says. “Johnny Fuckerfaster is making a move on Susie Rottencrotch. He’s got his hand up her blouse and is trying to sneak under her bra. Meanwhile, Susie’s petting his trouser snake. Young love, ladies and gentlemen, young love. You can’t beat that.”
McMullin gets out of the Dart and heads for the cinderblock snack bar. He’s a little guy with an unruly mop of curly red hair.
“There he goes,” Bob 1 says.
“I’ve got a plan,” Bob 2 says.
“Clue me in.”
“Come running when I signal.”
Bob 2 slides out of the Hornet and walks to the Dart. A gunfight erupts on the screen, and shots ping out of every speaker on the lot. The driver’s door of the Dodge is unlocked. Bob opens it and pops the lock on the rear door. Opening that, he climbs in and lies down behind the front seat. He made the garrote he takes from his pocket himself—a length of thin wire with wooden handles at both ends.
Crunching gravel telegraphs McMullin’s return. Bob grips the garrote tighter. The front door opens, and the overhead light goes on. The Dart rocks as McMullin slides in with his popcorn and soda. He closes the door, and the light goes out.
Bob sits up, slips the loop of wire over McMullin’s head, and yanks the handles. The wire digs into McMullin’s throat. He drops the popcorn and struggles silently, the garrote cutting off his voice as well as his air. He claws at the wire, trying to pry it from his windpipe. His legs spasm, and his feet kick the underside of the dash.
Bob uses all his weight to draw the wire even tighter, nearly pulling McMullin into the back seat. McMullin’s eyes bulge. His tongue protrudes from his mouth like a snail stretched to its limit. Bob takes both handles of the garrote in one hand and with the other draws a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt. He leans forward and drives the knife into McMullin’s chest, angling it so the blade slides between two ribs and plunges into the man’s heart. McMullin’s arms drop, his eyes close, and he slumps in his seat.
Bob climbs out of the back of the Dart and opens the front door. He pushes McMullin over and slips behind the wheel. The keys are in the ignition. Two flashes of the car’s brake lights bring Bob 1 running. He’s carrying a duffel bag.
“Get him?” he says.
“What’s it look like?”
Bob 1 dives into the back seat. Bob 2 hangs the speaker on the post and makes for the exit, leaving the Hornet behind. He takes it slow, but McMullin’s head still bounces off the passenger window a few times. When they’re in the clear, Bob 1 leans over the seat to look at the body.
“It go easy?” he says.
“I hit him like an A-bomb,” Bob 2 says.
“Boom.”
“Boom.”
They pull over on an empty stretch of road outside town. Saguaros stand out against the starry sky, and jagged black hills disrupt the horizon. Bob 2 drags McMullin’s body out of the Dart and drops it on its back. Bob 1 unzips the duffel bag and takes out a Polaroid camera. He snaps a couple of photos as proof for Moore (click, whirr, click, whirr)—McMullin’s face, a tattoo on his forearm—then goes back into the bag for a hatchet.
“You want me to dust him?” he says.
“My hit,” Bob 2 says. “I’ll do it.”
He grabs McMullin’s hair and lifts his head. Bob 1 passes him the hatchet, and he raises it high and brings it down on McMullin’s neck. Flesh splits and bone crunches. The guy’s head comes off so suddenly after only three whacks that Bob nearly loses his balance. He drops the head, and he and Bob 1 watch it and McMullin’s body disintegrate into gray powder, leaving only his clothes.
Bob 1 goes through the pockets of the pants, removing a wallet and motel key. The shirt yields a pack of chewing gum. The wind gusts and carries away most of the ash. Bob tosses the shirt high in the air, and it sails flapping across the desert, all the ghost McMullin will have.
“You want his shoes?” Bob 1 says.
“You ever see me wear sneakers?” Bob 2 replies.
They drive into town, abandon the Dart in a shopping mall parking lot, and ride their Harleys back to the Apache.