Part 18 (1/2)

”Maybe Sharon came through here,” Lloyd said.

”Let's go see what a guy who travels freely on the sixth level is like,” I said.

Shane was strangely quiet. When I looked in back he was shoving his chair through the door with a bad-taste pucker on his mouth. Marcella was bent over, changing the baby's diaper. She'd tightened her bun, as if we were making a social call. Andrew, amazingly enough, was asleep.

All the way from Anadarko through Fort Sill, forty miles, he beat two rocks on an upturned plastic bucket and sang, ”Here comes the bride, big, fat, and wide. Where is the groom, he's in the dressing room. Why is he there, he forgot his underwear,” over and over and over until I was about ready to stop Moby d.i.c.k and strangle the kid dead in front of his mother.

On the thirtieth big, fat, and wide I heard a clump. By the time I looked back he was asleep on a ratty army blanket, using the bowling bag as a pillow. I'd have given all the money I would ever own to be able to fall asleep like that.

I climbed out my side and walked around to join Lloyd where he stood rubbing his leg and inspecting a charred Volkswagen bug.

He touched the door handle and peered in the broken window. ”It was the battery under the backseat. Sparked into the stuffing. I've seen a dozen burned like this.”

Critter was on a rave. ”Beefheart was totally cool, you wouldn't believe the energy. I mean, when he sang 'Dachau Blues' waves of love washed from the crowd onto the stage. He picked up on it, too, I could tell by his aura lines.”

Freedom kept his eyes on Shane's wheelchair. ”Where's the stuff?”

”Glenda split for Canada and I got a ride to Amarillo, where these straight people picked me up. I told them they could crash here tonight. Meet the straight people, Freedom. That's Lloyd and Maurey. She's an alcoholic, Shane's the dude getting in the chair. There's a whole family inside, but I forget their names.”

Something about the way Critter said straight people made me think she was making a point in code. Freedom didn't care. He said, ”Where's the G.o.dd.a.m.n stuff?”

”Can't we talk about that later?”

”We'll talk about it now.” He came down the steps and moved toward Moby d.i.c.k in these long strides-real purposeful, manly.

Critter followed, childlike. ”I got your stuff, Freedom. It's okay. Now's just not the time.”

Shane threw his hands up in self-defense, but Freedom marched past the chair, reached into Moby d.i.c.k, and pulled out Critter's duffel bag. She didn't say anything, just stood there looking underage.

Freedom had on a sleeveless unders.h.i.+rt, the kind Grandpa Pierce used to wear. He wore sandals, which matched him up with Lloyd. When Freedom's hands yanked things out of Critter's bag, you could see the brown stains on his fingertips. The knuckles of his left hand had Love tattooed in blue ink, one letter to a finger, and the knuckles on his right hand had Hate.

Another tapestry skirt came out, and a pair of thongs. He pulled out a gla.s.s bulb thing with rubber tubes off the sides, which I took as a high-tech water pipe. Then Freedom started pulling out brown paper packages, each one shaped like a brick.

I was p.i.s.sed. Critter stared at the ground, where she could avoid eye contact. Lloyd's eyes were on the wrapped bricks, and so were Marcella's from the door of the ambulance. Shane looked at the ground, too, about the same spot as Critter.

”You knew she had dope,” I said to Shane.

Marcella squawked, ”Dope.” She turned quickly and held her hand over Andrew's eyes. He was asleep, but she wasn't taking any chances.

”Is that true?” Lloyd asked Shane.

Shane looked at Lloyd-he still couldn't face me. ”We couldn't leave her there. You would have left her if I told you.”

I was way p.i.s.sed. ”We could have gone to jail, you fat jacka.s.s. Even your own sister. You risked all your friends just to impress a hippy dopehead you wanted to nail.”

Freedom's voice was harsh. ”There's only eight here, where's the other four?”

I knew right then he was a jerk because Critter was more afraid of him than she was of me, and I was ready to kill her. ”I told you, Glenda split for Canada. She went for the free land.”

”The c.u.n.t.”

”It was her money, Freedom.”

Can you believe a guy with the name Freedom using the c.u.n.t word? Here's a truth: There's not a man alive, no matter how liberated or advanced, who, when the conditions are right, won't call a woman a c.u.n.t.

”Owsley, go get me my pipe,” Freedom ordered.

A boy I hadn't noticed before said, ”Get it yourself, I'm doing something.” The boy sat against a pecan tree trunk with a drawing notebook in his lap. Thirteen, maybe fourteen, he was the Hollywood version of an angel. Pure skin, soft cheekbones, eyes a light blue sliding into silver-but the beautiful element that jumped out and touched your heart was his hair. His hair was suns.h.i.+ne blond and thick and fell like a Yosemite waterfall over his shoulders to his waist. How this angel ended up in a yard full of scuzb.a.l.l.s was the great mystery of Oklahoma.

Freedom's fingers tore into one of the packages. He didn't raise his voice, but I got the idea he didn't have to. A truly chilling threat works better as a whisper than a scream. ”Owsley, bring me my pipe. Now.”

”Why can't somebody else fetch your stuff? I'm the only one out here doing anything.”

”Owsley.”

The boy pouted, but he moved. When he stood, he had the body of a football halfback. Good shoulders, no hips, just a trace of a.s.s. He was about the same age as Sam Callahan when he and I de-virginated each other, but they were as different, visually, as a Kentucky Thoroughbred from a llama. Emotionally, they both tended to sulkiness.

After Owsley went in the house, I drifted over to check out the drawing pad. It was a charcoal picture of a hawk with its wings spread and a snake in its claws. Came from one of those Don't Tread on Me flags, I think. The drawing was really good for a kid. Really good for anyone. He knew how to fine shade with charcoal, which is something I never pulled off back at GroVont High art cla.s.s.

”Is that a narc?” Freedom pointed down the road at Hugo Sr. sitting in his Oldsmobile.

I was flipping through Owsley's art pad and took a moment to frame an answer that wouldn't get Hugo Sr. shot at, but before I came up with anything Shane jumped in. He'd been quiet too long-extended contriteness was not his deal. ”That's my sister's husband. She left him in Amarillo and he's been following ever since. He's harmless, unless you are married to him.”

Freedom's eyes went squinty. ”Looks like a narc to me.”

Marcella's head came out of Moby d.i.c.k. ”Hugo Sr. is a children's portraitist, a very good one. Whatever a narc is, he isn't that.”

”He makes me nervous out there. DeGarmo, take care of it.”

One of the anonymous scuz-types went into a whine. ”You'll smoke while I'm gone.”

Freedom's eyes snapped at the chosen scuz. ”Jesus Christ, what is with you people today?”

DeGarmo trotted off down the road toward Hugo Sr. His jeans had leather patches all over the b.u.t.t, and some were peeling away so you could see the top half of his crack.

”What's he gonna do to Hugo?” Marcella asked.

Freedom wasn't even watching to see what DeGarmo did to Hugo. He was more interested in the pot sifting between his fingers. He said, ”I better not have to send someone after Owsley.”

The scuz lieutenant was still fifty feet away when Hugo Sr. started the Oldsmobile, did a three-step U-turn, and drove off toward Comanche. Guess he wasn't as stupid as I'd a.s.sumed. Hardly anyone ever is.

c.o.c.ktail hour. The day was one to be proud of, so far; I'd driven all the way from Amarillo, Texas, with scarcely a tremor. My neck muscles hurt, and I had that fluttery stomach only alcohol can un-flutter, but I'd said, ”No whiskey till Comanche,” and here I was. An alcoholic could never have shown my level of self-control.