Dead Nolte (20 page)

Snatching his walking stick from the seat, he poked
frantically at the foot controls. It would have to do; he was running out of
time.

Using his thumb and index finger, Baal daintily extracted
the keys from the ashtray and held them up so that he might apply a few puffs
of air, to dislodge any filth that might be clinging to them. Satisfied they
were clean enough for use; he began to try them one after another in the
ignition. The fourth key turned and gave the engine a bump. Though he couldn’t
see the road directly in front of the vehicle, he felt he had enough visibility
to navigate the monstrosity without killing anyone. Partially convinced that
his walking stick plan would work and left with no other option, he twisted the
key in the ignition and the beast roared to life.

A large burly fellow came running out of the house. “Hey,
motherfucker, get your ass outta my truck!” The man slipped on what appeared to
be frankfurter laying on the drive and stumbled into the grass.

Quickly placing the lever on the steering column in reverse,
Baal poked at the petrol control with his stick. The great monster jumped and
lurched backward, crashing into the car parked behind him. An alarm went off.
The door of the truck slammed hard on the ladder, crushing it and lodging it
firmly in the door. Laying his walking stick on the seat beside him, Baal
grabbed the wheel in both hands and pulled down hard on the left side until it
stopped turning. Placing the lever in D and grabbing his stick from the seat
and poked hard at the accelerator. Once again there was the sound of the ladder
being crushed as the beast jumped forward. Holding down on the wheel he jabbed
at the accelerator. Each jab caused the truck to jump, which caused his stick
to pump up and down on the pedal, which caused the truck to jump even more.

The burly man that had run out of the house stood helpless,
watching his truck hop across the lawn toward the street, tearing out great
chunks of sod with every leap. The big tires chirped as they made contact with
the street and pipes roared, as his baby took off down the street with a step
ladder hanging out of her door.

Bully! Baal could still feel the soul anomalies trapped in
the coin. After dealing with several billion, one acquired a sense for matters
concerning souls. We appear to be heading south, he told himself as he kicked
at the remains of the ladder caught in the door, trying to dislodge it. It was
going to be hard to get down, but the infernal racket it was causing, was more
insufferable than James’ heartbeat.

S
ympathy
for the Devil was on the radio as they crossed the Texas state line. Nolte was
moaning along with it, tossing in a word here and there, he always sounded like
a drunken wino when he sang, mixing words with tin-eared groans, that the
average passerby might mistake for someone in the throes of an agonizing death.
‘Hope you guess my name’, appeared to be the only part of the song he really
knew.

Nolte was a whistle while you work kind of guy when the work
was going his way, but a tool slinging fount of profanity, when it wasn’t.
Things seemed to be going his way in that particular moment. He had torn a hole
in the plastic lining of his diaper and was using the absorbent cotton lining
to plug the bullet hole in his chest. Each tuft of faux cotton was prudently
rolled into balls, approximately the same diameter of the entrance wound, and
carefully poked into the bullet hole with the nail of his pinky. Nolte had
always known his pinky nail would come in handy someday.

His entire life, he had groomed the ends of his fingers
obsessively and meticulously on every third day, without fail. Nolte’s
manicures would rival that of any Newark mobster, although, since the
seventies, he would leave the pinky nail on his right hand long enough to
accommodate a generous scoop of cocaine. It didn’t matter that Nolte despised
drugs, he found the characters that used them to hold a certain air of rebel
mystique; they dared to go against the grain of things and break the rules, he
liked that.

In the early seventies, he had worked on the docks of
Chicago with a group of black electrical apprentices, who all kept their
pinkies trimmed in such a manner. Nolte had always thought the secret statement
the niggers were making, to be mighty cool beans and adopted the accessory for
his own digit.

“You’re not even bleeding, asshole.” Ron had been watching
Nolte, in the rearview for some time, and Nolte’s attention whoring, or lack
thereof, was making him nervous. It had taken him a while, with only the dim
lighting from the dash, to figure out what the old fart was doing. “If
anything, you’re just making it worse.”

“It could start bleeding at any time, Dr. Cupcake, what else
did they teach you in medical school?”

Ron turned the radio down. “It’s been a fucking hour, Nolte.
If it was going to bleed, it would have bled by now.” Ron shook his head. “You
know you’re dead, right? You went tits up. Completely fucking
puzzles
me how you can shit and piss yourself, and not
bleed, but if you were going to bleed, you would have fucking bled!”

 
“I can’t believe you
assholes shot your own father.” Nolte sounded as if his feelings were genuinely
hurt, but Ron and Charlie both knew the notion was absurd, Nolte only had two
emotions, horny and drunk. If his feelings ever had been hurt, it was probably
because he had been too drunk to fuck at some point in his miserable existence,
and some barfly had chided his ass over his limp dick. Nolte pointed at the wad
of diaper padding sticking out of his chest. “That’s right where my fucking
heart is!”

“Yeah, well this asshole prevented you from getting shot a
second time,” Ron replied, feeling a momentary smidge of guilt. He had never
shot anyone before, but he knew in his heart, if he absolutely had to shoot
someone, absolutely had to, he would choose to shoot Nolte.

“Bullshit, you were only trying to stop him from shooting up
your fucking car again. You should both be on the Green Mile,
you
death row lookin’ motherfuckers.” Nolte glanced at the
pistol laying on the dash. These twinks couldn’t hold their piss forever and
when they stopped, someone was catching a slug. He pushed another wad of cotton
into his wound for good measure. Satisfied with his first time at first aid,

Nolte’s demeanor improved. “So, you murderous cocksuckers,
where are we headed?”

“We’re looking for a church,” Ron replied. “You ever seen
the Exorcist?”

“Is that one of those workout tapes? I do love watching
tight-assed pussy bend at the waist.”

“Yeah, we thought we might do a little father-son bonding
with you, using an exercise tape, and figured a church would be the only place
left on the planet with a working VCR.”

“I do like watching tight-assed pussy crack open like a
shotgun, gonna work the ol’ love muscle, is what I’m gonna do. What about you
faggots? Every workout tape has at least one homo on it, you two gonna work the
ol’ love muscles?”

Neither of them said it, but both of the brothers wished the
gunshot had worked, perhaps, silver bullets next time.

The two men and the ghost rode for some time without
speaking. Nolte and Charlie were both eyeballing the pistol on the dash; both
wanted it for the same reason, to put a hole in the other. Charlie just wanted
to see the incredulous look on Nolte’s face again, Nolte wanted to kill
Charlie.

After the gunshot and without the radio, the silence was
almost overwhelming. The mind numbing Blue Tail Fly marathon, had taken its
sweet time getting out of Ron’s head and the quiet was nice, as far as he was
concerned, as long as Nolte didn’t go to pickin’ at his diaper again. The soft
spot in Ron’s heart, or the part of his heart where Nolte pity leaked from, couldn’t
help but wonder what was going to happen to the old man once they turned over
the coin. Would he blink out of sight for good, be carried off to Hell by
demons, or sizzle and flame like a vampire in sunlight?

“Are we there yet?” Nolte asked.

“You start that shit and we will be stopping at a church. I
will exorcise you myself, with a Holy Water enema.” Charlie warned, he was
pretty sure he was going to have to shoot Nolte again before the night was
over; at least he was pretty sure he wanted to. “Tell me how this ‘I Dream of
Jeanie’ shit works?” He asked, twisting in his seat to see Nolte better. The
old man could lie like the wind, so it was best to face him if you were
interested in catching any fragments of the truth. “Where the hell do you go
when you blink out?”

“If I blinked into your ass, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”
Nolte snapped, quickly scooting out of Charlie’s reach, his son didn’t seem to
be able to control his violent tendencies anymore.

Charlie smiled lazily. “Do you think you have enough diaper
stuffing to fill another hole?” He twisted further in his seat. “Here’s the way
we’re going to play this game. I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re
going to answer those questions.”

“Uhn gun ask cwustuns uhn yun gun anz cwustuns.” Nolte
mocked and fell back into the seat laughing hysterically.

Charlie scratched the spot between his eyebrows and shot a
side glance at Ron.

“It’s like talking to a fucking kid, isn’t it?” Ron agreed
with Charlie’s unasked question, he tried to keep from smiling; it was kind of
funny when Nolte pulled his shit on someone else.

“Shut up and keep your eyes on the road, Cupcake, you’re
liable to kill us all.” Nolte warned, taking a sudden interest in everyone’s
safety. “You never know when a varmint might run out in front of you.
 
I’d damn sure hate to see you two crash test
dummies, wind up dead.” Nolte unclipped the giant sunglasses from the waistband
of his diaper and slipped them on, he used his middle finger to push them up the
last inch of his nose. Jack Nicholson had done this once in a TV interview, and
Nolte had seen fit to adopt this maneuver of coolness for his ownself, it too,
was mighty cool beans.

“Answer me this. If we gave you back your nest egg, what
would happen tomorrow?” Charlie wanted to look into Nolte’s eyes, in case the
shithead accidently told him the truth, but the ridiculous sunglasses took up a
third of Nolte’s face, a look of what might have been real sadness washed over
the rest of it and then he vanished, poof, no smoke, no sound, just poof. Charlie
had never seen Nolte express a true emotion before, but sadness seemed like a
good place for the old man to start. He turned in his seat to face forward and
smiled. “Now we know how to get rid of Uncle Perv.”

“There is no way in hell; we are giving him that coin.”

“Yeah, I just wanted to know what’s going to happen. Is the
witch going to finish him off? Does he turn into a pumpkin at midnight? Is the
midget with the vibrating palm going to show up again?”

"Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I’ll tell ya’, I
can do without the midget again, but I really don't give a rat’s ass what
happens to the old man."

The headlights flashed on something in the road ahead.
Nolte’s diaper reflected surprisingly white between the high beams, a maniacal
grin spread beneath the huge women’s sunglasses.

In less than a second, they were bearing down on the
insanely white, naked monkey. Ron stomped on the brakes and swerved across the
center line, into the oncoming lane.
  

Nolte held his arms out to his sides like a goalie and
side-stepped into the same lane.

Swerving harder, Ron put the car half way into the ditch,
just missing Nolte with the right headlight. The tires squalled as the rear end
of the car slid into the ditch, pulling the rest of the car down with it. Ron
steered into the slide until the front end caught up with the rear and the car
came to a rest and stalled, hissing and complaining over the sudden and
unexpected abuse.

Charlie flung his door open and flew out of the vehicle,
bolting blindly into the darkness, in the direction of Nolte’s peals of
laughter. Ron gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled as the sound of
Charlie’s boots pounding the asphalt, chased Nolte’s squeals into the distance.

“We have got to get rid of that fucking idiot,” Ron said quietly
to himself. Soon there was no sound other than the muffler, ticking as it
cooled. For several minutes he sat and watched the mosquitos and seed husks
float in the dusty fog of the headlights, waiting, numbly puzzled by the
events, until he heard Charlie puffing and wheezing his way back to the car.

“Man, that little fucker is fast.” He spat on the road
before he walked down into the ditch and sat in the car.
   

“He was actually toying with me. I’m going to shoot him
again the next time he pops up.”

Ron grabbed the derringer from the dash and handed it to
Charlie. “Be my guest.”

“Think you need a shove, or do you think you can drive out
of here?” Charlie puffed. He was hoping for the latter. Nolte had run like a twelve-year-old,
Kenyan track star and Charlie really needed a cigarette, he didn’t want to
push.

“Close your door,” Ron said flatly. Putting the car in
reverse, he looked over the back of the seat. The passenger door slammed shut
and he backed the car up a few feet. “How am I on that side?”

Charlie rolled down the window and looked behind the car.
“C’mon back, I can’t see shit.” He hoped they might back over Nolte.

Ron put the car in drive and the two men turned around to
find Nolte sitting on the hood like a giant ivory, emaciated Buddha hood
ornament. Charlie quickly raised the gun and pointed it at him through the
windshield.

A sharp scream came out of Ron. “Not through the fucking
windshield! Put the fucking gun away!” Flooring the accelerator, the sound of
shredding weeds erupted in the fender wells. Nolte put his hands down on the
hood to either brace himself, or to relax and enjoy the ride, one of the two,
he appeared to not have a care in the world. The car shot forward down the
center of the ditch, sucking the tall grass beneath it in gulps. At twenty
miles an hour Ron stomped on the brakes, sending Nolte tumbling, asshole over
appetite, through the ditch.

Amazingly he came up on his feet, running. He bounded up the
incline of the ditch like a gazelle and took off down the road, the white of
his diaper disappearing into the darkness.

Once again Ron stomped the gas and once again the sound of
shredding weeds erupted from the front wheel wells. At twenty miles per hour,
Ron cranked the wheels hard to the right and the car leaped from the ditch.
Sand and rocks peppered the side of the car before the tires finally chirped
and grabbed hold of the road.

Nolte’s diaper seemed to flash on and off as the headlights
bounced wildly around in the dark, finally coming to rest with Nolte centered
between them. Again Ron stomped the accelerator, the look of shock he had from
the encounter with the ditch was gone and replaced with a disturbed, maniacal
grin. With laser point focus he aimed his makeshift weapon at the naked idiot.
"All things must end," he told himself.

“I’ve got the old coot now.” He said, as the car bore down
on Nolte, who was running surprisingly fast for a seventy-seven-year-old dead
man.

“Just like a Kenyan marathoner.” Charlie marveled, and just
as Nolte was about to be sucked beneath the front bumper, he vanished.

“Fuck!” Ron yelled in disappointment. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck! I almost had him.”

“Had who?” Nolte asked from the back seat, with exaggerated
curiosity.

Charlie turned quickly and fired the gun wildly over the top
of the seat back. The rear window exploded in a spray of glass, raining out
over the trunk. The ringing silence had returned.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Ron felt himself scream into the
ringing air.

Charlie was halfway over the back of the seat when Nolte
vanished again.

“Really?” Ron yelled in disbelief. “Really? You really
thought I’d be okay with that?” He pulled to the side of the road and looked
over his shoulder at the damage. The entire rear glass was crisscrossed, with a
bajillion cracks, a perfect spider web, except for a hole the size of a human
head, where the glass was entirely missing.

Almost robotically, Ron turned to face the front. Again he
found himself staring at mosquitos and dust motes floating in the headlights.
Again he was numbly puzzled by the events. This is coming out of Charlie’s
share, he told himself, as he waited for the ringing in his ears to subside.
Charlie was looking back and forth, between the gun and the hole in the rear
glass; he looked to be confused by what had just transpired and was
contemplating, somehow, blaming the gun for the damaged window.