'Why not have them come out here and we can have a party?' Leonard said. 'They can finish off my cookies.'
'Better yet,' I said, 'leave us here. Cut the phone lines or something, let the air out of Leonard's tires. Go your way and leave us be.'
'If I knew everything would go smooth, I would. But I want you two with us until the moment we've got the guns and we're ready to go underground. We have some kind of delay and you two are free, you warn someone, then we could get caught before we're ready to make things work. And if our game plan doesn't go right, something about this buy sours, we can have here for a home base for a few days till we put something else together. I want us prepared for any emergency. When it all works out you'll be with us, and if it doesn't happen here, we'll let you out some place where you won't be able to get to a phone too quickly. Not someplace so isolated you'll freeze to death or be too miserable.'
'We sure wouldn't want to inconvenience you none,' Leonard said.
'Then Paco's going to take us to meet our underground connections. New transportation has been arranged. We'll ditch the van, and—'
'And the rest is history,' I said.
'We'll try to make a difference,' Trudy said.
'Take the money and give it to the goddamn whales,' I said. 'This is stupid. You with a gun? Think about it.'
'I have. I've been for gun control all my life, and now here I am with one. Soon to have more. But I've given to the whales and I've given time and what money I could get to most everything. This time I'm giving myself, and I'll make a difference.'
'Hap told me about the bird you drowned,' Leonard said. 'I think that makes you ready for anything, a stone killer.'
'Oh, shut up, Leonard,' Trudy said.
'Serious now,' Leonard said. 'You could call yourself the Ice Birds. You know, like the Weathermen or the Mechanics, only you can be the Ice Birds on account of you're bad enough and mean enough to drown a sparrow. Shit, I want in. I'll drive and you shoot.'
'It's all comedy to you two,' she said. 'Exist from day to day, watch out for yourself and each other, and that's it. You're not contributing to anything beyond your moment. If it doesn't affect you immediately, then it's of no consequence.'
'Sounds right,' Leonard said.
Trudy leaned back into the couch and held the gun in her lap. She said, 'You're hopeless.'
'That may be,' Leonard said. 'But what I'd like to do is call a friend who's been feeding my dogs, tell him I'm home and not to come over. I don't want you Ice Birds—'
'Don't call us that.'
'—getting touchy and shooting an old man for one of the bureaucratic, capitalistic pigs that run our society. And I'd like to go out and feed them. Anyone else tries, Switch will take their face off. You can bring your arsenal along so I don't run off.'
'Call him,' Howard said. He had been listening on the sidelines, and now he was waving Leonard out of his chair with his automatic. 'Any tricks, though, and you could get yourself or Hap hurt.'
Leonard made the call. It was quick and simple and friendly. No codes were passed. He went out and fed the dogs and Paco and his gun went with him. The morning crawled by like a gutted turtle. About noon Paco made a call. When he quit mumbling into the phone he said to the others, 'They got a place and a time for us to meet. Sounds okay. Think we can get this over with pretty quick. Get the money, and let's do it.'
Chapter 21
We went in the mini-van. Chub drove. Paco sat in the front seat beside him. Trudy and Howard sat in the middle seat and turned around and pointed towel-covered guns at me and Leonard in the backseat. Outside the weather had turned wet with icy rain and the wipers whipped at it like a madman trying to tread water.
'Can we stop for burgers on the way?' Leonard said.
No answer.
We caught the loop and took it around LaBorde, out past the city limits to a stretch made up of long metal storage buildings, and finally the old Apache Drive-in Theater.
It was no longer in operation and would possibly someday become the site of a number of rectangular aluminum buildings the size of aircraft hangers. Before TV hit it a left, and some years later video cassettes finished it with a hard right cross, it was the place to go, but now it was condemned junk.
The great old Apache Indian head figure that had stood atop the marquee was gone, probably stolen, but the marquee itself was still there, high up on its metal poles. There were breaks in it and the red letters mounted there were few and left a cryptic message: ED N HE ST.
We drove past the marquee, past the pay booth, to what used to be the entrance. There was a plywood barrier now. Kids had spray-painted pictures and graffiti on it. The pictures were the usual hairy vagina and dick and balls and most of the sexual suggestions were misspelled. At least when we were kids and did that sort of thing we spelled Fuck with a c in it.
'Honk the horn,' Paco said.
'What?' Chub said.
'They said honk the fucking horn.'
Chub hit down on it and held it.
