In Laymon's Terms

“Come on, we’ve got to go.”

“Why do you have a gun?” she asked.

“To enforce proper civil conduct.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a soldier.”

“In the army?”

“In the Family. I’m an enforcer.”

She couldn’t puzzle it out so I just let it go. The Feds had come down and put my boss out of action, and instead of finding a new crew I’d just moped around and laid low and wrote scripts and plays. I was starting to have some second thoughts about my new life.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Mary. I was hitchhiking and got lost on the highway. One of those hippie guys picked me up and brought me here. I thought it was a nice place at first.”

“At least you weren’t lunch.”

I started feeling light-headed and wondered if all the marijuana in the air was starting to affect me. I led her out of the building and the long way around town back to the car. We stuck to the dilapidated buildings beyond the compound and didn’t see anybody. Crazy Chuck was bound to be around. Little bastards like that didn’t just fade.

“Stay here,” I told her.

“Wait. Let me check your neck.” She tore off a piece of her halter and let those tits hang out against me and worked on trying to staunch the flow of blood. “Be careful.”

I got to the car and stood there for a second letting the sun pour over me. I scanned all the broken windows and rooftops and saw nobody. Then I raised the gun and put one through the windshield of the Mustang and said, “Hey Chuck, you want to get out of the back seat?”

It was just a guess but it worked. He opened the rear door and clambered out. He had Smiley’s meat cleaver in hand and leered through his beard and sort of fidgeted in the wind.

“You’re sweating now,” he said.

“Yeah well, it’s been a rough day.”

“It’s about to get worse for you.”

Rainbeaux moved out from behind the trough where she’d been hiding. She trained a 10-gauge on me and held it comfortably in the crook of her arm. She knew what she was doing. Goddamn it, never trust a chick whose name ends in ‘x.’

“And I thought we were friends,” I told her.

“Shut up. Drop the gun.”

I tossed it deep to my left, as far from Chuck as I could, so that the .32 bounced over the distant porch and skittered in the dust. If he went for it maybe I could make a run. I could get lucky and the shotgun spray might go wide.

“Move and I’ll blast your dick off,” Rainbeaux said.

I didn’t think that turning on my charming full-wattage smile was going to help me out here. “Sure,” I told her.

Chuck just stood there, jittering and brimming with so much unchecked energy that it bled out his eyes.

Third act finale.

I had nothing to lose so I asked, “You wanna tell me a little about what brought our relationship to this?”

Maybe he liked my attitude or maybe he just wanted to carve me up real slowly, but he stopped and took a deep breath and I knew I’d bought some time. Typical James Bond villain shit.

“Crops never did well in the area,” he told me, “but the community didn’t want to leave. Most of them were afraid that if we turned to the establishment for any kind of help we’d lose our freedom or be swallowed by conservatives. So we had to find another source of food.”

“I don’t suppose you considered just getting a job at Mickey D’s like everybody else.”

“Immensely poor grazing for miles around so the animals kept dying. We were forced to go to other towns and cities and raid their provisions. I didn’t want to be dependent on them forever. So an alternative was discovered.” So that was what he was calling it. “And how long has this been going on?”

“My father started it over thirty years ago.”

Son of a bitch. “Does he own a video chain in Malibu, too?”

“People like you locked him away long ago because he was a revolutionary.”

“I just bet. The rest of your clan doesn’t even know, do they? They don’t even know what you’re feeding them.”

“Some of them do. The most important members of our Family.”

Yes, I thought. The maniac cook would know. And Rainbeaux and perhaps a few others who’d have to act as bait out there on the highways. Catch the drivers in their broken-down cars and lead them off to their deaths.

Rainbeaux let out a low sexy chuckle that in other circumstances I would’ve enjoyed. She said, “I’m going to de-bone you myself.”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

She opened her mouth to answer but the only sound that dripped out was a small “erp.” She froze and her muscles locked so hard I heard her shoulders pop. The shotgun fell and went off, blasting the dirt.

Her hands trembled and drifted to her neck, but by the time they reached it Rainbeaux no longer had a head.

The decapitated body flopped in one direction and her pretty face tumbled in another. Behind her stood Mary, who didn’t look either pleased or disgusted by what she’d just done. She glanced at me and said, “Watch it.”

Chuck made a move for my .32. He was wiry and fast and chortled as he ran for it. All that wacky weed sure made these fuckers a goddamn giggly bunch.