The Nirvana Blues (61 page)

His palm placed against the scratched metal of the U-Haul, Joe waited in vain for a vibration. While he waited, he tried to assess where he was at. A few crickets chirped: he missed the katydids from his youth. And where oh where were all the whippoorwills of yesteryear? And the
fireflies?
If God was so god-awful good, how come She couldn't invent fireflies above six thousand feet? Would his children never know the ecstasy of gamboling through thick dewy grass in their bare kiddy feet chasing the blinking little buggers through sweet muffling currents of nocturnal air?

As if in answer to his prayers, a teeny-weeny star plummeted out of the sky, halted its descent right above Geronimo, and languidly floated toward Joe, blinking lazily. The horse tossed his head, emitting a puzzled, guttural harrumph. Joe was so surprised his jaw fell open, and he gaped, thoroughly astounded. In fact, for a few seconds it was as if his limbs had been frozen by some sort of extraterrestrial stun-gun: he couldn't move, his heart stopped, his body experienced a sensation that seemed akin to what he might have felt had somebody punched an air needle into his belly button and commenced pumping him full of helium. A hit of euphoria, mixed with terror, clobbered his brain … then, casual as you please, the minuscule neon insect floated into his open mouth and lodged in his throat.

Joe doubled over, coughing, gagging, trying to expectorate. Spooked, Geronimo galloped away. Joe shook his head, flailed at his mouth with his tongue, dropped to one knee, and thrust an index finger between his choppers, frantically digging for the obstreperous bug. For a second or two, he thought he might die. “Holy shit!” he croaked.
“I don't believe it!”

Then he managed to cough the thing free. With thumb and forefinger, he plucked it off his tongue. And knelt in the grass, frowning at the slimy, black, mangled lump on his finger, trying to make out its surviving features in the silvery moonlight.

“This just didn't happen,” he whispered in dismay.

But it would certainly teach him to swagger around cavalierly devouring somebody else's prasad!

*   *   *

“P
SST
 … Miniver!”

Joe jumped, spun around, and, had he been packing a rod, would for sure have slapped leather and drilled the surrounding obscurity like a wildcat oilman in the east Texas petroleum fields, circa 1930.

Instead, however, he found himself face to face in the gloom with the diminutive, braceleted accountant known as Roger Petrie. Against his black turtlenecked chest, a silver cross glowed phosphorescently.

“Jesus, Roger—you scared me!”

“Why are you feeding their fruit to a horse?”

“Why are you creeping around here like some kind of lugubrious Dracula? Planning to filch the monkey and hold it for ransom to raise bread to hire a West Coast mouthpiece to keep you out of leg-irons when the legal apparatus of this godforsaken state starts snuffling in the garbage of your embezzlement and water-rights affairs?”

Oh, that silvery dancing tongue! When he was hot he was hot!

Taken aback, Roger said, “Where did you hear that?”

“Oh, hey, please.” Now that his initial terror had passed, Joe practically gloated. For this was one buzzard at his own level he knew he could keelhaul. “You know this town. Scott Harrison floats a double sawbuck into escrow lining up that H
2
O Cobey promised you for doctoring Skipper's books, and the great pinball machine in the sky over Hija Negrita Mountain flashes a giant TILT that even astronomers at Mount Palomar come in their pants over.”

“Very funny. Who's writing your gags?”

“Would you believe Cobey Dallas? Skipper Nuzum? The Tarantula of Chamisaville?”

“Seriously, Joe. I didn't come here for you to mock me.”

“I'm tired, Roger. All the convolutions surrounding these monkey maneuvers have got me down.”

“Me too—I can honestly sympathize. It's getting out of hand. Nobody knows whose side anyone is on anymore. All the traditional loyalties have gone down the drain.”

“So you're here to make me an offer I can't refuse?”

“Sarcasm, Joe, is the cheapest form of humor. You don't need to put me down just because I'm a small fry.”

“Okay, what's the deal? Cobey sent you? Or Skipper? Joe B. threatened castration unless you figured out how to stop me before I cut off my nose to spite my face by blowing the lid off everybody's illegal finaglings to do Eloy out of this choice piece of real estate?”

“You insult me, man, but I'll ignore it for the moment. More important considerations are afoot.”

“Don't tell me, lemme guess. Cobey knows you're a double agent, but he can't alienate you because once Skipper hauls him into court, his survival, vis-à-vis your testimony, depends on influencing you to perjure yourself—probably by threatening to squeal on your deal with Scott Harrison re the water rights. Plus what Skipper doesn't know, but Cobey probably does (thanks to a careful review of your handiwork), is that you've been skimming off the embezzlement into your own account, hoping to zoom unsuspectingly out of nowhere to grab this land for yourself before anybody understands how it happened. Only problem is, word recently leaked out that Scott got cold feet once he heard Skipper had plans to spear Cobey and you into the bargain in order to cover his own tracks. So you need a new alliance, and here I am: Mr. Patsy on the half shell.”

“That's a farfetched synopsis. What kind of drugs are you taking?”

“Fair enough: make me a liar. You wandered by simply to wish me good luck in the upcoming holocaust.”

“Are you quite finished, Joe? Because if you've gotten all this snide bile off your chest, I'd like to say something.”

“Speak, memory.”

“It's very simple. I think Skipper's prepared to let both Cobey and me take a rap. He even met with Scott Harrison today, probably because Scott realized Skipper's jig was up unless he forgot his own selfish interests and joined the big boys.”

“Does Cobey realize you were reporting his embezzlements to Skipper and getting paid for it?”

“That's a lie and a gross fabrication.”

“So proceed.”

“There's not much more to tell. The Hanumans are stymied because Eloy's in love with you at this juncture, and the last hope for this land to survive intact is before it's out of his hands. Scott Harrison is blocked because Skipper's threatening to tell the bar about his deal with me. Cobey can't make a move, really, because the second he does, Skipper will initiate proceedings to have him thrown in jail. I'm in trouble because I worked with all three of them, performing illegal gambits. You can't get to first base because the dope scam is preposterous, and lethal into the bargain. And anyway, even if you could manage it, you'd have to unload the land to pay off your ex-wife. But I think I have a solution of sorts.”

“Mainly…?”

“We form a partnership.”

“Roger, save your breath.”

“No, wait. You give me the coke—I can step on it heavy and fence what looks like the entire package to Natalie Gandolf for twelve Gs, while retaining at least half the stuff to make a killing elsewhere—maybe in Boulder … I know some people there. With the twelve Gs, I can cover myself in Skipper's books, so that when he lowers the boom on me and Cobey, I'll be clean as a whistle. Meanwhile, we step on the other half of your cocaine and market it for the full price, split fifty-fifty between us. The proceeds should be enough to buy out Eloy Suchandsuch, and we split the land down the middle. How does that grab you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You're crazier than all the rest of them. We could get killed.”

“I don't think you understand, Joe. Plans like this work. You have to be bold. It's how the world goes round.”

“Sure, but I have a better idea. Lemme run this up a flagpole, see if you salute it. There's a million dollars worth of insurance on this monkey god—we'll pinch the thing and hold it for ransom. I know a guy who pilots helicopters. What we'll do is swoop down, snatch it with a grappling hook, fly it off to the Midnight Mountains, and drop it into one of the Little Baldy Bear lakes.”

Roger blurted, “Aw, shit man—now
you're
crazy.”

*   *   *

B
Y FLASHLIGHT
, Diana was reading a copy of
I, Claudius.
Joe mumbled “Hello,” and collapsed among her tattered blankets, old ski jackets, and dirty bluejeans.

“What happened to you?”

“What
didn't
happen to me is more like it. Man, am I bushed.”

“I heard all hell broke loose in the Prince of Whales.”

“The Prince of Whales?” Joe had trouble remembering. Events clattered around in his fatigued noggin with kaleidoscopic caprice. How had the day commenced? Where had he spent most of his time? A police officer had pointed a cannon at his head. He had teetered emotional millimeters from prematurely ending his blithering stay on the face of this tattered globe. Blood, bandages, incoherent squabbling, downright biblical confusion. Joe Bonatelli had squashed a grapefruit. Had Nancy or Heidi claimed to be pregnant? Who had a broken nose? And had he caught trout with Tribby, or only dreamed of escaping that traffic jam? What had they planned to do with the cocaine, if anything? Or had Heidi really meant what she said about the rubber suit and a snorkel?

“What happened in the Prince of Whales, Diana?”

“Depends on whose rendition you take for the gospel.”

“I'm all ears.” Joe stretched out, enormously relieved to be off his feet. He wriggled his shoulders into her raggle-taggle bedding; his aching muscles whimpered gratefully. He cleared his throat, ridding last vestiges of that arcane glow bug.

“Darlene Johnson says you threw a plate at my old friend, Angel Guts, and he stabbed you three times before Nikita Smatterling and his retinue of cosmic gangsters broke it up. She claims they rushed you to the hospital on the brink of death. But when I called there, my friend Gail Jackson said nobody ever checked you in.”

“I didn't arrive until later.”

“Gail did say something interesting, however. This afternoon, when she went to give Ephraim Bonatelli his juice, he wasn't around. One of those inflatable Japanese sex dolls occupied his bed instead.”

Joe nodded stupidly and blotted out implications of that bubblecopter landing in Joe Bonatelli's backyard.

Diana continued: “When I stopped by the Cinema Bar to see if Roger Petrie had any houses for rent on his bulletin board, he said that you and Egon Braithwhite had tipped over three tables and beaten Angel Guts half to death with catsup bottles. Then, when the police came, you and Egon and Spumoni Tatarsky threw a cop through the plate-glass window, and wound up being arrested for violating ten thousand laws and ordinances. But, of course, when I checked at the jail, they hadn't heard of you either.”

“You know, I came within an inch of having my brains blown out this evening.” And then he remembered: the bus was still sitting there, blocking ambulances, gathering traffic tickets, and, no doubt, infuriating Officer Whosamadig, the Fastest Gun in the West. Joe's heart did a forward two-and-a-half with a full twist, and entered the water down there splashlessly.

“Mimi McAllister had the best version of the day. She said that after Angel Guts vivisected you with his Bowie knife, you crawled outside and were run over by a garbage truck. She insisted your body had already been flown back to Rhode Island for burial.”

“Why Rhode Island? I've never even visited there.”

“She mentioned a burial at sea. But that's not all—dig this. Rumor has it plans are afoot to steal the Hanuman, make it disappear, and collect the insurance.”

“Oh yeah? Who's doing the stealing?”

“Mimi wasn't sure. It's pretty convoluted. Somebody thought maybe even Nikita Smatterling is in on the play. Apparently, that writer—what's her name—Iréné somebody, actually wrote a scenario for the ripoff. The idea being to create an adventure for her book that'd make it sell like hot cakes, and bring in revenues to the Simian Foundation hand over fist.”

“How do they plan to pull off the scam?”

“You won't believe this. But apparently they intend to hijack it, using a Forest Service helicopter piloted by Ephraim Bonatelli, and drop it into a high-country lake until the insurance is collected and the heat's off.”

“Is it only this town that's crazy? Or is all of America gaga?”

“What
really
happened at the Prince of Whales, Joe?” Shyly, Diana touched his shoulder.

“I don't even know.” Joe frowned, trying to recall. “Egon kept shouting at me in that phony lingo—why does he pick on me? Everybody was flogging me because Michael plugged Nancy's monkey. Then all of a sudden your ex–sugar daddy came flying through the air like a Polish Superman hoping to slit my throat. So I ran.”

“You poor misunderstood little boy.” She hunched over beside him. Their hips touched. On her elbows, gazing down at his face, she pursed her lips thoughtfully and quietly shook her head.

He touched her cheek. “Well, at least you're beautiful.”

“You don't have to brown my nose. I know what I am. I have an interesting face, but that's all.”

“Hey, you should lighten up on yourself sometime. Learn to just flow with it.”

Gently, she poked a finger into his chest. “I do all right. I can take care of myself.”

“You and your gun and your terror of men.”

“I'm not afraid of you anymore. You're nice. You may be the most gentle man I ever met. I was so startled when you didn't slug me last night. Anybody else and I would have awakened this morning without any teeth.”

“Well, now you know. Beneath this fierce exterior there beats a heart of molten marshmallows.”