Thompson and Poison examined the melting blacktop, Thompson making a point of lifting his sunglasses so he could get a better look. He contributed to the club’s well-being. He pulled his weight. Walking slowly, he followed the sprinkles of sand to the mirage beyond, where gooey blacktop shimmered like a waterfall. He had his private thoughts as he stood like a pinprick in the white-out. He hadn’t made contact with his handler in a month. D.E.A. had been so wrong about the Ocotillo Militia. Whatever arrived in the post office box once or twice a month was not — or had not yet — distributed for profit. Thompson’s instincts told him there were no drugs here, only overzealous vigilantes.
How far would you go, to protect your cover? Once the manuals and the badges were put away, that was what some guys on the job wanted to talk about. Over drinks. Over pool. Out of earshot of spouses and lovers.
Thompson never went there. He knew he would go as far as leaving someone cooking out in the sun. But that wasn’t the issue anymore. He wasn’t about D.E.A. These guys were into D.O.A. He was about that, now.
He looked at the kids. They couldn’t have forgotten that these men had killed their parents. It had happened a year ago, six months before Thompson had faked his drunken scene at the Shaft. But what was a year to an eight-year-old boy? And if your mom got murdered by someone with a hot brother, did a teenage girl let time soften her rage? Did the two kids actually believe that their papi had been vampires? Had they been vampires?
Thompson didn’t know that much about kids. But he did know that half of his own soul worked overtime to forget all the death, while the other half ripped incessantly at the scabs so the memories would always stay fresh. The memories had to bleed. Scars were a luxury he couldn’t afford; what kept him in this game was the knowledge that before the vampires and other assorted mutants came, (“mutants” being a favorite term of Bobby’s), life had been shitty and unfair, but it hadn’t been like some page out of Revelation. Not like what was coming. In that respect, he saw the horizon with the same eyes as Bobby. It was the view up close that they disagreed on. Bobby saw vampires crossing the border. Thompson saw people as terrified of starving to death as they were of monsters.
Thompson knew what fear and hunger did to people. He had become D.E.A. because seven-year-old kids O.D.’ed, and honest cops got tortured and hung from freeway overpasses. Whoever said there was no war in the war on drugs was probably in favor of methadone, too.
But in that war, the field of battle was populated by normal people, no matter how low they sank. Horrible things happened because drugs equaled money equaled power, equaled being the ones who did the torturing and killing: human-on-human atrocities.
A new war was brewing, with a whole new brand of enemy. The scientist, Luther Swann, had his theories about what they were and how they had been created. These were normal people who had been victimized. A trigger had been pulled and the result was monsters. It was like they had disabilities. So during the discovery phase, there had been “dialogues” about cures. When no cures were forthcoming, the discussion turned to acceptance and peaceful coexistence, as if vampires and werewolves were just new ingredients in the complicated global-village melting pot. Sure, the “transformed” were aggressive and dangerous, but they didn’t want to be. They needed resources to manage their “situation.” They needed help. The words on the street became “considered tolerance” of the “misunderstood.”
Turned out words were cheap. And meaningless. Which was why Thompson’s temper tantrum at the Shaft attracted Bobby. As it was meant to.
Thompson stirred, aware that Bobby and the other O.M.s except for him and Walker were remounting their bikes. Walker was shaking his head at Manuel, who was throwing a fit of his own.
“I’m going!” Manuel bellowed. Thompson sauntered closer. Little Sister looked irritated as she gathered up his crayons, which were rolling every which-way in the blowback. “They’re hunting!”
“You can hunt when you’re older,” Walker said. He ticked his glance over to Thompson and smiled at him grimly. “If there are any suckers left by then.” Then he spat on the ground.
“We’ll save you one,” Thompson said to Manuel, and Walker chuckled.
“You’re making fun of me. I’m not a little kid!” Manuel cried.
Little Sister snorted, rolling her eyes as she picked up the crayon box and started stuffing the crayons into it. With a roar of fury, Manuel balled his fists and lunged toward her. Sidewinder-quick, Walker shot between them, holding off the boy.
“We don’t hit women,” Walker said. That the O.M.s were so enlightened had been refreshing for Mark Thompson.
Manuel pushed at Walker. “She’s not a woman. She’s a snotty puta —”
“Hey,” Walker said, giving him a light swat on the cheek. “Respect.”
“She’s stupid,” Manuel shouted. Tears ran down his cheeks. “You let her make fun of me. Because you love her!”
“Shut up! He does not!” Little Sister yelled back. Her face was purple. She started to say something else, then darted a glance at Thompson. Throwing the crayons to the ground, she stomped away from the van, perhaps not realizing she was heading toward the corpse. She kept going, ignoring Walker as he ordered her to stop, and her brother as he launched into a barrage of filthy Spanish. Thompson had concealed the fact that he himself was fluent. Understanding every word, he knew then that no one had forgotten anything. Manuel told his sister that their parents were dead because of her, because she was a puta who had let vampires into the house to screw her and then let them bite their mother and father.
Then, as she kept going, Manuel started screaming her name, over and over, Angela, his voice keening and high and scared. It was as if a switch had been thrown. PTSD if Thomson had ever seen it.
Thompson watched her pretending to ignore his barrage. Her back was stiff, her shoulders hunched as if she were going to be sick. So the kids were not alright. He found that reassuring. The situation would be even more wrong if they were.
Aloof was how Thompson always played it about the biker gang. Quiet, standoffish. Just like lying, the simpler you kept your relationships, the easier they were to fake. He was no social worker; Angela and Manuel were not his problem. Still, he worried. Manuel was the only one who still called his sister Angela. She already had a biker name. Before the war, fifteen-year-old girls were old enough. Bobby had made it clear that Little Sister was off-limits, but for how long? Thompson was aware of the men circling, buzzards way out on her horizon, fresh kill or leftovers probably wouldn’t matter that much. Sonrisa and its surrounding desert were so empty these days.
Before Thompson had arrived, there had been another gang, the Desert Kings, and they had old ladies they shared. The O.M.s used to party with them. But then the D.K.s moved on. Thompson wasn’t sure exactly why. Bobby said they got bored, but the way he said it, Thompson knew something else had been involved. Maybe a woman. Maybe the corner on the meth market.
Manuel turned to Thompson. His narrowed his eyes. “Hey, Gingersnap,” he said tartly, mispronouncing Thompson’s nickname, “take me hunting.”
“Respect,” Walker said, pointing a finger at him, then walked off toward Little Sister.
She reached the corpse. Her back to Thompson and her brother, she covered her mouth with both hands, fell to her knees, and began to throw up.
Walker crouched protectively over her, not quite touching her. Thompson filed that away. Manuel bolted toward them, and Thompson considered his options. Choice made, he took off after Manuel, grabbing his wrist and yanking him back. Furious, Manuel started kicking at him. Thompson could have decked him, could have broken his arm or his leg or his spine like a little wax cylinder, but he kept him at bay while the boy thrashed and flailed, spittle flying everywhere.
“You let go of me, asshole! I want to see the dead guy!” he shouted.
He said, “Don’t speak to me like that.”
“I want to see him please,” Manuel said through his teeth, each syllable in admirable self-control.
Holding onto Manuel, Thompson looked over at Walker. “Oh what the hell,” Walker said, shrugging.
“No. He shouldn’t see it!” Little Sister shouted. But Thompson let go of Manuel, who raced over. He fell down onto his knees beside Little Sister as he stared at the dead man. Walker made four, a strange kind of family tableau. Thompson thought of Michelangelo’s La Pietà, the sorrow and the pity. None was here. He kept his distance, peering inside the van for clues as to what had happened to the other travelers. Unless the man had been alone. Maybe the van had broken down and he’d tried to hoof it, curled up beneath the blazing sun, and died.
Am I close? Is that what happened? he asked the vultures as they wheeled above him in the bright blue sky.
They studied him as if to say, Just die, already.
— 2 —
The dead man had no I.D., no wallet, nothing in his pockets but sand. At Walker’s request, Thompson helped him scoop out enough sand to give the body a half-assed burial. They managed to cover all the parts of his body, including his ass. Then Walker lowered his head and murmured a few words he explained were from a prayer for the souls in purgatory. Thompson wasn’t Catholic but he had heard that purgatory had been taken off the menu. But he said nothing, just bowed his head along with Little Sister and Manuel.
Little Sister sang a sad song that Thompson had heard on the radio; she sang it through her nose like a pop star; and the buzzards seemed to ride invisible bouncing balls in the air above each high, whiny note. Little Sister’s thighs were probably baking in the black leather chaps. She stole glances at Walker while Manuel blew air out of his cheeks and dug the tips of his tennis shoes into the sand, as if he wanted to take one more peek.
After she finished singing, Walker bent down, gathered up a handful of sand, and dribbled it onto the mound.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he intoned, despite the absence of both.
In another time and place, Walker would have been nicknamed “Preacher.” He would have worn a flat, broad-brimmed hat and maybe a duster. He might have carried a Bible.