Big Trouble (6 page)

“She,” said Henry, continuing to watch the Herk family through the window.

“She?” asked Leonard. “She
what?
”

“The mosquito,” said Henry. “It's a she.”

Leonard looked closely at the blot on his wrist, then back at Henry. “How the
fuck
can you tell that?” he asked.

“This show on the Discovery Channel,” explained Henry. “They said only the female mosquito sucks your blood.”

Leonard looked at the blot again. He said, “Bitch.”

“What they didn't explain,” said Henry, “is what do the male mosquitoes eat?”

“What, are you
worried
about them?”

“No, I'm not
worried
about them. I'm just . . .”

“You want I should go get a fucking
pizza
for them, set it out here in the jungle so they don't
starve?
”

“I'm just saying, what do they eat? If they don't suck blood? Is all I'm saying.”

“Maybe they suck each other,” said Leonard.

Henry had to smile at that, which only encouraged Leonard.

“Oh, Bruth!”
Leonard said in a lisping mosquito whisper. “
You have a BIG thtinger!”

Henry was quietly quaking with laughter now; his rifle barrel vibrated in the gloom.

INSIDE the family room, Arthur Herk was methodically, relentlessly changing channels. He was doing this partly because the instinct to change channels is embedded deep in the male genetic code, and partly because he knew his wife and stepdaughter hated it.

For a few minutes, Anna and Jenny stared at the flashing jumble of images, expressionless, not wanting to give Herk any satisfaction. Finally, Jenny sighed and stood. Addressing Anna, she said, “I'm gonna go to my room, where it's not so, I don't know . . . stupid. Good night, Mom.”

Herk kept changing channels.

Anna said, “I think I'll let Roger in and go to bed, too.”

Herk stopped changing channels and looked at her. She recognized the look. She hoped he'd pass out in the family room tonight. She hoped he would not make it to the bedroom. She rose from the sofa.

Outside, Henry whispered, “They're leaving.”

“THEY'RE leaving,” whispered Matt. He and Andrew, having received a warm but brief welcome from Roger, had moved to an observation point next to a large potted plant at the edge of the patio, about thirty feet from Henry and Leonard.

“Whadda we do?” asked Andrew.

“I think she's gonna let the dog in,” said Matt. “When she opens the door, we run up, and I shoot her, and you witness it.”

“I'm gonna witness it from here,” said Andrew, “in case her father shoots us.”

“With
what?
” said Matt. “The remote control? You gotta come with me so Jenny sees that you witnessed it.”

“He has a gun
somewhere,
” Andrew said. “This is Miami.”

Matt could not argue with that. Sounding braver than he felt, he whispered, “Come on,” and started across the patio toward the sliding-glass door. Andrew followed, reluctantly, a few feet behind.

Henry and Leonard did not see the boys immediately; they were both intently watching Anna Herk as she moved toward the door from the other side.

“Fine-looking woman,” Leonard observed.

“Shut up,” Henry observed. He raised his rifle and trained the sight on Arthur Herk, thinking about how he was going to do this. If Herk stayed in the room, sitting in front of the TV, it would be easy. But Henry had to be ready in case Herk got up and followed the women out. Henry didn't want to shoot with the women still in the room, but he would if he had to.

Anna Herk reached the patio door, unlatched it, slid it open, and called, “Roger, c'mon, boy.” At this point, a number of things happened in extremely quick succession:

—Roger, calculating with his nine functioning brain cells that the chances were better of getting food inside the house with the humans than outside with the Enemy Toad, left his surveillance post and shot, a low-flying, furry missile, through the door opening into the family room.

—Right behind him came Matt, rushing toward the opening, holding his realistic SquirtMaster Model 9000. He had planned to yell, “HEY, JENNY!” but he was very nervous, so it came out more like, “HENNY!”

—Anna, seeing a shape rushing out of the night toward her yelling unintelligibly, screamed.

—Two steps behind, Jenny, hearing her mom scream, then seeing the shape, screamed.

—Arthur Herk, hearing both women screaming, dropped the remote control. Roger immediately went over to see if it was food.

—Outside in the gloom, Leonard said, “What the
fuck?
”

—In about the same time that it took for Leonard to come to that conclusion, Henry, who had a gift for processing information and making decisions very rapidly, which is why he was the one with the rifle, decided that, whatever this other shooter was there to do, he, Henry, was there to shoot Arthur Herk, and he had better do it right now.

—As Henry was deciding, Matt burst through the door opening past the screaming Anna Herk and aimed his SquirtMaster Model 9000 at the screaming Jenny.

—Arthur Herk, seeing a gunman come through the door, dove forward off the sofa to the floor in front of the television, which was fortunate for Arthur, because . . .

—maybe a tenth of a second later, a bullet from Henry's rifle passed directly through the middle of the airspace where Arthur's head had been and into the thirty-five-inch diagonal screen of the Herk family TV set, which imploded with a brief, brutal “POP,” shattering, in a bright bluish flash, the image of the president of the Hair Club for Men.

—Arthur Herk, hearing the explosion, scrabbled frantically at the floor with his hands and knees and shot forward, alligator-like, out of the family room and into the hallway leading to Nina's room.

—Anna Herk, a mother instinctively and fearlessly protecting her baby, jumped on Matt's back, causing him to stagger forward into Jenny, such that the three of them collapsed to the floor in a human sandwich, with Matt in the middle and both women pounding him and screaming.

—Down the hall, Nina, hearing screams, an explosion, then more screams, opened her door and saw Arthur coming out of a crouch and hurtling down the hall toward her with the face of a crazed animal. She slammed the door, which came violently open again as Arthur burst through it. Convinced she was about to be raped, Nina leaped onto her bed and slithered out the open window, dropped onto the lawn, and, wearing only a blue nightgown, sprinted, bare-foot and terrified, into the night.

—At the edge of the patio, Leonard and Henry heard a siren and, without exchanging words, began quickly and professionally to get the hell out of there.

—Thirty feet to the right, Andrew, less professionally but just as quickly, did the same.

—In Roger's dish, the toad, which did not achieve its current station in life by being easily distracted, continued to eat Roger's kibble.

NINA reached the wall first; in fact, in the darkness beneath the huge ficus tree, she ran
into
the wall. Emitting a sharp, high-pitched cry of pain, she stumbled backward, directly in the path of Leonard, who emerged from a thicket moving at top middle-aged-guy speed and slammed into her, causing her to cry out again as they both went down, with Leonard tripping over her and hitting the wall headfirst, hard.

Three seconds later, Henry, puffing, burst through the thicket and stopped as he saw two entangled shapes on the ground by the wall, both moaning. Crouching, Henry approached the shapes, turning the rifle around in his hands so he could use it as a club.

“Leonard?” he said.
“Leonard?”

One of the moaning shapes began, slowly, to sit up. It was not Leonard. Henry raised his rifle and braced himself, ready to strike. He was in that pose when Puggy landed on his head. Henry crumpled to the ground and dropped the rifle, which Puggy, bouncing quickly to his feet, snatched up.

Puggy had never shot a rifle; he had never even touched a rifle. He held this one the way he had seen people hold rifles on TV, kind of looking down the barrel with one eye. He stepped back a few feet and pointed the rifle in the general direction of Henry.

If there had been more light, and if Henry hadn't had searing blasts of pain stabbing his neck and right shoulder, he might have noticed that whoever this stocky little man holding his rifle was, he still had the safety on, and he didn't have his finger inside the trigger guard. If he had been his usual self, Henry might have made a play on this guy—kick his feet out, roll sideways, come up moving, going for the gun he kept in an ankle holster.

But Henry was not his usual self, and he knew it, and could hear that the sirens were very close now, and as much as he wanted to know what was going on here, he figured his best play was to continue getting the hell out of there. Keeping his eye on Puggy, moving slowly, keeping his hands in view, he got his knees under himself, then his feet, then stood up. Puggy watched him.

“I don't want any trouble,” Henry said.

“Me neither,” said Puggy. Puggy never wanted trouble.

“I'm gonna get my friend here,” Henry said.

“Don't touch the girl.” Puggy said.

Henry thought,
Girl?
But he said, “No, no, I'm just gonna get my friend, OK?” He moved slowly to the wall and . . . shit, there
was
a girl. What was going
on
here? He grabbed Leonard's shoulder and shook it.

“C'mon,” he said. “Come
on
, dammit!”

Leonard sat up a little, his eyes starting to focus. First he saw Henry, right over him; then he saw a girl in a nightgown, on the ground next to him; then he saw a guy with a rifle. His head hurt and there was blood in his eyes and he could hear sirens really loud.

He said: “What the
fuck?
”

“Come
on,
” said Henry, yanking Leonard up, feeling a nauseating stab of pain in his shoulder. He looked one more time at the stocky man, who was still pointing the rifle vaguely in his direction. Henry knew this guy was not a pro. Henry was pretty sure he could get the rifle back—he did
not
want to leave the rifle—but Leonard was very shaky, and the siren had stopped, which meant the cops were here.

Henry pushed Leonard over to the wall, got his shoulder under Leonard's ass—another stab of pain—and shoved him over the wall; then he followed. He herded Leonard as quickly as he could to the rental car and shoved him into the backseat. He climbed gingerly in the front and drove out of the neighborhood, watching the rearview, thinking about how he was going to word the phone call.