Naughty Nine Tales of Christmas Crime (27 page)

"You deaf or somethin'?" he says. He cocks the revolver. "I said
out
."

The lights are close now—so close Mr. Gun is lit up like he's up on stage at a girlie bar. Plain as day I can see his faded blue jeans and raggedy parka and muddy good ol' boy boots. And I notice that he's not the biggest buck in the herd and his hand's shaking maybe a little more than the cold would account for. And I start to figure that this here highwayman ain't exactly Jesse James. Which doesn't help whoever's driving toward us. This fella might not be a professional, but he's got himself a gun, and that can be enough.

The crunch of snow and gravel's getting pretty loud now, the lights are getting brighter, but Mr. Gun's still focused on me me me.

"I'm not kiddin' around here, you so-and-so," he says, except his language is a little stronger than that. "Get out of the ding-danged truck."

A beat-up red pick-up pulls to a stop behind him while he's saying this, and I figure this is when the shooting's gonna start. I'm getting ready to throw myself down on the floor of the cab and start praying for a miracle when I notice the orange Detour sign lying in the back of the truck. A heavy-set fella steps out of the pick-up and walks up to Mr. Gun. He's got himself a ski-mask, too. His has got "Campbell's Soup" written across the forehead and "M'm! M'm! Good!" on the chin. The mask is stretched so tight across his fat face the fabric looks like to rip, like maybe it's three sizes too small.

"What's going on here?" Mr. Soup says. Except it sounds more like "Whuz goin' on hee-er?" He's got him a Southern accent so thick you could make a mattress out of it.

"He won't get out of the truck," Mr. Gun says. His voice is high-pitched, nervous, and for the first time I notice his accent instead of just being hypnotized by his Smith and Wesson. Sounded like these two were Mountaineers—kid hillbillies up from West Virginia.

"Well, heck," Mr. Soup says, and he snatches the revolver right out of Mr. Gun's hand. He steps up on the footboard of my rig and brings the barrel up under my nose. "This just ain't your night, is it?" he says, and a big grin stretches the fabric of his mask even further. "First truck we saw went whoosh—right by our little Detour sign. Didn't even slow down. The second one came down this way but didn't bother stopping to help my buddy here. On Christmas Eve yet! So we've been out here waiting a looooooong time. We're cold, we're tired and we want them babies. So just step out of the truck and I won't have to mess up your pretty face with a couple of bullets."

Now the more this fella talks to me, the more time I've got to stew on things. I'm not a brave man, but I can be a bad-tempered one, and a temper can make a coward do things a bona fide he-man hero would think was crazy. And I was getting madder and madder that these two holler-dwellers were trying to steal my rig after all the hours I'd put in—and with all the money I had waiting for me at the end of the haul. So I decided I wasn't going to make it easy for 'em.

"You say you want what now?" I say.

Mr. Soup's grin goes a little lop-sided.

"Cabbage Patch Kids," the former Mr. Gun—now Mr. Gunless, I suppose—says from behind him. "We know you got 'em."

"Cabbage Kids?" I say, giving Mr. Gunless a "What the . . .?" look. I turn to Mr. Soup and lower my voice. "Is he alright?"

Mr. Soup's smile has flopped all the way over into a frown now.

"Don't think you can b.s. me, mister," he says. "There's only one factory up that road that's still workin'. The toy factory."

"Yeah, that's right," I say. "I just dropped off a load of plastic there. I don't know nothin' 'bout any 'Cabbage Babies' or whatever it is you're looking for. Sounds to me like something you'd get in a grocery store."

I see a little fire kindle in Soup's eyes and I'm beginning to wonder if I've just made the biggest mistake of my too-short-by-half life when I hear Gunless say, "What are we gonna do?"

"He's lyin'," Soup says.

"What if he's not lyin'?"

"He's lyin'."

"What if he's not lyin'?"

"He's lyin'!"

"
What if he's not lyin'
?"

"
He's lyin', you dot-dot-dash fool
!"

Gunless goes all silent for a second. Then he says in a quiet kinda voice, "What if he's not lyin'?"

Soup takes in a deep breath. When he exhales, I get a nasty whiff of Cheetos and beer.

"We're gonna check," he says to his partner. Then he turns back to me. "And if you
are
lyin', I'm not gonna kill you with this."

He gives the revolver a little wave, then reaches up under his jacket with his left hand and fiddles with something. The hand comes back with a Rambo-looking hunting knife in it.

"I'm gonna kill you with
this
."

"There'll be no need for any killing," I say.

"We'll see about that," Soup says. "Now gimme them keys so we can open up this trailer and take a look."

Lickity-split, a plan forms in my head: I give the yokels the keys, then while they're in back checking on my cargo I hop out and slip into Soup's truck, which is still sitting there with the engine running.

Just as quick, Soup seems to have the same thought.

"Better yet," he says, "get on out of there and open it up yourself."

He steps away from the door, but he's still keeping that gun on me. I get the sudden feeling I've bluffed about as far as I can bluff and any more dilly-dallying is gonna get me a hole in the head bigger than the one I've already got.

"Alright, alright," I say.

I pull the keys from the ignition, open the door and slip out of the cab.

Once I hit the ground, I notice just how puny Gunless really is. I mean, Shirley Temple could take this guy in a fair fight, and it gives me ideas. Then I turn toward his pal . . . .

Now, Soup wasn't any Andre the Giant, but he coulda been Andre's not-so-little brother, I tell you that. I'd have to go up in a hot-air balloon just to take a poke at his chin.

So bare-knuckle brawling was definitely out of the question as a solution to my problems. Which was O.K., anyhow, to be honest with you, as I can't fight worth spit.

"Go on," Soup says. He doesn't give me a shove or anything cuz he's got his hands full with the gun and the knife. But those do all the shoving he needs done. I start towards the back of the truck.

I don't set any speed records getting back there, though. I'm calculating as I walk. Do I try to roll under the trailer and run off into the woods on the other side? Or do I . . . well . . . roll under the trailer and run off into the woods on the other side. It was all I could think of other than growing wings and learning to fly, which seemed like a bit of a longshot.

Just as I'm about to duck under the truck—and probably get a bullet in the butt in the process—there's no more truck to duck under, just those big darned semi wheels. I'd been so deep in thought planning my get-away, I'd blown my chance.

So there I am at the back-end of my trailer with Hulk Hogan holding a gun
and
a knife on me and I definitely don't feel those wings popping out. It was beginning to look like there was no way I was going to save my truck. And the only way I was going to save my
life
was through vigorous begging and pleading for mercy.

"Open it up," Soup says.

I do as I'm told without any back-talk, knowing it's a little late to start earning brownie points but figuring I may as well try. I unlock the bolt and pull the trailer doors open.

And there plain as day before our eyes was . . . nothing. It was pitch black in there. Soup and Gunless both lean forward, look at each other, then lean forward again.

"See?" I say hopefully. "Nothing."

"I don't see any dolls," Gunless says to the criminal mastermind.

"Shut up," Soup spits back. He pushes up against the trailer and leans in real far, and I can see one little eye under the "Campbell's" squinting away. "There's something way back there." He squints so hard it's a wonder he can see at all. "In the very back."

"Oh, that," I say. "That's not them Cauliflower Batch Babies or whatever. That's just some . . . extra plastic. I've got me another delivery to make in the morning."

My little pause between "some" and "extra plastic" was maybe like one second long, but I knew it might have been long enough to earn me a hunting-knife bow-tie. Soup gives me a stone-cold look, and I can tell he's wondering whether to slit my throat right then or wait to see how mad he should be when he does it.

After a very long moment, Soup decides to save the fun for later.

"Get up in there and check it out," he says to his buddy.

Gunless just kinda gapes at Soup for a while. I don't know, maybe he's afraid of the dark or something. But then he turns and hauls himself up into the trailer with a big grunt. I get a gander at the full moon as he goes up, if you know what I mean. I don't know why it is hillbillies can't seem to keep their pants up over their backsides.

So Gunless goes groping slowly off into the blackness, and in a few seconds there's a "Oomph" that says he's bumped into my cargo.

"Whadaya see?" Soup calls out.

"Can't see nothing," Gunless says. I hear his hands pawing around over the shrink-wrapped dolls. "But there's something here, alright. It's big. Feels like it's all wrapped up in plastic."

At that moment, a terrifying thought pops into my head. All these two rocket scientists need to do is pull Soup's pick-up around and use the headlights to get a good look inside my trailer. Then they'll see they've got what they want and I've been lying and it's goodnight, Nellie . . . and goodbye, Bass. And it's while I'm trembling over this—not volunteering the idea, of course—that I finally get those wings I'd been hoping for.

"Aww, heck . . . lemme have a look," Soup says (or words to that effect) and he puts his fists on the back ledge of the trailer still clutching the gun and knife, throws up a leg as thick as a tree trunk and pushes himself up inside.

I'm so stunned by this it takes me a second to do the obvious thing—which is slam that trailer shut at supersonic speed. It takes Soup the same amount of time to realize what he's done, and I see him whirl around just as the doors go
clang
right in his face. I re-lock the bolt a split second before Soup throws himself against the doors. There's a crash, and I hear him stumble back and fall, cursing up a storm the whole time. A second later, things get really noisy when two sets of boot-covered feet start kicking at the doors.

"Let me outta here!" Gunless screams. "Let me outta here!"

He sounds real hysterical, like maybe he really is afraid of the dark.

That's when I take the dunce cap off Soup and put it on my own fool head.

"Now just calm down there, boys," I say. "I ain't gonna—"

The first bullet came flying through the trailer door and kept on going right through my jacket just under my left arm. The second one took a little nip off my left ear. You can still see the scar right there. I didn't wait around for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth bullets. I dived head-first under the trailer and threw my hands up over my head. Not that my two little hands were gonna keep a bullet out of my brain if that's where it wanted to go.

Bang bang
. . .
bang bang bang
. . .
bang
. . .
click click
.

And then nothing.

I'm lying there in the snow and gravel and frozen mud under the back of the truck and I'm thinking, "Well, I'm cold and scared and my ear hurts like a hmm-hmm, so I guess I'm still alive." But I'm not too anxious to get up and take advantage of that, figuring that's just gonna invite Soup to start popping off again. And while I'm down there on my belly just trying to be quiet and think quiet thoughts, I hear Soup and Gunless in the truck above me.

"Didja get 'im?" Gunless says.

Pause.

"I don't know."

"Y'know . . . if you did get 'im . . . who's gonna let us outta this here truck?"

Pause.

"I don't know."

"You're outta bullets, too, aintcha?"

Pause.

"Yes."

"Where are the extras?"

Pause.

"In my pick-up."

Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

"I'm scared, Buck."

"Shut up, Kev."

Now you might think all my troubles are over at this point. But I've got me a dilemma on my hands. The responsible, law-abiding thing to do is head to the nearest state police outpost and drop Buck and Kev off and let the great state of Pennsylvania decide their fate.

But
. I can't just pull up and unload my new cargo like it's a bunch of frozen fish sticks. There are going to be questions. There is going to be paperwork. There is the great likelihood that someone's going to figure out how much driving I'd planned on doing in the span of twenty four hours—an amount of time behind the wheel which is not exactly legal, you understand. And, most importantly, there is the one hundred percent absolute guaranteed certainty that I am not going to make it back to River City by ten a.m. Christmas morning or eleven a.m. Christmas morning or even five p.m. Christmas night.

Which means all of this will have been for nothing.

So I did what I think any self-respecting trucker would've done. I crawled out from under the trailer, hopped back in my cab, fired up the engine and headed for the interstate.

It took me seven hours to get to River City. And I didn't need any Dew to keep me awake. I had so much adrenaline pumping through my veins I could've won the Kentucky Derby without benefit of a horse. Plus, my ear was throbbing away the whole time, and it's hard to get sleepy when it feels like a badger's nibbling on the side of your head.

I pulled into the parking lot out front of Monkeyberry Toys at ten fifteen a.m. And I am telling you, the place was packed. Cars cars cars—most of 'em empty. There was this big mob jammed around the doors to the store, and when everybody sees me pull up, they let out this shrieking scream-shout, and all of a sudden I've got three hundred doll-crazy women chasing after me. I barely made it around the side of the store ahead of 'em.