Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom Read online

  After lunch he cleared brush from around the stable and tended the horses. He saddled his mare and rode out to the Circle D's lone oil rig, where he greased the pump and checked the motor. The well produced less than ten barrels a day, but Fiona wanted to do her part to reduce America's reliance on foreign oil. Duncan was glad to tend the pump. He wanted to do his part too. He was riding back to the stable when a flash of sun on metal caught his eye. He reined his horse and circled until he saw the glint again. He followed the reflection across the grass to the edge of what was once a good-sized crater.

  It was not much now, maybe seventy feet across, a shallow, grassy soup bowl in the earth with a rainwater puddle in the middle. Duncan got down from the mare and plucked a silver earring from the grass. It was an inch long and shaped like a jumping trout with small sapphire eyes. He knelt and looked around him, the wet grass soaking unnoticed into his jeans.

  The air force people did a good job cleaning up after the crash, but in the twelve years since, Duncan had found numerous jagged metal pieces and Plexiglass shards and lengths of melted wire. When he was ten, he found a tooth there. He had cried until Woody convinced him it was a buffalo molar. That took some time, because it was a big tooth, and Duncan remembered his father as a giant. He had not gone there for a long time after because of the things he might find.

  But the scorched earth had grown back green and twelve winters had washed the rocks clean and neither grass nor rocks had been black for years. All that remained of the crash was a grassy rut where the jet had plowed the prairie, leading to a dent in the earth where it finally exploded in a brilliant, futile burst. Duncan dropped the earring in his pocket, mounted the mare, and started back to the house.

  Duncan had just walked through the front door when he heard the Purgatory Truck turn off the highway. He popped two beers and stepped onto the porch. Benjamin braked in a dusty whirlwind and leaped out. He stopped when he reached the porch steps.

  “Jesus God!” Benjamin declared. “And Fiona says I stink!”

  Duncan gave him a beer and went to his room. The earring fell from his pocket when he took off his jeans. He set it beside a picture of him and Tiffy taken at the rodeo when they were high school seniors. Neither had changed much since, though Duncan shaved twice a week now instead of twice a year, and Tiffy spent more on clothes. He went into his bathroom, turned on the water, and stepped under the shower. He soaped and rinsed and dried himself with a thick, lavender-scented towel. He called Tiffy but she still did not answer. He put on clean jeans, got his beer, and went outside. Benjamin sat on the porch, his lips stretched and showing teeth like a hungry coyote.

  Duncan sat beside him. “What are you so happy about?”

  Benjamin laid six one-hundred dollar bills on the porch.

  Duncan looked up. “Who'd you rob this time?”

  “Nobody. That's for your painting of my family!”

  Benjamin handed a card to Duncan. Angela Moncini, Artists' Agent, it said in a fine black script. The address above the phone number was on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

  “She wants you to call her.” Benjamin closed his eyes. “She is beautiful as the night and smells like rain.” He opened his eyes and his smile faded. “I think I love her.”

  Benjamin threw his beer high into the yard. The bottle hit the dirt with a thud and rolled in the dust. It stopped in a beetle’s path. The oppressed insect tarried and contemplated this new impediment in the immutable course of its existence.

  “But I do not wish to speak of it,” Benjamin said.

  “All right.”

  Duncan picked the bottle up. The beetle slowly and with vast dignity went on its way.

  “I would, however, like another beer.”

  “These were the last.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  Duncan thought hard. He considered what would happen if he left and what would happen if he stayed. The first prospect terrified him and the second was depressing.

  “It's not a trick question,” Benjamin said.

  Duncan made up his mind. “Go to Los Angeles.”

  “What I meant was what are you going to do about the beer.”

  “Oh.” Duncan stood. “Well, go get some, I guess.”

  He went inside and put on his new Italian boots, a t-shirt, and a brown leather jacket. He stopped at the door and went back to get his Stetson.

  “Nice hat,” Benjamin said when Duncan got in the truck.

  “Birthday present from Fiona.”

  “No kidding.” Benjamin slipped the truck into gear. “The bitch did something nice for a change, didn't she?”

  “Yup.” Duncan pulled the hat down over his eyes. “She sure did.”

  “I parked on Highway Thirty a few miles east of Medicine Bow,” Benjamin told Duncan on the way to town. “It's always been a good spot to catch tourists heading for Cheyenne. I set the cowboy painting against a fender and sat in a folding chair in the shade of my truck. No one stopped the first hour, so I leaned the painting against the other fender and moved my chair. No one stopped the second hour, so I set the painting in the chair and leaned against the fender. When no one stopped the third hour I began to worry. Your work always sold within thirty minutes. Then it came to me. It was karma. I told you I would sell both paintings. The lie worked against me. I smacked myself on the forehead. It hurt, but I deserved it.”

  “Don't think I don't appreciate that,” Duncan said.

  “I leaned the picture of my family against my bumper,” Benjamin continued. “Just as I sat down a woman in a Mercedes roared past. She wore dark glasses, but from her profile I could tell that she was beautiful. Brake lights came on. I sat up. She made a U-turn. I stood. She stopped across the highway. I carried your paintings to her.

  “She was tall and her hair was dark. Her lips were thin but her mouth was wide and her bones supported a body bordering on amazing. She looked to be forty, but a good forty.

  “‘My penis is a rattler striking in the night,’ I told her.

  “‘One of those Zen Indian sayings no doubt.’ Her voice was wind across a deep lake.

  “‘Arapaho,’ I told her.

  “‘Gesundheit,’ she said.

  “She pointed at the painting of my family. She told me she only had six hundred, and asked me if that would do. I took the money and gave her the painting. I swam in her gray eyes.

  “‘I want to be your love slave,’ I said.

  “‘Thank you,’ she replied, ‘but that won't be necessary.’

  “She gave me her business card and told me to have you come see her in Los Angeles. I stood in the center of the highway and watched her drive away. Death in the form of a semi hauling melons from California to Nebraska missed me by inches, its horn a blast of hot wind. I took the hint and got out of Death's way and went back to the Purgatory Truck.

  “I doused your black velvet painting of me and Woody with gasoline and threw it on the asphalt. I touched a match to it and watched it burn. Then I got in the Purgatory Truck and headed for the Circle D.” Benjamin shrugged. “Now you know as much as I do.”

  “Wrong,” Duncan said, “I finished high school.”

  Benjamin pulled into the parking lot of a Lazy Rancher Market and shut off the engine. They got out and went inside. Benjamin stood by the door and stared at the clerk, a fat, balding man of forty-five with a raw neck and a tattoo of a snake on his forearm. His name was Leroy Kern, and ten years before he had accused Benjamin of stealing a Milky Way, beating him with a yardstick when he could not find the candy bar. Nothing came of it. Benjamin had been picked up for shoplifting before.

  If he didn't rate a beating today, the sheriff had said, he'll rate one tomorrow.

  “What's his problem?” Leroy Kern asked Duncan. He had forgotten about the Milky Way a long time past.

  “Beats me.”

  Duncan was not feeling particularly verbose. He was upset that Benjamin had burned the cowboy and Indian painting. He took
a case of beer from the cooler and a cheese pizza from the freezer. He grabbed a bag of corn chips and went to the counter. Leroy Kern rang him up.

  “Tell him I got a gun,” he said, one eye on Benjamin.

  Duncan took a box of miniature chocolate donuts from a rack beside the counter and put it with the beer. He glanced at Benjamin.

  “He's got a gun,” he said. Benjamin kept staring.

  “I'm not afraid to use it neither. Killed a punk who came in here four years ago.”

  He held up a yellowed newspaper clipping containing a photograph of Leroy Kern behind the counter, a smirk on his gap-toothed face and a forty-five Colt in his hand. Blood Bath at the Lazy Rancher, the caption said.

  “Did I ever show you this?”

  “Only about twenty-seven times.”

  Leroy Kern put the clipping back under the counter and held up the chips. “You see how much these were?”

  “One ninety-nine.”

  Leroy Kern rang up the chips. “He was a heroin addict from New York on his way to lotus land to play guitar in a rock band. He pulled a knife and I blew his brains across the dairy section. Three rounds between the eyes. You tell him that.”

  Duncan looked at Benjamin. “He heard you,” he said, “but he doesn't seem to care.”

  “Well, he ought to. That'll be twenty-nine thirty-five.”

  Duncan paid and took his change. Benjamin left and got in the truck. Leroy Kern looked miserable.

  “Every time he comes in here he stares like that. It bugs the hell out of me. One day I'm going to put a stop to it. You tell him that.”

  Duncan picked up the beer and groceries. He stopped at the door. “That wouldn't be smart.”

  “You think I'm scared of him?” Leroy Kern's breath came in ragged bursts. His eyes were wide and his face cherry red. The artist in Duncan appreciated the color. “You tell that shit-ass punk the next time he comes in here I'll blow his head off!”

  “Ok,” Duncan said as he left, “your funeral.”

  Two

  “Sure it has a lot of miles,” Smiling Jack Sweeney said, “but that just means the engine's wore in proper.”

  Duncan and Benjamin stood beside a white sixty-nine Volkswagen mini-bus beneath a cool morning sun. A diverse multitude of used cars in various states of repair were parked about them. A flaking billboard manifesting Smiling Jack's face soared over them. The Smiling Jack keeping vigil from above had manhole sized nostrils, most of his original teeth and hair, and looked thirty years younger than the worn and wrinkled gnome in the cowboy hat beside them.

  “How much?” Duncan asked.

  They had spent the previous night celebrating his first real sale, and he had a hangover twice the size of his Stetson. Smiling Jack kicked a wheel with the steel tip of a shiny white snake skin boot.

  “Brand-new radials,” he said.

  Benjamin examined the tires. “Retreads.”

  “How much?” Duncan repeated.

  His brain hurt and a foul taste resided beneath his tongue. He was in no mood for haggling. Smiling Jack pushed his white cowboy hat back. The act deviated his toupee an inch.

  “Look here.” He opened the engine hatch. “Rebuilt engine.”

  Benjamin contemplated the oil dripping onto the asphalt. “Needs a head gasket.”

  “Damn it,” Duncan said, “would you please tell me how much?”

  Smiling Jack grasped the lapels of his white coat and looked thoughtful. “I see your friend knows cars, boy. Tell you what.” Smiling Jack hawked up something green and spat. “Seven hundred and it’s yours.”

  “Seven hundred!” Duncan exclaimed.

  “And that’s one hell of a deal.”

  Duncan despaired. The night before, somewhere between the last ding dong and the third six-pack, he had extracted the shoe box from beneath his bed. When he finished counting, he had clutched less than half the three thousand he had expected to find. He had forgotten about a ski trip to Jackson Hole he treated Tiffy to the previous winter.

  “We'll give you five.” Benjamin said.

  “I like your people.” Smiling Jack smelled a deal. He took a half-smoked cigar from his pocket and proceeded to re-ignite it. “So I'll let it go for six.”

  Benjamin smiled back. “Four.”

  Smiling Jack frowned. He normally did not do that, and he did not want to set precedent, but he felt he must impart to these young men the seriousness of their error.

  “You got the concept wrong, boy. I set a price, you make an offer, we meet in the middle.” Smiling Jack smiled again. “Understandee?”

  Benjamin took out his Bowie knife and commenced cleaning his fingernails. Smiling Jack stopped smiling. Smiling Jack went pale.

  Here we go, Duncan thought.

  “Three,” Benjamin said.

  Smiling Jack swallowed hard. Conroy, his other salesman, was on the far end of the lot showing a forty-seven year old middle school teacher a seventy-two Volvo. Conroy carried a single-action Beretta semi-auto, but even if he were standing there Smiling Jack would have a hard time defining the threat, and you could not just launch bullets at an Indian for nothing anymore anyhow. A shimmer of sweat grew on his upper lip. He considered the fact that he paid one hundred and fifty for the van three weeks ago and that it had sat on his lot oozing oil since.

  “Fine,” Smiling Jack said. “Three. And I'll throw in a case of thirty weight.”

  “And a tank of gas,” Duncan said. It was to be his car. He wanted to participate.

  “Sure,” Smiling Jack said. “Why not?”

  A mechanic loaded the oil and filled the tank. Duncan traded cash for pink slip and key and started the bus in a smoky blue cloud. Benjamin got in the Purgatory Truck and followed him off the lot. Smiling Jack fanned his face with his hat as he watched them drive away. Conroy came over and took a pewter flask from his jacket. He removed the cap and held the flask to his lips, then proffered it to Smiling Jack. Smiling Jack took a long pull and screwed the cap back on.

  “And they say we stole from the Indian,” he muttered.

  Tiffy was sitting on her porch swing next to Danny Carpenter when Duncan pulled into the Bradshaw's yard. Danny had loved Tiffy ever since that incident in kindergarten when she kissed him in the coat closet during nap time. After that, Danny made sure Tiffy never lacked graham crackers or milk, but to his abiding frustration, nothing else ever came of it. Or so Tiffy maintained. Duncan trusted her. Duncan trusted everyone, though some, like Danny, he liked to keep one eye on.

  Tiffy's blond hair was lightened, but her enormous brown eyes were real, and her teeth were responsible for three of her orthodontist's most recent nocturnal emissions. Her face and smile were all Wyoming but her body was pure Hollywood mud wrestler. Duncan held that opinion because once, when he was sixteen and a run away from the reservation, Benjamin had mailed Duncan a postcard from the Hollywood Tropicana. Duncan had studied the card intently before Fiona confiscated it with a long, sad commentary on Benjamin’s abundant lack of character. The card depicted numerous tanned and oiled women whose synthetic breasts strained the limits of string bikinis. Tiffy resembled that, but without the oil and silicon.

  “Hey, Duncan,” Danny said.

  Danny was five ten in boots and pushing two hundred and fifty pounds. He had bad skin and a round, not quite ugly face, but his daddy liberally shared his thick wallet with his son, and that went a long way to equalize his social standing. As usual, he looked nervous.

  “Take a hike,” Duncan said.

  “Sure.” Danny got up and left.

  “That was rude,” Tiffy said.

  “I get tired of him sniffing around you all the time.”

  She turned her head when he bent to kiss her. His lips brushed a surprisingly cold cheek. He took Danny’s place on the swing.

  “Sorry about Saturday,” he said. “I got wrapped up painting.”

  Tiffy aimed a neon pink nail at the van. “Whose is that?”

  “Mine. What do you think?”<
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  “Well, I think you better move it. It's leaking oil. Daddy will be mad if you stain the driveway. He's proud of his concrete.”

  Duncan moved the van to the street. He returned to the porch and took off his hat. A picture of a cowboy holding a hat full of water for his thirsty horse was screened onto the Stetson’s white satin lining. He had not noticed that before. The portrayal’s humanity made him smile.

  “What the hell did you buy that thing for anyway?”

  “Fiona gave it to me.”

  “Why on earth would Fiona give you a wreck like that?”

  “What?” Duncan spotted the misunderstanding and moved swiftly to rectify it. “No. Fiona gave me the hat. I bought the bus.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “I’m moving to Los Angeles. To paint.”

  Tiffy laughed. “And fish have testicles.”

  That threw Duncan. He was not sure if fish were so equipped.

  “I’m serious, Tiffy,” he finally said.

  “Let’s see if I have this right,” Tiffy said. “You’re moving to California, despite the fact that if you do your mother will cut you off but good.”

  Duncan put his hat back on. “That about sums it up.”

  “Duncan Delaney, you’re not going anywhere least of all California. So just get that idea out of your head. I suspect you’ll die in Cheyenne like the rest of us.”

  “Which would be fine if that was what I wanted. I love you, Tiffy, but I’m going. I want you to come with me.”

  Tiffy initiated a laugh, but something in Duncan’s eyes stopped her cold.

  “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Duncan said. “Yes, I am.”

  Tiffy punched him with such authority that his hat flew off and he fell backwards over the swing into a bed of posies. He had not been sucker punched in a long time and, coming from the girl he loved, it was a revelation. He shook his head and looked up. Tiffy stood over him, a terrible Valkyrie with retribution flashing like strobe lights in her eyes.