The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove(47)
Winston was visibly sweating now; oily beads rose on his scalp. “Let me tell the staff where I’ll be.”
“Hurry up, Flipper. I ain’t got all day,” Catfish said.
Winston Krauss shuddered, hitched up his double knits, and waddled around the counter. “Ladies, I’ll be back in few minutes,” he called over his shoulder.
Catfish leaned over the counter to where he could see the row of eyes peering out of the crack and said, “I be back in a few minutes my own self, ladies. I needs some medicine what can help me with this huge black dick I have to carry around. The weight of it like to break my back.”
There was a collective intake of breath so abrupt that the drop in pressure sprung the barometer on the wall and made Catfish’s ears pop.
Winston Krauss turned and scowled at Catfish. “Was that really necessary?”
“Man’s got to look after his reputation,” Catfish said.
The Sheriff
Burton had them cover him while he moved down through the rocks and across the marine terrace to the Blazers. He found Sheridan crouched behind the fender, his M-16 trained on the cave entrance.
“Rough morning, Sheriff?” Sheridan said, showing a hint of a smile at Burton’s disheveled suit.
Burton looked around at the other team members, who were all staring through rifle scopes at the cave entrance. “So we only have five?”
“Morales is coaching Pee-Wee Football today. The others are on regular duty. We couldn’t pull them off.”
Burton scowled. “As far as I know, they only have the one weapon, but it’s a fully automatic AK. I want two men on either side of the cave mouth, one down in that crevice where I was pinned down can deliver the gas, followed by concussion grenades. I’ll stay here with a sniper rifle to take out anyone who gets past the entry crew. Shoot anything that moves. Let’s go, five minutes. On my mark.”
“No gas,” Sheridan said.
“What?”
“No gas and no concussion. You wanted us here without checking in. That stuff is kept in the locker at County Justice. We just have the body armor and our own personal weapons.”
Burton looked around at the other men again. “You guys all have your own personal M-16s, but no grenades?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So I have a standoff? I had a standoff before, Sheridan. A standoff doesn’t do me any good. Come with me.” He pushed a fresh clip into his 9 mm. and turned to the others. “Cover us.”
Burton led the SWAT commander to a spot in the rocks just below the cave mouth. “Crowe?” Burton called. “You’ve had enough time to consider my offer!”
“Offer?” Sheridan asked.
Burton shushed him.
“I haven’t decided yet!” Theo shouted. “We’ve got thirty people in here to discuss it with and they’re not being cooperative.”
Sheridan looked at Burton. “Thirty people? We can’t shoot thirty people. I’m not shooting any thirty people.”
“Five minutes, Crowe,” Burton said. “Then you have no more options.”
“What’s the offer?” Sheridan whispered to the sheriff.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just trying to get the subject separated from the hostages so we can take him out.”
“Then we’d better have a description of the suspect, don’t you think?”
“He’s the one in handcuffs,” Burton said.
“Well, aren’t you the fucking hero?” Sheridan shot back.
Skinner
Skinner watched from the front seat of the Mercedes as the Food Guy was loaded into the back of the Suburban with the cage in it. The Bad Guys hadn’t even left the windows cracked. How would the Food Guy breathe? He wouldn’t be able to sit in the front seat and put his head out the window either. Skinner was sad for the Food Guy.
He crawled in the backseat of the Mercedes and lay down to nap away his anxiety.
The Head of the Slug
The first thing Catfish saw when he came through the doors of the Head of the Slug was Estelle standing at the bar, and he could feel the crust peeling off his heart like old paint. Her hair was down. Brushed out, it hung to her waist. She was wearing a pair of pink overalls that had been splattered with paint over a man’s white T-shirt—his T-shirt, he realized. She looked to him like what he always thought home was supposed to look like, but as a Bluesman, he was bound by tradition to be cool.
“Hey, girl, what you doin‘ here?”
“I called her,” Mavis said. “This is your driver.”
“What I need a driver for?”
“I’ll tell you.” Estelle took his hand and led him to a booth in the corner.
Winston Krauss came through the door a second later and Mavis waved him over to the bar. “Son, I’m about to make you the happiest man in the whole world.”
“You are? Why?”
“Because I like to see people get what they want. And I have what you want.”
“You do?”
Mavis stepped up to the bar and in low, conspiratorial tones, began telling Winston Krauss the most titillating, outrageously erotic tale that she had ever told, trying the whole time to remember that the man she was talking to wanted to have sex with marine animals.
Over in the corner booth, Catfish’s modicum of cool had melted. Estelle was smiling, even as tears welled up in her eyes. “I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I thought it would put you in danger. Really.”
“I know that,” Catfish said, a gentleness in his voice that he usually reserved for kittens and traffic cops. “It just that I been runnin from this my whole life.”
“I don’t think so,” Estelle said. “I think you’ve been running to this.”
Catfish grinned. “You gonna take them old Blues off me for good, ain’t you?”
“You know it.”
“Then let’s go.” Catfish stood up and turned to where Mavis and Winston stood.
“We ready? Y’all ready?” He noticed that the front of Winston’s trousers had become overly tight. “Yeah, you ready. You sick, but you ready.”
Mavis nodded, a slight mechanical ratcheting noise coming from her neck, “Take the second turn out, not the first,” Mavis said to Estelle. “From there it hugs the coast, so there’s no hills.”
“I have to go get my mask and fins,” wailed Winston.
Thirty-one
Molly
“Has it been five minutes yet?” Molly was sitting cross-legged, her sword held across her knees. Theo jumped as if he’d been poked with an ice pick, then checked his watch. He crouched by the cave mouth, listening for the sound of either salvation or death.
“About a minute left. Where the hell are they? Molly, maybe you should find some cover.”
“What cover?” She looked around the cave. It was an open chamber; the only cover would be the darkness in the back of the chamber.
“Get behind Steve.”
“No,” Molly said. “I won’t do that.” She heard a voice come from the back of her mind. “Get to cover, you daffy broad. What, do you have a death wish?”
“I have abandonment issues. I’m not going to turn around and abandon someone else,” Molly said.
“What?” Theo said.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Fine, die. What do I care?” said the narrator.
“Bastard,” Molly said.
“What?” said Theo.
“Not you!”
“Molly, how did you get those guys to come out and drag me into the cave before?”
“I just told them to.”
“Well, take their clothes back to them and tell them to get dressed.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. And tell them to hang on to Steve’s sides and not let go, no matter what he does.”
“Now who’s nuts?”
“Molly, please, I’m trying to save him.”
The Sheriff
Burton checked his watch. “That’s it. Get into position. We’re going in.”
Sergeant Sheridan wasn’t so sure. “They have thirty hostages and we don’t have any recon of their positions and we don’t have a full team. You want to take this guy out with thirty witnesses?”
“Goddamn it, Sheridan, get your men in position. We go on my signal.”
“Sheriff Burton.” Theo’s voice from the cave.
“What?”
“I’ll take your offer,” Theo said. “Give me five more minutes and I’ll come out. We can all leave together. The others will come out after you’re gone.”
“You just want him anyway, right?” Sheridan said. “He’s the only one that can hurt the operation.”
Burton turned it over in his mind. He’d been determined to take out the constable and the woman, but now he had to rethink things. If he could get Crowe away from the others, he could dispose of him with no witnesses.
Burton’s cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “Burton,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have made disparaging comments about my weight, Sheriff,” the Spider said.
“Nailsworth, you piece of sh—” The line went dead.
Suddenly the sound of a wailing Blues guitar came screaming over the marine terrace. Burton and the SWAT team turned to see an old white station wagon driving along the edge of the terrace, next to where it dropped to the beach.