Multiplex Fandango (33 page)

The C
orvette coasted to a stop beside a worn saguaro.
At least three hundred years old, pieces of the immense cactus had fallen dead from the affects of vehicle exhaust.
Other parts showed signs of drive-by cactus shootings.

After radioing his location to dispatch, Gibb stepped from his cruiser into the still warm night.
The temperature had fallen from a daytime high of 100 degrees to 80.
Dolan could still feel the heat of the day radiating from the asphalt through the soles of his shoes.
It might drop another ten degrees by midnight if they were lucky.

He placed his hat on his head and adjusted his baton.
Although wary, he wasn't too concerned with the driver.
This one was the type to throw money at a problem rather than fight it.

"Sir, please place your keys in your hands and hold them out the window."

Once the driver complied, the rest was paperwork.
Gibb found that he'd been right about the man.
No hardened criminal here.
In fact, he was a fire chief in
San Diego
.

"I didn't see you back there, officer.
Sorry about that," the driver said.

Gibb allowed the man to believe his own lie and wrote him a ticket for the maximum.

“
Taking responsibility for one's ac
tions is sometimes the hardest
,”
his father had said to you
ng Gibb as he was growing up.
“
Not only do you have to make up for your own mistakes, but if those mistakes affect others, you have to make it up to them as well.
What was it the Chinese do?
If you save a life, you're responsible for guaranteeing that life forever?
Once again they got it all wrong.
The truth is that if you adversely affect someone's life, it is your responsibility to correct it.
If you save a life, you're a hero.
But if you kill someone... if you kill someone outside of war, or protecting your family, y
our life is no longer your own
.”

Gibb finished writing the ticket and passed it to the indifferent driver.
The sun was nearing the horizon, etching the sky in reds and yellows.
The driver stuffed the ticket into a glove compartment already overflowing with paper and sped off towards
Los Angeles
and the sunset.

He glanced around at the landscape.
Amidst the scrub and skeletal remains of tumbleweeds, Gibb counted seven sets of crosses on his side of the road.
There was nothing especially dangerous about the area.
The road ran straight for miles.
So why so many deaths?
The only logical explanation he could come up with was the night drivers from
Los Angeles
to
Phoenix
and back falling asleep at the wheel.

Gibb's father's belief was nearly existential, something Gibb had taught his students so long ago.
The essence of existentialism is a life-view where the individual is ultimately responsible for his actions.
Gibb slipped into his cruiser in time to hear the squelch of the radio and a trucker asking about the strange lights over by
Sore Finger Road
.
If Gibb remembered correctly, that was just east of
Pyramid Peak
.
He put the patrol car in gear, waited for traffic to clear, then sped across the median and back towards
Phoenix
.

Ten minutes later, with the sun all but set behind him, he slowed to a stop behind a black panel van parked along the shoulder of the highway.
Two Harley Davidson choppers and an immense Lincoln Towncar with gold-fleck paint were pulled onto the grassy shoulder.
Parked in the front was a
n
old fashioned red bus with large letters scrawled across the side in white paint
—
Espectáculo de Redención
.
Gibb's Spanish wasn't as good as it should have been since he lived in the Southwest, but he made the words out to mean Redemption Roadshow.

Technically, the vehicles shouldn't be parked there.
The shoulder was for emergencies only and the presence of the vehicles represented a safety hazard.
There were some drivers who unconsciously drove towards what they stare at; highway patrolmen dying every year from this same luckless event.
The vehicles shouldn't be parked there, but Gibb wasn't about to disrupt the service.
The highway patrol had an understanding about the crosses and, when possible, allowed people to mourn the loss of their loved ones.

A crowd of at least twenty people had gathered around a large white cross embedded in the earth thirty feet from the road.
Three large Mexican bikers, their arms crossed over shirtless, tanned chests, watched Gibb as approached.
Their heavy-lidded gaze defined disdain for his authority.
They didn't even look at his gun.
They had larger ones in holsters on their own hips.
As
Arizona
was an open carry state, this was perfectly legal, if not a little Wild West.

Gibb stopped several feet away and stared over their shoulders at the large
cross embedded
in the earth.
He'd seen it for several years now.
He tried to remember the circumstances surrounding the death, but could only remember that it had been a young woman in a single car accident.
Probably fell asleep at the wheel or something equally tragic.

"What do you want?" the one in the middle asked.
His Fu Manchu mustache barely camouflaged an upper lip that had curled back into a snarl.
"This is a private thing we do."

Gibb glanced at the speaker, then returned his gaze to the service.
He watched the people situated around the cross in different states of mourning.
All dressed in their Sunday best, most had their heads down and their hands clasped in front of them.
A tall thin man wearing a black coat with tails stood in the center, his back to Gibb.
Beside the tall man knelt another, his hands covering his face as his shoulders shook with sobs.
Lying in front of them at the base of the cross was what could only be the Long Cool Woman.

Gibb felt an icy finger slide the length of his spine.

"Hey," the biker on the left said, stepping forward.
"Ronnie said this is private."

Gibb turned, conscious of where his own hand was in relation to his pistol grip.
"This is public land."
He glanced down at the pistol on the man's hip and nodded his head towards the weapon.
"I suppose you have a permit for that?"

Fu Manchu stepped forward beside the other biker.

Gibb took a step back.

“Why you want to interrupt, man?” Fu
Manchu
asked.

“I asked a question, sir.
And what about you? I suppose you have a permit, as well?”

“We don’t need a permit.
This is
Arizona
,” said the third biker remaining in place.

Gibb looked from one to the other.
He knew they didn’t need permits, but his question often gave him indications of wrongdoing.
He’d once had a guy turn tail and run when asked the question.
It was a professional ploy, nothing more.

Before the situation could escalate any more, the tall man intervened.
"Can I help you, officer?"
His long gray hair flowed down his back, tied in an Indian braid.
He put his hand on the shoulder of the biker who stood on the left of Gibb and squeezed gently.
The tall man nodded to the biker, then gazed steadily at Gibb.
"We're in the middle of a service and would appreciate if you’d refrain from speaking so loudly."

Gibb couldn't help but grit his teeth at the man's visage.
The tall man's face had been horribly burned.
The contour of the skin was like the surface of the moon.
Smooth and rough patches were separated by painful dimpled crevices where skin had failed to graft properly.
The man's blue eyes gazed startlingly upon him, capturing him, daring him to look away.

"I'm sorry," Gibb heard himself saying.
He forced himself to stare, knowing that to look away would be the worst offense.
"I didn't know I was so loud."
He could only imagine the pain the man had gone through.

The man nodded once.
His ruined lips pealed back into a feral grin.
He ran his right hand down the lapel of his six
-
button suit coat in a smoothing motion, and turned back to the service.

"Wait," Gibb said, stepping forward.
The three bikers intercepted him, one placing his hand on Gibb's chest.
He ignored this, his pleading gaze on the tall man.

The tall man turned and stared at Gibb, his posture clear that he was awaiting the reason for the further disruption.

Gibb gulped.
He wasn't exactly sure what he was going to say.
He glanced once at the three bikers, thought of trying to push his way past, thought of arresting them, then changed his mind.
His shoulders sagged.
His eyes turned sad.
"Can I watch?
I mean, can I attend the service too?"

The tall man stared for several seconds, then nodded slowly.
"I see there is pain in your soul."
He held out a hand that had also been scarred from fire.
"Come and watch the Long Cool Woman.
Perhaps you will find her words soothing."

The bikers stepped aside.
Gibb walked between them and accepted the proffered hand.
He felt strength and the smoothness of scar tissue as the tall man tightened his grip into a handshake.
Moreover, the hand felt dead cold.

"Thank you," said Gibb, his voice barely above a whisper.

"They call me El Hombre Quemado," said the tall man.

The Burned Man, Gibb translated to himself.
The name was a good fit, if not a little morbid.

"But you can call me Rev Boscoe," the Burned Man continued, pronouncing the word Rev
,
making it seem more like a name than a title.

"My name is Gibb," said Gibb.

"I know.”

Gibb raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Rev Boscoe grinned a horrible grin.
“I see it there on your uniform."
Rev Boscoe released Gibb's hand and pointed towards the nameplate.
Then he turned, walked back to the circle of mourners and resumed his place directly opposite the cross.

Gibb's hand had grown cold from the handshake, and as he walked to the circle, he rubbed it, working the warmth back into the bone and tendons.
He found a place between a young Hispanic boy and an older Hispanic woman.
They shifted allowing him a space of his own, their heads down in some private misery.
It wasn’t until then that he finally got a good view of the Long Cool Woman.

She wasn't beautiful.
Nor was she ugly.
Yet she had a presence that surpassed such earthly applications.
Firm lips sat beneath the arch of a patrician nose.
Lipstick had been applied to her slightly frowning lips.
A somewhat pointy chin and high cheekbones complimented the delicateness of her eggshell white skin.
Her long black hair held gentle curls, and had been arranged so part of it lay upon her shoulders.
She wore a turn of the century black dress that covered her legs and her feet.
She lay upon a specially constructed black cot that held her nearly two feet from the ground.
The way her dress cascaded over the edges, it almost appeared as if she were floating.
One hand rested palm up on her stomach, the other was held to by the hands of a weeping man.

Gibb watched closely and, only after a concerted effort, noticed the rise and fall of the Long Cool Woman's chest.
So intent was he upon his gaze, that when she moved, he let out a gasp.

Her hand on her stomach twitched like a spider coming to life.
Once, twice, then the fingers curled upon themselves into a fist as she grasped the cross.

Gibb's spine sizzled with electric alarm.
His attention was trapped, as surely as if the woman's hand had closed around his throat.
He felt the electricity encompass the circle, as if the mourners represented a closed circuit: the mourners, him and the sobbing man, a generator for the Long Cool Woman's magic.

Suddenly her back arched so high that he felt her spine might break.
Her head fell back on a limp neck.
Her hand threatened to shatter the cross, the wood trembling with the pressure of her grip.
The man cried out as his hand became trapped in a furious grip.
He surprised himself by trying to pull away.
Then the man’s attention jerked as he realized what was happening, his attention instantly shifting to the Long Cool Woman as he relaxed his arms and ceased his attempts to flee.