Big Maria (17 page)

Cooker waited two minutes and then walked to the trailer. He kicked in the front door with one fluid motion, entered, and closed the door behind him. Unless someone was watching for that brief moment, he was golden. Cooker let his eyes adjust to the shuttered darkness. The only light came from the small hole where the knob used to be. He turned on the sink and drank directly from the tap. The water poured down his cheek and wet his hair. It hurt his teeth and throat and gave him a stomachache. He let the water run over his hands and wrists and rubbed the back of his neck. If he could just find some smokes.

The place was a fucking dump. There was shit everywhere. He had no idea where to start, but there had to be something that would give him a clue about Shitburger’s plans. How do you look for something when you don’t know what you’re looking for? He picked up a stack of books and rifled through the pages. Most of the books were on the history of the area, a couple about scuba diving. Probably junk he was selling on eBay or some shit.

The map that Shitburger had showed him was on the table, the red line that Cooker had drawn still prominent. He had made a few more marks since their meeting, but not much else. Water glasses held down the corners of the map. Three of them empty. One of them had something in it. He picked it up, the map curling in.

Teeth. Who the fuck keeps a cup full of teeth on their eating table? Not baby teeth either, but grown human teeth that had never seen a brushing, black and pitted. Only two kinds of people kept teeth: dentists and serial killers.

The door opened behind him with a creak. Cooker spun, reaching for the hunting knife in his belt. Nobody was there. The
hot wind blew the door open a little more. He left the knife in its sheath, laughing to himself. He set the cup of teeth down and flattened out the map. He grabbed a stack of books and jammed them against the door.

Cooker opened drawers, rifling through the worthless contents. He silently prayed to find a half a pack of cigs or the butt of an old cigar. When he opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled out the trash can, he fell back, knocking over the cup of teeth and stifling a scream. A toothless, waxy human head rolled out of the overturned trash can toward him. The soapy goo of the face left a sickly white trail on the linoleum. He kicked it away with his foot.

Cooker had seen plenty that he wished he could unsee. Any man who’d spent time in prison had. But for all his criminal exploits, a human head in a trash can was still outside his comfort zone. Killing a dude was one thing. Keeping parts of him where you lived, slept, and ate, that was psycho shit.

Cooker was growing less curious about the whole thing. Shitburger hadn’t seemed like much, a fucking loser. But wasn’t that always the guy who they later found out had buried a dozen hitchhikers in their backyard? “He was such a quiet neighbor,” they’d say. He glanced at the refrigerator, wondering if it was filled with mason jars and Tupperware stuffed with human organs and severed cocks.

The risk wasn’t worth the reward. It was time to walk out of the trailer and call it a two-hundred-seventy-five dollar win. No reason to be greedy.

Besides, he really wanted a smoke.

He soccer-kicked the head back into the trash can and returned it under the sink.

One by one, he collected the teeth, placing them daintily back in the cup. That’s when he saw the gold ingot. A big chunk of gold among the scattered molars and bicuspids. He picked it up,
feeling its weight. Surprisingly heavy for something so small. He bit it, because that’s what people did when they found gold. It left the lightest tooth imprint in the metal. Cooker wasn’t sure if that was good.

It took Cooker all of ten seconds to fill in the blanks. Cooker knew why Shitburger wanted to go to the Proving Ground.

He heard the door creak again, but he didn’t turn nearly as quickly as before. He had been fooled once, and the gold in his hand was a serious distraction. Then he remembered the books he had placed as a doorstop. The wind wasn’t that strong.

Cooker turned and looked up at the big dude standing over him. He had seen the lopsided kid with one bodybuilder arm and one baby arm at the pay phone. What the fuck was he doing in Shitburger’s trailer?

It didn’t take Cooker long to get an answer. But a boot to the face wasn’t exactly the answer he was looking for.

R
icky had been sitting on the steps of his trailer when he caught the movement. By the time he turned his head, the little biker had dashed inside Harry’s kicked-in door.

His first reaction was to call the cops, but they never took less than an hour to respond to a call from Desert Vista. In a boring town like Blythe, you’d think the cops would be excited to see some action. But after your thousandth tweaker or beaten spouse, the novelty probably lost its luster.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got to Harry’s trailer. The guy had rushed in with confidence and purpose, which probably meant he had a weapon. He was a little fella. In fact, it looked like the tiny biker that had been at the pay phone earlier.

Kicking the guy had been improvised, and the violence of the act surprised even Ricky. He felt awful the moment he did it, but if he apologized, he risked looking weak. The guy had broken into Harry’s home. A kick was a fair enough punishment.

“What the heck you doing in here?” Ricky shouted.

C
ooker tried to uncross his eyes. The blurry guys in front of him were talking. The upside of the pain was that it kept him conscious. The impact had knocked him backward into the table. The rotted teeth were sprinkled on the linoleum around him. His nose was undoubtedly broken, blood flowing like an open tap. He felt it dripping off his mustache. He swallowed the blood that collected in his mouth.

“There ain’t nothing to steal here.” Ricky took a cautious step toward him.

Cooker had no interest in explaining himself. He rose slowly to a crouch.

“Don’t do it, man,” Ricky said.

Cooker’s vision was clearing. He had to get out of there. Fucking three strikes. One more arrest and he was fucked. He found some balance and rushed Ricky, attempting a tackle around the waist.

Ricky fell back a few steps, but had the weight advantage and easily braced himself. It had been forever since he had been in a fight, but he had the experience of plenty of scraps in his youth. Time didn’t diminish certain skills even through long periods of dormancy. Without thinking, Ricky threw hard rights to the liver of the man clutching his waist. The biker folded, leaning his middle away from Ricky’s good arm.

Cooker couldn’t take many more hard punches. He threw a couple of weak hooks, but was getting more than he was giving. He brought his head up quickly, catching Ricky on the chin.

Ricky bit through his lower lip, tasting the blood and wincing in pain. A thin section of lip hung from his mouth.

The shock of the blow gave Cooker enough time to get his footing.

For a moment, the two men squared off. Both men’s faces were covered in blood. They breathed heavy. The peaceful seconds of nonviolence were almost friendly, touching gloves or walking to the dance floor. Then the bell rang in their heads.

Ricky gave Cooker a hard two-handed push to the center of his chest, forcing him stumbling back over the already upended table. Teeth crunched under his skidding feet. He fell onto his side awkwardly but scrambled to a knee.

Ricky took two steps toward him.

Cooker’s knife came out in an experienced sweep of the arm.

Ricky scanned the room for an improvised weapon. With his good arm for weight and his bad arm for balance, he grabbed a box of books and threw it at the biker.

Cooker tried to knock the box away, but a brush of the hand wasn’t enough to stop the path of forty pounds of books. They crushed him, the corner of the box jabbing his sternum. Another box followed right behind it, landing on top of the last one, knocking the wind out of him.

And another box.

And another box.

Ricky picked up the heavy boxes, lifted them over his head, and threw them as hard as he could, until the little biker was almost completely buried under their bulk and weight.

Cooker gasped for breath, drowning in books. He flailed and pushed at the pages, but more kept coming. Spines and corners bruised his skin. He stabbed with the knife, what little good it did him.

To that point it had been a quiet fight. There had been banging and crashing and furniture breaking, but neither of the men had said much beyond breathing and grunts of exertion. No shouted threats. No angry swearing.

Until the boot came down on his wrist.

“Motherfucker,” Cooker yelled, followed by a guttural roar. He struggled to hold on to the knife. Which was a mistake, because it only made the boot come down a second, more destructive time. That’s on me, Cooker thought and let his fingers go slack, the knife falling to the ground.

“Do. Not. Move,” Ricky said, panting for air. He put his big arm onto his thigh, bending over and catching his breath.

Cooker decided that not moving was a good idea. Not moving hurt less than moving. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, tasting the blood in the back of his throat. Some might say that it tasted like defeat, but Cooker liked the rare-steak taste. It was the losing that he hated.

H
arry stopped as he reached for the knob on the front door of his trailer. He stopped because the knob wasn’t there, only a jagged hole. He set the six-pack down and slowly entered.

Cooker was duct-taped to a chair. The chair appeared to be the only unbroken piece of furniture in his home. The table was on its side. His maps and books were everywhere, spines cracked and pages torn. Every surface had blood on it, including a Rorschach on the ceiling. Teeth were scattered across the ground. Interior decoration by way of the Manson Family.

Ricky sat on the kitchen counter holding a bag of frozen peas to his mouth. He nodded at Harry. “I got blood on your peas.”

Harry turned his head back and forth from Ricky to Cooker in an effort to comprehend. He picked up one of the damaged books.

“These are library books,” Harry said.

“We can tape together the worst ones,” Ricky said. When he removed the bag of peas, Harry saw that his lip was shredded and swollen.

“What happened?”

“Guy busted into your place. Kicked the door in. When I found him, he had our gold. Was sitting on the ground, holding it, stealing it.”

Harry turned to the biker. “Cooker? What the hell?”

“You know him?” Ricky asked.

“Yeah,” Harry said softly, walking to the refrigerator.

Cooker remembered the head in the trash can. His body started to shake, but all Harry had in his hand when he closed the refrigerator door was a beer. Cooker breathed a sigh of relief.

“You got a smoke. I’m dying here,” Cooker asked.

“Quit,” Harry said.

Ricky pulled Harry toward him. “He knows about the gold. He saw all the maps. He told me that he knows how to get us there. Knows where it is. What we’re doing. How would he know all that?”

“I talked to him.”

“Without telling us? How do you know him?”

“He was a convict.”

Ricky let out an angry laugh. “Why would you trust him?”

“I gave him a bullshit story. It was solid.”

“Whatever you told him, it didn’t work. Now he knows there’s a mine. And where it is.”

“You’re a really bad liar,” Cooker cut in.

“I’m a great liar,” Harry shouted.

“Then why is he here?” Ricky asked.

Harry took a moment to think about the question. “What gave it away?” Harry asked Cooker, genuinely confused.

“You, Shits. Didn’t matter what you said, I knew it was bullshit ’fore I heard a word. Liars lie. You’re a fucking liar.”

“You lie to everyone,” Ricky reminded him.

“Yeah. You’re right. Sorry, Ricky.”

“What’re we going to do with him? I couldn’t figure it. That’s why I tied him up. We had our secret, the three of us, now I don’t know.”

“We can’t let him go,” Harry agreed.

Harry opened the cabinet under the sink. Cooker watched him pull out the trash can. The three men looked at the dead man’s head on top of the trash.

“I thought you were going to bury that,” Ricky said.

“Shit on me,” Cooker muttered.

“I’m going to,” Harry said, setting his beer bottle to the side of the head, closing the cabinet.

“You should recycle that,” Ricky said.

Cooker stuttered, tripping over his words. “I didn’t see nothing. I don’t know nothing. I made a mistake. I’ll walk away.”

“Don’t think we can do that,” Harry said.

“I’ll help you. I know the terrain. I know military protocol,” Cooker said.

“We don’t need another partner.”

Cooker was desperate. He had gotten greedy and walked into a clubhouse full of sickos. Only a couple of real psychos could look at a head in a garbage can with nonchalance. He was neck-deep in shit. He had to think through how to get out of that fucking trailer alive.

“You don’t need to kill me. Killing me would be a mistake.” One of Cooker’s legs shook uncontrollably.

Harry and Ricky looked at each other. They both laughed a little. Whether nervousness or discomfort, they both simultaneously found it funny that the idea of killing Cooker would come from Cooker himself. The thought of killing him hadn’t occurred to either of them.

Cooker went mute. Their laughter terrified him. A trickle of piss soaked his thigh.

“What are we going to do?” Harry said, staring up at the blood on the ceiling.

“Ask Frank.”

“W
hat hospital? For the love of all that is holy, for one second, quit your babbling and talk some sense,” Harry demanded.

“You’re mean,” the high-pitched voice said on the other end of the phone.

“I haven’t started, sweetie. You don’t start giving me useful information, I’m going to tell you awful truths about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.”

Harry stood at the Blythe pay phone. A line had formed behind him, the nasty looks increasing with each second. He had spent the last five minutes and a pocketful of change gleaning from Frank’s five-year-old great-granddaughter that Frank had been taken to a hospital. He didn’t know the why, the where, the when, or the what for.