The Devil's Alphabet

Clete shouted something Pax couldn’t catch. Doreen opened her door and hopped out.

Pax scooted closer to the bag and grabbed the box of utensils. It was glued shut. He tore at the lip of the lid, but the duct tape around his wrists restricted his leverage. Outside the van, Doreen and Clete argued about something.

Pax tucked the box under his knee and pulled back on the lid with both hands. The cardboard ripped open and utensils spilled onto the floor. He grabbed at a plastic knife-and then the rear doors unlocked. He tipped a Wal-Mart bag on top of the mess, then twisted around as the door swung open.

“Come out of there,” Doreen said. Behind her Clete was already going back into the building.

“What’s going on?” Pax asked.

“Can’t leave you out here alone,” she said. She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him toward her with ease. “We need to put you to work.” She set him on his feet and gave him a little push that sent him hopping toward the building.

Rhonda, Everett, and Barron sat in chairs in the atrium. Only Barron looked upset: face beet red, patches of sweat darkening his brown uniform. Travis had duct taped the guard’s arms to the chair and he’d started working on his legs.

“Morning, Paxton,” Rhonda said.

“Morning,” Pax said. He stood there with his bound wrists and ankles, feeling like a bowling pin. Everett, calm as ever, nodded at him.

Clete had acquired a second pistol-from Everett?-and waved both of them in the captives’ direction. “This is taking too long,” he said.

“We should have used tie wrap,” Doreen said. “I said to buy tie wrap.”

“I told you, they didn’t have-never mind. Doreen, you go get the old man. He’s in the first room on the right.”

“Me? But he’s huge. Have Travis do it.”

“Travis is going to take Everett down to unlock the coolers.”

“And what are you going to be doing?” Doreen asked.

“I’m going to be emptying the safe! You know that’s part of the plan.”

Rhonda said, “You have a plan?”

“A ten-point plan,” Pax said.

“Everybody shut up!” Clete shouted. “Paxton, start wrapping Rhonda. Doreen, please go find Harlan? There’s a wheelchair back there somewhere.”

Pax lifted his wrists. “I’m kind of tied up here.”

Travis got to his feet and slapped the big silver roll of duct tape into Paxton’s hands. “Work it out.” Then Travis withdrew his own pistol from his waistband and nodded at Everett. “Let’s go downstairs,” he said.

Everett looked at Rhonda. Rhonda said, “The key to the coolers is in the safe.”

Clete stared at her. “You’re lying.”

Rhonda rolled her eyes. “Goodness gracious, Clete, where would you keep the keys?”

“Okay, fine,” Clete said. “We were going to open the safe anyway.” He pointed a gun at Rhonda. “It’s payday.”

“You said that when you came in,” Rhonda said.

Pax started to mention how Clete had been practicing in the van, then thought better of it.

Doreen shook her head and walked toward the double doors that divided the atrium from the patient rooms. Her jeans rode low on her hips, exposing a pale freckled back and an angel wing tattoo over the crack of her ass. Clete herded Everett and Rhonda toward Rhonda’s office, and Paxton followed, taking tiny penguin steps. He stumbled and Travis said, “Hold on a second.” He took a pen knife from his pocket and sliced between Paxton’s ankles. Pax worked his legs and the rest of the tape peeled apart.

“Thanks,” Paxton said.

“Just move,” Travis said. The boy was frowning deeply, as if this little adventure wasn’t turning out to be as fun as he’d expected. Or maybe, Pax thought, he was figuring out that Clete and Doreen weren’t the criminal masterminds he thought they were.

Inside the office, Everett leaned against one wall, arms crossed in front of him. Rhonda was stooped in front of the safe, working the dial. “So Clete, what was this plan of yours? I mean the other nine steps.”

“Just open it,” Clete said.

“You’re going to, what? Drive to a motel somewhere, feed Harlan fast food and squeeze out vintage?”

“Something like that.”

“Then what?”

Clete looked at Travis, his grin saying, Can you believe how stupid she is? “Uh, then we sell the stuff and get rich?” He laughed.

Rhonda pressed down on the safe’s handle and pulled the door open.

“Don’t you pull a gun out of there,” Clete said. The pistol in his left hand was pointed at her temple.

Rhonda shook her head in annoyance. “Here,” she said, and tossed him a key ring. Both Clete’s hands were occupied, and the keys bounced off his stomach and hit the floor.

Travis stooped to pick them up. “Okay,” he said to Everett. He didn’t sound happy.

Everett shrugged and walked out of the room with Travis’ gun at his back. “Hurry,” Clete said.

Rhonda stood and straightened her suit jacket. “Let me understand this. You’re going to take as much vintage as you can carry, and take Harlan with you, and take Paxton with you to keep Harlan producing.”

“Wrap her up,” Clete said to Paxton. He gestured with the gun for Rhonda to take a seat in her big leather desk chair. Rhonda sighed and sat, and Paxton kneeled next to her.

“After you sell off the vintage in the coolers, you’ve just got Harlan,” Rhonda said. “Say you manage to keep him alive and producing. That gives you about four ounces of vintage to sell a day.”

“At least four,” Clete said.

“Okay, say five. Or ten! Why not?”

Pax pulled off a long stretch of tape with his teeth, then tore it off. He began to wrap it around her shins and the central post of the desk chair. Rhonda was wearing nylons, so at least the tape wouldn’t pull her hair off when it was removed.

Rhonda said to Clete, “So how did you figure to make money with that? You can’t sell it to charlies-after today you’ll never be able to set foot in Switchcreek again. And I can’t see much of a market anywhere else.”

“Ha! Doreen said you’d say that. We’re not idiots, Aunt Rhonda. We’ll sell it to the outsiders, just like you do.”

“Really.”

“Don’t play dumb. I’ve seen what the vintage does to them.”

“Have you? Give an unchanged person the vintage and they get all weepy and sentimental, and then fall asleep. Not exactly a wonder drug. You’d be better off selling them Nyquil.”

“That’s the old weak shit,” Clete said, and he squatted to look into the safe. “The stuff from Elwyn and Bob and the other old men. Harlan’s vintage, though-that knocks skips on their asses. And the best thing is, it’s addictive as all hell.”

“So are cigarettes, hon, but even Marlboro has a marketing plan. Ooh, careful there, Paxton, I don’t have the best circulation.”

“Make it tight,” Clete said.

A savage expression flickered across Rhonda’s face, quick as the chop of a cleaver. Pax looked at Clete, but the chub boy had missed it-he was pulling out the account book and a stack of papers.

“All righty then,” Rhonda said, her voice as calm as before. “Say that you did have the world’s greatest narcotic-and you don’t-you’ve still got major sales and distribution problems. First of all, how’re you going to get people to try it? They never heard of this stuff, they don’t know what it does. There’s no demand. You’d spend the first year giving away free samples just to explain what your product was.”

Clete looked up in annoyance. “No I wouldn’t. Now where’s the cash?”

“Then you’ve got to think about the competition,” Rhonda said. She shifted her weight as Pax started to wrap her left arm. “How you going to outsell something as cheap as meth? Any hillbilly with a hotplate can make crystal