Charlie Huston - Six Bad Things

I want to leave right away, but Sid insists that we sweep the room to leave the fewest possible clues.

– Dudes, I can tell you right now, the cops are all over your mom and dad’s neighborhood asking about suspicious vehicles and shit. And someone always sees something. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna say something about my camper being parked on the street. They’re gonna look into it, and dudes on the block are gonna be all, nope not mine. Next, they lift a tire track from the field where I kacked that deputy.

He’s going around the room with the liner from one of the wastebaskets, filling it with every scrap of trash he can find, along with strands of my hair that were on the pillow and any other bodily effluvia laying about.

– Where we get lucky, dudes, is that I have some custom Pirellis on my ride. So the tracks won’t really point at the funky ’72 Westy people saw around your folk’s place. ’Course, that only plays if we didn’t leave a track in a oil puddle in front of their house or something. Which is why I’m doing this shit, ’cause if the cops start telling people to keep their eyes peeled for my ride, the guy up at the desk might remember it. Next thing ya know, this room is wrapped in plastic, vacuum-sealed, and they’re running swabs over the rim of the toilet looking for our DNA.

Rolf and me help him clean up.

SID HAS a copy of The Man Who Got Away that he wants me to sign. It’s in a milk crate full of true crime books in one of the cabinets in his Westphalia.

The Westphalia rings a bell somewhere in my scrambled brain.

– Rolf, how did you find me?

Turns out Rolf, not being wanted by the police, flew back to the States on a commercial flight, took a bet that I’d try to cross at the busiest port of entry on the border, and started hanging out in T.J. And he found me. Motherfucker actually saw me walk out of the border station, jumped into Sid’s Westphalia, followed me into San Diego, where they almost ran me over, and then tracked me up the I-5. And can you believe that shit?

– Can you believe that shit, dude?

No.

– I mean, I hopped online at the airport before I flew out of Cancun. Got all kinds of stuff about you, like where your folks live and all. You being a novice at border hopping and probably headed for Cali, I figured T.J. was a no-brainer. But the stakeout at the border? That was Sid.

Rolf is driving, Sid is in the passenger seat and I’m on the bench-seat behind them. Sid raises his hand.

– The stakeout was mine.

– Yeah, ’cause I was all about heading for Patterson and looking for you there, ’cause there was no way I figured we’d spot you coming across.

– And I was all, Dude, what if he doesn’t go to see his rents? Then what?

– Turns out we were both right.

– Yeah, but come on, give me props.

Sid holds out his fist and Rolf punches it lightly.

– Props.

The lighter on the dash pops out, Rolf hands it to me. I light the cigarette I’m holding, hand the lighter back, and he clicks it back into its slot.

– Then we just kind of hung back to see what was up.

Sid turns to face me.

– We didn’t want to freak you out, and Rolf was all, Dude, we need to wait till he makes a move for whatever ducats he has stashed.

– We drove by the house every hour or so. Hung out at the Mickey D’s by the highway and then parked up the street after dark.

– We had the beds down and our bags out when we heard that crash, and then the shots. I was all, Hit it!

– Took us a couple turns to find the scene. By then the fire department was there, so we cruised by and went around the block to your folks’ place.

– And, dude, there you are, comin’ out the front door. Like, total kismet.

– We lost you when you hopped the fence, but we had seen you take your car to the garage, so we went there.

– And there you are blastin’ away from that cop. Damn! Wicked!

– So we followed.

– And I took care of that deputy dog and here we is. More props.

He sticks out his fist and Rolf props him. He offers his fist to me. I look at it.

In the cabinet with the true crime books, Sid also has some of the most rancid and violent porn I have ever seen, a stack of Soldier of Fortune back issues, the boxed Faces of Death DVD set, and some other shit that makes me suspect central casting called and requested a potential serial killer. He’s waiting, his fist held out for props. I give him props. Now is not the time to get squeamish. I just have to make sure to kill him before he can hurt anyone else. That should be easy. Look at how much more experience I have at it than him.

IT’S ABOUT a hundred and fifty miles through the Mojave to Vegas. Even at the Westphalia’s putt-putt top speed, we should be able to do it in three hours. After that? We go to Tim’s, I pay off Rolf, and he and Sid disappear. I take the rest to Dylan, and he accepts it even though it’s a bit light. I walk into a police station and turn myself in, and my folks stop getting hassled. And I begin what will end up being years and years of trials and appeals and…

But it won’t work out like that. It will never work out like that.

For now I focus on getting a step closer to the money, and keep smoking cigarette after cigarette because they seem to help just slightly with the massive headache I’ve had since Rolf and Sid started talking football.

They’re both San Diego Charger fans and are looking for help this week from my precious Fins. Rolf is still behind the wheel, Sid is in the living space of the van, stripping and stuffing all his clothes into a plastic garbage bag.

– Dude, if they can just beat the Raiders, and we take the Broncos, we clinch the AFC West. That’s all I’m asking for, one win.

As he drives, Rolf is taking hits off a sneak-a-toke that’s camouflaged to look like a stubby cigarette.

– Ain’t gonna happen, dude. And you shouldn’t be thinking like that anyway. It’s so negative. Our destiny is in our own hands: win the last two games and take the West. Don’t be looking for help from other teams, especially not the Fish, and, dude, not without Miles. Without Miles they’re rank.

I keep my eyes closed and pinch the bridge of my nose, which also seems to help a bit with the pain.

– Actually, Sid, he’s right. The Dolphins have a long history of choking in December. Win your own division and let me worry about mine. I mean, after we lose this week, we have to go to New York and get really humiliated by the Jets to finish the season.

– Dude, losing to the Jets sucks.

– Yes, it does.

Sid climbs back up front. He’s changed into bright red hemp jeans tucked into fringed moccasin boots, and a short-sleeved, blue Lycra rash guard.

– Your turn.

– Right.

I climb around him into the back and start taking off my tattered clothes. I’m still in the thermal top and ragged jeans I had on at Wade’s. The clothes I cleaned at Mom and Dad’s got left in the Monte Carlo. Now Sid wants us all to change and bury the stuff we’re wearing so we don’t “leave a chain of physical evidence.” I drop my dirty clothes into the plastic bag.

The bandage the EMT put on my leg is expert and still holding firm. It has a large red stain on it. The wound throbs in time with my heartbeat, but it’s a much more manageable pain than the rods of agony that shoot through my concussed head. There’s not much I can do about that right now. The only real treatment for a concussion is rest, and that’s not an option.

I look through Sid’s duffel bag and cabinets for something to wear, but, at five nine and about a buck sixty, Sid is five inches shorter than me and forty pounds lighter.