Norman Partridge - Saguaro Riptide

It was a boom box. And it was notched to full volume.

“I didn't come here to kill anyone,” Baddalach said.

“Then you'll never find out what happened to Vince Komoko,” Priscilla replied.

Rorie aimed her pistol at the boom box. She knew it was crazy. She knew the stereo couldn’t hurt her, but she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off of it.

Baddalach said, “Okay. . maybe I can help you get out of pipeline beach. I’ve got friends in Vegas, and if you help us out. .”

The screen door exploded off its hinges. Ellis came down the stairs, running for all he was worth, and there was a shotgun in his hands, and he pulled the trigger and pumped, pulled the trigger and pumped, until there wasn’t enough boom box left to make a transistor radio.

He dropped the gun in the dust and stared at the stereo’s guts. That patented Presley sneer crept across his face, and he swaggered up to the wrecked boom box and gave it a kick.

He was wearing black leather pants and that black leather jacket he was so proud of. But Rorie could see that something was wrong with the jacket. It was wet. Slick and shiny.

It was. . spattered with blood.

Fresh blood.

For a second, Rorie thought that Ellis had been shot.

Only for a second, though.

Ellis finally noticed her. He glanced at Wyetta and his sneer disappeared. But the big artery on the left side of his neck thudded away, pumping blood beneath a blanket of scar tissue.

To Rorie, that artery looked like the devil’s own tail.

Ellis’s eyes burned a hole straight through her, because he could see well enough what she was looking at. He slapped that thing that looked like a microphone against his throat, "Your bitch of a. . sister is inside. . you can have what’s left of. . her I blew the cunt right out of her pants but she deserved what she. . got and-"

It was getting darker now. Rorie knew they shouldn’t just stand around. But she didn’t know what else to do.

Rorie hadn’t looked in the trailer. Wyetta had checked for her. And Wyetta said that Priscilla was dead and there wasn’t a chance in hell that she could have felt any pain, so Rorie knew it must have come quick, and it must have been bad. Her sister was dead.

Rorie wished Ellis would just go ahead and die. He lay there on the ground, staring straight up at the sky, not blinking at all, and he wouldn’t move for five. . maybe ten seconds, and then all of a sudden his shoulders would heave and a whistling sound would rise from one of the bullet holes in his chest and he’d get that rattle in his throat and. . Jesus, it was awful.

Wyetta couldn’t stop staring at him. That was the worst part. She got down on her knees and looked him right in the eye. “I wonder if he sees it,” she said.

“Sees what?”

“His flaming star.”

“Huh?”

“You know. . Flaming Star -that movie where Elvis is half-Indian. He sees the flaming star of death up there in the night sky and knows he’s going to go belly-up. So he kills half the Kiowa Nation, and then the other half kills him, and his white half-brother marries his girl.”

“Barbara Eden,” Rorie said, because she remembered now.

“Right.”

“Maybe we should get out of here.”

“No rush.”

Wyetta stayed at Ellis’s side, watching. Rorie went over and sat on the porch. A couple of cats wandered out of the house and rubbed up against her. She picked up a tabby and held it close, but the animal refused to purr.

Wyetta came over a few minutes later. “He’s dead.”

Rorie sighed. “What do you call it when you kill your brother-in-law?”

“Fratricide?” Wyetta guessed.

“Nah. . that’s when you kill your father.”

“Matricide?”

“Nah. . that’s your mom.”

Wyetta thought it over. “Maybe you just call it your good deed for the day.”

Tears filled Rorie’s eyes, but she laughed like a son of a bitch.

Tears and laughter.

Seemed you couldn’t have one without the other, anyway. But at least the laughing felt good.

Back in the Jeep, headed down the highway.

“I’ve been thinking that maybe you asked the Ouija board the wrong question,” Rorie said. “You asked where Komoko hid the money. Not where the money was. So it could be that the Ouija board was right about Komoko hiding the money in Elvis’s grave. Maybe it’s just that someone beat us to it.”

“So you think we should ask Wyatt where the money is now?”

“Yeah.”

“Waste of time.”

“Why’s that?”

Wyetta smiled. “C’mon, cowgirl, you read track about twice as good as me.”

“Oh yeah,” Rorie said. “I almost forgot about that.”

Rorie didn’t say anything else.

Neither did Wyetta.

Because both of them had recognized the boot print by Elvis Presley’s grave.

A hiking boot-standard army issue.

Dark clouds smothered the full moon.

Shadows blanketed the desert.

Kate Benteen moved in.

A man dressed in black leather lay on the ground. Kate figured it had to be Ellis Aaron Perkins, because the man’s resemblance to Elvis Presley was uncanny.

A Winchester shotgun lay at his side. She kicked it out of the way, then nudged Ellis’s head with the toe of her boot. When it came to determining life or death, the old nudge-nudge wasn’t the most scientific method in her repertoire. But tonight it did just fine, because tonight Kate didn’t feel like a doctor at all.

And besides, any fool could see that Ellis was deader than Grizzly Gulch on Saturday night.

Ten, maybe fifteen steps separated Kate from the trailer. The dull yellow glow of the porch light puddled on the front stairs. The screen door was a broken mess hanging from one hinge. The front door stood open. Soft fluorescent illumination bathed the living room carpet. Not much light, and not good light, but enough to give Kate a fighting chance if Ellis’s killer was wailing to ambush her.

There wasn’t a lot of wiggle room in a trailer. Kate knew that if she was in for a fight, it would be belly to belly. She’d have to make her first shot count, because she probably wouldn’t get a chance at a second.

Iron clouds melted overhead. The night grew blacker. Kate stood next to Ellis’s corpse, listening for the slightest sound from the trailer.

What she heard was a whole lot of nothing. Staying low, she moved toward Ellis’s Cadillac and placed her palm on the hood. The engine was colder than he was.

She kept moving. Dressed in black, right down to a pair of steel-toed go-go boots. She hadn’t worn the outfit since she’d done that action flick for Roger Corman two years ago. But she was glad she’d saved it, because it was just the thing for covert ops.

Her palms were completely dry. That was good, because you didn’t want to get careless when you were holding a Benelli Super 90. Guns amp; Ammo called it the world’s deadliest combat shotgun, and Kate wasn’t about to argue with Guns amp; Ammo.

She skirted the puddle of yellow light on the porch. Put her back to the wall next to the door. The trailer was warm, the metal siding still holding the heat of the noonday sun.

Kate drew a measured breath and held it until her lungs burned. The shotgun was ready. So was the Heckler, secure in its shoulder holster.

So was Kate Benteen.

She whirled fast, a whisper of black leather, and came through the doorway low, her green eyes scanning the room with the deadly intent of a cold-blooded predator.

The man who turned to face her looked too white in the fluorescent light. He said “Jesus Christ!” and the Siamese cat he was holding sprang from his arms.

Kate almost pulled the trigger. Almost . .