Busted Flush

I regret not wearing a hat, and my usual black attire amplifies the heat. The sky is painfully bright, and the sun doesn’t so much shine as glare. My skin prickles. I’m acutely aware of radiation right now. I pause and survey the dining choices—a Pizza Hut, a Dairy Queen, a Subway. I spot a Mexican restaurant. What I don’t see is a bar. Equally unfortunate is that the most cars are in the parking lot of the Pizza Hut. Well, they might have a beer and wine license. And then I spot the fire truck parked near the back. Yes, this might be the right place.

Inside, the harsh smell of undercooked tomato sauce is an assault on the sinuses. Conversation fills the room with a droning sound, as if a hive of bees were moving in. People don’t even fall silent when I enter. They really are upset.

The waitress is cute and small and round and Hispanic. She has an expression that is both alarmed and delighted. People on the edges of a catastrophe always have that particular look.

“I’ll take a small meat pizza and your salad bar. And what kinds of wines do you have?”

“Red and white.”

I mentally sigh. Of course. “I’ll take red.” I give her my best stage smile. She smiles back. “I say, dear, I’m a producer with—” I time it so her exclamation of excitement makes it unnecessary to say with whom.

“Movie?”

“Well . . .” I look about conspiratorially. “I don’t want to say too much. So often these things come to nothing, but I think you all have quite a story here, and if that’s true, well . . . things might happen,” I hastily add, “And of course anyone with information would be compensated and probably be in the film.”

She scuttles away. Satisfied, I drift over to the salad bar. In a surprisingly short time a number of people have joined me around the giant bowl of iceberg lettuce. I can smell the MSG as I drop it onto my plate.

“You’re a movie guy?” says one man whose cheap suit suggests insurance salesman or local banker. I move my head in a particularly noncommittal way. “But you’re not a journalist?” He has that dried leather skin so common in Americans who live in the West, and the wrinkles deepen with suspicion.

“I can assure you I am not a journalist.”

“You’re English,” says a large woman in spandex pants. The worried frowns ease. That seems to make me somehow more trustworthy.

“Well, I can tell you right now it wasn’t no grain elevator. We don’t grow wheat in these parts,” says an elderly geezer whose bald scalp is not so much tan as covered with age spots.

“There’s an elevator in Pyote,” another local objects.

“Yeah, but it’s a little teeny thing, just for the local feedlot,” says the geezer.

“There was no warning. The sky just lit up,” says another man with skin like jerky, and a big sweat-stained cowboy hat pushed far back on his head. “I was shifting cattle to new grazing, and the dark caught up with us. I was just going to wait out the night—then boom. Damnedest noise you ever heard.”

“Has anyone from Pyote spoken about it?” I ask.

“We haven’t seen anybody from Pyote. Wick, yes, but not Pyote.” The cheap suit drops his voice. “I think they’re all dead.”

“Not all,” says a burly man whose head seems attached to his shoulders without benefit of a neck. I watch the muscles in his upper arms flex and move. I think I’ve found one person who belongs with the fire truck. “I saw a medevac helicopter going in. Somebody survived.”

“Whoever it was, I don’t think they were hurt,” says the fat woman whose plate is so full that lettuce is starting to cascade off the sides. “I heard they’re under guard. Locked up.” The door of the Pizza Hut opens and my old nemesis from the car wash enters. “I bet it’s the guy who caused the explosion. My niece is married to a policeman over in Wick.” I wish she would keep her voice down because the cop has stopped walking and is staring at us—hard. I’m a stranger in town, which is a red flag to a cop.

“Nobody could have lived through that. I was real close by and I’m damn lucky to be alive.”

“They could if they was an alien,” argues the old man.

“Or a joker.”

I can’t really tell who said that, and I find it interesting that the mind would go to joker rather than ace. It’s far more likely one of the meta-powered would survive, but there is still an enduring discomfort and disgust with jokers.

“It’s probably them damn rag heads,” says the man in the cheap suit. “Going after our oil. Making sure we have to pay through the nose. We should nuke them.”

It’s a typically jingoistic American reaction, and I reflect that if Siraj could hear that he might reconsider his stand. The door closes and I realize the cop has left. I try to tell myself that he decided he wanted a burger rather than a pie—

—but it was a vain hope. They are waiting in my hotel room. One is your typical FBI agent, white, big, broad, with an ill-fitting brown suit and a crew cut. The other is a SCARE agent and an ace. The Midnight Angel is clad in black leather. Every curve of her lush body is revealed by the skintight jumpsuit.