“Aren’t we all being just a trifle too blasé about this matter?” Joe said nervously.
“What matter?” Tribby asked.
“He means the dope deal you guys are gonna put together with that stuff on the bus tonight,” Gypsy Girl said giddily.
“Oh no!” Joe buried his head in his hands. “Who spilled the beans … Ralph?”
“Me?” Ralph swiveled his head to the right and to the left, looking for somebody besides his innocent self. “My lips have been sealed, old chum.”
“Then who told her? Some stupid little bird in a banana tree?” He wanted to dive across the table and uppercut Ralph in his cynical rosy jowls. Sensing this, Rimpoche timidly growled.
“But I just guessed.” Gypsy Girl’s face registered alarm, then cunning. “Nobody told me, honest. I mean, you know, I heard some dudes rapping in the laundromat, that’s all.”
“Laundromat, shmaundromat!”
Tribby said, “Relax, it’s all over town. Apparently Ray Verboten knows we’re going to try and swing a deal in his territory and he doesn’t like it.”
Ray Verboten—Coke Kingpin of Chamisaville. What he didn’t push, didn’t get moved, or so the saying went. Some claimed that Ray reported directly to Joseph Bonatelli: others insisted that Bonatelli would have no truck with the snow—he scorned it for being an aristocratic, snobbish high.
Joe groaned, “But how could he find out? This was supposed to be a secret operation.” Already he could see his house of cards was determined to crumble. He’d be lucky if only the entire army, navy, and air force was down at the bus station tonight. Right now, probably, the FBI, the state police, and local law-enforcement agents were setting up bugs outside the depot. They were arranging spotlights atop the Miracle Auto Supply building next door. And jamming their cameras full of infrared film in order to record every inch of the bust. Last but not least, no doubt they were snapping well-oiled clips bristling with dumdum cartridges into their Colt .45s and M-16 rifles, in case either Joe or his pal Peter made one false move.
LOCAL GARBAGE MAN AND PHILLY WAITER NAILED AT BUS DEPOT WITH FIVE POUNDS OF UNCUT SNOW! STATE’S BIGGEST NARCOTICS HAUL EVER!
Mimi McAllister, a dippy redheaded lesbian reflexologist who also worked for a woman’s construction collective, bent over—in passing—and offered her snotty two bits: “Not to be a harbinger of bad news, boys, but you better steer clear of Ray Verboten.”
Joe said, “I think I’m gonna ralph. Why didn’t we just draw up our plans in the town hall, over the radio, during a city council meeting?”
Scott Harrison, six foot three inches of shyster hustler in his early thirties, impeccably attired in his Universal Life Church custom-made velour jumpsuit, landed on top of them for a second. “Hey, hey, hey,” he chortled derisively. “Look what we have here—the French Connection brothers themselves!”
Joe shriveled, leered sickly, and attempted bravado: “What are you talking about?”
“What am I talking about?” Theatrically—who did he think he was, Kirby J. Hensley disguised as F. Lee Bailey?—Scott placed one hand against his chest, the better to accent his cheap raillery: “Word has it you’ve become the Meyer Lansky of the Chamisaville drug scene, José. ‘That Joe Miniver,’ they’re all saying. ‘He’s gonna run Joe Bonatelli right out of town!’”
“Very funny, Scott. Go back to your graveyard.”
“No, seriously, my friend. You think that by stepping on and marketing the sugar that’s arriving on the two thirty-five A.M. bus tonight you can raise enough cold cash to buy out Eloy Irribarren? I’m getting a stitch in my gut from laughing! He owes me that land—every bush, every flower, every mouse turd on the place.”
Joe mumbled, “We’ll see.…”
“Well, you better take a Gatling gun down to the depot,” Scott called back over one shoulder. “I heard Ray Verboten and his hippie asesinos are gonna ring your chimes the second that bundle lands in your hot little paws—”
Clapping hands over his ears, Joe prayed, as did little kids, that if he couldn’t hear Scott’s poison tongue, nobody else could either.
Tribby said, “It appears the entire forces of NATO will be on maneuvers at the depot tonight.”
“Let’s change the subject.” Joe knew Tribby was correct, of course. But how could he quash his own tragedy? The die was cast: obviously, he was fated to spend the rest of his life in jail (if he somehow escaped the 2:35 rendezvous alive!). And all because he had wanted a piece of land on which to build a humble little middle-class home for his wife and darling kiddies. In China, he thought, this never could have happened. I would have had an apartment, a job, free medical care, and, most importantly, a role in my nation’s history. Instead, he was doomed to perish in incarcerated exile, fending off sado-masochistic fags and lurid rats as big as tomcats.
“For argument’s sake, let’s pretend a miracle happens and you wind up with the cash to purchase Eloy’s land.” Ralph smiled benevolently. “What kind of house are you planning to build?”
“A big one,” Joe whimpered. “All my life I wanted to live in a big house. I’m gonna make an octagonal tower with glass on all sides and a polar-bear rug on the floor. I’m gonna build a game room with a Ping-Pong table you won’t have to fold up after every contest. There’ll be solar collectors, a greenhouse.…”
Joe stopped. And for a moment he reveled in a typical fantasy. He had built the new house already and everything was Under Control. Joe’s one great dream in life was to have Everything Under Control. An enormous woodpile—enough piñon to last all winter—cast its shadow against the house. Fragrant smoke issued from the chimney, dissolving against a glittery, iron-blue September sky. Yellow leaves zigzagged off cottonwoods by the irrigation ditch. The quarter-acre garden was so rich in vegetables you could hear the vitamins crackling. Tomatoes, tied carefully to proper sticks, glowed provocatively: squashes, neatly mulched, grew plumper by the minute; pumpkins, turned regularly, had ripened evenly. Hummingbirds still nourished themselves at plastic feeders with bee-guards and ant-guards that actually functioned. All Joe’s yard tools were stacked neatly in the garage—miracle of miracles, the kids hadn’t lost an implement! In the game room, Heather and Michael played expert Ping-Pong: overcoming the tension that always made it impossible for him to instruct his children, Joe had taught them the game that summer. Nearby, seated contentedly before her loom, Heidi created beautiful wall hangings. Upstairs—in his tower—Joe was finally reading Capital by Karl Marx. In another room, best friend Peter Roth perused a Hemingway novel. As soon as Joe finished his current chapter, they would drop a Gouda cheese and a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 into a knapsack, and hit the Rio Grande for a three-hour trout bout before dinner. They would probably take the new Chevy pickup, unless Joe was in a Mazda mood and decided to select that fire-engine-red vehicle, equipped as it was (same as the pickup) with a CB, a stereo tape deck, and a Fuzz Buster. Yessirree, bob, Joe Miniver was In Control!
Ralph and Gypsy Girl exchanged wet, lascivious kisses and fumbled erotically under the table; Tribby sucked up a daiquiri through a straw stuck into a hole in his gorilla-mask mouth; Rimpoche whined and pawed Ralph’s thigh, trying to sabotage the kissy-face—with one hand Ralph scratched the dog to shut him up.
Forlornly, Joe said, “Apparently, everybody in town knows Peter Roth is arriving with the cocaine tonight.”
Ralph begged to differ. “Everybody in town thinks they know. But it’s all rumors. Nobody’s taking it seriously. Chamisaville is like that. At heart I don’t think anybody believes that Joe Miniver, Boy Scout extraordinaire and non-doper par excellence, would have either the guts or the inclination to get mixed up in such a dangerous and nefarious business.”
“I don’t believe it myself,” Joe mumbled.
“So not to worry.” Ralph nibbled obscenely on Gypsy Girl’s painted cheek and scrabbled the fingers of his left hand behind Rimpoche’s tattered right ear. “There won’t be a single blood-crazed, trigger-happy hit thug at
the depot—I promise.”
Joe beseeched Tribby’s glittering eyes peeping out through two little holes in the grotesque rubber mask. “What do you think?”
“I’m with Ralph. But what the hell, if anything happens, we’ll just improvise.”
“Maybe I need a partner at the bus station.”
Ralph nixed that. “Crowds call attention.”
“But what if Ray Verboten and a half-dozen armed neanderthals catch me there alone?”
“Give him the coke, dummy.”
“Just give it to him?” Joe was shocked. “It cost me my life savings—twelve thousand clams—for that cocaine.”
“Is it worth dying for?”
“He’s right,” Tribby said. “If Ray Verboten says ‘Gimme’ you better let him have it.”
“And then what—that’s it? The end of our plan? Nobody gets hurt, and I’m out twelve Gs?”
Tribby touched Joe solicitously. “Easy, man, calm down. We’ll simply switch over to plan B.”
“What’s plan B?”
Ralph had it scoped. “We go into training in Guatemala. Finally, when all is in readiness, eight of us sail a small catamaran up the Rio Grande to Chamisaville, disembark on the shores of Ray Verboten’s estate, and, with our Uzis and Ak-47s spitting out a withering sheet of lethal pellets, we snatch back the sacred brick of uncut crystals, chop it up, and proceed to unload it as per plan A.”
“Very funny. You guys are hilarious.”
“Hey, listen, don’t worry,” Tribby said. “Nothing is going to happen. Who in their right mind would want to wait up for the two thirty-five bus anyway?”
Joe knew for certain now that he was doomed. They didn’t care—after all, their lives and their boodle weren’t on the line. No, only himself, Joe Miniver, had been selected for the Gangland Slayee Hall of Fame. Ahhh, he was only a mere speck, anyway, a tiny insignificant antlike blip on the asshole of humanity. Ten thousand human beings starved to death in India every day—anonymously. Twenty years from now what would any of this matter? Who would give a damn? Who would even remember?
Joe Miniver? Didn’t he play second base for the New York Mets during the recession of 1989?
Naw, you’re thinking of the guy that was a tailgunner on the B-52 that dropped the hydrogen bomb on Teheran.
Actually, fellas, Joe Miniver used to be a stand-up comedian from Keokuk, Iowa.
Meek and miserable, Joe said, “Well, just in case anything actually works out tonight, let’s go over the plans for tomorrow.”
“What’s to go over?” Ralph tongued an earlobe. “You hit the airport at twelve noon with the stuff, the rest of us appear likewise. We fly off, cut the shit, stash it in three packages, land, and split. Five days later we reunite rich as ducks copulating in mud pie. What could be easier?”
“Sure.” Tribby flicked ashes onto the floor. “What’s tomorrow—Sunday? We should all be back in town by Wednesday rolling in bucks. You buy your land, I make a call to my broker, E. F. Hutton—”
Ephraim Bonatelli veered in front of their table, caught and steadied himself, then climbed on a chair and raised his Hanuman T-shirt, exposing an enormous little potbelly, on which he had painted flabby, passion-pink female lips. “Blabbleabbleglabbledabble,” he sang in a rapidly disintegrating voice, “said the ape to the gorilla.”
“Who’s that?” Gypsy Girl wanted to know.
“A local dwarf,” Ralph explained wearily.
“Beat it, Ephraim.” Tribby glowered. “We’re not in the mood.”
“Blabbleabbleglabbledabble, said the apey to the gorilla!” Ephraim lost his balance but was kept from crashing to the floor by a dozen hands that reached out to catch him.
Gypsy Girl said, “I like him. He’s cute.”
Joe asked Tribby, “Are you scared?”
“You mean in general? Or specifically about our little adventure here?”
“The latter.”
“No.” His masked head shook slowly. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Quién sabe? It’s an adventure.”
Ephraim Bonatelli said, “You’re all creeps.” He thumped his hairy little fists against his potbelly. “I eat scumbags like you for breakfast!”
“Will somebody order the dwarf to evaporate?” Ralph started pouting. “I find him very irritating.”
“Oh no,” Gypsy Girl cried. “Don’t let him go. He’s adorable.”
“Scram, Ephraim.” Tribby stuck another cigarette through the hole in his gorilla mask and lit it. “Make like a breeze and blow.”
“Hey wait a minute.” Joe was embarrassed by their crudeness. “That’s no way to address a fellow human being, no matter how obnoxious. He has feelings, too.”
“Yeah, I got feelings too,” Ephraim croaked hoarsely. “So go fuck y’selves, scumbags.”
“He’s getting on my nerves.” Ralph turned to Rimpoche. “Go sic ’im, boy. Tear ’im apart.” Rimpoche’s ears perked tentatively, even as he cowered at the sound of his master’s voice. He gave Ralph a confused equivocal look of fawning temerity, with cautiously ferocious overtones.
“I like you,” Gypsy Girl assured the malevolent gnome. “Sing that song again.”
“Go fuck yaself, ya hippie whore.”
“Hey, Ephraim.” Tribby coughed as smoke caught underneath his mask. “Why don’t you go bug Skipper Nuzum?”
Egon Braithwhite careened into their table; a beer glass tipped over. “Oops. Hirimangi basurai!”
“Wait a minute, wait just a minute!” Joe protested. “I can’t hear a thing. Shut up, Ephraim! Hey Tribby, ask him to be quiet, will you? He’s driving me crazy.”
“I’m warning you, Bonatelli…” Tribby waggled a lean and menacing finger at the dwarf, who held his Hanuman T-shirt wrinkled up under his armpits.
“Touch me, shyster, and my dad will drop you into the Rio Grande in a cement overcoat.”
“His ‘dad.’” Ralph rolled woeful basset eyes. “How many times have I heard that one? Go ahead, Rimpoche—leap at his throat. Kill, big fella!”
“You better not mock me, fatso. I got a rod out in the car.”
“Cement overcoats! A rod in the car!” Ralph snorted scornfully and slapped his thigh. “Ephraim, you watch too much television.”
“Aw lay off him, sweetie. I tell you, he’s really cute.”
“C’mon, blubber face, hit me if you dare.” Ephraim jutted his lower jaw, cocked his head, and patted his chin, offering it up as a target. “Go ahead, right here, you first. Whatsamatter, you chicken? Your dog wears fruit boots. Come on, lard ass, I dare you. I’ll murder you!”
Caustic and laconic, Ralph replied, “Ephraim, if you don’t take a powder mighty soon I may actually be forced to plant my reluctant fist in that bloated little belly of yours.”
“Kiss my ass, blimp nose!”
“All right, that does it, so long creep.” In a single fluid motion, Tribby raised himself half out of his chair, grabbed Ephraim by the throat, cocked his right arm, and nailed the arrogant little punk in the kisser. The crowd gasped excitedly. But Joe had had enough. He grabbed Ralph’s arm and yanked himself erect, crying as he did so, “It’ll be a miracle, it really will!”
“What will be a miracle?”
“If any of us come out of this alive.”
“If you don’t dream the impossible dream,” Ralph clichéd after him, “you’ll never know if you could have.”
One eye murderously on Joe, the other eye apprehensively asking Ralph for approval, Rimpoche barked: “Woof! Woof?”
And Joe clattered downstairs.
* * *
HE REACHED THE depot at 2:10, saddling himself with a twenty-five-minute wait. Parking in the Miracle Auto Supply lot next door to the tiny bus station, Joe killed the motor and tried to glance around without conspicuously turning his head.
Apparently, not a creature was stirring. Only a single light gleamed dully inside the station. At a desk behind the counter near some baggage ra
cks, a relief driver (a G-man in mufti?) smoked a cigarette and sipped stale coffee. The station had closed officially at eight, and wouldn’t reopen until 7:00 A.M. Joe wondered if six SWAT gorillas were crowded into the tiny men’s room, or crouched behind the baggage counter, fingering the hair triggers of their shotguns, .357 magnums, and beanbag stunguns. Had they set up remote-control cameras to film Joe’s meeting with Peter before they opened up? The question was: when the stakeout leader snarled “FREEZE!” could he raise his hands fast enough to avoid being ventilated by the notoriously trigger-happy crimestoppers?
A Blue Star taxi idled in front of the station. Listening to rock music on his radio, the hippie behind the wheel lethargically smoked a joint. Hippie? The joint seemed a little too obvious. The FBI always adopted blatant disguises, Joe remembered from his antiwar days: inevitably, they stuck out like sore thumbs. In fact, couldn’t he distinguish the outline of a crew cut underneath that shaggy hairdo? The son of a bitch probably cradled a burp gun in his lap!
Until a few years ago, the only taxi service in Chamisaville had belonged to Juan Casados. One cab had worked the airport, another had met all incoming buses, a third scheduled regular trips to the Pueblo. Approximately two years ago, however, Wilkerson Busbee hit town. He had scammed a fortune in the Chicago commodities pits by the age of twenty-eight. But a sawbones had suggested his Type-A personality would land him on a slab in the morgue within a decade if he kept it up. Wilkerson promptly traveled out west for his health, and went into Winnebagos, tipis, herbal teas, head shops, and taxis. A brief price war followed in the last, but Wilkerson won handily because he had a fortune to squander and Juan ran a marginal operation at best. It had taken the local man fifteen years to accumulate three vehicles: Busbee started with a brightly painted fleet of six cabs, daily radio spots, and weekly half-page newspaper ads. Ten minutes later Juan Casados became an assistant sanding man at Eddie’s Paint and Body Shop in the capital, eighty miles to the south, and Busbee had the field to himself.
Joe’s eyes wandered farther afield. Another car, a quasi-familiar VW Beetle, idled behind the taxi. In it a woman smoked a cigarette. That was something new: female drug agents trained in tactical massacre procedures? Or was she only the driver, a decoy, a lookout poised to advise the burly agents crouched on her floor when to pop up and open fire?