Stories (2011) (20 page)

"Go to hell," Standers said.

"That's no way to talk," Mulroy said. "I'm a
guest in your house. A guest isn't supposed to be treated that way. All I asked
was where's the sugar?"

"And I said go to hell. And you're not a guest."

Mulroy, who was standing in the kitchen part of the mobile
home, stopped and stared at Standers in the living room. He had tied Standers's
hands together and stretched them out so he could loop the remainder of the
lamp cord around a doorknob. He had removed Standers's boots and tied his feet
with a sheet, wrapped them several times. The door Standers was bound to was
the front door of the trailer and it was open. Standers was tied so that he was
sitting with his back against the door, his arms stretched and strained above
him. Mulroy thought he ought to have done it a little neater, a little less
painful, then he got to thinking about what he was going to do and decided it
didn't matter, and if it did, tough.

"You got any syrup or honey?"

This time Standers didn't answer at all.

Mulroy neatly closed the cabinet doors and checked the
refrigerator. He found a large plastic see-through bear nearly full of syrup.
He squeezed the bear and shot some of the syrup on his finger and tasted it.
Maple.

"This'll do. You know, I had time, I'd fix me up some
pancakes and use this. I taste this, it makes me think pancakes. They got like
an I-Hop in town?"

Standers didn't answer.

Mulroy strolled over to Standers and set the plastic bear on
the floor and took off his cowboy hat and nice Western jacket. He tossed the
hat on the couch and carefully hung his jacket on the back of a chair. The
pistol in the holster under his arm dangled like a malignancy.

Mulroy took a moment to look out the open door at the
sun-parched grass and the fire ant hills in the yard. Here was a bad place for
a mobile home. For a house. For anything. No neighbors. No trees, just lots of
land with stumps. Mulroy figured the trees had been cut down for pulp money.
Mulroy knew that's what he'd have done.

Because there were no trees, the mobile home was hot, even
with the air conditioner going. And having the front door open didn't help
much, way it was sucking out what cool air there was.

Mulroy watched as a mockingbird lit in the grass. It
appeared on the verge of heat stroke. It made one sad sound, then went silent.
Way, way out, Mulroy could hear cars on the highway, beyond the thin line of
pine trees.

Mulroy reached down and unbuckled Standers's pants. He
tugged down the pants and underwear, exposing Standers. He got hold of the bear
and squeezed some of the syrup onto Standers's privates.

Standers said, "Whatcha doin', fixin' breakfast?"

"Oh ho," Mulroy said. "I am cut to the quick.
Listen here. No use talkin' tough. This isn't personal. It's business. I'm
going to do what I got to do, so you might as well not take it personal. I
don't have anything against you."

"Yeah, well, great. I feel a hell of a lot
better."

Mulroy eased down to Standers's feet, where his toes were
exposed. He put the syrup on Standers's toes. He squirted some on Standers's
head.

Mulroy went outside then. The mockingbird flew away. Mulroy
walked around and looked at the fire ant hills. Fire ants were a bitch. They
were tenacious bastards, and when they stung you, it was some kind of sting.
There were some people so allergic to the little critters, one bite would make
them go toes up. And if there were enough of them, and they were biting on you,
it could be GoodbyeCity no matter if you were allergic or not. It was nasty
poison.

Mulroy reached in his back pocket, pulled out a half-used
sack of Red Man, opened it, pinched some out and put it in his mouth. He chewed
a while, then spit on one of the ant hills. Agitated ants boiled out of the
hill and spread in his direction. He walked off a ways and used the toe of his
boot to stir up another hill, then another. He squirted syrup from the bear on
one of the hills and ran a thin, dribbling stream of syrup back to the mobile
home, up the steps, across the floor and directed the stream across Standers's
thigh and onto his love apples. He said, "A fire ant hurts worse than a
regular ant, but it isn't any different when it comes to sweets. He likes them.
They like them. There're thousands of ants out there. Maybe millions. Who the
hell knows. I mean, how you gonna count mad ants, way they're running
around?"

For the first time since Mulroy first surprised Standers --
pretending to be a Bible salesman, then giving him an overhand right, followed
by a left uppercut to the chin -- he saw true concern on Standers's face.

Mulroy said, "They hurt they bite you on the arm, leg,
foot, something like that. But they get on your general, crawl between your
toes, where it's soft, or nip your face around the lips, eyes and nose, it's
some kind of painful. Or so I figure. You can tell me in a minute."

Suddenly, Mulroy cocked his head. He heard a car coming
along the long road that wound up to the trailer. He went and looked out the
door, came back, sat down on the couch and chewed his tobacco.

A few moments later the car parked behind Mulroy's car. A
door slammed, a young slim woman in a short tight dress with hair the color of
fire ants came through the door and looked first at Mulroy, then Standers. She
pivoted on her high heels and waved her little handbag at Standers, said,
"Hey, honey. What's that on your schlong?"

"Syrup," Mulroy said, got up, pushed past the
woman and spat a stream of tobacco into the yard.

"Bitch," Standers said.

"The biggest," she said. Then to Mulroy:
"Syrup on his tallywhacker?"

Mulroy stood in the doorway and nodded toward the yard.
"The ants."

The woman looked outside, said, "I get it. Very
imaginative." She eye'd the plastic bear where Mulroy had placed it on the
arm of the couch. "Oh, that little bear is the cutest."

"You like it," Mulroy said. "Take it with
you." Then to Standers he said, "You think maybe now you want to talk
to us?"

Standers considered, decided either way he was screwed. He
didn't tell, he was going to suffer, then die. Maybe he told what they wanted,
he'd just die. He could make that part of the deal, and hope they kept their
side of the bargain. Not that there was any reason they should. Still, Mulroy,
he might do it. As for Babe, he couldn't trust her any kind of way.

Nonetheless, looking at her now, she was certainly
beautiful. And his worms-eye view right up her dress was exceptional,
considering Babe didn't wear panties and was a natural redhead.

"I was you," Mulroy said, "I'd start talking.
Where's the loot?"

Standers took a deep breath. If he'd only kept his mouth
shut, hadn't tried to impress Babe, he wouldn't be in this mess.

During World War II his dad had been assigned to guard Nazi
treasure in Germany. His dad had confiscated a portion of the treasure,
millions of dollars worth, and shipped it home to East Texas. A number of
religious icons had been included in the theft, like a decorated box that was
supposed to contain a hair from the Virgin Mary's head.

Standers's father had seen all this as spoils of war, not
theft. When he returned home, much of the treasure was split up between
relatives or sold. After the war the Germans had raised a stink and the U.S.
government ended up making Standers's dad return what was left. The Germans
offered to pay his father a price for it to keep things mellow. A flat million,
a fraction of what it was worth.

Divided among family members, that million was long gone.
But there was something else. Standers's Dad hadn't given up all the treasure.
There were still a few unreturned items; gold bars and the so-called hair of
the Virgin Mary.

Early last year the Germans raised yet another stink about
items still missing. It had been in the papers and Standers's family had been
named, and since he was the last of his family line, it was assumed he might
know where this treasure was. Reporters came out. He told them he didn't know
anything about any treasure. He laughed about how if he had treasure he
wouldn't be living in a trailer in a cow pasture. The reporters believed him,
or so it seemed from the way it read in the papers.

A month later he met Babe, in a store parking lot. She was
changing a tire and just couldn't handle it, and would he help her. He had, and
while he did the work he got to look up the line of her leg and find out she
wore nothing underneath the short dresses she preferred. And she knew how to
talk him up and lead him on. She was a silver-tongued, long-legged slut with
heaven between her legs. He should have known better.

One night, after making love, Babe mentioned the stuff in
the papers, and Standers, still high on flesh friction, feeling like a big man,
admitted he had a large share of the money socked away in a foreign bank, and
the rest, some gold bars, and the box containing the hair from the Virgin Mary,
hidden away here in East Texas.

The relationship continued, but Standers began to worry when
Babe kept coming back to the booty. She wanted to know where it was. She didn't
ask straight out; she danced around matters; he didn't talk. He'd been stupid
enough, no use compounding the matter. She was after the money, and not him,
and he felt like a jackass. He doubled up on the sex for a while, then sent her
away.

This morning, posing as a Bible salesman, Mulroy had shown
up, clocked him, tied him up, introduced himself and tried to get him to tell
the whereabouts of the loot. When Babe came through the door, it all clicked in
place.

"I got a question," Standers said.

"So do we," Mulroy said. "Where's the spoils?
We don't even want the money you got in a foreign bank. . . . Well, we want it,
but that might be too much trouble. We'll settle for the other. What did you
tell Babe it was? Gold bars and a cunt hair off the Virgin Mary?"

"I just want to know," Standers continued,
"were you and Babe working together from the start?"

Mulroy laughed. "She was on her own, but when she
couldn't get what she wanted from you, she needed someone to provide some
muscle."

"So you're just another one she's conned,"
Standers said.

"No," Mulroy said, "you were conned. I'm a
business partner. I'm not up for being conned. You wouldn't do that to me,
would you, Babe?"

Babe smiled.

"Yeah, well, I guess you would," Mulroy said.
"But I ain't gonna let you. You see, I know she's on the con. Knew it from
the start. You didn't. Conning the marks is what I do for a living."

"It was all bullshit," Standers said. "I just
told her that to sound big. She gets you in bed, she makes your dick think it's
the president. I was tryin' to keep that pussy comin', is all. I had money, you
think I'd be living like this?"

"If you were smart, you would," Mulroy said.

"I'm not smart," Standers said. "I sell cars.
And that's it."

"Man," Mulroy said, "you tell that so good I
almost believe it. Almost. Shit, I bet you could sell me an old Ford with a
flat tire and missing transmission. Almost. . . hey, let's do it like this. You
give the location of the stuff, and we let you go, and we even send you a
little of the money. You know, ten thousand dollars. Isn't much, but it beats
what you might get. I think that's a pretty good deal, all things
considered."

"Yeah, I'll wait at the mail box for the ten
thousand," Standers said.

"That's a pretty hard one to believe, isn't it?"
Mulroy said. "But you can't blame me for tryin'. Hell, I got to go to the
can. Watch him, Babe."

When Mulroy left the room, Standers said, "Nice, deal,
huh? You and him get the loot, split it fifty-fifty."

Babe didn't say anything. She went over and sat on the
couch.

"I can do you a better deal than he can," Standers
said. "Get rid of him, and I'll show you the loot and split it
fifty-fifty."

"What's better about that?" Babe said.

"I know where it is," Standers said. "It'd go
real easy."

"I got time to go less easy, I want to take it,"
she said.

"Yeah," Standers said. "But why take it?
Sooner you get it, sooner we spend it."

Mulroy came back into the room. Babe picked the plastic bear
off the couch arm and went over to the refrigerator and opened it. She put the
bear inside and got out a soft drink and pulled the tab on the can. "Man,
I'm hungry," she said, then swigged the drink.

"What?" Mulroy said.

"Hungry," Babe said. "You know. I'd like to
eat. You hungry?"

"Yeah," Mulroy said. "I was thinking about
pancakes, but I kinda got other things on my mind here. We finish this, we'll
eat. Besides, there's food here."

"Yeah, you want to eat this slop?" Babe said.
"Go get us a pizza."

"A pizza?" Mulroy said. "You want I should
get a _pizza_? We're fixin' to torture a guy with fire ants, maybe cut him up a
little, set him on fire, whatever comes to mind that's fun, and you want me to
drive out and get a fuckin' pizza? Honey, you need to stop lettin' men dick you
in the ear. It's startin' to mess up your brain. Drink your soda pop."

"Canadian bacon, and none of those little
fishies," Babe said. "Lots of cheese, and get the thick chewy
crust."

"You got to be out of your beautiful red head."

"It'll take a while anyway," Babe said. "I
don't think a couple of ant bites'll make him cave. And I'd rather not get
tacky with cuttin' and burnin', we can avoid it. Whatever we do, it'll take
some time, and I don't want to do it on an empty stomach. I'm tellin' you, I'm
seriously and grown-up hungry here."

"You don't know fire ants, Baby," Mulroy said.
"It ain't gonna take long at all."

"It's like, what, fifteen minutes into town?" Babe
said, sipping her drink. "I could use a pizza. That's what I want. What's
the big deal?"