The Damned (15 page)

Not keeping herself from being nailed to a tree.

She stood beneath the shower, soaping her hands and scrubbing the blood from them, enjoying the warmth soaking into her weary bones while the water washed over her body. She looked over at Ben, surprised to see that he was not watching her. He was leaning over, staring at the floor as if she weren’t even there.

Ben.

Earlier in the day, he had seemed on the verge of doing her in, but something had changed. She’d seen it in his eyes, felt it when their bodies brushed against one another when she straddled his bike. Maybe it was the tone of his voice, the begrudging timbre of respect in it. Maybe because he had kept her alive long enough to luck into Dub’s whimsical proposition of ‘keep him alive and I’ll keep you alive’. Whatever it was, she’d felt oddly secure with him back on that dusty street, and she still felt it. She could trust him. He meant what he’d said about watching over her. She was lucky to have him by her side, and she knew it. Without him she’d be torn to shreds by the Dubs and the Jets of this bizarre world she found herself in.

She lathered up her hair, relishing the way her scalp felt as she scrubbed her fingers over it. Seven weeks it had been since she’d enjoyed this simple pleasure, so long ago it had been that she’d almost forgotten what it was like. But all those little comforts were gone now, all the things that had been so ingrained in her daily existence she’d taken them for granted. Warm beds and cool sheets, hot water and flushing toilets, clean clothes; televisions and telephones, cars and computers… the Internet and those silly little message boards. Who would’ve thought she’d miss the message boards, with their snarky and inane comments? But she did miss them, them and all their goofy, anonymous participants.

All the comforts of home: washers and dryers and showers and soap; hamburgers and fries and steaks on the grill, pizza and beer and milkshakes and...

Gone.

All gone, seven weeks and running.

She rinsed her hair and looked down at her hands, inspecting them, making sure all the blood was washed from her body before stepping away from the spraying water. And for the first time in seven weeks, she actually felt clean. She left the shower running and crossed the floor, picked up a towel and dried her face, tossed the towel back to the narrow wooden bench and walked over to Ben, who was now watching her every move, smiling, a glint in his eye as she approached him. She stood before him, her auburn hair slick against her scalp, tiny beads of water dappling her skin as she straddled his lap, draped her arms over his shoulders and looked deep into his eyes.

“What’re you doing?” he said.

“Giving you something to care about.”

It had been an adrenaline fueled evening for Dub and his boys, sitting around with old man Carlicci and his henchmen, all the while knowing if someone were to look inside those stylish tote bags they’d find enough C4 explosive to level the room. Carlicci and his men were gone; Trixie and Heather, too. Dub wondered if Mariah had survived long enough to have one last laugh on the old man, or if she too had been obliterated in a spray of dust and mortar and falling chunks of concrete. They left the Caddy burning in their rearview mirror as Dub slipped the SUV into gear and roared off down the dark, deserted road.

Teddy hadn’t thought carrying a crap-load of C4 up there was such a good idea. What if somebody looked inside those bags—he damn sure would’ve if it had been Carlicci’s men coming to visit them. What if something happened and the stuff went off while
Teddy
was still in the room? He’d just been talking shit earlier in the day when he said they should think about a long term plan to short circuit
Carlicci’s
plans. He didn’t think Dub would run with it. But that’s exactly what he did. His eyes narrowed and he started riffing on what they could do and how they could do it.
His
big plan? Send some guys ahead and have them rush the rear of the compound commando-style a little while after Dub and the gang entered the mansion. What then, try and blast their way out? Sure death as far as Teddy was concerned, and Dub seemed to actually have been considering the idea, even though he had to have known they could never have pulled it off. Then the C4 was mentioned. They had a shit-load of the stuff in the armory; that and the hand-held rocket launcher, and all of a sudden Dub was wound up like a kid in his room playing some whacked out computer game. Except Teddy knew this wasn’t a game, and just because Dub said it would work, that didn’t mean it
would
work. He also knew he had to go along with whatever Dub decided, if he wanted to be around to see that hazy grey sky tomorrow. So he did the only thing he
could’ve
done: high-fived his commander-in-chief and set about orchestrating his demands.

Even though it made absolutely no sense to him.

Wipe out Carlicci so they could take over a town they already had well within their grasp? Why? So they’d be the only ones around to battle the army that surely would come when the world was brought back online? And things were going to go back to the way they had been—Teddy was sure of it. The world would go back and the army would storm the town, leaving The Devil’s Own and anyone else who dared oppose them crushed beneath their marching boots. Teddy’s last hours would be spent holed up with Dub, the biker-gang equivalent to Hitler, or Napoleon at his
Waterloo
, waiting for the ax to find them. He didn’t want to fuck with Carlicci. He damn sure didn’t want to when they got to the house to find the smell of prime rib wafting through the air and the old man offering them their own truckload of the stuff. Not to mention a piece of action big enough set them up for the remainder of their lives. But that wasn’t enough for Dub to call it off—not that they could have, with the C4 in the tote bags waiting to be found. So they did fuck with him. They planted the bombs and everything went just the way Dub said it would go. The bombs went off and the old man and his crew were gone, and now Teddy was safe and sound, back at the Ambassador watching Dub relate their accomplishments to the brotherhood,
who
had crowded around their leader and seemed to be delighted by the news. But Teddy wasn’t excited. He wasn’t so sure Anthony Carlicci was the limp-willed pussy Dub proclaimed him to be. Teddy wondered if Tony might show up tonight to extract revenge for the old man who seemed to despise him.
If not for him, then to save face with his gang, who surely would be demanding vengeance by now.

Dub must have been thinking along those same lines, because he dispatched five of his men to round up four men a piece and head out to different points of the city, where they would sit, watching and waiting for Tony and his gang to come crawling down those dark streets. When the congratulations were over, the backslapping and kowtowing finished, Dub took an empty seat beside Teddy. Bert and Ernie were there, so were Ben and Claude, and Jet, with his bandaged face and his smoldering brown eyes. Spud was there too, leaning forward with his mouth open, his disfigured face half hidden by the head that had drooped sideways against his clavicle, a bottle of beer and an empty syringe on the table in front of him. He had done his job and collected his reward, and would have been as happy sprawled face-first in a dark alley as he was nodding out in the middle of the Ambassador’s lounge. Fast Freddie, having just given Dub another shot of his obligatory anthem, waved to him while he and his boys exited the stage.

Dub turned to Claude and said, “That thing I was talking about.”

“What thing?”

“Your road trip tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah.”

“You’re going down route sixteen to farm country and Jet’s haulin’ ass up the Interstate—you got that, Jet?”

Jet nodded, and Dub said, “I wanta see what’s happening out there. How bad is it? Worse than here? Better? Who’s left up there and what’re they up to? The crops dead, what about the livestock and shit?”

“Don’t you think they would be?” Ben said.

“I don’t know, but I’m damn sure gonna find out… And Claude: be careful. I already sent a couple of screwball motherfuckers up there and they didn’t come back. Maybe they decided to keep going; maybe they found something a little better up the line and said fuck it. I don’t know… could be trouble found them and they
couldn’t
come back. Bottom line is: be careful and make damn sure you get your asses back to Dodge to let me know what’s out there.”

Claude nodded his head.

“Damn right,” said Jet.

Teddy thought it was a dumb idea. The whole world was fucked-up and everybody knew it. What was the point of sending these guys out to verify it? But everything Dub came up with lately seemed stupid to him: taking over the town and
governing
the son of a bitch, sending an army of Q’s against representatives of the United States government and sending Dub’s
generals
with them, thereby sending them to their graves. While Dub did what, sat back and watched, and then saved his own ass when the shit hit the fan? And the shit was going to splatter, high and wide and all over Teddy and whoever else their illustrious leader pushed out into the trenches.

He knew these things but he said nothing. He drank his beer and stared out across the floor at the bikers and Q’s, the drunks and druggies and the hangers-on, all the sleazeballs destined to make up the new world order Dub seemed so intent upon creating.

Bert said, “You think Carlicci and his men’ll come tonight?”

“Actually, I think he’ll show up sometime tomorrow ready to strike a deal. I mean, I did everything but come right out and say ‘hey, I’m taking your old man out so you and
me
can work together’. What do you think, Teddy? You heard him. He was dying to get his old man and those goons of his out of the picture, wasn’t he?”

“That’s what he said.”

“That’s why I told those guys to reel it in at daybreak—no confrontations. I want the road clear so he’ll feel safe coming in. I told him we’d welcome him with open arms, and we will. The guy’s not stupid. He knows it’ll be easier on ‘em to throw in with us, easier on all of us. We’re not going to sit back and let them ransack the city without tossing us a cut—we just need a better deal. He’s probably already come up with a bullshit story to grease the way towards making it happen. I want the road clear but our guys posted where Carlicci’s boys can see them. So they know
we
know they’re coming.”

Dub took a drink of beer and sat the bottle on the table, pulled a bag of coke from his pocket, looked up and said, “Well, look at this shit.”

Tina and Karen were coming through the crowd toward them, Tina still in her black mini, Karen in a pair of jeans, a beige halter top and a pair of white Reeboks, her auburn hair falling neatly across her narrow shoulders. She had on a trace of eye shadow but no other makeup, a stark contrast to Tina, who never left her quarters without a full array of cosmetics covering her face. She was carrying a tote bag identical to the one Mariah had been given. When they got to the table, Dub said, “Well, well, looks like you made it after all… congratulations.”

Karen shrugged her shoulders, walked around the table and stood beside Ben, who smiled and put an arm around her waist, an act that immediately took her back to the dusty street, the bike and Ben’s thighs rubbing against her. She had hitched her wagon to some kind of Hell’s Angel, a violent street thug who
respected
her. She hadn’t wanted to. To stay alive, she had to.

“Well, well, well,” Dub said.

“Well indeed,” said Teddy.

“What can I tell ya,” Ben said, shrugging his shoulders as Dub emptied the bag’s contents onto the table, and Bert pulled his knife and cut a few lines from the pile. Teddy fired up a joint, and Dub said, “Figured to see you in the square when I got back. I’m impressed.”

A half empty twelve pack of Rolling Rock beer sat on the table, a couple of ashtrays and a fifth of tequila beside it. Tina drew a bottle from the carton, twisted it open and took a drink. “Karen’s
very
impressive,” she said.

“Karen, huh? Carve her out a line, Bert.”

“No thanks,” Karen said.

“No, go ahead.”

“No… thanks, really.”

“What, you think you’re too good to get high with us?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… I don’t get high.”

“And you’re with
him?
” Teddy said, laughter erupting throughout the table as he passed the joint to Jet. Karen said nothing. She stood beside Ben, arms at her side while Ben snorted a line, and the smoldering joint made its way around the table.

Dub slid a bottle of Rolling Rock her way. “You can drink a beer with us, can’t you?”

“Sure,” she said, smiling. She screwed the bottle cap off and dropped it to the floor, took a drink and held the bottle by her side.

“You know,” Dub said, “if you’re useful around here, things can work out pretty good for you. You help us when we need you, we’ll keep you happy. Look at ol’ Tina there…” Dub nodded at the short redhead—she was bent over the table, grinning and huffing up a line of cocaine. “She looks pretty happy, doesn’t she?”

Karen didn’t think so. Holding the straw in place, she reminded Karen of her own long and desperate slide down to the cold and heartless city streets, to the gutter she eventually found herself in. She didn’t think Tina looked happy, but she wasn’t stupid, either. She shrugged her shoulders, nonchalantly nodding her agreement as Dub set about explaining his new world order, and how Karen would fit into it, his plans for Bert and Ernie and Ben, and the citizens he had nicknamed the Q’s. Dr. Nurse, he called her, and laughed. She had saved her gunshot victim and that was good enough to pronounce her the camp’s healer. They would need her to tend to the wounded if someone stupid enough to step up and challenge them got in a lucky blow or two. The Devil’s Own was in charge now, and they would destroy anyone who rose up against them, a foolish notion Karen could hardly believe anyone at the table was buying. If the city came back online, the army or somebody like them would show up, law and order would prevail, and The Devil’s Own would disappear into whatever hole they’d crawled out of before this whole thing started. She wasn’t stupid, and as she looked around she could see that she wasn’t alone in her thinking. There was an air of skepticism behind the eyes surrounding her, from Jet to Teddy, all the way down to Claude and Bert and Ernie, the Neanderthal henchmen who sat nodding their heads in total agreement. Ever so slight, but Karen could see it. She wondered if Dub noticed. Maybe he saw it but reveled in the fact that they would go along with whatever he told them, even if it put their lives in jeopardy.

Finished, he leaned back in his chair and said, “You in?”

“Sure,” she said. “I’m in.” What else could she have said, no, and end up one of those poor, pathetic creatures calling out from the cells? She didn’t want to find out what would happen if she did say no, and she damn sure wasn’t going to give them reason enough to nail her to a tree.

“Well, what’dya know, another need taken care of.” Dub grabbed the piece of straw Tina had left on the table, leaned over and huffed up a thick line of coke. He shifted the straw and filled the other nostril, tossed the straw to the table and said, “What’dya think, boys? Grab some bikes and see what we can get into?”

“Why not,” Teddy said.

“Not me,” Jet said. “I’m gonna hang here a while, shut it down for the night and get an early start in the morning.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Claude. “It feels late.”

Dub took a drink of beer and sat the bottle on the table. “C’mon, Ben,” he said. He stood up and so did Bert and Ernie. Teddy stood but Ben remained seated. He took a drink, leaned back in his chair and held the bottle against his thigh.

Dub said, “Ben.”

“Actually, I thought I’d—”

“Huh uh. You’re coming with us.”

“Sure, Dub… sure,” Ben said, and to Karen, “Tina’ll take you ‘round to my pad, get you settled in for the night. I’ll be along directly.”

Karen stepped back and Ben stood up. Moments later he followed Dub and his boys across the lounge and out the door, leaving Tina and Karen alone at the table with Jet and Claude. Spud, still dead to the world, remained in his chair, spittle drooling down his chin as Karen said, “Let’s go, Tina.”