Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 (17 page)

I tossed the bartender’s torso onto the growing tangle of corpses mounded on the dance floor. There were a few stragglers inside when we got the idea to burn the place down, but since their backs were broken, we just left those groaning paraplegics where they lay. Honey found a gas can near the generator and Scott did the honors of christening The White House like a priest shaking his aspergillum over sleepy parishioners. I set the blaze with the last of my cigarettes, sending flames scurrying off to every corner of the rat’s nest.

A total burn was really the only thing that could be done. The grand total was twenty-four bodies—oops— but it couldn’t be avoided. If those Nazis had just practiced some common decency, we wouldn’t have to have resorted to our basest instincts.

The place was a dump anyway; we were doing Idaho a favor sparking it. I mean, seriously. I’m not much for college parties—though I’ve certainly spent enough time wiping up in strange bathrooms after frat house keggers
⁹³
—but at least they hire maids to sweep once a week. This place was ankle deep in dry peanut shells, insects and rat poop. A fire was inevitable.

Does that sound like rationalizing?

“Rather than stand around and wait for the fire department to show up, let’s think of a plan and act on it,” I said.

We stood in a circle near the camper. Dusk was making its comeback and the camper door slapped open revealing a groggy Gil. He’d dragged his sorry ass outside just in time for the barbecue. He slipped between Wendy and me and whispered, “What’s up?”

“Well let’s see,” I said. “Since you’ve been out that girl that was as white as poached chicken was murdered.”

“Murdered!” His face went whiter than normal.

“Oh … hold on, it gets better,” Wendy added.

“Then we swing by this shithole to get Honey some refreshment, and the whole thing turned into a giant zombie fuck-up.”

Gil eyed Scott up and down, came in close and whispered, “Who’s the new yum?”

“That’s Scott, he’s Markham’s man.”

Scott offered his hand, but Gil pushed me forward forcing an impromptu brushing of my breast.

“Oh … I’m sorry,” Scott stumbled. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine. I suppose you’d have gotten around to that sooner or later.” I winked.

“Wha—what?” He coughed as though he’d inhaled a little phlegm.

“Dirty.” Wendy crossed her arms, clearly jealous that such a fortuitous mistake had happened to me rather than her. I’d seen her eyeing my trophy boy all afternoon. Sad. “I say we keep on going to Butte and talk to the Kraken. Some of us are still focused on the job at hand.” She gestured at Honey.

“Well, that’s fine and all, but what about Becky?”

“Oh, I’m sure she won’t be a problem.” Wendy fished in her purse and hooked a lipstick.

“Uh … no. I mean who killed her. Is there someone else following us?”

“Someone else?” I asked. “Like who?”

“Didn’t you say she was with a couple of cultists?” Fishhook had regained his clarity once more and seemed to have a knack for amateur sleuthing. “They were the last ones to see her alive. Who’s to say they didn’t snow you and actually cut the girl up after a double team?”

Honey flinched. “She was a virgin. I don’t think—”

“Or maybe one got jealous being forced to watch his buddy get all the mouthwork. And I do mean the old golfball cleaner, if you know what I mean.” He elbowed Scott, who gave a little snort before shaking it off for a look of disgust.

“Enough!” I interrupted. “You’ve made your point. Does anyone remember where they were headed?”

Gil’s eyes dropped away from staring down Scott and looked at me. “Billings, I think. But they did say something about going to some kind of compound.”

“Probably their cult headquarters. Somebody could try to catch up to them.” I glanced at Scott. “Someone with a fast, if not entirely incognito, car.”

“I like orange and I’m not ashamed of it.” Scott shoved his hands into his front jean pockets.

“So?” I stepped forward close enough to embrace.

“So what?”

“Will you track down the killers … Officer?” I ran my fingers through my hair, lifting and letting the bulk of my waves drop in cascading layers. He was entranced. Duh.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, what?”

“I’ll do it.”

Wendy snorted and shook her head.

“What?” I asked her, daring her to say something to mess up my seduction of the cute werewolf.

“I’ll drive the camper.” She stalked off.

* * * 

Honey insisted on playing her iPod over the Volvo’s stereo, so for the next two hours I was transported back to the ′80s through an apparent resurgence of new wave (see track listing). Everything old is new again and all that. I decided to unhook it from the camper and give Wendy a bit of breathing room.
⁹⁴

Honey made the mistake of resting her feet on the dash, once and only once. The action prompted our first argument, in which I insisted that that behavior was grounds for a slow death. She had a differing viewpoint, but acquiesced when I gave her a peek at how big I could open my mouth.

“Had enough?”

“Uh … yeah. That’s fucking gross.”

“Language!” I yelled.

The word popped right out, sullying the air like a smelter. My tone was even different, like I was channeling.

Mother.

The exchange was familiar enough to remind me of Ethel, and her infamous classes on manners. Unsatisfied with scarring one person’s childhood (mine, obviously), Ethel took on pupils from the neighborhood for a weekly “get-together.” She called it her Cavalcade of Etiquette—emphasis on each and every one of the hard consonants. It gave her the opportunity to dress up and smoke cigarettes from long holders—throw her a full-length fur and a skunk spot and you’d have Cruella DeVille hawking deportment. Yet adults bought it, much like they do with roadside attractions.
⁹⁵

“Children!” she’d shout. “Pop quiz time!”

We stood behind our assigned dining room chairs awaiting the task. Shannon Franks shed drops of fearful tears that hung from her chin like a row of moles. Chuck Abramowitz shivered as though fresh from a dip with his polar bear club. I cocked my hip out and searched my fingernails for flaws. Those kids were amateurs.

Ethel reached around the corner into the foyer, retrieving a red velvet bag that jingled like Christmas bells. Faces changed. A small degree of hope fluttered amongst the students. I was suspicious.

“For this week’s examination …” her voice rose with every word. “A simple matter of place settings.” She marched over to the table and upended the bag sending a clanging shower of silverware onto the padded surface.
⁹⁶
Shaking the remaining few loose, she took a long drag from her cigarette, scanned the horrified faces, turned and stalked from the room in a cloud of carcinogens, heels clicking on the hardwood like ball-peen hammers. “Formal dinner service! You have five minutes!”

Terror spread.

She might have easily proclaimed, “Medical experiments for the lot of you,” from the expressions that ringed the table. There were prayers and hand-wringing and more than one suicide attempt, though I was able to wrestle the butter knife away from little Billy Armstrong before he did too much damage.

Lucky for the group, I was on to Ethel’s scheme of testing us on subjects no one in their right mind would study, let alone a group of primary school children; I’d done my own homework, and this time it paid off. We
sorted the various sizes of forks, spoons and knives and divvied them up evenly. We passed china dinner, salad, and bread plates, and crystal stemware with the utmost care neither to break nor leave a fingerprint. I held up each utensil in the correct hand and waited for them to echo before placing it. By the time Mother’s heels tapped out their approaching rhythm, the table was set for an epicurean feast in the Hapsburg tradition.

Ethel was not pleased, her eyes skipped from one place setting to the next. “I see one of you is trying to be amusing.” She glowered in my direction, yet refused to make eye contact. Instead, she lit another cigarette and leaned against the wall eyeing the students with the kind of loathing most often reserved for wait staff or civil servants.

“Get out of my sight,” she whispered, the last syllable hissed like compressed air.

It was a mad stampede for the door. I almost made it.

“Not you.” Her fingers caught in the back of my shirt collar, hanging me on the first button. She spun me around and drew me close. “You missed the white wine glasses.”

My mouth dropped open. My hands balled into fists.

“I’d assumed you’d be having red,” I said, eyes wide with defiance. “Just like every fucking night.”

Smack.

I didn’t even see her palm move, but my cheek sure noticed.

“A lady doesn’t use that kind of language.”

Language.

I shook the memory off and turned the radio down just as Peaches began a porn-as-anthem groove. “Sorry about snapping.”

“Hmm?” Honey flipped her way through a
Vogue
for the third time.

“Oh … the comment about your language. I’m sorry. Talk how you like, I’m not your mother.”

“No. No. You’re right. It was rude, I apologize.”

I couldn’t have this girl thinking I was maternal, anything but that. “Please feel free to say fuck, shit or cooze, anything that comes normal. I’m really not one to judge.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Well, I’m sorry, anyway.”

“Fine.” It was too late, I was stuck in the role of judgmental adult and it was all Ethel’s fault. I could feel that pillow in my hands and imagine the horror in her eyes. I couldn’t wait to get to Rapid City.

Ethel was a goner.

Butte sneaks up on you like a certain homeless guy’s farts.

The interstate cuts through moonlit grasses, rolling across hills in dark waves. There are few homesteads and even fewer lights, bar the occasional semi speeding back to Spokane or Seattle. So, when the freeway banked, I wasn’t expecting to see a glowing letter M on the hillside.

“What do you suppose that stands for?” I asked Honey.

“Montana?”

“Too easy.” I grinned. “How about machete mouth.”

“What’s that?”

“You know. Like when someone has too many lip piercings.”

“No. No. No way. It stands for …” She hesitated as if gauging how far she could take this.

“Go for it,” I urged.

“Machine Gun Masturbation.”

“What? That sounds all kinds of wrong.”

“It’s when a guy’s masturbating and then keeps on going after he cums. Like after it starts to hurt. Boys are so fucking gross. It’s crazy, right?”

“And awesome. I’m totally going to accuse Gil of doing that when he goes to sleep in the morning. We’ll just pretend that everyone knows it.”

“Absolutely and speaking of masturbation, Officer Scotty is certainly worthy of a rubdown.”

“Did I just give you a license to be naughty?”

“Kind of yeah.” She swiveled in her seat to face me. “When the two of you were talking … um … it was like high on the mack-o-meter.” She put her arms together like a genie and then raised one into a rigid point.

“Do you think?”

“Oh yeah. Totally.” She nodded. “I thought he was going to pop a mad boner. Maybe that’s what the ‘M’ stands for.
Mad
boner.”

I gave her a broad smile as we crested a hill and the M passed from view. There was a pleasant comfortable feeling between us; the air was warm with bonding.
⁹⁷
It was nice.
⁹⁸

The highway slices Butte in two, old on one side, lounging elderly and decrepit on the hill, and the newer—but no less decrepit—spread out across the flats blistered with strip malls and fast food. I pulled into the world’s dirtiest KFC to fatten up Honey—I mean feed, obviously. Despite that previous comment, I’m not my mother.

Ahem.

Wendy pulled the camper into the next alley and waved us in.

Buying a piece of chicken from an establishment that can’t manage a clean floor is a big stretch for me. Factor in a brutal acne-infestation on the counter fuck, whose name tag purports “Gunrunner” and— I’m pretty sure—you’re taking your life into your own hands.

“What do you want?” he asked in a monotone so labored he could have fallen over dead any second.

“A number two with Diet Coke, please.” Honey smiled at the little geek. She’s a much better woman than I. I could barely stomach the sight of him. Gunrunner’s powder black hair hung in greasy clumps on either side of his sallow cheeks. Round old man spectacles amplified his beady eyes like marbles sitting in a couple of dirty shot glasses.

He squinted and pecked at the keys. “And you?”

“Oh. I don’t eat chicken,” I said, nearly just blurting out, “Nope, just human flesh, but not yours, buddy.”

Honey giggled, presumably at my discomfort. My dirty high heels were sliding around on the greasy tiles and my tablecloth sarong wasn’t much to look at.

She carried the tray into the dining room to find a seat, only to be found, instead.