Nothing there but blue sky.
Again the thunder. Only this time she recognized it as a shotgun blast.
Maybe a mile away. Maybe not that far.
Maybe as close as Priscilla’s trailer.
Wyetta pulled to a stop in a tangle of brush surrounded by cottonwoods. She drew her pistol and stepped out of the Jeep. Rorie did the same.
Fifty feet of scrub separated them from the trailer. Ellis’s scab-colored Caddy was parked in front, but Rorie didn’t see any other cars. Of course, it would be easy enough to hide one in the brush. She kept her eyes peeled for Baddalach’s Range Rover or Benteen’s Dodge Dakota. The Range Rover was new, metallic blue. It would be easy to spot. Benteen’s truck would be tougher-painted a dry-twig beige, with rust spots, it could blend in pretty easy.
Wyetta flashed a hand-signal. The two women parted, advancing on the trailer from different angles.
They were getting real close now.
Rorie stepped over a net of twigs. Middle-of-nowhere quiet out here. The least little sound was magnified a hundred times. The way the shotgun blast had been. The way-
A loud voice came from the trailer, “I'll tell you anything you want. . but you have to get me out of here.”
Rorie stopped dead in her tracks. She glanced to the right and saw Wyetta frozen the same way. Because it was Priscilla’s voice they’d heard. And it was so loud. And Priscilla never raised her voice at all, not even when-
'I'll do my best. That’s all I can promise.”
Rorie had only talked to Jack Baddalach twice. Still, she was sure that the second voice belonged to him.
But why was he yelling?
'That's not good enough,” Priscilla said, “I can't stand it here. Not another minute. not with that son of a bitch I'm married to. If you want to know what happened to Komoko, you have to get me out of here. Either that, or you’ve got to kill him for me.”
Rorie was shaking. Priscilla’s voice was so cold. And it sounded like a whisper. But it was the loudest whisper she had ever heard.
Something square and black ripped through the trailer’s screen door. Rorie brought her pistol up. Out of the comer of her eye she saw Wyetta mimic the action.
The black thing kicked up dust as it landed between them.
It was a boom box. And it was notched to full volume.
“I didn't come here to kill anyone,” Baddalach said.
“Then you'll never find out what happened to Vince Komoko,” Priscilla replied.
Rorie aimed her pistol at the boom box. She knew it was crazy. She knew the stereo couldn’t hurt her, but she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of it.
Baddalach said, “Okay. . maybe I can help you get out of pipeline beach. I’ve got friends in Vegas, and if you help us out. .”
The screen door exploded off its hinges. Ellis came down the stairs, running for all he was worth, and there was a shotgun in his hands, and he pulled the trigger and pumped, pulled the trigger and pumped, until there wasn’t enough boom box left to make a transistor radio.
He dropped the gun in the dust and stared at the stereo’s guts. That patented Presley sneer crept across his face, and he swaggered up to the wrecked boom box and gave it a kick.
He was wearing black leather pants and that black leather jacket he was so proud of. But Rorie could see that something was wrong with the jacket. It was wet. Slick and shiny.
It was. . spattered with blood.
Fresh blood.
For a second, Rorie thought that Ellis had been shot.
Only for a second, though.
Ellis finally noticed her. He glanced at Wyetta and his sneer disappeared. But the big artery on the left side of his neck thudded away, pumping blood beneath a blanket of scar tissue.
To Rorie, that artery looked like the devil’s own tail.
Ellis’s eyes burned a hole straight through her, because he could see well enough what she was looking at. He slapped that thing that looked like a microphone against his throat, 'Your bitch of a. . sister is inside. . you can have what’s left of. . her I blew the cunt right out of her pants but she deserved what she. . got and-'
It was getting darker now. Rorie knew they shouldn’t just stand around. But she didn’t know what else to do.
Rorie hadn’t looked in the trailer. Wyetta had checked for her. And Wyetta said that Priscilla was dead and there wasn’t a chance in hell that she could have felt any pain, so Rorie knew it must have come quick, and it must have been bad. Her sister was dead.
Rorie wished Ellis would just go ahead and die. He lay there on the ground, staring straight up at the sky, not blinking at all, and he wouldn’t move for five. . maybe ten seconds, and then all of a sudden his shoulders would heave and a whistling sound would rise from one of the bullet holes in his chest and he’d get that rattle in his throat and. . Jesus, it was awful.
Wyetta couldn’t stop staring at him. That was the worst part. She got down on her knees and looked him right in the eye. “I wonder if he sees it,” she said.
“Sees what?”
“His flaming star.”
“Huh?”
“You know. .
“Barbara Eden,” Rorie said, because she remembered now.
“Right.”
“Maybe we should get out of here.”
“No rush.”
Wyetta stayed at Ellis’s side, watching. Rorie went over and sat on the porch. A couple of cats wandered out of the house and rubbed up against her. She picked up a tabby and held it close, but the animal refused to purr.
Wyetta came over a few minutes later. “He’s dead.”
Rorie sighed. “What do you call it when you kill your brother-in-law?”
“Fratricide?” Wyetta guessed.
“Nah. . that’s when you kill your father.”
“Matricide?”
“Nah. . that’s your mom.”
Wyetta thought it over. “Maybe you just call it your good deed for the day.”
Tears filled Rorie’s eyes, but she laughed like a son of a bitch.
Tears and laughter.
Seemed you couldn’t have one without the other, anyway. But at least the laughing felt good.
Back in the Jeep, headed down the highway.
“I’ve been thinking that maybe you asked the Ouija board the wrong question,” Rorie said. “You asked where Komoko hid the money. Not where the money
“So you think we should ask Wyatt where the money is
“Yeah.”
