Part 53 (1/2)

I'd d.a.m.n well better try to kill them first.

It might not be as impossible as it sounds.

There'll be Tom. And Mitch and Chuck. That's three. Minnow makes four. No, wait. Minnow's dead. Jody busted his head in with her baseball bat, at least according to Tom.

Of course, I've only got his word for it.

Why would he lie? Maybe so I won't be expecting Minnow, and ... I should've asked Ranch about him. Oh, well. Minnow must be dead, now that I think about it. He went off down the hall to look for more prey, but he didn't come back.

So that's three: Tom, Mitch and Chuck. Plus Clement Calhoun, and ... and who else?

My G.o.d! There used to be twelve of us! Twelve! Of course, that was before Tex, Dale, Private and Bill got their tickets canceled.

Eight of us went into that house on Friday night. Minnow, Ranch and Dusty are down the tubes since then, and I'm not exactly one of the gang anymore. So there are only four of them.

If I go in with a gun in each hand ...

No. One against four is extremely s.h.i.+tty odds.

I know!

What I do is go in with Jody-or a gal who'll pa.s.s for her. So it'll look like I'm keeping my part of the bargain. Also, I can hold her in front of me, use her as a s.h.i.+eld.

d.a.m.n it! Why didn't I take Dusty's vest off him? That'd be the thing, go in there with a Kevlar vest under my s.h.i.+rt.

s.h.i.+t!

It'd take me an hour to go all the way back to that house. I should've done some heavy thinking about the whole deal before I started shooting my mouth off into this tape recorder. s.h.i.+t, the thing is like a ... an addiction. The f.u.c.king world could be coming to an end, and I'd start the tape rolling so I could get in my two cents.

s.h.i.+t!

I wasn't even to the freeway before I dug the thing out of my purse and ...

s.h.i.+t!

Okay, okay. Calm down.

What's done is done, right? Water under the f.u.c.king bridge. No way I can go back and get Dusty's vest. I'd have the time to do it, but for all I know the bodies might've already been found. Forget it.

Who needs a bulletproof vest, anyway? Look at all the good it did Dusty.

Besides, it's not like the guys are gonna be waiting in there tonight to ambush me with guns. Mitch'll have his f.u.c.king saber, Chuck his ax, Clement his hammer and straight razor, Tom his Bowie knife. They'll have firearms handy, all right. We've got a real a.r.s.enal in the garage. But that stuff is for emergencies, so they aren't likely to have me covered if I walk in dragging along a sweet young thing so it looks like I'm playing along.

The problem is, I've got to find one.

Shouldn't be too hard. She won't have to be a dead ringer, or anything, now that Dusty's out of the picture.

Anyway, enough about all that. Time's running out, and there's no telling how busy I might get before the deadline tonight, so I'd better go ahead with the history of our little gang while I've got the chance.

Where the h.e.l.l did I leave off?

I don't know. Did I tell about the time we went after Denise Dennison? That was our first house raid, and ... yeah, I already went into all that.

What about after Denise?

Geez, get a load of her!

Where was I?

Things were awfully hot around L.A., so we drove all the ...

Never mind.

I can't think.

It's this car I just pa.s.sed. The girl in back looks just like Jody. I mean, maybe she's not the spitting image, but she's close-very close. About the same age. Cute face, very short blond hair.

I'd been creeping up on the car for a pretty long time. A white Nissan Sentra. It was going just a little slower than me. I didn't want to get stuck behind it, though, so finally I swung over to the left and put some speed on. The idea was to race by, then get back into the slow lane.

Coming up alongside it, that's when I spotted the girl in the back seat.

Just when I'm trying to resume the history of our gang, I'm suddenly looking at exactly the gal I need.

f.u.c.k the history.

I've slowed down now so that I'm going the same speed as the Sentra. It's about fifty feet behind me.

In the front seats are a man and a woman. They're probably her parents. The way things are these days, though, who knows? Nothing's the way it looks. Everything's twisted and odd.

It doesn't really matter who or what they are, though.

If they aren't her parents, big deal.

Just so they aren't a couple of undercover Green Berets or Ninjas or some such s.h.i.+t.

I don't think there's anyone else in back with the girl.

Just the three of them.

The girl's too good to lose. I've got to have her. It's just a question of how to do it.

They're close enough, if I stand on the brakes, they'll probably rear-end me. Maybe that's the way to go. They'd have to stop, or the driver could get into big trouble for hit and run.

It's risky, though. My Caddy is a lot bigger than their little heap, so I'm not likely to get hurt. But you never know what might go wrong. For one thing, you don't know how hard we might hit. Wouldn't it be great if I got them to pile into me, and both cars got put out of commission?

It's not likely, but it could happen.