Christopher Moore - Coyote Blue

Lonnie grabbed a towel off the rack and went to where Grubb was happily splashing away on the drugs. Lonnie picked up the baby and put him on the bed, then went back to clean off the packages.

"Oh, Christ. Cheryl, clean up the kid, will you?"

"Fuck off."

Lonnie stormed into the bathroom and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back until she was staring up at him. He spoke to her through gritted teeth. "You clean up the kid now or I'll snap your fucking neck. You understand?" He yanked her head back further. "I've got to turn this shit early in the morning and then ride to South Dakota, and I need to get some fucking sleep. If I have to kill you to get it I will. You understand?" He relaxed his grip on her hair and she nodded. Tears welled up in her eyes.

He dragged her out of the bathroom and threw her on the bed with Grubb, then threw the towel in her face. "Now clean up the kid."

Lonnie took another towel and wiped each of the packages before packing them into Grubb's diaper bag.

Cheryl rolled Grubb over and dried his bottom. "Last time I take a vacation with you," she said. "No gambling, no shows, no fucking. I said. .." She looked at him. "No fu-" The word caught in her throat.

He was aiming his pistol at her head.

Until he saw the orange 280Z rocket by him, the cop thought that the worst thing he was going to have to deal with on this shift was not smoking. He was wearing a patch on his left shoulder that was supposed to feed nicotine into his blood to keep him from craving cigarettes, but the urge to smoke was still there, so he fought it by eating donuts. He'd gained ten pounds in a week, and he was musing over the idea of inventing a donut patch when the sports car roared by him.

Out of habit, he butted a half-eaten cruller in the ashtray, hit the lights and siren, and pulled out in pursuit. The Z already had about eight blocks on him and he estimated it was doing about a hundred. He was reaching for the radio to call ahead for help when a black Mercedes pulled out from a side street in front of him. He slammed on the brakes and threw the cruiser sideways, bringing it to a stop not ten feet from impact. The Mercedes was at a dead stop, blocking both lanes. The cop watched the Z's taillights fade in the distance on the other side.

He killed the siren and switched the radio to the public address system. "Get out of the car, now!" He waited but no one got out of the car. In fact, he couldn't see a driver at all, yet the Mercedes was still running. He considered calling for backup, then decided to handle it himself. He stepped out of the cruiser with his gun drawn, careful to stay behind the car door.

"You, in the Mercedes, get out slowly." He saw something move in the car, but it didn't look like a person. Holding his revolver at ready, he shined his flashlight at the car. Movement, but no driver.

He saw three possibilities. The driver was unconscious, or was waiting to peel away when he moved away from the cruiser, or was lying in wait with a shotgun to blow his head off. He decided it would be safest to assume the last, and without further warning he crept to a spot just under the open driver's-side window. He heard a scratching sound just above his head and came up, gun first, to catch a glimpse of the back end of the skunk just as it sprayed him in the face.

As he wiped his eyes he heard laughing and the Mercedes pulling away.

Clyde, owner of Clyde's Cash for Your Car, said, "No offense, chief, but you don't see many Indians in Mercedes." He kicked a tire and bent down to look at the lines of the paint job for signs of bodywork, keeping a hand on his head to steady his toupee. "Looks clean."

"It's a good car," Coyote said.

Clyde narrowed his eyes and smiled. Clyde had seen a little too much sun in his sixty years and this sly smile, what he used to call his «gotcha» look, made him look like an old Chinese woman. "And you have the title, right, chief?"

"Title?"

"That's what I thought." Clyde stepped up to Coyote, his head about level with the trickster's sternum. "Are you a policeman, or are you working in the service of any law-enforcement agency?"

"Nope."

"Well then, let's do some business." Clyde grinned. "Now, you and I know that we could fry eggs on this car, am I right? Of course I am. And you're not from around here, or you'd have your own connections and wouldn't be here, am I right? Of course I am. And you don't want to take this car out on the interstate where the state patrol would spot it as hot in a second? No, you don't." He paused for effect, just to make sure everyone knew he was in control. "I'll give you five thousand dollars for it."

"Not enough," said Coyote. "Look, this car has a machine that tells you where you are."

Clyde glanced inside the Mercedes at the navigation system, then shrugged. "Chief, you see all these cars?" Clyde gestured to a dozen cars on his lot. Coyote looked around and nodded. "Well, all these cars got something that'll tell you where you're at. I call them windows. You look out of 'em. Now, do you want to sell a car?"

"Six thousand," Coyote said.

Clyde crossed his arms and waited, tapped his foot, smiled into the night sky.

"Five," Coyote said.

"I'll be right back with your money, chief. Can I have my boy give you a lift somewhere?"

"Sure," Coyote said.

Clyde went into his office, a mobile home whose entire side functioned as Clyde's sign. In a moment he returned with a stack of hundreds. He counted them into Coyote's hand. A greasy teenager pulled up in an old Chevy. "This is Clyde junior," Clyde said. "He'll take you wherever you need to go."

"It's a good car," Coyote said. He handed the keys to Clyde and climbed into the Chevy. As they pulled away Coyote dug into his medicine pouch and pulled out a small plastic box that had once been on Sam's key ring. He pushed the red button once, and a chirping sound came from under the hood of the Mercedes to signal that the alarm was armed.

Kiro Yashamoto stood in the corner of the treatment room watching two doctors battle for a man's life. One doctor was young, white, and wore a stethoscope around his neck. He was fighting death with electronic monitors, oxygen, a battery of injected drugs, and a degree from Michigan State. The other doctor was an old Indian man, as wrinkled and weathered as the patient, who fought with prayers, songs, and by blowing on the patient through a mouthful of charcoal. He held no degree, but had been called to healing by the trumpeting of a white elk in the Spirit World. Despite the difference in their methods, the two worked as a team. Kiro could see that they respected each other, and he wished that his children were here to see these two cultures working together not for profit, but out of a common compassion. Alas, he had left them outside in the clinic's small waiting room, and neither of the doctors would allow more people in here.

A tall, lanky Indian man dressed in denim stood in the corner opposite Kiro. His hair was cut short and shot with gray. Kiro guessed he was in his sixties, but it was hard to tell with these people. He saw Kiro watching and quietly crossed the room.

"My name is Harlan Hunts Alone," he said, extending his hand.

"How do you do," Kiro said. He took Harlan's hand and bowed slightly, then caught himself in the inappropriate gesture and felt embarrassed.

Harlan patted Kiro's shoulder. "Pokey is my brother. I wanted to thank you for bringing him here. The doctor said he would have died without your help."

"It was nothing," Kiro said.

"Just the same," Harlan smiled. The medicine man stopped singing and Harlan quickly turned to him.

"He's gone," the medicine man said.

The white doctor looked at the monitor. A steady blip played across the screen. "He's fine. His blood pressure's coming up."