The Last Bender, Chapter 44

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

We drove on a mangy highway, through the post-stripmine covering of processed garbage that adheres to the county wherever banks were too cheap to put up a shopping mall. There wasn’t a bird or rat in it. “How come you’re all dressed up?”   I asked. I’d never seen Stitch even in mascara. Now she looked like a perfume ad. Minus the flocks of doves.

“Me and Juice are gettin’ married. Soon as this is over.”

“You mean today?”

“Nah, whenever. So what’s the suit made of, pigeon neck?”

“Hundred percent.” It started to get suburban. Parking lots and high rises took over from serf and turf. A couple of potbellied idiots soaped up cars with big sponges between bites of ChowderBits while their girlfriends snorted coke and chatted on the stoops about day care and credit cards.

“So, what’s your plan?” she asked.

“I don’t have one. I just go from thing to thing.”

“The whole set up’s queer I say.”

“Maybe so. But six million bucks. There’s something to it.”

“So, David Watts has known where St. Claude is for days and no one else gets to him?”

I thought it over. “You think he’s full of shit. His sister’s just ripping us off. But they move fast. It’s something I’ve noticed. They disappear.”

“If you say so. What about back up?”

“I’ll go in and figure it out. If St. Claude is there, I’ll send Watts back to the motel and you can let them go with the cash.”

“And what if St. Claude’s protected?”

“Then I call you.”   She exited off the highway and drove down a few four-lane roads lined with crap boxes. Beyond that there was nothing but a police station, jail and courthouse. They formed three sides of a square, in the center of which was a brand new gallows. Inanian flags flew at the four corners. Grassmear, where Spartan County takes care of its own. We pulled up in front of some white iron gates in a twelve-foot brick wall. It was exactly ten o’clock. Way down the street a white van approached. “That’s him,” I said.

It pulled up and Wanda Watts stepped out in an emerald green dress with long sleeves and a choke collar. It was so short it didn’t cover the bottom of her ass. She wore wraparound sunglasses and a leopard skin pillbox hat. In each hand was a forty-five. They were so big they looked like barbells. She lifted them up and pointed them at the windshield. A white sports car with the roof down drove up alongside us, boxing us in. Seated at the wheel was a haggard man, slumped forward in rumpled tweed. A thick, unruly coif of black hair stood out on his head. His GlaDiaTor glasses were a little too small. David Watts looked exactly like he did in the picture at Barker’s office, only his skin was greyer and the car was smaller. He was still having a bad time.

Wanda said, “Get out. Slowly.” She leaned against the grill of the van for support. We got out. “Now. Put your hands on the roof of the car. David, pat them down.”

“I don’t really want to touch them,” he growled and mumbled at once.

“Then hold ’em with this while I do.”   She tossed him the gun. I hate when they do that. Someone always gets his balls blown off. Wanda worked over Stitch pretty well, feeling down her stockings, in her armpits, checking her crotch, her butt, her hair, even asking her to stick her tongue out. She did not like the splash of blood across her dress. She found both knives and the pistol and checked her out again before heading my way. She hit my crotch like she was making meatballs and put me through the rest of it, taking my gun and turning me around.

“I’ll need that to get St. Claude.”

“You’ll get it back in time. Now, where’s the money?” she asked.

“Not till we have St. Claude,” I said.

“The money is for telling you where he is. Let’s see it.”

“We need a guarantee,” I said.

“David’s going to go with you, Jack. Don’t wet your shorts.”

“You know each other?”   Stitch asked.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“We might have been closer. But everything came up so fast there wasn’t time.”

“It came up at least twice.”

David said, “I wish you two would shut up and get on with it.” The guns bored him. Everything bored him. His cheeks were the texture of coarse sandpaper. Even in sunglasses he winced at the light.

“The money’s in the suitcase in back,” I said.

Wanda said to Stitch, “Get it and open it up.” She flung the suitcase on the trunk and unzipped it. Wanda smiled. It was the warmest, most genuine smile I had seen in days. “Stir it around a bit,” she said, “I want to see what’s there.”   Stitch lifted and dropped the stacks of worn brown and red bills. “My god, all I can see is diamonds. Look at it David. We’re rich!”

“Arguably we have been all our lives,” he sneered.

“Oh shut up. You’re such a pill. I don’t mean his money. This is ours. We earned it.”

“We? Wrong pronoun, sis.”

“You don’t think you could have managed this alone, do you?”

“Why not? And it’s not over yet. You’re forgetting my project now. You got your money. Now I want my army.”

“We’ve been through this all before David. I thought we agreed.”

“Well that’s just like you, isn’t it?” he asked the air. “You talk and argue and fight till I just give up. Then you say I agreed to something I didn’t agree to at all. Mr. Bartell, you’re coming with me. Give him his gun back. You two go to the hotel and wait. We’ll meet you back there. I have a plan. So get in the car and let’s go.”

“Where to?” I asked.

He grumbled, shook his head and looked at the ground. She handed me the gun.

“Ignore it David. He did the same to me. He thinks it’s like that silly war of his where all he had to do was open his big fat mouth and all the little mice came rolling to attention.”

“Well,” David said, trying to spit out the mush, “it’s not like that with us. I told you I have plan.”

Stitch climbed into the van. I got into the sports car. “I hope this thing has seat belts,” I said, searching the seat and floor.

“You don’t need ’em in these,” he said, screaming down the street. I urinated a little when he hit 90.