 
### Run Billy Boy Run

### Book Two: Flying High

By Neil Ackerman

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2013

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Adult Reading Material

Author's Note:

_Run Billy Boy Run_ is divided into four books:

Book One: _A Job for a Specialist._

Book Two: _Flying High._

Book Three: _The Confluence of Disorder._

Book Four: _Billy Boy._

Filled with a host of offbeat characters Book Two introduces two "unheroes" Vernon Pickle and Oscar Pum. The misfits enter the Grand Canyon not by choice but are chased into the canyon by a deranged murderer. While there Oscar meets a "beautiful vision."

CHAPTER 1: VERNON PICKLE

Vernon Pickle turned twenty-two on the sixteenth of April, 2002, and used the occasion to rob a liquor store called the Palace of Poison in his hometown of Prescott, Arizona. It was his first robbery and earned him a dubious distinction.

Brandishing a starter's pistol he contorted his unusual face (his nose was too large and his ears protruded too far) into a menacing snarl and pushed through the door of the liquor store on North Montezuma Street, a questionable part of town where people of pedigree were seldom seen.

A menacing snarl was a stretch for Vernon. He had practiced in the mirror with less than convincing results. The clerk initially feared that the young man erratically waving a gun in the air was about to be sick, and he hurriedly removed from the counter an open jar of Beef Stixs.

On Vernon's first attempt to speak his head jerked and his mouth opened, but he was only able to extend his tongue ejecting an undecipherable noise in the process. The gesture reminded the clerk of a cat expelling a hairball, except the man with the gun displayed far less grace and sophistication.

A rattled Vernon Pickle tried to collect himself: _Voice, have to work on voice; stay focused; BE DECISIVE, EYE CONTACT, FIRM VOICE._ To Vernon Pickle these were the three critical elements of a successful holdup . . . and a gun . . . or something that would reasonably pass for a gun. This much he had gleaned from a web site entitled _Armed Robbery for Idiots._

Struggling to regain control, he closed his eyes, pressed a skinny finger to his temple, and repeated the mantra in his head, _BE DECISIVE, EYE CONTACT, FIRM VOICE_. Finally Vernon blurted out, "Gim'me da cash!"

The first sounds out of Vernon's mouth, the unintelligible sounds, only reinforced in the mind of the clerk that the young man was, indeed, about to vomit. But when Vernon provided clarification about wanting cash only, the clerk seemed thankful to learn that the impending transaction was merely financial and nothing more. Raising his hands shoulder high he asked respectfully, "Pardon me, Sir, but . . . ah . . . plastic okay?"

Vernon cleared his throat, riveted his eyes onto those of the clerk, and demanded coldly and without hesitation, "Okay!" _BE DECISIVE, EYE CONTACT, FIRM VOICE._

When the clerk handed him a plastic bag full of money, Vernon Pickle thought: _This is too easy. Why did I wait so long to get started?_

"Hu . . . hu . . . hold on," Vernon stuttered and scanned the shelves behind the counter. "And a bottle of Scotch."

"Can't," the clerk said calmly but emphatically while lowering his arms a bit.

"What?"

"You're obviously not twenty-one."

Vernon seemed to forget about the startering pistol, which he now held limply in his hand. "I am too!"

"No, you're not," the clerk shook his head and folded his arms across his chest.

Vernon stammered making no reply. _Decisive contact, be voice, firm eye._ He repeated the mantra in his head, but this time the words seemed to twist and turn and collide with one another much like the bumper cars at the Yavapai County Fair.

The clerk had sized up the tongue-tied robber as essentially harmless when he noticed the red plug that sealed the gun's barrel. Having been an assistant track coach, he was familiar with the starting pistol's common safety feature "Look Buddy, I've been cited twice this month for sellin' liquor to a minor. One more time, I lose my license, permanent."

"But I AM!" Vernon Pickle lied about most things, but damn, this time he was telling the truth.

Arms crossed, the clerk stood his ground and denied Vernon the Scotch once again.

_The man did have a point_ , the unfortunate robber conceded as a familiar hopelessness began to seep into his brain. All the Pickles were short and looked younger than they actually were.

"But I . . ."

"Kid, no way you're walking outta here with a bottle of Scotch unless you can prove you're twenty-one."

Vernon lost his edge, and he vainly tried to regroup. _Be decisive, eye contact, and what was that other thing?_ He thought as he reached for his wallet. Twenty-two-year-old Vernon Pickle managed a disdainful sneer and produced a disgusted "Humph," when the clerk learned that he had been wrong.

The celebrant got his bottle of Scotch, and it turned out to be a memorable birthday. Later a cop arrested him in the living room of the double wide he shared with his parents. He had not seen it coming.

His mother and father were watching TV, and each took time out to call him "Dumb Ass" during a commercial break. As Vernon was being taken from the room in handcuffs, his mother said to the departing officer, "Twenty-five years we've been married, and he's all we have to show for it." She then attempted a shrug intended to portray her disgust, but in the process only managed to spill her beer.

Meanwhile his father, annoyed by the interruption, kept his eyes glued to the television and adjusted the volume upward with the remote.

* * *

Vernon Pickle turned out to be a model prisoner and came very close to passing his G.E.D. Eventually, he was placed in the correctional center's Auto Body Repair Program and was surprised to discover that he liked working on damaged cars. He was quite good at it too. They gave him a certificate and gave him something else that he had not gotten much of in the past: praise. With credit for good behavior he was back on the street in time to celebrate his twenty-fourth birthday.

Pickle was a better person behind bars, and he claimed it was due to the fact that on the outside he was always in trouble with the "ladies." Substitute the word "alcohol" for the word "ladies" and one would have been closer to the truth; in actual fact, Vernon repelled members of the opposite sex. Even with pockets stuffed with hundred-dollar bills, he would have had trouble getting laid in a whorehouse for Vernon Pickle had the uncanny ability to consistently say the wrong thing.

Just being near a woman would send his brain into a synaptic frenzy resulting in an inevitable overload. When clever conversation was called for, his mind would go blank, and the expanding pool of silence triggered panic. That is when it would happen.

Out of the blue statements like "Yeh can't really get warts from a toad" were not beyond him. And once he asked a pretty brunette if she thought Andre the Giant could win in a fight with an anaconda. She looked at him blankly then shook her head in astonishment, and he misunderstood her confusion and said, "Nah, me neither."

In the twenty months he'd spent in prison he had only one visitor and had received only one letter. Both the visit and the letter were from his Aunt Pauline of Payson. She was just two years older than he, so they treated each other more like cousins, and, relative or no relative, she was the only female he did not repel and who did not set off Vernon's verbal seizures.

Most of her visit was spent comparing tattoos, and as she had far more and in far more interesting places than he, their conversation attracted the attention of several of the other prisoners who were in the visiting room that day.

Pauline's letter came right before Christmas and included a short note and a hand-drawn card. On the card was a masturbating Santa. Until then he had not realized that his aunt was an artist.

The note began "Dear Asshole," (she seldom called him Vernon but alternated between Asshole and Shit Head. These terms she considered endearments and held in reserve for those lucky enough to be members of her inner circle). The inscription read, "Santa's pretty busy here at the Pole and sure could use an extra hand." Pauline was his favorite Aunt.

After the botched holdup and while Vernon was awaiting trial, the _Prescott Times-Picayune_ turned the hold-up at The Palace of Poison into a big deal, and, further made Pickle out to be an idiot. _Unbelievable._ Vernon shook his head as he read the article and looked at the accompanying photo featuring the arresting officer and the liquor store clerk, both doubled over in laughter. _UN-BE-lievable_.

Pickle's reputation took another hit one month later. Someone sent the newspaper article to the _Tonight Show_ in care of Jay Leno. Leno leaned and turned toward the band, "Kevin, you know what I love?"

"Stupid criminals."

Vernon Pickle watched the TV in horror. _UN-FUCKING-BE-lievable!_

CHAPTER 2: OSCAR PUM AND THE RED DOG

After release from prison Vernon's return to Prescott did not produce the happy reunion that he had anticipated. In fact Vernon was received with the same warmness that one normally reserves for a turd in the punch bowl.

Unlike the Payson Pickles (his father had a low opinion of the Payson branch of the Pickle tree), the Prescott Pickles were proud. They were self-righteous and unforgiving as well, and Vernon had cast a dark shadow upon their house (make that modular home)—a shadow that loomed every bit as large as their monthly mortgage payment. And, try as he might, young Pickle could make neither shadow nor installment go away.

In town Vernon had attained a degree of notoriety. Children on bikes frequently stopped and pointed. He would hear them whisper, "There's that dumb ass Vernon Pickle. Show'd his I.D. durin' a stick-up."

"Yeah, I heard about that guy."

"He looks like a moron, don't he?"

Then they would pedal off in a flurry as if stupidity was contagious and Vernon was the Typhoid Mary of "dumb."

And so with a touch of sadness and with very little fanfare Vernon moved to Flagstaff. Still he was glad to be a Pickle, and he held his head high. But as Prescott faded in his rearview mirror, he decided that, if ever asked, he would say that he hailed from Payson, Arizona.

On his twenty-fourth birthday Vernon was alone drinking shots of cheap whiskey and chasing them with beer in Flagstaff's Red Dog Saloon. He liked what he saw of Flagstaff. Sure, it was colder and the air was thinner, but he could walk down the street and not be called "Dumb Ass."

While watching the streams of bubbles rising through his beer, he pondered to himself: _Why would anybody want to be a celebrity?_ And he started feeling sorry for guys like Brad Pitt.

Behind the bar was a large mirror, which allowed Vernon to sneak looks at patrons without being detected. He could eavesdrop and spy on the people doing the talking. Taped to the mirror was the picture of another celebrity of sorts, the wanted poster of the fugitive Billy Boy Burk.

Smiling Billy's rugged face stared out at the Red Dog's greasy clientele, and Vernon Pickle could not help but envy the murderer and his wild, good looks. _It's safe to say nobody calls Billy a dumb ass and gets away with it,_ Vernon said to himself sadly—his silent declaration contained a hint of personal denunciation.

In fact people in the Red Dog had nothing but good things to say concerning the slippery Billy Boy. Earlier Pickle overheard a mahogany-faced gentleman dressed in blue jeans and a buckskin vest two stools down say that he knew somebody who knew someone else who was acquainted with Billy back when Billy lived in Winslow. Said Burk was a quiet guy, and kept to himself. In twenty years he hadn't caused a lick of trouble and volunteered most weekends at the local Humane Society.

Shortly after that a lady with green hair and a lacy shawl three stools in the other direction said she heard that the man that Burk killed had worked for the Bureau of Land Management, and she said it in such a way as to imply that killing a BLM official didn't count so much as murder but was an offense more on the order of overdue library books. The old man she talked to nodded in agreement.

The Red Dog did a steady business on Friday nights. People were constantly coming and going. Vernon looked up from his beer. The stool to his right was the only empty seat in the house, and he was having trouble getting the bar tender's attention.

As he leaned forward and waved a hand to order more drinks, he became vaguely aware that someone had settled on the adjacent bar stool. He detected the smell of paint but paid it no mind until a new shot and a new beer were in front of him.

Earlier that day Pickle had gotten a tattoo on his upper right arm, his third in all, and though it was a cold day and where he sat at the bar was too close to the door and too far from the heat vent, he wore a short-sleeved tee shirt hoping that people would notice. The arm had been tender, but after two beer-shot combinations, he felt a warm whiskey glow and no discomfort whatsoever.

Vernon looked in the mirror then glanced to his right. _That dudes' big!_ He had just observed, when it registered—the paint smell. Vernon had smelled that exact same odor five days a week for thirteen months. _The dude works in a body shop_ , he said to himself with a degree of satisfaction.

_I should get to know him, buy him a drink maybe_. Vernon's mind was working, mulling over the possibilities. He needed a job, and he had a certificate issued by the State of Arizona saying he was qualified to do auto body repair.

* * *

To Oscar Pum the strange little guy next to him at the bar of the Red Dog was a nuisance at first . . . wired too tight for his taste . . . drinking shots . . . talking shit about Jay Leno. And that new tattoo, Oscar thought it looked like a dog turd with wings. He kept stealing glances at it to make certain.

Pum came into the Red Dog on Fridays after work for one thing only—to sit at the bar and drink beer until closing. It was not Oscar's nature to talk much. After four or five beers, he could manage a little conversation, and even then he rarely used whole sentences. But the curious tattoo was too much. So after beer number three, Oscar flat out asked, "New tat?"

Vernon Pickle sat up a little straighter, happy that someone had noticed. "Yeah, got it today," he said as he glanced at his upper arm still reddish and angry looking.

"What is it?"

"It's a gherkin."

"A what?"

"A gherkin—a pickle. That's my name."

"Your name is Gherkin?"

"No Pickle. Vernon Pickle . . .so I had a pickle tattooed . . .," Vernon watched Oscar's face go blank.

The big guy with short, dark hair, simian forehead, and the smell of paint leaned over to inspect the flying gherkin—got his face five inches from the new tattoo, a little too close as far as Vernon was concerned.

"Oh yeah, a pickle!" Oscar's face erupted in a smile as his brain crossed out dog turd and replaced it with pickle. Now it was as plain as day. "A Coat of Arms."

"Say again?"

And Oscar Pum began a long explanation—long for him anyway. "A Coat of Arms. It's like a family's symbol. Um, winged pickle . . . might be you're on the move . . . or . . . flyin' high . . ." The big guy leaned back, looked up toward the ceiling, nodded, and appeared extremely pleased with himself.

"Flyin' high, that's me alright." Vernon gave a short laugh. But he liked the idea—The Pickle Coat of Arms. The only other one could be found on Aunt Pauline's upper thigh, and he recalled the thrill that went through him the first time he saw it.

"Name's Oscar Pum. From Texas . . . originally. Live here now."

The big guy extended a hand the size of a catcher's mitt, which Vernon shook, saying he was from Payson and added, "It's in Arizona."

Oscar nodded and simultaneously issued an, "Umm," then drained the glass that had rested in front of him.

Pum's short, black hair started in the front an inch lower than the average person's, giving strangers the impression that the man from Texas had very little in the way of forehead—a physical feature that likewise lent him a certain " _aire de Neanderthal_ " quality and the appearance that Oscar and his kin had not yet acquired the ability to paint pictures of animals on the walls of caves.

His bushy eyebrows were like two hairy, black caterpillars, which had parked a little too close to one another, and their proximity to his coal-black eyes fooled many into thinking that Oscar Pum possessed a malevolent nature. While in actual fact there was not a mean bone in the big man's body. He was laid back and as gentle as a kitten unless riled. And fortunately Oscar Pum was slow to rile.

Although they were physical opposites, it turned out that Vernon and Oscar had a lot in common—beer for starters. They were content to drink all night, which is exactly what they proceeded to do. And it did not escape Oscar that for a little guy this new acquaintance could absorb quite a bit of the amber liquid, a quality that in the Red Dog, affords one high social standing.

Jerry Springer was another interest that the two shared, and altogether they spent three hours recounting "Springer Classics." At one point Vernon jumped off his bar stool, and acted out two transvestites playing tug-a-war with a wig while Oscar pounded the bar and laughed.

As Vernon regained his bar stool wiping tears from his eyes he asked, "You remember da midget who . . . who had half of a Bible verse tattooed on his arm and . . . and da midget's twin was supposed ta get da utter half done on his, . . . but . . . but . . ."

When the little man could no longer speak tongue-tied as he was by laughter, Oscar Pum picked up the story mid-sentence and finished for his new friend, ". . . Den da utter twin went Buddhist or sometin' and changed his mind."

"Dat was . . . (HEE-HEE. . . COUGH) . . . dat was some fight (SNORT, SNORT, SNORT . . .)," Vernon waxed nostalgically. Tears blurred his vision, and he coughed sending a mouthful of beer to travel the maze of his sinus passages triggering a series of nasal sounds similar to the mating call of a Wart Hog, a sound seldom heard in Northern Arizona correspondingly turning several heads. By some miracle a small amount of the sudsy liquid completed the journey and trickled out of Pickle's generous nostrils.

Before the evening was over, the man from the "House of the Flying Gherkin" made sure that Oscar Pum knew that he held a certificate in Auto Body Repair. To which Oscar responded, "Yeh know what? I got one too. 'Cept in Texas it's called Collision Repair Technology. Yeh had ta learn ta spell it too." Then pausing, he added sadly, "Wisht it would'a been called Auto Body. I almost didn' pass."

Vernon looked up at Oscar, not sure if he was serious. Then the big guy broke into a smile and laughed long and hard. Sometime during the long, hard laughter, Oscar gave Vernon a good-natured slap on the back.

Now Oscar was not one to laugh much—the Pums of south Texas being a dour bunch. You might even say that laughter was new to Oscar, but somehow, this small guy with big ears and an over-sized nose could make him laugh and did make him laugh. Why Oscar himself even cracked a joke. Such a thing would have been unheard of in the Pum household when Oscar was a boy and would have been received with silence and vacant stares.

Likewise, it wasn't everyday that Oscar gave people "good-natured slaps," and unfortunately he was very much out of practice. Not knowing his own strength, the slap nearly "dethroned" Vernon, who, being on the receiving end, wondered if the bar stool seat belt had been invented.

After six hours in the Red Dog, drinking the equivalent of a case a beer apiece, and listening the entire time to one Country song after another (and sometimes the same one over and over and over), the two heroes began to reflect on their past lives . . . opportunities not taken . . . mistakes made . . . time served.

Vernon confessed to robbing the Palace of Poison. Of course, he left some things out and added others. The version he told Oscar had a woman in it. She wore a red dress, had been a cheerleader, and was morally rather "casual" allowing Vernon Pickle certain "liberties" as often as he requested. Oscar thought _nearsighted_ as well but did not say it out loud.

Oscar Pum too had a misunderstanding with the police. He and a cousin (another Pum) had robbed a Panda Express in Brownsville, Texas.

" . . . and that's why I'll never smoke marijuana again," the big guy said in conclusion.

It turned out that he and the cousin had smoked all afternoon. They entered the Panda Express, each armed with a rock that had been part of the restaurant's half-hearted attempt at landscaping. Two minutes later the bandits were seen running across the parking lot each carrying a large stainless steal serving pan. His partner's pan contained Beef with Broccoli. Oscar's held Szechuan Pork (he had wanted Sweet and Sour Chicken but was told that he would have had to wait).

Since they did quite a bit of sloshing as they ran, it was not hard for the police to track them down. On the second page of the _Brownsville Herald_ was a picture of the cousins in custody, and underneath a cruel headline announced, "Neanderthal Bandits Prefer Chinese." Oscar looked embarrassed when he admitted this. Vernon sympathized knowing what that was like, feeling the big guy's pain.

The Red Dog quit serving at 2:00 A.M. Shortly after, Vernon and Oscar stood in the parking lot. It was cold. Cars and pickups were pulling out and heading elsewhere.

Pickle looked at Pum and asked, "Say, yeh know where a fella like me, yeh know . . . er . . . with a record and all dat, could get a job? Body work mostly."

Oscar pointed. Vernon turned around. Next to the Red Dog was a sign painted on a building, "H & H Auto Body."

"It's where I work."

"Dey hiring?"

"Rosco violated parole and is on his way back ta Florence right now. Come by Monday. Talk ta Old Hector."

"Old Hector," Vernon Pickle repeated. "Hey, thanks!" Next the little man flashed a thumbs up and added, "Flyin' high."

Oscar nodded and drove off in a rusty pickup with a large plastic tank of some sort mounted in the back.

Vernon stood in the parking lot alone, and looking up at the clear night sky, the man with the new flying gherkin tattoo said to himself: _It just seems like there's more stars here than there is at home, but, damn, is it ever cold!_ And shivering, he walked over to his car and took off a little too fast, imagining that the cheerleader in the red dress was curled up beside him.

CHAPTER 3: H & H AUTO BODY, April 19, Three Days Later

Housed in a concrete block building H & H Auto Body accommodated three bays in the front and another three in the back. The place was airy in the summer with the bay doors thrown open. Breezes would carry the plume of particulates emanating from the body shop as far as Ponderosa Avenue to the north and across Interstate 40 to the south. The trees in the vacant lot behind the building had died long ago, and their remains reminded Vernon of skeletons. Only the toughest weeds survived huddling up against the building and crowding along the perimeter's chain link fence—bull thistle, resinbush, and Sahara mustard, species uniquely tolerant to spray paint.

On the front of the building facing Old Route 66, "H & H AUTO BODY," was announced prominently above the bay doors in red paint. "Free Estimates," was included as a dark blue afterthought.

Gravel lots occupied both front and back. The back lot served mainly as junkyard with rusting parts strewn about in no recognizable order; window glass gone and resting on blocks was the shell of a '55 Chevy; it sufficed as a bastion for an assortment of defiant weeds holding out against the body shop's daily chemical assault.

Vernon noted with pleasure that a large number of the cars were waiting their turn to be repaired. His chances for employment looked good. Flagstaff's winter snow and ice produced an annual crop of dented fenders that were enough to keep the community's body shops busy through June; drunk drivers saw to the remaining six months of the year.

Near the front gate, sitting on a raked platform, was a stock car with an enormous "66" painted on each side and "H & H AUTO BODY" displayed proudly across the hood. "We give Free Estimates," appeared on its trunk, the last thing that a spectator would see as the car tore around a track. The tilted platform left the impression that number sixty-six was speeding on a banked oval.

Vernon drove his '71 Dodge Dart through the open gate, leaving a trail of blue smoke in his wake and causing those viewing from a distance to wonder if the City of Flagstaff had initiated a mosquito abatement program. He parked out of sight on the side of the building; the car coughed and sputtered when he turned off the ignition, but the engine refused to quit. Finally, the Dart belched twice, then died exhaling a large cloud of odious vapor.

Pickle walked around front and passed the open bays, inhaling the fouled air coming from within like it was the essence of spring, and the "whirring" of the pneumatic wrenches was the song of birds arriving from their winter homes in the mountains of Central and South America. A sign that read "Office" hung above a door in the far corner of the white building, and he headed in that direction.

Vernon wore faded jeans and a tee shirt with the arms removed to expose the Pickle Coat of Arms. Earlier he'd stood in front of the bathroom mirror admiring his new tattoo. The cheerleader in the red dress stood beside him and stroked his "flying gherkin" while passionately crying out, "Oh Vernon!" All together the stroking lasted five minutes, then she disappeared quite abruptly.

If one looked close enough, Pickle's tee shirt still bore the message: "1998 Arizona Rope and Ride, August 19-23, Prescott." His mother had picked it up at a local thrift store where she purchased most of the family's "special occasion" clothing.

To adorn his head Vernon Pickle had selected his lucky ball cap, which he had worn almost continuously for the better part of a decade (except for the months of incarceration), a fact that could have been easily deduced at a glance.

The cap had recently survived a run-in with his landlady's dog, a rat-sized Yorkshire terrier with painted nails and rhinestone collar. As the dog named Rascal tore into and violently shook Vernon's headgear, the landlady made a face and yelled, "Rascal, you let go of that dirty thing!"

A minute later his landlady, wishing she owned a pair of long-handled tongs, handed Vernon his mangled hat. The ball cap now sported a quarter-sized hole on the front edge of its bill and was missing the letter "E" from the logo that had originally spelled out "DUDE," a popular manufacturer of after-market motorcycle parts.

Pickle opened the door to the office, triggering a ring from a small bell. The office was lined with shelves and matching gray metal file cabinets, relics of a bygone era. On the walls were several calendars featuring scantily clad women suggestively grasping shiny wrenches manufactured by a firm in Ohio. The calendars traced history continuously back through the year 1987.

The office's lone window was so coated with dirt and grease that it permitted only a brown smudge of daylight to enter. Suspended from long chains a fixture containing two flyspecked fluorescent tubes barely overcame the deficit.

The middle of the room boasted a vintage 1950's desk whose surface was cluttered with computer, printer, cabling, telephone, and an accumulation of paper—obviously the nerve center of H & H Auto Body.

Behind the desk sat a leather-faced old gentleman partially hidden behind a Spanish language newspaper. Vernon concluded: _Must be Old Hector_.

The old man, wearing stained coveralls, looked up from his paper and asked, "Can I 'elp you?" He spoke rather forcefully and in a heavily accented voice that sounded much younger than the old man looked.

"Are . . . are you Old . . . Old Hector?" Vernon stammered.

"Jes, I aim." The old man locked eyes on Vernon and did not let up.

"Heard yeh have a opening fer a body man."

"May hav. Who send you?

"Oscar Pum."

Old Hector seemed pleased at the mention of Oscar's name, and he asked, "You a friend of hees?"

"We've met." Vernon decided to keep things simple.

"What kind dov ex-PEER-jance you have?"

"I got a cer . . . ah . . . a certificate, and, tell yeh up front so dere's no kind of confusion, I got da certificate in Florence . . . da . . . da prison."

"Whad you do? Not a drug DEE-lar? Drug DEE-lars ain't wort cheet when eet comes to work. " Old Hector's steely, black eyes were busy searching Vernon's face for signs that he might have engaged in the retailing of illegal narcotics, a profession that, in the eyes of the old man, rendered one completely useless.

Vernon was pretty sure that the question, "What did you do?" wasn't supposed to be asked during an interview, but he was willing to let the infraction slide. After twenty-four years of playing loose with the rules himself, what was the point of standing on principle now?

"Well, I . . . er . . . held up a liquor store. . . . Sir . . . ah . . . Nobody, um, got hurt or nuttin.'"

Old Hector smiled exposing brown teeth and said approvingly, "Ah _Guapo_ , who haas not knocked over a LEE-quor store or two?" He laughed and half closed his eyes releasing Vernon for the first time from his penetrating stare.

It seemed to Pickle that the old man was recalling scenes of a misspent youth, which gave the job applicant a chance to study Old Hector's weathered face—a face that was home to several pronounced and jagged scars half-heartedly covered by a spindly mustache and triangular goatee.

Vernon had seen pictures of Poncho Villa, and Hector made Villa look like a pansy. And there was something about the old man's voice and manner, more than just him coming out and saying so, that convinced Vernon that Old Hector had, indeed, robbed liquor stores. Plus the young member of the Prescott branch of the "house of the flying gherkin" had a sneaking suspicion that the old man sitting before him was far better at armed robbery than was Vernon himself.

A picture floated into Pickle's mind of a young Hector wearing a sombrero, six-guns, and a bandoleer, reining a palomino to a stop, and sliding fluidly off his mount, two guns drawn. The imaginary Mexican bandit next kicked open the door of the Palace of Poison while a certain wise-ass clerk dropped to his knees and pleaded for mercy. Except the bandit's face inexplicably changed from Hector's to that of a Mexican version of a ruthless Vernon Pickle.

_Bandito_ Pickle was just beginning a hearty, but mirthless, laugh when Old Hector suddenly returned to the present, "You feel out dees app-lee-KAY-tion. I start you now; work one week for MEE-nee-mum; after dat I dee-cide eef you stay or eef you go. Okay?"

"Okay!" Vernon betrayed more enthusiasm than he wished. _Minimum! Wow! I thought I'd be working for less dan dat._

"Today, you work with OZ-car. Learn de ropes. Tomorrow you get de bay in de far cor-nor."

Hector went back to his newspaper while Vernon struggled with the application. The first thing he was going to buy was a new hat for himself and a can of pepper spray for his landlady's dog.

* * *

Vernon's probationary week went well. He worked hard and proved to his boss that he was worth a dollar per hour more than the minimum that he had been promised. Vernon, in bay number six, produced quality repairs and in half the time as some of the others, which threatened the guy in bay three. "Bay Three" would lose a foot race with a sloth, and the man feared that Old Hector's expectations would escalate because of Vernon's stepped-up pace. Feeling pressure to act, "Bay Three" formed an alliance with "Bay Two."

"Bay Two" was even slower than "Bay Three," and he had recently been caught sleeping under a customized Honda with a crumpled front air dam. He would probably have gotten away with the snooze except for his unusual snore, which resembled the sounds emanating from a flatulent goat. Old Hector got the sleeping man's attention with a sustained blast of the car's horn.

When "Bay Two" rolled out from underneath, rubbing his eyes, not sure just where he was, Old Hector got in his face and delivered an ultimatum, "You hav jus one more chance, dats eet! Den you go!" The message continued another minute longer only in Spanish, and "Bay Two" knew enough not to ask for a translation.

Oscar Pum's bay was number five next to Vernon. They took their breaks together and were generally shunned by bays "Two" and "Three." However, once when Vernon left to use the bathroom, members of the alliance made overtures to Oscar trying to get him to join their coalition, thereby, isolating "the new guy in bay six," but Oscar ignored them.

"Bay One" did not always show up for work, and the rumor circulated that he was going to be fired. "Bay Two" and "Bay Three" had already begun making plans to recruit "Bay One's" replacement. Together they would find ways to subvert Vernon Pickle's growing influence and favorable impression.

"Bay Four," a surly loner, sided with no one. When Oscar attempted to introduce Vernon to "Bay Four," the man just looked Vernon up and down, turned without saying a word, and walked back to his workstation.

Vernon learned that Old Hector's last name was Lopez, and that he had a son, also named Hector accounting for the second H on the sign out front. Young Hector was somewhat of a mystery because he was never there. Supposedly the son was in charge of "promotions."

Another mystery left Vernon scratching his head; the surly guy in bay number four drove a brand new, four-wheel drive, green pickup truck with an elevated cab, four doors, and a bench seat behind the driver. The oversized rims with their raised-letter tires alone must have cost two grand. It was a beautiful truck, and Vernon would have given anything to own something similar.

On nice days "Bay Four" ate his lunches alone, sitting in the truck cab with the windows rolled down and the sunroof open, listening to classical music on his stereo system with six-disk CD changer and upgraded speakers while he read the _New York Times_. He was the only person Vernon ever met who listened to classical music and that alone made him an oddity.

The mystery to Vernon was how "Bay Four" could afford the truck? He had to be making in the neighborhood of ten bucks an hour, no more, and he asked Oscar if he had a clue.

Oscar did not answer at first, trying to dodge the question by pointing out two dead lizards near a spray gun. But Vernon was not thrown off so easily, and finally Oscar said, "Extra jobs."

"What?"

"Jobs . . . jobs that Young Hector hands out," Oscar spoke quietly and looked around making sure no one else was listening.

"I don't understand."

"Yeh see, Young Hector is into a lot of stuff . . . deals yeh know. Not all of it . . ," at this point Oscar signed with his right hand, holding it flat, palm-down, then tilting it side to slide like a rocking boat, and he glanced furtively as he did so. After a pause, Oscar continued by saying, ". . . He hires some of us . . . we pick up extra cash." Pum, beginning to feel more comfortable with the conversation, then added, "We . . .er . . . I do something for him, maybe . . . say once a month. Five hundred bucks, no questions asked."

"Illegal stuff?" Vernon enquired in a whisper.

"No questions asked. Bulldog Finch there," Oscar motioned his head in the direction of the new, green truck where "Bay Four" sat alone mesmerized by Beethoven's _March of the Turks_ and eating a sandwich, "he's been here the longest. Young Hector likes him. The 'Dog' gets a bunch of extra jobs. Probably makes . . . hard to say . . . but I bet he paid cash for those wheels of his," Pum concluded with a sigh and a look of longing aimed at the truck.

Bulldog Finch (a.k.a. "Bay Four"), unaware that anyone was watching, began to conduct the Munich Symphony Orchestra using his half-eaten sandwich as a baton.

Vernon rubbed his hands together and pictured the girl in the red dress beside him in a big, new truck. Then he said to Oscar, "Extra jobs. Means money yeh don't pay taxes on."

"You pay taxes? I don't pay taxes." Oscar said.

"No. Me neither. I . . . I just thought . . ."

A week and a half after starting work at H & H Auto Body, Vernon was especially pleased with how things were turning out. That morning, during the ten o'clock break, a Flagstaff cop had arrested "Bay Three" on an outstanding warrant. They were filming a local version of _Cops_ , and Vernon Pickle stuck his face in front of the camera and mouthed "Hi Mom!" then ended with a victory sign and a grin. This while the cameraman advised the big-eared twit who filled his viewfinder to, "Get the fuck outta the shot!"

"Bay Three" yelled obscenities as he was handcuffed and forcibly shoved into the rear of the squad car. A muffled, "This is bogus, man! Really bogus!" was the last thing heard as the cruiser, siren wailing and lights flashing, pulled into traffic, its cargo secured in the back seat, and with the camera crew following close behind.

Everyone watched, but only "Bay Two" was sorry to see him hauled off. The coalition was crumbling.

That afternoon Vernon looked up in time to see a late model, red Corvette park out front. A groomed, dark-haired man pushing forty and dressed in a gray pinstriped suit got out. He exited the car using a smooth, athletic move then paused momentarily as if cameras were rolling and this was the middle of a commercial for men's cologne, a cologne formulated to propel a women into an immediate state of estrus.

Vernon had spent a small fortune on such products with zero to show for it, and he mumbled that the man looked really out of place at H & H Auto Body.

Just then a cell phone could be heard chirping. The man answered his with a well-oiled flip and began striding confidently toward the office. Pickle could tell that the stranger in the suit was giving instructions to the person who'd called. The man carried himself confidently and walked with a swagger like he owned the place.

Vernon guessed he was a defense attorney, probably hired by "Bay Three" and was here to dig up evidence that would free his "unjustifiably" accused client. Vernon hated him already, and he thought to himself: _Old Hector will take care of da son-of-a-bitch_.

But Pickle had guessed wrong. It turned out that the man DID own the place, or at least half of it anyway, for the guy was none other than Hector Lopez, Jr.

Five minutes went by; Pickle was removing a damaged rear quarter panel from a 1999 Ford Taurus when he became aware that someone was approaching. He turned and there were the two Lopezes, father and son.

"So, this the new guy?" Young Hector asked his dad loudly while smiling and making a production out of the conversation that was to unfold.

"Jes."

Turning to Pickle the son pronounced, "My father says you're working out real well." Up close Vernon could see that Junior was a good head taller than himself, plus that he was too liberal with the cologne, the smell of which hung about in a cloud like it did around the cartoon character Pepe le Pew.

Vernon smiled, shook the man's extended hand, and said, "Thanks."

"Anything you need, just ask. Move you into bay three if you like; bay one's open, it's closer to parts. Either one, your choice."

Vernon was overwhelmed by the attention. Everybody was staring. For the second time that day "Bay Two" looked to be close to tears. Oscar beamed, happy that things were working out for his friend.

The newest employee of H & H Auto Body declined the offer to change bays and was pleased to note that the third bay was, indeed, vacant.

Hector Lopez, Jr. provided quite a contrast to his old man. Vernon did not know how to describe Old Hector's son; the right word eluded him: fancy, polished, slick—he was a little of all three.

But there was more . . . something in his eyes, the poisonous way that they measured what they scanned reminded Vernon of a venomous snake. Young Hector was just as scary as his dad but in a different way.

Only after the Lopezes returned to the office did it occur to Vernon that Hector, Jr. was the one who assigned the "extra jobs," and he looked in the direction of bay number four and noticed the sullen Bulldog Finch glaring back at him. Vernon quickly returned his attention to the damaged quarter panel he had been working on before the hoopla began.

* * *

To understand Young Hector there was something that an observer had to know, and that dealt with the stock car on display in front of H & H Auto Body. The younger Lopez used to race number "66." He had a team and would trailer it to tracks around the state. That is until an accident landed him in the hospital with three broken ribs, a punctured lung, and two cracked vertebrae.

While lying on his back for three weeks, he began to reevaluate his compulsion to take chances. After careful examination, he decided to mount the car on the platform and walk away from racing. He continued to make business "deals," but he hired others like Bulldog Finch to take the risks while he orchestrated from the sidelines.

After meeting the boss' son, Pickle expected to be called into the office, and there he would be informed about an opportunity to rake in extra cash. He was not sure he would be willing; prison had not been easy for him. But one look at Bulldog's new truck, and he could feel temptation's pull like iron to a magnet.

There was just one hitch, one that he knew all too well: When it came to breaking the law Vernon Pickle sucked.

CHAPTER 4: BULLDOG FINCH

Before "Bay Three" was arrested and taken to jail, he mentioned to his co-conspirator "Bay Two" that they ought to approach "Napoleon" and convince him to join their side against Pickle.

"Bay Two" screwed up his face and asked, "Who?"

"Bay Three," in a sincere effort to clarify briefly explained, "Yeh know, . . . Pickle, . . . the new guy in bay six."

"I know who Pickle is," "Bay Two" responded. "But who's this Napo Leon guy?"

"Bay Three" became testy. Briefly scowling, he said, "Bulldog!" and poked a thumb in the direction of the fourth workstation. He found it easy to lose patience with his dimwitted ally.

Odd, really, that a poorly educated sloth working in an Arizona body shop could find enough parallels between the former Emperor of France and Bulldog Finch to refer to Finch as Napoleon. Odd in another way as well because twenty years prior and twenty-five hundred miles to the east other poorly educated sloths had done the same.

Two decades had not altered Bulldog's personality. He remained aloof, rarely acknowledging his co-workers, and brooding for days on end.

Bulldog shared physical similarities with the contentious Emperor as well. Both were short of stature and shaped remarkably like fire hydrants, though Bulldog's hydrant had grown considerably wider in the last twenty years owing to a fondness for candy bars.

And temperament? Napoleon Bonaparte looted antiquities and when wronged by Pope Pius VII, exacted revenge upon his Holiness. Bulldog had engaged in a sort of looting (he had played a part in a car theft ring back east), and anyone who had ever crossed him had lived to regret it.

In addition to his girth, twenty years had changed one other thing. This modern day Napoleon was now living in exile—at least Bulldog considered it exile. Finch's Saint Helena was Flagstaff itself, and like the original Bonaparte, his jailers, too, were poisoning him. However, this time the poisoning was unintentional, coming from the daily inhalation of the body shop's toxic fumes.

As far as Bulldog was concerned Northern Arizona was a trackless waste surrounded by a sea of vulgarity, and those who resided there were cultureless boors. One glance at the inmates of H & H Auto Body provided irrefutable proof.

He had asked himself countless times: _Why am I hiding under the same rock as this repulsive slime?_ But he did not relocate, and he did not change jobs, because deep down Bulldog Finch was crippled by self-loathing, and H & H Auto Body was payment for his many sins.

* * *

Finch's best memories were vague but involved riding in the bed of a pickup truck with his dad at the wheel. The young Bulldog would tap on the glass. In his mind's eye he could see his father turn around and make a funny face. Then Finch would picture a young, guileless child laugh and giggle.

The world was so simple then, the air pure, and from the back of the truck the trees abounded in autumn gold. The adult Bulldog Finch, sitting entranced in his apartment, would look toward his empty walls, and would "see" the world as it once had been, brimming with happiness. Momentarily, he'd forget that he was viewing an illusion and when he attempted to step toward it the mirage would disappear.

At times Finch would imagine his dad playing a piano, a Steinway grand, which took up most of the living room. Flames leaping in the fireplace kept winter at bay. He watched a young Bulldog sitting on his dad's lap. The gentle man guided the child's small fingers across the keys, tapping out notes and joyfully announcing, "My son! My son! The famous virtuoso!"

On Bulldog's blank walls the seasons changed. Winter turned to spring, spring into summer, and on warm faraway summer evenings he would behold father and son laying on a blanket listening to a symphony. His dad conducted in make-believe with a couple of pencils, and Bulldog followed his movements while humming to the music.

* * *

Bulldog had had a younger sister, but she was still born, and did not really count. Christened Jessica, his mother took a picture of the dead baby, put it in a frame, and built a shrine on the fireplace mantel with Jessica's picture in the center.

His mother talked about baby Jessica like she was part of the family, and she celebrated the dead girl's first birthday, holding a party for her in the back yard. With Jessica's picture propped in a chair his mother sang "Happy Birthday" and broke into tears before finishing. No one could console her.

A strange mix of religion and gin assumed a central role in his mother's life, and Bulldog could hear her words, "When Jesus returns to Earth and puts an end to suffering, Jessica will come back to life." Jesus was coming. Jesus was always coming. But no one said when or how, and little Bulldog wondered if Jesus would arrive by train or take a cab in from La Guardia. Jesus' travel plans seemed indefinite.

Jessica had been buried in a cemetery in New Rochelle twenty minutes from their home. They visited on weekends. Little Bulldog would offer his dead sister a flower or a pretty leaf and place it on her grave. He was told to bow his head and silently pray for Jesus to return.

After a long bout with a bottle, his mom told him that boys were evil and that she wished it was Bulldog that lived in Heaven and that pretty little Jessica could have his room, and mommy would paint it pink and put frilly pillows in the corners.

Bulldog continued to pray at his sister's grave, but because his room lay in the balance, he secretly prayed that Jesus would not come and that the living arrangements stay pretty much as they were.

When Bulldog turned four, his father died of cancer. And with his father's passing, the music lessons stopped along with listening to the symphony. Both the truck and the piano were sold.

Showing antisocial tendencies, Bulldog withdrew. Nothing he did pleased his mother, and her complaining increased along with her drinking.

One night she left Bulldog alone and did not return. He was told only that his mother had decided to live with baby Jessica. He knew there was nothing that he could do to bring any of his family back to life because he had asked Jesus to stay away.

Newark, New Jersey, became his next home when an aunt and an uncle adopted him. They lived in a house with no music. The auto repair shop that his uncle owned was a front for a car theft ring. Stolen cars were dismantled and the parts found their way into the market place. Bulldog began working in the shop when he was seventeen. At eighteen he was stealing two cars a week and making good money.

Eventually he was caught and given a light sentence, but prison was not a deterrent, and Bulldog learned to make bigger plans. He had gotten careless when he was twenty-three. The police traced his fingerprints at a crime scene, and a cop who was on the take tipped him off. The "virtuoso turned criminal" had to disappear forever, and that is what he was doing at H & H Auto Body, disappearing. Living under a rock. Doing jobs for the Lopezes.

Bulldog retained his nickname but began going by the name Sydney Finch. Sydney Finch had been a little known composer from Philadelphia. Bulldog recalled that his father had admired Finch's _Concerto Number Four in F Major_ entitled _Memoires d'enfance._

The Lopezes tapped into Bulldog's ability to deactivate car alarms. Young Hector would take orders for high-end automobiles from customers in Mexico. He would next track down a vehicle in the Flagstaff area that matched the description and send Bulldog to make the "acquisition."

The Dog lived alone and had few expenses; his truck and music were it. Working in the body shop was largely just to force him out of bed. He required routine. But, lately, Old Hector was reaching farther and farther down the evolutionary scale to keep H & H Auto Body staffed. And when the big Neanderthal in bay five attempted to introduce him to the newest employee, it was too much for Bulldog's sensibilities. He turned and walked away without saying a word.

A day after that, while Bulldog sat in his truck eating his lunch and listening to Vivaldi, the cretinous idiot in bay three made a feeble attempt to engage him in conversation by asking, "Say, what da hail is dat yeh're always listin' too?" That same morning he had overheard "Bay Three" tell "Bay Two" that Willie Nelson could not be considered classical because, "He warn't dead yet." But that Johnny Cash deserved the title because he ". . . was in da ground ant buried."

An anonymous tip from Bulldog alerted the police to the whereabouts of "Bay Three." Bulldog had read in the paper about the outstanding warrant and saw it as an opportunity to do a little house cleaning at H & H Auto Body.

As the cops threw "Bay Three" in the squad car, the Dog watched thinking his actions were rather like cleansing the palate after a bite of an objectionable Roquefort.

Initially Bulldog Finch's policy toward the new guy, Vernon Pickle, was to pretend that Pickle did not exist. But when Young Hector had singled Vernon out and complimented him in front of everyone, Bulldog could no longer ignore the man. Pickle was a simpleton. He was no competition. Yet Bulldog recalled that the dead baby Jessica had supplanted him in his mother's eyes, and because he could not hate his own sister, he hated Vernon Pickle instead.

Finch started calling the new guy "Turd" because of the ridiculous tattoo on his arm and "Flying Turd" when he was not pressed for time.

Oscar Pum did not like how Finch treated his friend Vernon. But he did not intervene, figuring Pickle would just have to deal with it himself. It is what a man does; he stands up to other men. But, at the same time, Oscar Pum kept score, and every time Bulldog bad-mouthed his buddy, the comment registered with the big man from South Texas.

CHAPTER 5: BEER MONEY, Monday, May 3, 2004

The line-up of cars awaiting repairs in front of H & H Auto Body came close to out-growing the parking a rea. Vehicles huddled two deep around the platform where stock car number sixty-six posed in the same speeding stance that it had assumed almost five years before. It seemed that the cars parked around sixty-six's tilted platform had come to pay her homage.

Old Hector paced in his office. With "Bay Three" and "Bay One" so recently departed, H & H Auto Body was down to four staffed bays, three and a half if one took "Bay Two" fully into account. After a typical weekend of heavy Flagstaff partying, the body shop could expect three or four new clients to limp in on most Mondays, and this Monday had been no exception; the parking lot of the Red Dog Saloon alone was good for at least one bent fender, and it was an easy matter to push the damaged goods next door onto the Lopezes' front lot. It would help that the semester was almost over at N.A.U., and that the university students would be returning home causing a major reduction in the region's consumption of alcohol. For this Old Hector was thankful.

Hector, Jr. suggested they advertise locally for new help or maybe call the community college; the college had an auto body program. But his dad preferred checking with the Arizona Department of Corrections to see if any inmates with auto body certificates were being released. He had hoped there were more Vernon Pickles out there, and he told his son he wanted to at least try. Besides, he had more in common with the ex-cons than he did with the community college crowd and that "noisy shit" that they passed off as music.

Young Hector's response was, "Yeah, whatever." The younger Lopez had a lot on his mind. A shipment was scheduled to be flown in the next day, and he needed one more recruit to refuel the plane during its brief stopover.

Whenever the Lopezes talked of "shipments" or of "cars bound for Mexico," they lowered their voices and spoke in Spanish. They preferred to hire Anglos for reasons of privacy. As "Bay Two" reclined fifteen feet from the office under a blue P. T. Cruiser with a broken tail light and dented rear bumper, he heard two voices whispering in Spanish coming from beneath the closed office door—just the thing to lull him into a sound slumber. Some time later he awakened to the harsh blast of the Cruiser's horn, and the poor man hit his head on the muffler as he attempted to quickly sit up.

Those in the office of H & H Auto Body were in unanimous agreement on only one issue, that the "new guy" was no undercover cop. The sole bit of evidence on which the Lopezes based their conclusion was that Vernon Pickle surely had been Special Ed., and police agencies in general set their standards higher. Ever since the arrest of "Bay Three," it had been eating on Old Hector that one of the staff might be a mole, but he had eliminated everyone he considered. Besides, why would a mole risk blowing his cover on a worthless "piece of crap" like "Bay Three?"

Pickle was a good body man, of that there was no question—possibly the best that Old Hector had seen in his thirty years of running H & H. But beyond repairing dings and dents, Pickle's talents ended abruptly, and father and son both were reluctant to hire Vernon for the extra "opportunities" that cropped up from time to time.

However, the Lopezes found themselves painted into a corner. There was a plane that would need refueling in thirty-six hours. It was a two-man job, and one of the two men they had previously relied upon Rosco Klamm was no longer available. Their ex-employee had violated parole caught breaking into a cash machine with a chain saw. When asked about his crime, the drunken Klamm would say only that he used a Husqvarna chain saw, preferring the Husqvarna's safety features, its smooth cut, and virtual absence of kickback.

The Lopezes were certain that Bulldog would be offended if requested to fill in for the recently re-incarcerated Klamm, and that narrowed the field to either "Bay Two" or to Vernon in bay number six. Old Hector, not wanting to risk his best worker, reluctantly voted for "Bay Two," while Young Hector, certain that "Bay Two" was unlikely to be awake past nine P.M., reminded his father that the plane would need attention sometime after midnight. As a compromise the younger Lopez suggested that Oscar should decide the issue.

So early in the afternoon of the third of May Oscar Pum was asked to step into the office and close the door.

Old Hector broke the ice, "Sit down OZ-car. Ghet you soom cof-EE?" Despite his rough exterior, Old Hector was well mannered.

Oscar, dwarfing the chair he sat in, answered, "Sure."

As the senior Lopez poured fresh coffee into chipped and stained cups, he began to slowly explain, "OZ-car, we need your op-PEEN-yawn."

Young Hector feeling revved-up and all business continued, "You know, of course that there's another flight tomorrow night."

It was not a question, but a statement of fact. Oscar sat sipping his steaming coffee and nodded affirmatively. He enjoyed the attention. Besides, the left rear quarter panel of an eighty-nine Malibu had been giving him fits, and he did not mind getting away for a while.

The younger Lopez laid his cards on the table, "Who do you want to work with you? Nehrt or the new guy . . . Carrot . . . or Cucumber? What's his name again?"

"His name's Pickle," Oscar said quietly, while holding the coffee near his lips.

"Well then, between Nehrt and Pickle who's your choice?" Both Lopezes looked straight at Oscar.

"Pickle," Pum announced between sips.

Hector Lopez, Jr. seemed satisfied then said with finality, "Okay. That's settled. You talk to him, same arrangement. If he's a 'no go,' then wake up Nehrt and ask him. Oh, and here's cash for aviation fuel and incidentals. You know the routine." Young Hector took an envelope from his suit coat pocket and handed it to Oscar. "You still have that tank in the back of your truck, right?"

Once again Oscar nodded. It was evident from body language that the junior Lopez had dismissed him.

When Oscar stood to go, his form filled much of the room and eclipsed the brown smudge of light coming through the grimy office window.

Old Hector added, "OZ-car, gude luck."

Oscar tilted his head to acknowledge and then went back to the Malibu with the temperamental quarter panel.

* * *

The Lopezes owned some land in the middle of nowhere—six hundred and forty treeless acres of dry scrub. Sole access to the barren parcel was by a poorly maintained dirt road off of Route 180 north of the Valle Junction on the way to the Grand Canyon. The property included a rundown trailer and an old shed. The gravel approach to the shed was flat, straight as an arrow, and long enough that a small plane could easily takeoff and land, provided there was adequate visibility.

Adequate visibility would be Vernon Pickle's job at the Lopezes' "unofficial" airstrip on the night of May fourth. According to Oscar's instructions, the plane would make a circle in the air over the Lopez ranch, and Vernon was to hustle along the runway margins switching on battery-powered lanterns placed every twenty paces. After the plane landed, he was to quickly turn them off. Then the lights were to be switched back on to assist the takeoff once Pum had finished refueling. And, finally, with the plane back in the air, that would represent Vernon's cue to turn off and collect the lanterns, then lock everything in the shed.

Earlier Pickle had done the awful math and felt reality's cruel slap. Oscar told him the average was one flight a month . . . which meant twelve a year . . . times five hundred dollars for each occasion . . . amounted to six thousand per year . . . trucks like Bulldog's cost at least thirty-five thousand, probably more . . . it would be at least six years before he could pay cash. _Hell_ , Vernon thought, _trucks'll cost twice as much by then_. To top it off he was sure his Dodge Dart would not last that long, and the small-time criminal/auto body repairman was feeling a little down.

After work on Tuesday, he and Oscar drove to the airport south of town and purchased ninety gallons of aviation fuel. They took naps afterwards, arranging to meet at Oscar's around nine P.M. Vernon stopped at Albertson's on the way and bought ice, a twelve-pack of Milwaukee's Best, and planned to put both in a two-dollar cooler he had picked out as well. To his shopping cart he added two huge bags of Cheetoes, four Slim Jims, and five eight-packs of "D" cell batteries as instructed.

It took an hour to drive to the Lopezes' property, and another hour to replace defective batteries and deploy lanterns. Oscar had been told to start listening for the plane at midnight, and from experience it was generally thirty minutes after that before he could expect to hear the drone of its single engine. The plane was equipped with GPS and could locate the runway, but the pilot could not see well enough to land. It was up to the crew on the ground to light up the place.

Clear skies and a full moon greeted them as Vernon and Oscar sat in the truck with the windows rolled up, drinking beer, devouring Cheetoes, and waiting for the plane to show. They had at least an hour and a half to kill.

"Oscar, whad'cha think's in it?"

"Huh?"

"Da plane, Oscar. Whad'cha think is in da plane?"

Oscar, concentrating on the Cheetoes that were in his mouth, glanced at Vernon Pickle. He stopped chewing long enough to say, "Ah . . . pretty sure it ain't Girl Scout cookies."

Truthfully he didn't know. But the Lopezes were going to a lot of trouble to avoid scrutiny, and therefore the cargo had to be both illegal and valuable. Pickle and Pum were going to break the law. That part was fact, but they had been placed in the unique position of not knowing exactly what crime it was that they were about to commit.

"I really like da mint ones."

"What?" asked Oscar.

"Da mint-flavored Girl Scout cookies, yeh know, with da chocolate on da outside. Dey're da best."

What followed was a half hour of speculation revolving around the plane, the Lopezes, and Girl Scout cookies. Next the question of money was broached: when would they get it, and how would they spend it.

"We get it tonight."

"No shit . . . huh . . . How?"

"The pilot. When he's ready to take off, he'll hand over the cash in hundreds, half for you, half for me."

"Buys a lot of Cheetoes, Dawg."

" _Mucho_ Cheetoes," Oscar resumed chewing.

"Whad'cha gonna do with yehrs, Oscar?"

"Oh . . . spend it . . . at da Red Dog mostly. It goes pretty fast. How 'bout you?"

"Well, someday I'd like ta buy a truck. Won't have enough fer a new one, but I'd like a truck like Bulldog's."

"Nice wheels," Oscar said while raising an eyebrow—a salute to his friend's ambition.

If a person had been standing outside Oscar's pickup at that moment, he would have observed two uninterrupted minutes of contented munching.

"Where's da plane go Oscar? After here, where's it head?"

"North, mostly. One time we saw it go northwest, Rosco and me. Da guys in da plane, dey don't say much. Dey're just in a hurry ta take a piss. Check ta make sure da gas tank's full. Pilot hands over da thousand, den dey're off."

"Guys?"

"Pilot's got a guard with him. Pilot's armed too."

"Why?"

"Never quite figgered dat out. Don't know if it's to protect what dey're carrying from us, or if it's each other dey don't trust. It's best to be polite and not make any sudden moves 'round 'em."

The Cheetoes were disappearing fast. Fifteen minutes after midnight only two Slim Jims and four beers remained. Vernon was wishing he had bought more of each.

The temperature had begun plummeting shortly after sunset. To take his mind off of the cooler's shrinking inventory, Pickle decided to comment on the weather, "Man, it's cold."

"Dry too," Oscar said then added. "Dey said on da radio dat we got no rain da month of April."

"Yeh, I heard dat too. And, I think dey said dat was only half as much as dey got da month before . . . or sumpthin' like . . .," Vernon's voice trailed off as he realized what he said made no sense.

Oscar skipped over his friend's confusion without comment saying instead, "Supposed ta rain tomorrow dough. Dey say it's fixin' ta really come down."

"Oscar, yeh ever gamble?"

"Dis is a gamble ain't it?"

"Nah, I mean play cards or go ta da casino?"

"No, not really, I'm not very good at dat," Oscar confessed.

"Nah, me neither. Dad always said it was a sin. My dad was pretty good at spottin' sin. He believed in sampling it first, dough, see if it was da real stuff. Mom said dat dere for a while he and sin was pretty tight. In fact she used ta say dat Satan had . . . hold it! Wait. Wait," Vernon signaled for silence.

Oscar leaned forward and looked up through the windshield expecting to spot the plane.

They had been playing the radio low so they could still hear the airplane engine when it circled overhead. The radio announcer had just introduced the next song—Monty Tornado's latest release.

To Vernon Pickle this was universal for "everyone be quiet," and he turned up the sound a notch and settled back as the nasal-voiced cowboy revealed to the Country-Western world a sad ballad entitled _I'm Livin' Inside this Bottle, Cause I Can't Live in Albuquerque._

By the time Tornado explained that his "mind was very murky," that he was "feeling kind'a quirky," that his bottle was "Wild Turkey," and why he could "no longer live in Albuquerque", the last two Slim Jims were gone and only two beers remained in the cooler. Though he had never thought of it before, Oscar realized then that the list of words that rhyme with Albuquerque was a short list, and he concluded that it would have been easier for all concerned if, instead, the singer could have found himself excluded from Salt Lake City.

"Yeh know what I heard Oscar?"

"What's dat Vernon?

"Porcupines can float. Yeah, dey can. It's cause deir quills are hollow."

Oscar was in the midst of digesting the porcupine comment when he jerked to life at the sound of a small plane flying low overhead in the dark sky, "DAT'S OUR GUY!"

* * *

Everything went as planned. Oscar parked the pickup along side the plane once it landed and transferred the fuel without a hitch. While the guard and the pilot emptied their bladders, Vernon tended to the runway lights and waited for the signal to turn them on for the takeoff. When Oscar told the pilot he was done, the man checked his fuel tank, then under the watchful eye of the guard the pilot counted out ten one hundred dollar bills.

Hardly two words were exchanged the entire time. The pilot kept his head down and looked more nervous than usual. The two reminded Pickle of Hans Solo and Chewbacca and thought it would be a clever thing to tell Pum once they were headed back to town.

Oscar backed the pickup out of the way while Vernon ran from light to light switching them on. Just as he turned on the final lantern, the plane was off the ground, and Vernon resumed the attack, only reversing his direction and turning off the lights.

Thirty minutes later the lanterns were stored in the shed behind a padlocked door.

As Oscar split the money with his partner, Vernon cheerfully thought: _This is so much easier than jacking liquor stores._

Pickle counted his cash, put four hundred dollars in his pants pocket, and declared as he did, "Truck money." Grasped in his right hand was a single one hundred, and waving it in the air, he hollered, "Beer money! YAH HOO!"

As they bounced along the dirt road leading back to Route 180 Vernon questioned Oscar saying, "Thought yeh said both dose guys were going ta be armed?"

"Dey were."

"Naw, just da guard. Pilot had a shoulder holster, only it was empty."

Oscar went, "Humm. Yeh sure?"

"Yep, and dey flew east, not north."

"Really?"

"I watched."

Oscar Pum thought: _What the heck, it's not my business_. A little later he remembered that the pilot was not quite himself, and the big man from South Texas furrowed his brow.

The taverns were closed when they got into Flagstaff, otherwise they would have celebrated.

"What say I spring fer breakfast?" Vernon suggested, and they pulled into an all-night diner on North Humphreys Street.

Later as Vernon stood at the cash register ready to pay the tab, he noticed that someone had scrawled "HELP" and included a telephone number on his "beer money" hundred. He showed Oscar who was in the middle of a yawn.

"Humm. Dat's weird," Oscar said then scratched his stomach.

As they left the diner Vernon put what remained of his beer money in his wallet and said to Oscar, "Boy, dat was easy, and da good part is, dere's nothin' dat can go wrong with a set-up like dat."

CHAPTER 6: SOMETHING GOES WRONG

The weather forecast turned out to be correct. It rained on Wednesday, a cold rain with bitter winds from the northwest. They kept the bay doors closed at H & H Auto Body all day, opening them only to drive cars in or out.

"Where'd spring go?" Vernon asked Oscar and looked out the window to see if it was snowing.

The two were having trouble staying awake after their stint at Lopezes' airstrip.

When Oscar arrived for work that morning, Old Hector was waiting to ask him how things went.

"Fine," was the full extent of Oscar's report. The senior Lopez was used to Pum's tendency to gloss over detail.

Keeping the bay doors closed insulated those within from the raw wind, and, also, from comings and goings in general. For example, the staff of H & H Auto Body did not know of the UPS delivery at 10:00 A.M. Nor were they immediately aware of the irate customer pouting in the office, hands on hips, whose 2000 Oldsmobile Alero was not finished even though Old Hector had promised completion the previous Friday. Only when the employees heard someone shouting about the Better Business Bureau, did they understand that the front office's tranquility was under assault. And finally, they were not aware of the red Corvette that pulled into the lot and parked by the office door producing a spray of gravel and skidding to an abrupt stop in the process, though they did faintly hear a car door slam and some rather heated Spanish coming from behind Old Hector's closed door. Apparently Hector, Jr. was the bearer of bad tidings.

Of the four employees on the floor of the body shop only Oscar stopped and turned in the direction of the loud conversation. When the harangue finished, he looked at Vernon Pickle who was giving full attention to the hood of a Ford Bronco.

Oscar hesitated then started to open his mouth, but before he could get a word out, the office door flew open and in an edgy voice Young Hector called for the two of them to drop what they were doing. When Pickle and Pum entered the office, they were not offered coffee, nor were they invited to sit. In fact nothing was said for an uncomfortable thirty seconds. Hector, Jr. stared holes in the two, reminding Vernon of high school and of his occasional trips to the principal's office.

"Yeh guys have anything ta say 'bout last night?" the younger Lopez spit his words like a cobra, hood flared and ready to strike.

Vernon and Oscar looked at each other not sure what to say, and so neither said anything.

"OZ-car, you tail us AEGGS-actly whaut 'appen las' night," Old Hector said while pointing a finger at the big man from Texas.

Oscar stammered, "Well . . . er . . . nutin.' I . . . I mean everything went as usual." And turning to Pickle, "Right Vernon?"

Vernon nodded and looked at the Lopezes vainly searching their faces for clues. Young Hector standing on the other side of the desk, leaned across its cluttered surface, and, supporting his weight on his arms, looked Oscar in the eyes, "Pum, tell me EVERYTHING that happened!"

So Oscar spent five minutes with Vernon's help, which consisted largely of nodding like a "bobble-head," recounting as many details of the refueling as he could remember. At one point he dug in his pocket and produced a crumpled receipt for ninety gallons of aviation fuel. Vernon followed with an Albertson's receipt for $61.73.

When Oscar finished, both Lopezes stood stone-faced, waiting for more.

Finally Hector, Jr. asked in an octave lower than his normal voice, "Anything different?"

"Dey flew east afterwards," Vernon blurted out. "When dey left . . . dey went east."

Both Lopezes acted startled like east was not where the plane was supposed to go.

Young Hector followed up by asking if anything else seemed strange or out of place, and because Oscar had refueled the plane many times before, he directed the question toward the big man.

Oscar told him about the pilot's case of jitters, and Vernon threw in about the pilot's holster being empty. Later, as Pickle was stepping out of the office he remembered the hundred-dollar bill and the short message and relayed the news to the Lopezes. He started to reach in his pocket, but recalled that he had spent the hundred at the diner.

The co-owners of H & H Auto Body looked at each other and spoke a few words in Spanish. They had a lot more questions, but talking to Pickle and Pum would not get them answered.

Feeling unnerved Vernon and Oscar headed back to their bays. As they passed by bay four, Bulldog singled out Vernon and asked, "Whad'ja fuck up this time, Turd?"

Vernon Pickle ignored him, but Oscar, following close behind, stopped. The big man looked over at Finch while furrowing his brow; Vernon's friend hesitated, thought twice, and then continued towards his workstation, glaring in Bulldog's direction as he moved along. Finch quickly turned his head and pretended that Oscar's disapproval had not registered.

Back in the office there followed five minutes of whispering in Spanish, mixed with grave expressions and punctuated by a resolute fist coming down hard on the desktop, scattering papers and producing an electronic hic-up from the computer.

A minute after that a car door slammed out front, an engine rumbled to life, and the Corvette pulled onto Old Route 66 heading west past the Red Dog. Tires smoking, the sports car shot like an arrow toward the heart of Flagstaff's downtown.

Later at home Vernon imagined that someone was watching him. He had nothing to go on really—just a feeling. But, nevertheless, several times before going to bed he pulled back the curtain and peaked out into the cold night air.

The next time Vernon Pickle looked through his window, it was morning and the Flagstaff sky was clear and blue. Frost covered the Dodge Dart's windshield and its complex network of cracks. The cracks crisscrossed like latitude and longitude lines on a world gone horribly wrong. He had purchased the car used—cracks and all—back in high school. Pickle's brain had long since adjusted to viewing the road through the crazed glass, and miraculously he could see the pavement ahead and the on-coming traffic as if the grid of cracks did not exist. Sure he had had some close calls, but when other drivers saw the rusty Dodge pointed in their direction, they tended to trust instinct and, with few exceptions, steered clear of Vernon Pickle.

The groggy Pickle splashed water on his face, slipped on shirt, pants, socks, and shoes, and finished dressing by putting on a coat and grabbing a stocking cap and a pair of gloves. The temperature was in the teens.

_What is dis, May sixth? Not how May's supposed ta be_ , Pickle thought shaking his head; he was ready for spring. The puddles left from yesterday's rain had turned to ice, and Vernon picked his way carefully toward his '71 Dodge Dart.

Showing considerably more than its usual reluctance, the Dart refused to start. After a futile ten minutes, Vernon stomped back inside and telephoned Oscar, catching him just as he was about to leave. Oscar agreed to swing by, and they got coffee and a McMuffin on the way to the body shop.

Pum said as he chewed, "I don't think . . . da plane got ta . . . where it was . . . supposed ta go."

Vernon responded through a mouthful of egg, bread, and cheese, "Well . . . we did . . . our part. . . . Dat's fer sure."

Oscar drove in silence then said, while still chewing, "Yeah but . . . will dey . . . believe us?"

"Dey got no choice."

Oscar frowned, "Dey got plenty of choices."

Vernon had just shoved the last of his McMuffin in his mouth and chewed for a minute before asking, "Whad'cha mean?"

Oscar explained while still chewing, "You and me . . . we say we did . . . what we did, . . . but . . . are dere any . . . other witnesses?"

"Guard and da pilot," the words jumped out before Vernon had a chance to think.

"Oh, sure . . . da two dat . . . didn't show."

Vernon sounded indignant, "Yeh mean, dey might think we . . ."

"All I'm saying is dere's a plane, two people, and whatever dey was supposed ta deliver dat's missin.' You and me, we might be da last people dat saw 'em. I think dey're goin' ta want ta hear what we have ta say."

"Oscar, if we stole what dey were carryin', why would we still be hangin' around? And what about da plane? Wouldn't it still be on da ground right where it landed? We don't know how ta fly. How would we get rid of da thing?"

As Pickle and Pum considered these questions, they did not notice the gray BMW behind them; it turned every time they turned, and accelerated every time they accelerated. Partially concealed by dark, tinted windows the BMW's occupants dined on egg McMuffins and drank jumbo McCoffees because they were hungry and tired and had grown just a bit goofy from staying up all night watching the apartment of Vernon Pickle.

Oscar considered what Vernon had said. He did not comment. His truck's heater quit working in 2003, and on mornings like this he could see his breath. Pum too was bundled up like it was winter.

The first thing that Vernon and Oscar spotted when they pulled into H & H Auto Body was a black limousine with glass so dark that they could not see inside. As they got out of Oscar's truck, the gray BMW pulled in behind them and parked a foot from their back bumper. Oscar's truck was going nowhere should the big guy suddenly have a mind to leave. The BMW's passenger door opened. A man yawning and holding a large coffee got out, expending some effort in the process. He motioned for the two auto body repairman to walk toward the limo.

Vernon bristled and said, "Hey, I got work ta do!"

The man pulled his jacket back far enough to reveal a gun butt and said, "Hey, I don't give a McShit! Git over there, Asshole!" He set his coffee on the BMW and straightened himself, relaxing only when Vernon and Oscar changed directions and headed toward the black limo.

As H & H Auto Body's star employees drew near, the limo window smoothly lowered, and Young Hector, who seemed peculiarly subdued, greeted Vernon and Oscar. Usually the youngest Lopez played the part of boss—the mover, the shaker. But this Hector was contrite and humble.

They were asked to sit inside. The smell was a mix of cigar and "new car." Oscar Pum patted the leather appreciatively and was careful not to bear down with all his weight like a mother hen sitting on a clutch of eggs.

Across from them sat a well-dressed Mexican businessman wearing a fortune in gold jewelry. The man appeared to be mid-sixties; he held his nose in the air; and his face was burdened by a permanent scowl.

Lopez said simply, "Mind if we go for a little ride?"

Vernon and Oscar shook their heads, indicating that they did not mind "a little ride," as if they actually had a choice.

As the limousine glided silently along Flagstaff's streets and past its landmarks, nothing was said. Oscar noticed that the gray BMW trailed close behind at first, but eventually turned into a motel parking lot and did not follow them out of town.

Hector Lopez, Jr. tapped nervously. He did not introduce them to the Mexican who seemed offended having to share his vehicle with riff-raff, and who preferred to amuse himself by staring straight ahead acknowledging no one.

The limo was warm. Vernon and Oscar unzipped their coats and stuck their hats and gloves in their pockets. When the driver turned north on Route 180, Oscar's suspicions were confirmed; they were headed for the airstrip. Everyone stared down at their feet except the Mexican as mentioned and the driver on the other side of the privacy glass who appeared to know where he was going.

Later the Mexican reached into his suit pocket and retrieved a small, silver-colored cell phone. He made three calls, all in Spanish. Vernon was not sure if the man could speak English.

Midway through the last phone call, Oscar sat bolt upright with a move that would have cracked the eggs had they been parked under him, and Young Hector began turning as white as a sheet. Vernon witnessed Lopez's color change and recalled his pet chameleon, which had been a gift from his grandfather when Vernon was just a "tiny gherkin" as Grandpa Pickle used to say. Only then did he notice his friend Oscar tensing as well.

When they finally neared the turn-off onto the dirt road that lead to the Lopez property, the limo slowed. The privacy glass that separated driver from passengers lowered three inches and a question was asked in Spanish. Hector answered, the glass closed, and the limo regained speed. After one minute, they turned east onto the dirt road that led to the airstrip.

Due to the recent spate of heavy rain, the dirt had turned to mud in places and the limo's wheels spun occasionally as it lumbered toward Hector's six hundred and forty acres. Just a hundred yards from the runway, the road dipped into a low spot, and there, the limo's rear end began fishtailing in the slippery goo. Soon it was hopelessly stuck; the spinning wheels dug in almost to the axles.

Despite their best efforts, they could not budge the limo from the mud, and, if anything, the long, black hulk became mired even deeper. Finally Young Hector called the body shop and asked his dad to put Bulldog on the phone.

Hector Lopez, Jr. in no uncertain terms ordered Bulldog Finch to drop what he was doing and put a tow chain in the back of his new four-wheel drive truck. Finch and his prize vehicle were to appear and free the limo.

Apparently Bulldog declined the invitation at first because Hector became loud and abusive, at one point threatening to "neuter" the Dog. Attempting to ascertain what was happening, the Mexican broke his trance long enough to look over. When he hung up, Hector looked satisfied, and said something in Spanish to the bespangled Mexican. Both nodded, but neither smiled.

Afterwards the four of them, Oscar, Vernon, Young Hector, and the Mexican, walked the remaining distance to the airstrip. The Mexican's jewelry occasionally clanged like a wind chime as he attempted to step over and around the deepest mud. Hector Lopez, Jr. asked for Oscar and Vernon's account again, and while the co-owner of H & H Auto Body translated, the two small-time criminals told their story to the Mexican whose scowl deepened with every word and soon began to look as if he'd bitten into a lemon.

Vernon meekly pointed out that there was no plane anywhere on the ground, which Hector Lopez, Jr., after an uncomfortable smile, translated.

The Mexican grunted, "HUH!" It was a sound like that made by a Baptist rooting out debauchery. Next the Mexican flashed angrily as he spoke a mile a minute in Spanish.

Young Hector, turning red, absorbed without comment what the man had to say. Vernon hoped the Mexican's ranting had nothing to do with castration, and he took a quick inventory while pretending to scratch an itch.

After walking up and down the runway a few times and mumbling to himself, the Mexican aimed a question at Hector like he was trying to spear him with an arrow. The businessman's jewelry clanked as he once again reached in his coat pocket for his silver cell phone then proceeded to make another call. Young Hector listened, looked sick, and shaking his head, turned and walked in the direction of the limo. Vernon lagged at a distance wondering what was going to happen next.

But Oscar Pum stood where he was ten feet from the Mexican who still spoke in Spanish using words, which were surely too loud and too harsh for the delicate, silver phone. Oscar like his boss also looked ill. Eventually the Mexican, conscious of Pum's presence, turned his back and lowered his voice then hung up the phone and marched past Vernon's gigantic sidekick without so much as a glance.

The Mexican joined Hector Lopez standing by the limo; they exchanged a few words then ducked inside the vehicle to get warm. Shutting the door behind them left Vernon Pickle standing in the cold. The driver turned on the engine. With the heater running full blast, it took no time for the two in the back seat to begin thawing.

Pum caught up to Pickle as his friend put on his gloves. Oscar did the same, but the big man shook so hard that it was difficult for him to button his flannel jacket. He looked at his watch, guessing that it would be thirty minutes before Bulldog arrived with the tow chain.

He had to tell Vernon what he knew and quickly. Nudging Pickle away from the limousine Oscar Pum said in a low voice, "Let's git a ways from da limo."

Vernon did as told and asked, "Whad'cha want?"

Oscar held an index finger to his lips as if to say, "Shhhhh."

Vernon screwed up his face and silently mouthed, "What?"

They edged farther from the limo and out of the driver's line of sight in case the Mexican's man might try to spy on them using his rear view mirror.

Finally Oscar said faintly, "He wants to kill us Vernon."

"Huh?"

"The Mexican, I heard him just now on the phone. He wants ta kill us only he don't know dat we know. Another car, dat BMW, it's on its way right now. Dey're da ones gonna do it. He says 'nobody fucks him over.'"

"WHA . . ! FU . . . FUCKS HIM OVER? But we didn't do anything; it probably was da guard dat stole whatever it was. Den had the pilot fly him ta da Carrab . . . Carrab . . . ta some tropical island." Vernon was making his case to the wrong person.

Oscar explained the Mexican's hard-headedness, "Da guard's part of his family . . . his sister's kid or sumpthin.' He doesn't want ta believe it was him dat done it. Figures we murdered dem both."

"Say, how da hell yeh know dis? All he speaks is Mexican." It had taken a minute for Vernon to notice the incongruence.

"I grew up in Brownsville; a lot of people speak both dere. Plus my step-mom's maiden name is Menendez. She was born in Mexico. I never let on 'cause I bin listenin' ta da Lopezes' conversations without dem knowin.' Look, we gotta git goin' before da killers get here, and I don't mean on foot. I figger Bulldog will be gettin' in . . . ," he glanced at his watch again, ". . . in about a half hour and da killers in about forty-five minutes. We gotta steal Bulldog's truck and takeoff, and we'll only have fifteen minutes ta do it in. And dat's if we're lucky!"

As the first bit of information soaked into poor Vernon Pickle, he began to turn white. When he learned that the killers were on the way, he turned even whiter. Any more bad news and he would have become transparent.

"Oh," Oscar added, "the limo driver, he has a gun. I don't think Hector or the Mexican are carrying—dat's good at least."

"Great!" Vernon was letting the situation get to him. "The Mexican's not carrying! Oscar, all dat bastard has ta do is hit us with his jewelry, and we're toast!"

Escape, steal truck, gun, the words rattled around in his head, words Vernon Pickle struggled desperately to come to grips with. Oscar was right. They would have to steal Bulldog's truck, but Vernon was pretty sure Finch would NOT be okay with that.

At the moment Pum was feeling pretty bad because he had been the one who recruited Vernon for the refueling job in the first place, and he said to his buddy, "Pickle, I'm sorry I got yeh inta dis!"

But by then the Pickle in question had turned unresponsive. He stood there staring straight ahead, opening and closing his mouth like some big-eyed goldfish in an aquarium. Oscar thought it best to leave things as they were, resisting the temptation of telling Vernon how much he resembled his aunt's champion guppy named Gomez. The big guy decided to give his friend some space so he strolled over to the limo to see if he could overhear anything new that might help them.

Pickle began to assess his life and came quickly to the conclusion that he was too young to die. His line of thought started to sound like an old Perry Como ballad: there were too many mountains that he had not climbed and too many women that he had not "known." The precise number of women that Pickle had not known could be derived by taking the entire planet's female population and subtracting from that the number two.

The mathematics revived Vernon a bit, and he began to hatch a plan. It involved something that he had done once quite by accident that might have application under these dire circumstances. His dad had cussed him for a year, but now the "mistake" just might pull their fat out of the fire, HIS first and foremost.

_Oscar's speakin' Spanish has saved us part of da way. Now it's up ta me ta do some_ _savin' too_. Vernon thought heroically. Just having a plan was making him feel more collected. Hero stuff was new to Vernon Pickle, and he hoped it would turn out better than robbing liquor stores.

Vernon walked over to the low spot where the limo rested in the mud. He went around to the back and studied the rear undercarriage. There was not much room, but a thin person like himself could squeeze underneath. One look under the limousine, and he was confident that his plan would work.

"Confident"—that word was seldom associated with the name Vernon Pickle. He just had to wait for Bulldog. To both Pum and Pickle's relief, they did not have long to wait. They saw the green truck bouncing in the distance.

"Damn, Finch must'a been hittin' a hundret all da way." Oscar sounded grateful and looked at his watch. "Ten minutes sooner dan I tawht."

Vernon told the big guy, "Look, when Finch gets here, I gotta be da one dat hooks da tow chain to da limo. And yeh gotta be standin' near Finch's driver door 'cause he's gonna come flyin' outta dare. Yeh take care of him when he does. And den we steals da truck. Okay?"

"Okay," Oscar seemed relieved that his partner had a plan. Pum put a lot of stock in what Pickle had to say, then again, Oscar had not known Vernon all that long.

Bulldog drove up. There was mud on the truck, and both Pickle and Pum wondered if it had ever seen mud before.

Finch hit a button, which lowered his window in a smooth, steady motion, causing Pickle to humbly contrast the new truck with his own '71 Dodge (since the handle kept falling off, it was an ordeal just to roll down the Dart's window).

A cigarette dangled from the Dog's mouth and moved up and down when he said, "Oscar," while nodding in Pum's direction. You could count the syllables in the words the fat man spoke by the bobbing action of his cigarette.

As he emerged from the truck he looked straight at Vernon and nonchalantly greeted his adversary, "Turd."

Though they were the same height, Bulldog had a hundred pounds on Vernon, and under that walrus-like exterior Pickle suspected Finch carried a significant amount of muscle. Plus Vernon liked to think of himself as a lover, not a fighter.

Beyond auto body repair, Vernon's skills included drinking beer and farting, and Cecil and Mildred Pickle's only child preferred to stick with what he knew best. Anyway Pickle was not about to say or do anything that would put Finch on guard just then. So he ignored Finch's salutation and kept his mouth shut.

Likewise, Bulldog could tell that fighting had never been a Pickle option. The realization made the bully complacent. In fact Vernon Pickle was the last person on Earth that he suspected of ever striking back, let alone of attempting to steal his truck.

Young Hector opened the limousine's door when he heard the truck pull up. He was ill humored and ordered Bulldog to turn "the thing" around and back her toward the limo so they were rear bumper to rear bumper with ten feet separating the vehicles.

Once in position Bulldog cautiously lifted the twenty-foot tow chain from the truck bed, which he had lined with newspaper, and then sullenly dropped it on the ground.

Next he carefully attached one end of the chain to the 4X4's trailer hitch trying his best not to leave a scratch. Vernon could see it was killing the Dog, and that the fat man did not believe that his beloved truck should be abused in such a manner.

Vernon Pickle edged in close, ready to volunteer to hook the other end of the tow chain to the limo. He figured Bulldog would see the mud and the lack of clearance and turn to him, but appearing too eager might send up a red flag. His old mantra came back to him: _BE DECISIVE, EYE CONTACT, FIRM VOICE_.

After briefly glancing at the mud under the limousine, Bulldog indeed snarled, "Hey Turd, crawl under there and hook up this chain."

Vernon stepped forward, looked Bulldog in the eye, and demanded in a commanding voice that Bulldog had never heard before, "Matches, cigarette, and a newspaper!"

"What'd you say?"

"Yeh heard me," The diminutive Pickle postured, looked the Dog in the eye, and seemed to detect there a slight flinch.

"What'da fuck you want with a newspaper?"

Vernon thought: _At least he didn't say no_. Then he continued in the same confident yet unfamiliar manner, "It's muddy under dere. I want ta put da paper down so's I don't git all muddy."

At this point Oscar was wondering why the cigarette because he knew that Pickle did not smoke, but he chose to hold his tongue.

Vernon Pickle's biographer will undoubtedly write someday that through his life Pickle was not often called Pickle but went by various names at various times. These names were not entirely flattering and included Dumb Ass, Rat, Shit Head, Asshole, Dweeb, Sneezie (it was in high school and Vernon had a chalk allergy), and, most recently, Turd and Flying Turd. Unfortunately, Pickle's rare flashes of brilliance will probably be forgotten. Oscar Pum, Hector Lopez, and Bulldog Finch, however, were not likely to forget Pickle's masterful performance on the sixth of May.

Bulldog reluctantly produced a folded _New York Times_ from the cab of the truck, gave Pickle a cigarette, and handed him a pack of matches saying, "Here you worthless piece of shit. Now get under there!"

Vernon defiantly stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lined the ground with some of the paper. Bulldog, cussing, got behind the wheel, while Oscar positioned himself near Finch's still open window to supposedly relay messages from Vernon.

In order to lighten the limousine the Mexican got out and joined Hector. They stood far enough away to insure that no mud would soil their expensive suits.

The limo driver remained behind the wheel intending to drive in reverse as the big truck pulled. Oscar cast worried glances to check whether the killers were coming.

Only Vernon's legs protruded from under the black limousine, and Oscar began wondering if his friend was all right. Bulldog strained to look in his rear view mirror, but could make out nothing. The vehicles were too close together for Finch to see anything other than the limousine's roof, back glass, and trunk.

Meanwhile the limo driver heard the dull clank of metal against metal as Pickle secured the tow chain.

"What'da fuck's takin' that shit-head so long?" Finch asked twice. Oscar looked at Vernon's struggling legs and wondered the same.

Finally, the little guy wriggled free of the limo. Oscar thought, _Damn, that newspaper didn't help much._ Pickle had collected quite a bit of red mud on his backside.

"Okay," Oscar gave the signal to take out the slack, and Bulldog shifted into low. Vernon moved quickly away from the limo. The chain tightened, lifting free of the ground. Feeling the tension, the limo driver put the transmission in reverse and lightly applied the gas. The black hulk began to move, a half a foot, then a foot.

Oscar was ready to grab Bulldog. Something was supposed to happen that would cause the Dog to bolt from the truck. But what, and when was it going to occur?

Vernon took off his coat, which dripped with mud, and dropped it to the ground. The air was still cold, and now he was wet on top of that.

The limo gave a slight lurch and looked as if it was going to make it out of the slime. But suddenly the horrible snapping and tearing of metal came from under the rear of the Mexican's big car, and a split second later the black hulk's gas tank came flying out of the muck. The limousine stopped in its tracks.

The truck jumped forward ten feet before Bulldog slammed on the brakes, put the truck in park, and opened the door yelling, "TURD! WHAT'DA HELL . . ."

But before the Dog could finish critiquing Vernon's latest maneuver, Oscar acted as instructed.

Bulldog Finch saw two things as he was getting out of his truck. First, was the limo's gas tank bursting into flames fifteen feet behind his precious pickup. The other thing he saw was a pair of gigantic hands that belonged to Oscar Pum. Finch was seized by the collar and thrown farther than he himself thought it possible to toss a "big-boned" person. It had to be some kind of a record, and he sprawled on the ground momentarily knocked senseless by the impact.

In an instant Pickle jumped into the bed of the truck yelling, "GO OSCAR GO!" But Oscar Pum needed no instruction. He was behind the wheel and throwing it into drive before Vernon hit the truck bed floor. The truck spit a rooster tail of red mud fifty feet in the air, spraying both Hector and the Mexican as she fishtailed, tires spinning. When the tires finally grabbed, the green pickup roared away in the direction of freedom.

When Bulldog looked up, he saw his prized possession speeding west and the hated Flying Turd looking back at him from its bed.

CHAPTER 7: PICKLE AND PUM HEAD NORTH

From the back of the pickup, Vernon witnessed the Mexican running and gesticulating wildly; he saw the driver standing in stunned silence, springing into action only when his boss stood beside him yelling in his ear.

Pickle was not sure, but he thought Young Hector was laughing. It was hard to tell with Pum behind the wheel, frantic to make a quick getaway. The truck bounced like a drop of water on a hot griddle, and they were towing the limo's flaming gas tank, which leapt and bounded into the air while simultaneously discharging flames and a column of thick, black smoke.

The Mexican kept yelling at the driver who eventually pulled out his gun and began to aim at Pickle and Pum as they made their hasty exit. However, his boss apparently objected to something the driver was doing (or not doing) because Vernon saw the Mexican, gold jewelry glinting in the sunlight, snatch the pistol from the driver's hand and do the aiming himself.

Next the unbelievable—fearing that a bullet fired in the direction of his former coworkers would strike his shiny, new pickup instead of its hated occupants, Bulldog launched himself at the Mexican. To Vernon bouncing around in the truck bed, Bulldog looked like a cannon ball flying through the air.

"DON'T SHOOT AT MY TRU-U-UCK!" Streamed from Finch's mouth like a tail trailing from a speeding comet.

Finch hit the Mexican before any shots were fired, and the two were soon rolling in the mud grappling for the gun.

The struggle continued and was joined by the limo driver. But before things were resolved, the tussle in the mud had shrunk to a small dot on the horizon, so Pickle did not learn the outcome.

Oscar stopped the truck long enough for Vernon to unhook the tow chain and hop into the passenger seat. Anxious to take off Oscar Pum exclaimed, "We gotta go! We gotta go! BMW could git here any minute! Mexican's probably on dat phone of his right now tellin' dem ta be on da lookout fer us!"

Assuming that Bulldog and company had not yet settled their differences, Vernon said, "Oh, I don't think he's callin' right now." And he told Pum about the fight over the gun, and why the preoccupied Mexican was unlikely to be contacting anyone with his silver cell phone.

"Just maybe we should leave our gloves on," Oscar suggested as he hit the accelerator, pinning them both against their respective seat backs. "Fingerprints, we don't want to leave any. Bulldog could turn dis whole thing around on us. We ARE stealin' his truck. I don't know; I jus think we shouldn't leave finger prints." Pum had a healthy fear of returning to prison.

Pickle said he was all right with that and began to admire the inside of the luxury pickup. Bulldog had left his coat on the bench seat in back, and Vernon slipped it on. Of course it was too large but he preferred warmth over style at that particular moment, and he set about studying the truck's heater controls.

With all the excitement Pickle had forgotten about the cigarette, which hung out of his mouth like an unlit fuse. With heat now pouring out the vents he opened his window with a touch of a button and flipped the bent and broken cigarette into the brush along the side of the road.

"Vernon, how'd yeh git dat gas tank ta catch fire like dat?" Oscar asked as he cast his friend an admiring glance.

"The matches, Bulldog's, I kep'm. And da newspaper too, half of it I kep dry. After I hooked da tow chain ta da gas tank, I started burnin' da newspaper."

"How'd yeh know Bulldog would come runnin' outta da truck like dat? He did just like yeh said."

Vernon avoided too long of an explanation by saying, "I just knew, is all."

Actually Vernon had some personal experience in that department, experience that he did not care to share. Bulldog Finch reacted the same way Cecil Pickle had reacted eight years before when his son Vernon out of ignorance attached a tow chain to the gas tank of the family car. With the exception of the fire, it had produced the same result.

Oscar drove on, dodging the holes in the road and looking ahead, hoping to beat the Mexican's men to the intersection of Route 180. The BMW would be coming up from the south; he intended to avoid them altogether by driving north. In the meantime Vernon began rifling through Finch's CD's.

"All classical, not one damn Monty Tornado!" the little guy sounded disgusted and concluded that Bulldog was not a well man.

As they slowed for the intersection Vernon busied himself by flinging CD's out the passenger window. They sailed Frisbee-like through the cold air and glinted where they landed in the bright Arizona sunshine. When Oscar turned north on 180's smooth asphalt, Vernon began tossing Finch's music collection out by the handful.

After discarding the CD's, Pickle turned his attention to a bobble head fixed to the dashboard. He read the inscription, "Beethoven," only Vernon pronounced "Beet" (as in the vegetable) and then after a pause "Hoven." This too he discarded, and the durable Head of Beethoven bounced down Route 180 for a quarter of a mile before coming to a stop.

Next Pickle opened the glove box and was quite pleased when he discovered four unopened bags of Snickers bars. Oscar and Vernon went to work on the first bag.

Pickle continued to excavate the glove box finding the vehicle service manuals and registration papers, which he scrutinized briefly. "Hey Oscar! You know Bulldog's real name is Sydney Finch? No wonder he goes by Bulldog."

Oscar had not known, and he indicated his surprise by grunting, "Huh."

Pum glanced over at one of the manuals that Pickle still held in his hand and asked, "What's in da envelope?"

"What envelope?" Vernon said while looking toward the glove box then down toward the floor.

"Da one stickin' outta da manual yeh have in yer hand."

Vernon seemed surprised and pulled the plain envelope from its hiding place.

"Wow!" Pickle exclaimed a short time later and counted out ten new hundred-dollar bills. He handed five to Oscar and stuffed five in his own pocket, which joined the four that were there already.

The thousand dollars prodded Vernon's curiosity about the contents of the glove box, and he returned to the search with gusto. Next Pickle retrieved a portable police scanner with a power adapter for the cigarette lighter. He plugged it in and secured the scanner to the dash. It had suction cups for feet. There was a small amount of chatter but nothing exciting, and Pickle's interest quickly waned.

Speeding north on 180, they were soon into the southern reaches of the Kaibab National Forest, and the scrub began to be replaced by Pinyon and Juniper and then later by Ponderosa pines. The forest stretched all the way to the Grand Canyon's South Rim fifteen miles north.

Oscar eased up on the throttle, feeling that he had put enough of Arizona between themselves and the two hit men in the BMW, or was it Bulldog Finch that they had to worry about? He was not sure. Besides, the Texan did not want to get a speeding ticket fearing that it would be a hard sell to explain why an ex-con named Oscar Pum was driving a pickup registered to a Sydney Finch.

"Holy shit Oscar! Look at this!" Vernon held up a picture in a frame that he had just pulled from the bottom of the glove compartment. Before Oscar could grunt, Vernon continued, "Is this what I think it is? Who'd carry around a picture of a dead baby?"

Oscar agreed. It looked like a dead baby to him as well. "Humm," was all he had to say on the matter of dead baby pictures, and Vernon tossed the picture of Finch's baby sister Jessica onto the shoulder of Route 180.

* * *

For a fat guy whose physical conditioning consisted mainly of lifting Snickers bars to his mouth, Bulldog turned out to be plenty tough. He had an easy time with the Mexican but found the going rougher when the limo driver joined the fight. However, the driver's motivation drained away quickly when Finch kicked him in the nuts.

To make a short story even shorter Bulldog ended up with the driver's gun and held the two at bay.

_None of this would have happened if that "punk-ass" Hector hadn't ordered me to drive out to this "shit hole,"_ Finch thought to himself bitterly, and he looked around wondering where the "bastard" had gotten to.

The events all seemed pretty entertaining to Hector Lopez, Jr. The last two days had left the man in charge of promotions at H & H Auto Body mentally drained. Deep down he was glad that Pum and Pickle had escaped. The Mexican's nephew was scum. Pum and Pickle were innocent, he knew that, but the Mexican, a hardheaded son-of-a-bitch, got his way or else. In fact Lopez was thinking that Finch had better kill the man now because, if left alive, the Mexican would spend his last _peso_ tracking Bulldog down. The best part so far was seeing Bulldog pointing the gun at the "great" Raoul Rodriquez and his toad of a driver.

To the tired mind of Hector Lopez, Finch, Rodriquez, and the driver looked like deranged Gummy Bears—all three caked with mud. But for Rodriquez, being the pompous ass that he was, the situation had to be especially humiliating. And Hector loved it. Rodriquez had been treating him like shit for years; he had also made the Lopez clan a lot of money, and Hector, Jr. envisioned winged dollar bills exiting his wallet. But young Lopez did not care, the sight that he beheld was worth everything he had endured.

However, Hector's amusement was short lived for Bulldog Finch spied his smiling "ex-boss" on high ground, which pissed the Dog off even more. He ordered Lopez to stand in the mud beside the other two.

Misreading the situation, Lopez hesitated and gestured as if to ask, "Is it necessary?"

Bulldog pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. Hector heard the bullet whiz past his head. Suddenly he no longer saw the bright side of things and realized that Bulldog Finch had just unilaterally severed his ties with H & H Auto Body.

How cool was Hector Lopez, Jr. in the face of danger! Even though a lunatic had just moments before fired a bullet which missed by inches, and that same lunatic currently gyrated in front of him like a boiler getting ready to explode, what preoccupied Hector at the moment was not that he could be close to dying, but that the body shop was now down to one staff member, "Bay Two" (what with Pickle and Pum leaving rather abruptly and now with Bulldog "tendering his resignation"). The recent developments would likely kill Old Hector, and Hector, Jr. did not want to be the one to break the news.

In a way he would miss Vernon Pickle, thinking that he had misjudged the little shit who had outsmarted them all. _So the piss ant has a stinger_ , he thought to himself and could not help but admire Pickle even though his antics would probably cost the Lopezes a small fortune. Surely Rodriquez would take his business elsewhere.

By then Finch was to the point of frothing at the mouth. Lopez had never seen him so worked up; hell, Lopez had never seen anyone that agitated. Young Hector figured, correctly, that threats of castration would no longer have any sway over the ballistic car thief and was beginning to wish he had called upon Triple A instead of phoning Bulldog.

He knew most of the tow truck drivers in Flagstaff. They were polite, quiet types, and not a one had ever pointed a gun at him, much less fired a warning shot. _WARNING SHOT? Or maybe Finch has a bad aim?_ Hector was not sure which and was not about to request that Bulldog explain.

Standing there, up to his ankles in red mud, Hector decided that he would not attempt to seek revenge on the raging Gummy Bear, figuring that Rodriquez would have that base covered. He would just quietly go back to Flagstaff and turn his attention to another enterprise. Lopez always had a hook in the water— _maybe real estate. Subdivide this section of ground_ , and he glanced around him while Finch brandished the gun, spewing something about infidels and about hating Flagstaff.

_Think I'll call it "Grand Canyon Premier Estates,"_ he thought. _"In the shadows of the San Francisco Peaks_ (actual mountains visible in the distance)." He liked the sound. _Sell it to suckers from back east._

As Finch's expletives began to subside (they had taken a turn and were now peculiarly aimed at Northern Arizona) Lopez the younger decided it was time to reason with his former employee, and he appealed for calm, "Bulldog, will you take it easy?"

Like a geyser Bulldog erupted with a fresh jet of invectives, which actually were slightly more temperate and not quite as spectacular as the geysers he'd been issuing previously. Finch was beginning to hunger for a Snickers bar, and his craving was undercutting his performance.

Hector started again, "Look Bulldog, there's a car on its way with two professional killers. They're Rodriquez's men."

Rodriquez wearing the gold jewelry, now encrusted in mud, turned his head toward Lopez when he realized that his own name had been spoken. Due to the glaze of mud, the clanking from his bling sounded muted and dull similar to a large cowbell and no longer produced that clear metallic ring.

"They'll be pullin' in any minute now," the junior Lopez continued. "I wouldn't want to be here when they come if I were you."

If Young Hector's intention was to scare Bulldog off, it did not work as planned. To Finch the news sounded rather more like an opportunity than an obstacle, and he decided to wait for the killers. _Killing and stealing cars are two areas that I have some experience in,_ he said to himself with a smile.

Bulldog Finch cleaned up as best he could, but considering the lack of facilities he still laid claim a sizeable amount of red Arizona clay.

When the gray BMW appeared as a small spot on the western horizon, Bulldog ordered Lopez, Rodriquez, and Rodriquez's driver to get in the limousine and close the doors, while the soiled "Napoleon," gun in hand, crouched out of sight.

Fifteen minutes later the gray BMW was bumping over the muddy road heading back toward Route 180, leaving five people stranded in the middle of the Lopez's desolate acreage and the future home of Grand Canyon Premier Estates. Three of the five stranded individuals stood swearing in Spanish and shaking clenched fists in the direction of the disappearing BMW. One of the five looked at the ground around him imagining future amenities that would appear on glossy brochures but would never actually be built. And, finally, the fifth stranded person sat behind the wheel of the disabled limousine gripping his testicles, which throbbed with pain and had begun to swell. Finch was now heavily armed, having heisted car, guns, and ammunition from the "professional" killers about whom Young Hector had so kindly warned.

Bulldog became further enraged as he neared the 180 intersection and spied parts of his treasured CD collection scattered along the roadside. The CD's strewn here and there clearly indicated that Pickle and Pum had turned north away from Flagstaff and toward the Grand Canyon.

The Dog was seeing red as he floored the German car, which he planned to park somewhere up Vernon Pickle's rectum. He put his present worry into thought: _How can I kill them and not scratch my truck?_

CHAPTER 8: THE CHASE, May 6, 2004, 10:00 A.M.

The police scanner attached to the dashboard of the stolen truck came to life. Vernon Pickle leaned close to the scanner's tiny speaker. It sounded to him like someone was talking inside a beehive.

"Sumpthin' about a bus and some Japanese tourists bein' hijacked in da park outside da Bite Angel Lodge," Vernon Pickle translated the scratchy sounds as best he could.

A minute later the same beehive voice reported that the bus had been abandoned at a Point (maybe Matter or Maver Point, he wasn't sure) and that another vehicle had been commandeered from there and involved a kidnapping and a ranger, at least that was what Vernon was able to decipher through the worsening static. It now sounded as if a swarm of bees had massed and were attacking from all directions. The voice had grown fainter, the bees louder.

Two minutes went by and Pickle and Pum drew up behind a long line of vehicles. The cars, RV's, and pickups crept along at a snail's pace. The pace felt especially sluggish to those in the line who were being hunted by killers, and Oscar Pum nervously glanced in his rearview mirror hoping not to catch sight of a gray BMW.

"Damn, Vernon. We're ten miles from da Park. Yeh think dis line goes all da way ta dere?" To Oscar it was a real concern, and he began to consider whether it would be smarter to turn around and hide down one of the Forest Service roads.

The glacially slow line finally topped a hill and the two friends could see that a roadblock lay a half-mile ahead. Several squad cars were parked along the shoulder, and the cops were looking inside all the vehicles, both those coming and those going. The RV's and the travel trailers were being pulled over and given a more thorough inspection.

"Oscar, dats weird. Der checkin' all da cars goin' both ways."

"Both ways? How can a car go both ways?"

"No. I mean dey'er checkin' cars dat are comin' in and cars dat are goin' out.

"Why's dat weird Vernon?"

"Cause da car dat got stoled, according ta the scanner, would be comin' outta da Park, not goin' in. So dey should just be checkin' does goin' out."

"Maybe dey're lookin' fer drunks? . . . or . . . yeh don't suppose dey're huntin' fer us too?" Oscar's dark, beady eyes started to widen.

"Yeh mean Bulldog reported his truck missin' already? Damn, Oscar, I . . . I don't know." Vernon began to consider that their luck might be running on empty, and he added, "If we pull outta line now, dey're gonna know we're guilty of sumpthin'." Pickle hesitated, "It's a gamble, but I say we stay in line." Next he brighten and said, "Dere's been nuthin' 'bout us on da scanner."

To the two friends their new, green pickup stood out like a caterpillar in a line of ants as the string of vehicles crept oh so slowly to the north. Resigned to their fate Pickle and Pum waited apprehensively to find out what card they would be dealt as they approached their turn at the checkpoint.

Vernon could see a policeman holding a piece of paper. The cop would look at the paper then look at the people in the car, sometimes waving them on immediately, sometimes having them pull over for further scrutiny. The paper looked vaguely familiar to Vernon Pickle, and as the distance separating truck and checkpoint began to close, suddenly it struck him where he had seen a paper like it—taped to the mirror in the Red Dog Saloon. It was Billy Boy Burk's wanted poster, and he let out a, "Whoopee!" and told Oscar the good news.

It meant reprieve. Pum had been certain that he and Vernon were going to jail, and he'd already begun to recall his days spent at the Eastham Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The dorms at Eastham housed 150 inmates and were patrolled by one guard and monitored by twelve cameras. The food had been barely edible, and there was hardly enough to go around.

The cop policing the roadblock glanced at Oscar then did a double take when he looked at Vernon. Their 4X4 was quickly waved through. Apparently neither bore a resemblance to the fugitive. The policeman's reaction reminded Pickle that he still carried a lot of mud, dried now, and clinging to the back of his head. Suddenly the little man felt self-conscious, and he began picking off small clods of the red dirt and flicking them out the window.

As the green truck moved away from the checkpoint, Oscar took a deep breath and handed Vernon an Arizona road map that he had pulled from a door pocket.

"Vernon, check to make sure dere is a different park entrance dat we can leave from. I hope we're not driving into a dead-end."

Vernon took the folded map from his friend and mumbled, "Dead-end, hum . . . don't like da sound a dat."

Still wearing gloves Pickle wrestled with the map for five minutes. Oscar glanced over wondering who would prevail and thinking that the map was ahead on points.

Finally Vernon's voice sounded from somewhere under the crumpled paper, "We take East Rim Drive. It'll be a right turn. It goes ta Desert View. Dat's da east edge of da Park. If we keep goin' east from der, it'll hook us up with the town of Cameron and Route 89."

They passed a sign, "Park Entrance, Five Miles, $25 Admission."

"Ever been ta da Canyon?" Oscar asked Vernon as the little guy struggled trying to refold the stubborn map. Just then Pickle straightened his fingers as if threatening the contrary piece of paper with a judo chop.

He answered as he grappled, "Naw, how 'bout you?"

"Me neither. I just thought dat you, livin' all yehr life in Arizona . . . just thought yeh'da been."

Vernon, preoccupied with stuffing the wadded map in the pocket of his door, said absently, "Naw, it was my mom. She hated ta miss her soaps. We never got more dan twenty minutes away from uh TV."

The giant gave an understanding nod. Pickle and Pum drove slowly through the town of Tusayan, and four minutes later they encountered a sign proclaiming that all those traveling north were about to enter the national park.

Oscar pulled along side a small building with service windows on either side, the traffic lane going into the park having split, one to the left service window and the other to the right. The tollbooth itself sat on a long, narrow traffic island. Pum had to lean down from the elevated truck cab to see inside the booth. Therein resided two pretty females with instructions to smile warmly while collecting fees from each entering motorist.

In the "Box (the staff's nick-name for the 'Grand Canyon's South Entrance Welcome Booth')," was twenty-two year old Molly from Lancing, Michigan, and twenty-year-old college co-ed Heather, a student intern, who hailed from Grand Island, Nebraska, and who thought that the gigantic caveman leaning out of the window of the green pickup truck looked a little frightening.

After overcoming her initial alarm, Heather gave the man his change, plus some Canyon literature and a park map and wished that both he and his companion, a small man with a goofy smile and large ears, have a pleasant stay. The co-ed concluded by saying sincerely that she was happy that both he and his friend had chosen the Grand Canyon as their "vacation destination." However, she thought it odd that both of the men were wearing coats and gloves because the temperature had warmed to seventy degrees.

Oscar nodded to the pretty girl in the window and passed the literature on to Vernon who acted as if they were actual tourists out to see one of the World's Seven Wonders. Pickle opened up a publication called _The Guide_ and began to read.

Pum assumed Vernon's behavior was either for the benefit of the women in the booth, or was designed to deflect the suspicion of the cop parked nearby, patrol car facing the traffic. The officer seemed to be talking on a cell phone and not paying much attention to anything else.

Oscar Pum, with one eye on the cop, slowly pulled away from the booth and drove at the posted twenty-five mile per hour speed limit, even though a blue-haired woman impatiently gripping the wheel of a Hyundai Sonata was tailgating him.

Vernon, holding _The Guide_ six inches from his face said, "Oscar, dere's a talk on Condors today at four. Dere . . ah . . giant bird. And dey're sca . . ven . . gers; means dey eat dead stuff. Sez here it's 'In . . front . . of . . da . . Lookout . . Studio . . near da . . Bright . . Angel . . Lodge.' Say, I bet dat's where da bus was hijacked. BRIGHT Angel Lodge."

"Yeh fergetin' bout da BMW?" Oscar reminded Pickle of their predicament.

"Oh, dat."

A little later Oscar pointed the green pickup east on East Rim Drive. The park's other entrance lay just beyond Desert View thirty miles in front of them.

* * *

Molly and Heather collecting money at the national park's south entrance looked out Heather's service window toward officer B. Allen Trout who sat in his patrol car talking on the phone to his girl friend Honey.

"That damn Trout sure knows how to waste the taxpayer's money," Molly shook her head and went back to her own drive-up window on the opposite side of the federal government's $450,000 ten by ten tollbooth.

After a busy run that had lasted close to two hours, suddenly there was no one driving up the road. _The slowdown's probably caused by an undersized car pulling too large of a trailer and backin' up traffic_ , Molly thought to herself as she crossed the room.

"I'd hate to have to pay his phone bill," Heather chimed in.

Molly, busily smacking her gum, jabbed verbally at the trooper, "Bet it's a state phone. You and me, Babe, we're the ones pickin' up that tab. You can lay money on it."

"I don't know why he always parks here. Nothing ever happens here. He should be out lookin' for that convict, what's-his-name. Say, yeh got another stick'a that gum?"

Molly dug in her purse and came up empty, "Sorry, Babe, must be out. I hear he's really handsome. "

Heather seemed surprised, "Who?"

"The escapee. I heard he's got female friends wherever he goes," Molly then blushed and, out of modesty, finished what she had to say by whispering her thought across the room.

Heather received the news with a shocked smile and a half-embarrassed grin saying, "Lord, Girl, you are so nasty. At first I thought you were talkin' about our friend out there," and she nodded her head toward the Arizona State Trooper parked thirty feet away.

"Oh, my no! That man is as repulsive as that big-headed Freddie Pringle who's always rootin' around here lookin' for dates."

Heather shuddered and simultaneously issued an, "Eeeeee yuck!"

"By the way, has Pringle offered to show you his General Lee yet?" Molly, an experienced, worldly sort, laughed when she asked the question.

Heather naively cocked her head thinking that maybe Pringle, the obnoxious ranger, collected Civil War figurines.

* * *

Bulldog Finch, following the scattered trail of CD's, had turned north on 180 and headed for the Grand Canyon. He knew the route having driven it several times every September to attend the Grand Canyon Music Festival—Horovitz, Mendelssohn, Stravinsky, Mozart. The festival had transported him back to happier times not unlike hearing a forgotten lullaby or a childhood prayer.

He had not gotten far from the muddy road when he slammed on the brakes and jerked the stirring wheel, but he was not able to avoid smashing the head of Beethoven. Now driven to the brink of insanity Bulldog needed only the slightest nudge to send him into the abyss, and that nudge lay just ahead. Two minutes later he again jerked the wheel and applied the brakes, and this time brought the German car to a screeching halt. Finch got out of the car leaving it parked in the middle of the northbound lane with the driver's door wide open. On the highway's shoulder he'd dropped to his knees sobbing like a little girl and picked up what remained of Baby Jessica's picture.

Soon he was speeding at 110 miles per hour, passing vehicles like they were standing still. In no time at all he found himself at the end of the slow line of cars that were being searched for Billy Boy Burk.

Bulldog lay on his horn as if that were going to speed things up. He pulled out of line and passed eighty or ninety cars until he found one whose driver was reading a newspaper and had absently let a large gap form in front of him. When it finally became his turn for inspection, a cop glared at him and shouted, "YEH TOUCH THAT HORN ONE MORE TIME, BUDDY, AND YOU'RE SPENDIN' THE NIGHT IN JAIL!"

Finch cooled, but gripped and squeezed the steering wheel imagining that he was wringing the scrawny neck of Vernon Pickle.

The cop wondered if there had been reports of escapees from mental institutions recently and kept a jaundiced eye on the man in the gray BMW. The man was caked in mud just like the guy who was through the checkpoint earlier, and it crossed his mind that the two might have escaped from the same asylum.

Having gained control of his emotions, Bulldog rolled down his window and asked the highway patrolman politely, "Pardon me, sir. Have you seen two . . . er . . . gentlemen in a new green pickup? One, rather large—sort of prehistoric looking, and the other one short . . . um . . . resembling, perhaps, . . . Alfred E. Newman, only not quite as intelligent"

Finch strained to keep the smile on his face, and he found the task every bit as painful and unnatural as holding his breath while under water.

The cop nodded, astonished by the crazy man's tranquil and aristocratic manner of speaking. He waved the BMW on and at the same time said, "They were through here ten minutes ago."

No longer able to restrain himself, Finch jammed the gas pedal to the floor and yelled in a voice that was neither tranquil nor aristocratic, "THANKS, ASSHO-O-O-OLE!" With its tires simultaneously spinning, smoking, and squealing, the gray BMW launched Bulldog closer to his goal of terminating Pickle and Pum.

Frowning, the patrolman looked at his watch. His coffee break had been scheduled to begin three minutes ago, and somewhat reluctantly, he resisted the urge to instruct a cruiser to have the man detained (an action that would have entailed paperwork), and instead he signaled for the next vehicle in line to pull forward.

Bulldog was giddy with the news: _Oscar and the Flying Turd are only ten minutes in front of me; they aren't armed, and they don't know I'm closin' in!_

Once more he was passing cars right and left. Shortly he came upon the "Park Entrance, Five Miles, $25 Admission," sign and reached for the billfold he kept in his back pocket. It was another of the many things that were to go wrong for the Dog that day. His billfold was NOT there.

IT MUST HAVE FALLEN OUT WHEN I WAS WRESTLING IN THE MUD!

He would just have to blow past the entrance and hope he'd be long gone before anything could be done about it. With the speedometer hitting 110, the wait was short. As Bulldog approached the gatehouse, he slowed to ninety and could see that both drive-ups were occupied, plus the lines were several cars long. Finch pulled into the oncoming lane. He would go "in" the "out." But a Buick pulling a camping trailer occupied that lane. It was a third of a mile in front of the Dog and of course heading in the BMW's direction. In an attempt to avoid a head-on collision the tourist driving the Buick twice flicked on and off his headlights when he detected a gray blur streaking toward him. Instead of stepping aside Bulldog accelerated to 120. The oncoming car's lights started blinking on and off like a strobe light at a rock concert. The BMW hit 125.

Like Poland in 1939, the man in the Buick's driver's seat seemed frozen by the German machine's unflinching blitz. Finally the Buick's front passenger grabbed the wheel and cranked. The vacationers lumbered off the highway, but the trailer did not quite make it. Finch left behind the BMW's side mirror and tore a gaping hole in the rear corner of the camper revealing the lavatory and emptying the entire contents of its holding tanks.

Molly and Heather simultaneously screamed.

Trooper B. Allen Trout abruptly hung up the phone even though his Friday night plans with the luscious Honey had not yet been finalized. Trout turned on his roof-mounted light bar, hit his siren, and came squealing out of the small parking lot next to the "Box." He hoped that the girls inside were catching him in action.

A growing pool of dark liquid spread in front of and under Trout's squad car, and his tires soon began losing traction in the fresh sewage. The wheels slipped and spun sending a shower of smelly waste which drenched the Grand Canyon's South Entrance Welcome Booth and those in it. Once it hit dry pavement, the Crown Victoria tore out after the BMW.

In unison Heather and Molly emitted a piercing, "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" that could be heard as far away as Tusayan.

Trout read the gray car's plate number and called out on the radio, "IN PURSUIT OF LATE MODEL, GRAY BMW SEDAN TRAVELING NORTH ON ROUTE ONE EIGHT ZERO. PERPETRATOR IS FOUR MILES SOUTH OF EAST RIM DRIVE JUNCTION. REQUEST INTERCEPT. THERE APPEARS TO BE ONLY ONE MALE IN CAR. DO YOU READ ME?"

Trout repeated the message seven times.

Oscar and Vernon's scanner picked up the officer's call for assistance loud and clear. The dash-mounted scanner's "bees" seemed to have disappeared entirely.

"One male, dat means Bulldog!" Vernon was quick to point out. The East Rim Drive junction lay just two miles behind them, which meant Bulldog was six miles back.

Pickle and Pum in concert exclaimed, "SHEE-IT!"

They had to get going and did. Each hoped that a roadblock could be assembled at the junction in time to impede Bulldog whom they correctly figured was still in a murderous rage.

Bulldog Finch saw and heard the cop on his tail. He reached over and arranged two of his handguns so that they could be easily accessed; the third he hid under his seat. _Now for Pickle and Pum, unless they are even dumber than I think they are, they turned east to try to make it over to Cameron. Hopefully I can catch them . . . before the asshole cop catches me._

As Bulldog skidded around the corner that was the East Rim Drive Junction, he had decided that if the choice came down to either escaping the police or killing Pickle and Pum but himself being killed in the process, he would chose the latter.

_Who wants to live forever?_ Finch asked himself and placed a box of cartridges on the seat next to the two guns. He would go out with a bang. For kicks he turned on the car radio and hit scan.

". . . Everybody was Kung Foo fighting! Come on! Huh! Woo-ha! Those cats were fast as lightning, . . ." It was not classical but the lyrics struck Sydney the Bulldog Finch as appropriate.

* * *

"THIS IS CAR 1-7-9. GRAY BMW HAS TURNED EAST ON EAST RIM DRIVE. TRAVELING AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED. DO YOU READ? DO YOU READ?"

"SHEE-IT! We ain't catchin' a break!" exclaimed Vernon as he turned and looked back. Finch was definitely behind them but not yet in sight.

The big American truck was not built for cornering, and Oscar suspected that Bulldog had had it elevated, which raised its center of gravity and made it even less sure-footed on curves. The BMW was tight and low to the ground. Oscar thought to himself, _Finch is probably doin' thirty more miles per hour than us. That would mean he'd catch us in ._ . .

Pum tried to calculate how much time would elapse before the Dog overtook the truck, but it made his head hurt, and he started to consider whether they should abandon the pickup and take to the woods. He spoke his mind to Vernon who opposed giving up the new vehicle, which for him had been "love at first sight," and the little guy recalled the day that he had first seen her—the day he asked Old Hector for a job.

Against Pum's better judgment, he listened to Vernon and stuck to the original plan: east to Cameron and Route 89.

"CAR 1-7-9. CALLING CAR 1-7-9. TROUT DO YOU READ ME?"

"COPY THAT. COPY THAT," Trout answered. The bees seemed to be coming back, and Vernon strained to catch every word.

"THERE IS A ROADBLOCK IN PLACE AT DESERT VIEW. ROADBLOCK IN PLACE AT DESERT VIEW. DO YOU READ 1-7-9?"

"COPY THAT! COPY THAT! BMW IS IN SIGHT. HEADING YOUR WAY! HEADING YOUR WAY! BE CAREFUL! BE CAREFUL! GUY'S A LUNATIC!"

"I'll second that," Vernon said anxiously as he continued to scan the road behind.

"How we gonna git ta Cameron, if dey got a roadblock set up at Desert View? Answer me dat Vernon! Look at da map again; see if dere's a place we can pull off before den! I want ta remind yeh, we're drivin' a stolen truck. Dat's three years jail time!"

Vernon conceded. _Oh well, easy come, easy go_. If they were lucky, Bulldog might not see them turn and might drive right into the ambush waiting up ahead.

But Bulldog was razor sharp and had concluded several things. For one, he had observed that traffic had ceased coming from the east, and he'd guessed, correctly, that the reason was because the police had erected a barricade and had stopped letting people through. He also figured that Pickle and Pum had found the scanner and were aware of what the cops had up their sleeves and that their truck's rightful owner was not far behind them. They had both done time, and they were driving a stolen vehicle. The rotund version of Napoleon Bonaparte knew also that Pickle and Pum probably assumed that if both vehicles wound up stopped by the police, then Finch would point his finger and report his truck stolen and claim that was the reason for the speed—just a citizen protecting his property. Therefore, the shrewd Sydney Finch figured his ex-coworkers would be ducking into a side-road, and each side-road that he passed, he checked for dust in the air or for fresh skid marks.

Pickle eyed the roadmap he had stuffed in the door pocket. But thinking it too general, he picked up the park map handed out at the entrance. Just then they passed a sign that read, "Desert View, Two Miles." They had already flown by a side-road posted, "Tusayan Ruins and Museum."

"Hurry Vernon!"

"Only one more side-road, should be up here on da left. Lipan Point. Der it is. Right der," Vernon pointed a skinny finger.

Oscar made the turn. It seemed to both occupants that the truck was on two wheels for a couple of seconds but safely returned to Earth and Pickle and Pum were speeding up a freshly asphalted road leading toward the Lipan Point Overlook and parking area. It was also the trailhead for the Tanner Trail, which led all the way to the bottom of the canyon and to the Colorado River.

* * *

One hundred years ago Arizona's elk herds had been decimated by over-hunting. Eighty-three elk were reintroduced in the state in 1913. The population had grown to approximately 35,000, and on that day, the sixth of May, one of the 35,000 chose an inopportune moment to step in front of B. Allen Trout's speeding cruiser. Trout quickly reshuffled his priorities. Chasing a lunatic in a BMW gave way to maneuvering the Crown Victoria around the 750-pound animal. The officer's efforts paid dividends for the bull elk, but Car 1-7-9 did not fare as well. It rolled once and came to a sudden stop wedged upright between two gigantic Ponderosa pines. Trout sat in stunned silence for a moment, then felt an urgent need to relocate. But none of the cruiser's doors would open, and Trout had to break and remove the windshield to extricate himself from the wreckage. Breaking out the windshield proved easy after he seized upon the idea of shooting it six times with his service revolver.

The elk stood on the roadway looking down the embankment where Car 1-7-9 had lodged. After stomping the pavement twice with its right front hoof the animal wheeled around and trotted into the forest.

Feeling light-headed and a bit dizzy, B. Allen Trout waited beside his ruined patrol car. Blood oozed from a cut on his forehead, and steam issued from under the Ford's hood but no smoke. He sniffed. The fuel tank seemed to have remained intact. He glanced at his watch then crawled across the car's hood, reached in, and grabbed his radio. Enough time had elapsed that the BMW should have reached the roadblock at least five minutes before.

"THIS IS CAR 1-7-9. THIS IS CAR 1-7-9. CRUISER IS WRECKED! CRUISER IS WRECKED! DID YOU INTERCEPT? DID YOU INTERCEPT?"

"AH, WE COPY 1-7-9." There was a familiar squawking sound. "WE COPY. AH, NEGATIVE, WE HAVE NOT INTERCEPTED. REPEAT. WE HAVE NOT INTERCEPTED."

Trout was dumbfounded, "HE SHOULD'A BEEN THERE BY NOW. HE SHOULD'A BEEN THERE. SEND A CAR THIS WAY. DRIVE INTO ALL THE OVERLOOKS. DO YOU READ? DO YOU READ?'

"COPY THAT BROTHER. WE ARE ON THE WAY!"

* * *

One hour later, after insisting that he was okay, Officer B. Allen Trout casually confided to a colleague that the Ponderosa Pines that had entangled Car 1-7-9 were purple and possessed long, sharp teeth. Despite his strenuous objection, Trout was taken to the hospital for observation and treatment.

CHAPTER 9: THE TANNER TRAIL, May 6, 2004

As the sun warmed the South Rim forests, a breeze began to stir. Pinyon Jays cried plaintively from the tops of trees, and one flew to the ground producing a continuous string of raucous sound. Under the sun's influence the wet forest floor began to emit strong aromas—of pine, of sage, and of resin. But Vernon and Oscar, and Bulldog too, racing headlong on the curving line of asphalt, were unaware of the rustling of the leaves, of the call of the jays, and of the Zen-like quality of the late spring morning.

This was no time to trade Haikus with Bulldog Finch.

South Rim forests fill

with Pinyon Jays' plaintive calls—

and warm resin's smell.

. . . would likely elicit, "DIE MOTHER FUCKER!" and be followed shortly by the discharge of a gun.

After turning off East Rim Drive, Pickle and Pum drove toward the Lipan Point Overlook. The side-road, a third of a mile long, was concealed by trees. Unfortunately for the two in the stolen truck, the road gained a hundred and twenty feet of elevation during that third of a mile, and as the road climbed higher, the vegetation grew thinner. Oscar Pum feared that someone on East Rim Drive, if they looked carefully, might spot the green pickup as it neared the overlook.

The Lipan Point road ended in a circular drive. There was plenty of parking for people wanting to take in the panoramic views as well as for those hiking the Tanner Trail. In fact Hunter Hobson's late model Honda had been left in the very same lot thirty minutes prior to Pickle and Pum's arrival.

As the two criminals pulled into the parking area, Sam and Hunter Hobson, after a seven-mile cab ride, were descending into the canyon via a different trail, the New Hance. Father and son had planned to exit on their fifth day using the Tanner. And if everything went as scheduled, they would find their car waiting. The Hobsons were blissfully unaware of the bus-jacking, the hostage-taking, and the police chase occurring on the rim beyond the canyon's southern walls.

Those who enter the Grand Canyon are shielded from the chaos and confusion of the outside world. Where they hike, the war on terrorism does not exist. There is no stock market; there are no political intrigues; and, happily, there is no cell phone reception. It is like descending into another realm.

Oscar and Vernon began their short drive around the Lipan Point circle, but a paver, two trucks, and a roller, which were waiting to be moved to another job site, blocked their way. The parking lot and access road had been freshly asphalted. Pum parked behind the two large trucks. No workmen were anywhere around, and Oscar was certain that the pickup, now hidden by the dump trucks, could not be seen from East Rim Drive.

"Let's listen ta da scanner. If Bulldog runs inta da cops at Desert View, we'll find out pretty fast." Vernon's idea sounded reasonable to the giant Pum, and they both leaned forward each with an ear turned toward the metal box. But the scanner did not tell them what they wanted to hear. It only coughed and spit bits of static.

When patrolman Trout finally made his frantic call after wrecking Car 1-7-9, Pickle and Pum simultaneously jumped. Vernon had turned up the sound three times in thirty seconds thinking that the reason they had not received any word lay with a scanner malfunction and that adjusting the volume control upward might somehow affect a cure. An understandable mistake since both were anxious to learn the news regarding Finch's hoped-for capture. By Oscar's reckoning, Finch's arrest should have already occurred.

Pickle turned the volume back down as Trout finished his message, ". . . DID YOU INTERCEPT? . . . DID YOU INTERCEPT?"

Then the hammer blow, " . . . NEGATIVE . . ." Not the news they hoped to hear. Pickle and Pum looked at each other like they were about to be electrocuted and the surge of current was coming down the wire. And in a way it was—in the form of Bulldog Finch.

Vernon realized immediately that he would have to say a quick goodbye to the truck, and he grabbed the two remaining bags of Snickers bars. Oscar frantically turned off the pickup's engine and automatically pocketed the keys like he was going for a short stroll and would return later. Severely rattled, the big man could not think clearly.

The two then ran in the direction opposite the access road even though that direction lead them to the edge of the canyon. There was a masonry retaining wall to keep the tourists from falling to their deaths. Pickle and Pum looked over the side and were happy to discover that a three-foot wide ledge paralleled the base of the structure. The narrow ledge would allow them to sneak secretly along the lip of the precipice—but for how long?

* * *

Bulldog had whipped the BMW around the East Rim's curves and over its hills. The engine was humming. The man could drive.

Those cats were fast as lightning,

Hah! Woo-cha!

In fact, it was a little bit frightening,

Huh! Huh-huh!

But they fought with expert timing.

Hah!

The lyrics to _Kung Foo Fighting_ blared plaintively from the radio. The words and melody raised the small hairs on the back of the Dog's grimy neck. It was as if the end of civilization was at hand, and Carl Douglas' voice unleashed the primal beast in Deano Brasso, which was Sydney Finch's real name. The music sharpened his reflexes and heightened his senses.

Bulldog seemed to have dropped the cop car, and he was not exactly certain how that had happened. Pickle and Pum were just ahead. They were not in sight, but, like a fat man groping in the dark for a cheeseburger, he could somehow sense their presence.

The side-roads drew the Dog's eye as he sped toward Desert View. Near Lipan Point he saw a glint through the trees. It seemed to be moving, and it was a familiar green. Finch overshot the turnoff by fifty feet despite jamming on the brakes as hard as he could. The BMW's tires smoked when he threw the car into reverse.

Grinning hideously Napoleon thought to himself: _They are trapped, and they do not know it._ The road to Lipan Point had to be a dead-end.

Sunlight caught the two pistols on the seat next to him. Raoul Rodriquez's hit men had carried 9mm Berettas until Bulldog surprised them and helped himself. Ten shells per magazine should be plenty. But just in case, he stuffed the box of cartridges into his front pants pocket.

Driving with one hand he picked up the nearest Beretta and squeezed the grip like it was a lover's hand.

_This is going to be so good_. The lunatic, keeping a sharp eye out, drove slowly toward the parking area, savoring the moment. He felt like a virgin anticipating his first experience, except Deano "The Bulldog" Brasso had killed before, but it had always been for money and not for the satisfaction of his hatred as in this case.

* * *

Pickle and Pum carefully went over the side of the retaining wall despite the protests of a man and a woman who pulled up in a Winnebago bearing Oklahoma license plates. Oscar found that he could crouch down behind the stone wall and, looking over its top, could spy on the traffic in the parking lot. But Vernon was too short and the wall too high; he would have to rely on Pum's reports.

Oscar Pum's blood pressure began to rise when the Oklahoma couple stormed over to the edge and began berating the two for endangering themselves and for "modeling risky behavior should children witness their irresponsible actions."

"What's goin' on, Oscar?" Vernon asked when he heard the couple's rant.

After Pum unleashed several phrases—phrases that he had learned while in prison—the husband and wife from Oklahoma seemed to quickly appreciate that the "irresponsible" men crouching behind the masonry barrier wanted to be left alone. Many of those expletives could reliably peel the paint off a wall and owed their origin to the Colombians incarcerated at Oscar's alma mater, the Eastham branch of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The resulting expressions on the tourists' faces brought to mind luckless diners after having discovered half-eaten garden slugs at the bottom of their salad bowls.

Both Oklahomans quickly stepped back from the edge just as one might step back from a blazing inferno or from a septic tank that was about to explode. And that was where the fugitives were, hiding behind the wall, when Oscar Pum spotted Bulldog Finch at the wheel of the gray BMW.

* * *

Bulldog drove the loop around Lipan Point and spied his green pickup parked at a right angle to two dump trucks. It was empty; Pickle and Pum had fled. He pulled the BMW in close behind his truck so that avenue of escape would be closed to Oscar and the Flying Turd. The pickup's tailpipe was still hot. The keys were not in the ignition; he would have to remember to search their pockets once they were dead.

* * *

As soon as Oscar witnessed their nemesis driving the German car while fondling a semi-automatic, he relayed the information to his partner, and the duo lit out deciding not to wait and see what Finch would do next. The two began carefully shuffling along the base of the wall, which brought them in front of several tourists who were in the act of taking pictures of the Escalante and Cardenas Buttes that extend into the canyon jutting out from the Lipan Point Overlook.

Oscar, being tall, had to bend at the waist and run stooped over, otherwise half of his head would have appeared above the top of the structure and would have given away their position. He found this to be uncomfortable, and he kept his eyes glued to the narrow ledge as he trailed the more agile Pickle.

For Vernon, on the other hand, standing straight was no problem; even at full height, his head was still a foot lower than the stone barrier. Pickle could run normally, and he looked up at the tourists that he passed and gave them embarrassed grins and quiet hellos. An observant person standing on the other side of the parking lot might have been able to tell from the tourist's surprised faces and tentative attempts at greeting that someone was sneaking out of sight down along the perimeter of the battlement. The stonework made a sweeping curve all the way around the Lipan Point Overlook—a curve that led to the beginning of the Tanner Trail.

For the startled tourists who watched as Pickle and Pum passed beneath, it was very much like a trip to a zoo where the animals are kept in pits and pace restlessly tracing the outer boundary of the space where they are confined.

After one minute of shuffling along the base of the wall, it was becoming routine. Vernon, looking at the tourists, would greet them, "Hello. Pardon us. Have a nice day." etc. The vacationers looking down at the two would acknowledge, "Hello. _Guten tag. Têtes de merde_." Twice tourists took pictures while leaning forward, pointing their cameras down over the retaining wall, and laughing as their cameras clicked.

It was then that Vernon Pickle saw HIM, the man that every member of the Pickle clan idolized. What a complete surprise! Vernon could not believe his great good fortune.

"HAM SALAD!" he yelled too loudly for Oscar Pum's comfort and then suddenly stopped in his tracks. Oscar, still hunched over, bumped into the back of his friend then twisted his head up and around in order to see the person at whom Vernon Pickle awkwardly gawked.

Standing above like God in Heaven was none other than the famous singer and actor, camera in hand. Ham Salad had been looking through his camera's viewfinder, until a voice coming from an unlikely direction broke his concentration. He gazed down and over the wall at a short fellow with big ears and long nose who stared back at him with that familiar look of intoxication, which adorns the faces of dedicated fans upon seeing their idols in person for the first time. How often had Ham Salad witnessed this peculiar narcosis? The famous personality felt a sympathetic pang and decided to indulge his supplicating fan.

The other person Ham Salad was not sure of. The giant was crouched over in an ape-like pose and kept looking around with worry seemingly etched permanently on his expansive face. It was like the big man was in a hurry and desperate to escape from something. Ham Salad wanted to tell him to slow down, to enjoy life, to take in the incredible view, but he held back on the advice. _Some guys just don't know how to relax and don't want to learn_ , he thought to himself, finding the giant's condition to be somewhat sad.

The entertainer was once that way himself until he took a raft trip with an outfit, which called itself Grand Canyon Zen Adventures, on the very river that raced far below. The Zen Adventures' helpful staff taught him the value of meditation and instilled in him a profound sense of appreciation—he could now stop and view a sunset and not once check his watch for the time. The transformation was total, and he would forever be in their debt.

"My mom is just . . . is just . . . well, a huge fan. And I'm . . . I'm . . . well, it's an honor to meet you Mr. Salad," Vernon stammered.

"Friends call me Ham," the singer offered, and at the same time made an open-handed gesture as if to assure Vernon Pickle that such informality was indeed acceptable.

"Vernon, we gotta go." Oscar did not want to sound rude, but he figured it wouldn't take the Dog long to pick up their trail.

The enamored fan with big ears and a large nose ignored Oscar's plea and instead said to his friend, "Ohhhhh, did you hear dat Oscar? We can call him Ham!"

"NOW, VERNON! We gotta go, NOW!"

Ham Salad also ignored the big man whom the entertainer assumed suffered from some cruel form of degenerative bone disease, bent over the way he was.

"Tell yeh what. I'm at the MGM Grand in Vegas. Why don't yeh treat your mom to a show. I'll dedicate a song to her." How magnanimous was the popular star of stage and screen! This made Vernon feel compelled to explain why he could not accept Ham's generous offer.

"Well I'd do dat, 'cept Oscar and me, we stole a truck. Real nice one too. And, well see, da guy it belongs ta is gonna kill us, if he catches up ta us, and he just pulled inta da parking lot. He can't be dat far back right now. Dat's why we're down here behind dis here wall . . ."

During the explanation Oscar kept tapping on Vernon's shoulder anxious to make tracks, and Ham Salad's expression changed from that of "magnanimous benefactor" to one of dismay and confusion, similar to that of a celebrant at a bachelor party when humungous rat jumps out of a cake that was expected to produce something erotic and not covered all over by hair.

Not far off a tourist screamed and two shots rang out. A bullet ricocheted off the top of the wall directly in front of Mr. Salad, and Vernon and Oscar were on their way without clarifying further.

Ham Salad wheeled around and saw a short, fat man covered in dried, red mud and yelling at the top of his lungs. The man carried pistols in each hand and ran across the parking lot trying to intercept the two who had, just seconds before, confessed to larceny. The mud-encrusted lunatic gnashed his teeth in a manner that reminded the entertainer of Teddy Roosevelt and his historic dash up San Juan Hill, except this guy was not yelling "Charge!" He was, instead, alternating between invoking the Devil and describing what he was going to do with his fillet knife when he caught up with the two who had stolen his truck.

Evidently, the lunatic was not a fan and took no notice of the famous singer. Ham Salad jumped into a black Hummer half the size of Rhode Island and drove off at speeds that would place him back on the Vegas strip in record time.

On the way he played his _Greatest Hits_ CD and wished that he drew fans from a better class of people. He kept thinking: _Life is not fair_ , and considered it unlikely that Barry Manilow or Yanni would ever have to dodge bullets, though he did recall that Mama Cass had gotten stabbed with a fork once at the dessert bar of the Circus Circus buffet.

* * *

Five minutes before shooting at the fleeing Pickle and Pum, Bulldog, toting his two Berettas, had gotten out of the BMW to inspect his beloved pickup truck. Next he thought to himself: _If I was incredibly stupid and in a panic, which way would I run?_ The Dog looked in all directions. He stared out across the parking lot and toward the retaining wall.

The disheveled fat man with the two Berettas attracted the attention of a nearby couple from Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were hurrying toward their Winnebago when Bulldog stepped in front of them and stuck one of his pistols in the man's face so that the muzzle poked the guy hard in the nose. Finch ordered the woman to throw their keys and cell phones over the edge. She obliged and Finch could not help but be impressed with the distance she got on the Nokia.

"Now," Bulldog said while clicking the safety off the Beretta that had penetrated the tourist's left nostril, "did you see the two guys who got outta that pickup over there?"

The Oklahomans did not hold back and swiftly volunteered all the information that they could recall. She pointed to the wall guarding the overlook; he explained how they saw two foul-mouthed individuals "demonstrating poor impulse control and possessing no sense of decency" go over the edge hardly three minutes before. Finch nodded and extracted his firearm, wiping its muzzle on the tourist's flowery shirt. Next he noticed a large man near a black Hummer across the parking lot. The man seemed to be speaking to someone below, out of view, and on the other side of the retaining wall.

Bulldog Finch left the Oklahoma couple without a word. He hurried ten feet over to the masonry structure and looked down. There was a ledge, which sported a path paralleling a 300-foot drop-off. The path disappeared around the curve as the wall traced the perimeter of the circular parking area. Fifty yards away the big man near the Hummer continued to talk. _IT'S THEM!_ Bulldog thought, and he started to run.

* * *

The first Arizona Highway patrolman to checkout the Lipan Point Overlook found the gray BMW, which was parked close behind a green 4X4. A husband and wife from Tulsa ran up to the cruiser with a crazy story about a fat, wild man caked in mud and heavily armed. The husband pointed to his swollen nose, while the wife pointed in the direction of the canyon and hysterically shouted something about keys and cell phones.

Soon the parking lot was crawling with Ford Crown Victorias all with their emergency lights flashing. A child asked his mother when the parade was going to start.

The cops had a single, yet somewhat fuzzy, mission: to catch the muddy, wild man who was thought by some to be Billy Boy Burk in yet another disguise.

The police towed the green pickup and the gray BMW to impound, dusted both for prints, and discovered that one Deano Brasso had driven both vehicles. Brasso was wanted for the 1985 murder of a Newark, New Jersey, pharmacist, Layton Lemon. Lemon had been indicted for illegally selling prescription medication and had promised to turn state's evidence in a related trial. But thanks to Brasso, the pharmacist never got a chance to testify. Afterwards, Deano Brasso skipped town and had left no trace in the last nineteen years—until that day: May the sixth.

The BMW turned out to be a rental and had been reported stolen in Flagstaff that same morning. The name on the rental agreement was Raoul Rodriquez, a Mexican national. The computer had nothing on Mr. Rodriquez, and he'd apparently already returned to his home in Sonora, Mexico.

The pickup was registered to a Sydney Finch of Flagstaff, Arizona. Finch worked at H & H Auto Body on the east side of town but had not shown up for work in two days. The proprietors identified a picture of Deano Brasso taken twenty years ago as their missing employee Sidney Finch and were flabbergasted that the man was wanted for murder.

"Finch and Brasso are one-and-the-same," Hector Lopez, Jr. told the State Trooper as he handed back the faxed photo of the New Jersey hit man. Lopez seemed genuinely surprised, saying, "Finch'd been an excellent worker, but quiet, had no friends to speak of, and kept pretty much to himself."

After the police left, Young Hector said to his dad in Spanish, "I hope Raoul finds Bulldog before the cops do."

Old Hector nodded absently. The old man was not himself having had to contend with several business reversals in the past forty-eight hours. Plus it was eating on him that, almost certainly, he would have to hire kids from the community college Auto Body program since the Department of Corrections had not returned his phone calls.

Ultimately the college kids worked out pretty well, so the next time he found "Bay Two" asleep under a car, "Bay Two" was canned and replaced by a program graduate who barely looked sixteen and was a devotee of hip-hop.

The senior Lopez decided to invest in an expensive pair of noise-canceling headphones. Plus his son bought him an Ipod and had one of the new employees download the complete recorded works of the Gipsy Kings. Except for stealing music off the Internet, Young Hector stopped tapping the H & H Auto Body staff for extra jobs and mostly stayed away from the business after that. Developing real estate turned out to be a fulltime job.

Oscar Pum and Vernon Pickle left no fingerprints. Nothing tied the two to the events at Lipan Point except a vague description given the cops by two tourists from Oklahoma who were quite shaken and did not make a whole lot of sense. The National Park Police checked the base of the cliff where the husband and wife said they witnessed two individuals go over the retaining wall and not return; however, no bodies were found.

Pickle and Pum had only one thing to worry about—the mud-encrusted gentleman with the two Berettas.

* * *

Without the music of Carl Douglas to spur him on, Bulldog lost that edge he had while behind the wheel. Plus thirty years of smoking high tar cigarettes and the 7,000-foot elevation conspired to cause Finch's running form to resemble that of a marmot with distemper. For the sprint across the Lipan Point parking lot, he held up rather well, but after that, his "running" quickly deteriorated into a lame hobble.

Bulldog got off two more shots, which zinged harmlessly over the heads of Vernon and Oscar and provided them with more inspiration than an entire afternoon of motivational speakers.

Pickle and Pum emerged from the base of the wall and just kept running. Forget being tired and out of breath. Forget aching muscles and sore feet. Forget even Mr. Ham Salad. Pickle and Pum were running for their lives, and when they crossed a path that turned down a slope, they took it because it led away from Finch and away, also, from the siren they heard coming up the Lipan Point access road.

Bulldog heard it too, the siren, and decided it was the right thing to do—follow Pickle and Pum into the Grand Canyon.

About this time Finch realized his endurance level lay somewhere between woodchuck and palm tree; still he continued to yell expletives and wave his Berettas. In a way, Vernon and Oscar were happy that Bulldog was speaking his mind because they were able to gauge his location and the status of their lead over the mud-encrusted wild man. The gap between them widened.

"If we can keep up this pace," Vernon huffed, "we can lose da creep." He hoped he was right.

Oscar nodded but said nothing. He battled to catch his breath—a struggle that at the moment, he was not positive he could win. The trail had quickly turned steep and rocky, and the big man had stumbled twice, nearly going over the edge both times.

Vernon, with the two surviving bags of Snickers still in hand, skipped along on the rocky trail with hardly a mishap.

As for Bulldog his commentary began to falter. Words came less often. And when they did, it was hard to tell if the Dog was yelling or was extracting his own teeth without benefit of painkillers. After thirty minutes, Vernon and Oscar no longer heard anything out of Finch, and they began taking breaks allowing Pum to recover from hypoxia. During their breathers Pickle scanned the trail they had come down, searching for their enemy. He spotted Bulldog once far above and barely larger than a dot, but still picking his way down following the path deeper into the canyon.

In the very core of Vernon Pickle lurked the uncomfortable feeling that the angry fat man would haunt him for the rest of his life.

* * *

Less than five minutes after stumbling onto the Tanner Trail, and while hollering at the fleeing Pickle and Pum, Finch began to realize that the two he chased were not going to be so easily caught. But returning to the top just then was not an option because the single siren he heard earlier had been joined by several others. In fact, the sounds coming from the heights above made it seem like the police were amassing for an all-out assault on Krispy Kreme.

Finch's thinking began to change. Oscar and the Flying Turd were not the ones who were in up to their necks, but it was his position that did not look so rosy. He took inventory: _no food, no water, no stamina, no money, no truck, and for quite some time now, no luck._ All in all, the sixth of May was turning out to be a very bad day.

His hatred for Vernon Pickle had made him stupid. Those others, twenty years ago, were for money. Back then he had maintained his objectivity, and his victims did not know him and did not see him coming. Why had he not walked slowly across the parking lot instead of charging wildly and firing from a distance? Hatred had made killing a whole lot tougher for Bulldog Brasso. But what the Flying Turd did to Baby Jessica's picture, to his truck, to Beethoven, and to the CD's—how could he have remained cool; how could anyone have remained cool?

Finch considered stopping altogether and finding a place to rest—deciding that at least he should hide. The cops in the parking lot were searching for him. How long would it be before they sent deputies down the trail—deputies who were fit and who could run like deer?

Bulldog continued to descend the Tanner, but as he did, he began to look for a spot—a spot from which he could watch and not be seen. Maybe I'll wait 'til it's night. Pick my way back up in the dark. Despite the promises he had made earlier, he had talked himself out of continuing the hunt for Pickle and Pum and having a shootout with the police.

Soon Finch spied a place ten yards off the path, and he carefully worked his way across a steep, brush-covered slope. His Berettas felt like lead weights, and he could hardly wait to get off his feet. In the geologic past rocks had tumbled from above and a particularly large one had come to rest producing a flat surface. The surface was big enough that he could stretch out, and it was overhung and sheltered by an even larger boulder, which would also shield him from people on the trail.

_I'm not done yet_ , he said to himself, convinced that he would someday settle with the Flying Turd. _It might take a year, maybe two. I will get him when he's not expecting it, and he lets down his guard_.

The Dog was surprised that the flat rock was so comfortable, and it was a revelation to him that he had grown so tired. The day had left him drained, and the fat man was sound asleep almost instantly.

* * *

When Bulldog awoke, the sun had set behind the ridge that jutted out from Lipan Point. The temperature had plummeted, a condition for which he was ill prepared, and he recalled that the Turd had been wearing his coat when he had flushed the two truck thieves from their cover behind the stone retaining wall.

Bulldog shivered violently and stood to walk back across the steep, brushy slope. But his leg muscles were not quite ready to make the move, and he staggered then tripped, landing on a sharp rock that detonated two of the cartridges from the box in his pants pocket. One of the bullets tore through his femoral artery. Deano Brasso slid five feet and fell another fifteen. His body finally stopped—jammed upside down in a crevice that was both hidden from view and several yards off the beaten track. He felt a warm liquid soaking his pants, but he could not move his head to look and soon no longer cared. As Bulldog bled to death on the cold, rocky slope, he was joined by his father, his baby sister, and his young mother and sobbed because he was so happy—Jesus had finally come.

It took one month for the Park Service to discover the reason why so many California Condors were congregating at the upper end of Tanner Canyon. News had spread about the gathering birds, and tourists had flocked to the Lipan Point Overlook to see the huge scavengers that had barely escaped extinction.

When Raoul Rodriquez learned what the condors had been feeding on, he called off his search for Sydney Finch.

CHAPTER 10: OSCAR PUM'S VISION

Vernon and Oscar, not by design, had embarked on a nine-mile journey that would take them to the Colorado River where water in the Tanner Rapids churned and tumbled over and around car-sized boulders. Veteran hikers would shudder to think what was in store for the two who had commenced their hasty trip equipped with only two bags of Snickers bars.

But, however ill prepared, they were better off by far than Bulldog Finch who, the wayward pair wrongly assumed, still followed in the distance. Nights in early May are cold. The Tanner Trail has no perennial water sources as it descends 4,700 vertical feet. In many places the trail is obscured by rock falls making travel arduous and slow.

Vernon Pickle figured correctly that Bulldog Finch was as out of place on the Tanner as a walrus was in the desert, and he smiled to himself at the picture in his mind.

But the Bulldog was the Bulldog, and Vernon believed it unlikely that he would easily let go of this bone. _He'll find a pace and stick to it; either that, or he'll die trying_ , Pickle thought as he more than once sneaked peeks over his bony shoulder.

Pickle and Pum had opened enough of a lead, however, that they felt Finch was not an immediate threat. They no longer jogged, but settled into a fast walk. Each munched on a Snickers bar as they hustled toward the river.

Oscar eventually asked, "Say, what's da connection wid you and dat Ham Salad guy anyway?"

Vernon thought for a second before commenting, "Well . . . when I was growin' up, . . . Mom had two pictures on da livin' room wall, . . . one was Jesus . . . and da other was Ham Salad. . . . Hell, fer da longest time I thought Mr. Salad was one of the Apostles. I was about six when I learnt differ'nt."

Oscar walked in silence. He turned the image over in his head, and after ruminating, spoke, "Hard ta picture dis: _The Gospel Accordin' Ta Saint Ham_." He then scratched his chin with one hand, while in the other held a Snickers.

"What?" Vernon asked turning his head around, as he pressed onward.

"Oh nothin', just thinkin' out loud's all."

One hour came and went. Pickle and Pum hiked past the Stegosaurus Rocks, a sharp ridge festooned with plate-like boulders protruding skyward. Between the plates they could look west into Seventy-Five Mile Canyon and toward the sun, which at the time had passed its zenith and had slowly begun to descend. To the east lay Tanner Canyon and on the rim far above the Tanner, the observation tower at Desert View.

Pickle and Pum were lucky that it had rained the day before because they carried no water, and normally there would be nothing to drink, pure or otherwise, along the nine-mile stretch. But the recent rains had left pools in small, hard rock basins that the two infrequently encountered.

After two hours of hiking, Oscar suggested that they each drink their fill from the pools, and what they could not finish, they should scoop out with their hands and allow to soak into the sandy soil. That way there would be nothing for Bulldog when he came along later—the equivalent of "burning their bridges."

While still under the eye of the Desert View Observation Tower, the footpath left Tanner Canyon then contoured around the end of Escalante Butte. Next the trail did the same around the end of Cardenas Butte, as hour three slipped into hour four.

By this time both Pickle and Pum were beginning to stagger. They needed more water than could be gleaned from the trifling pools, and the single bag of Snickers that they were down to did not look like enough to see them through another day. In a choice between jail, Bulldog, or hunger and thirst, jail had inched perceptively upward.

The sun was about to set by the time the truck thieves encountered the "Redwall break," a point where the trail passes through the nearly perpendicular Redwall Limestone.

The path seemed to disappear over a steep edge. It emerged 900 feet below at the base of a sheer wall whose incline was softened by the presence of a rock fall. The two looked down at the trail in front of them, then at each other.

"We better do dis now before it gets too dark," Vernon suggested, resigned to the inevitable.

Pum nodded and followed Pickle over the edge.

But the break was easier than it looked. In forty minutes they were at the base and were recovering their confidence.

"We gotta look fer a place ta sleep. Whad'cha think?" Vernon asked the big man.

Darkness was closing fast. Both Pickle and Pum could feel the chill, though they wore coats, gloves, and hats that they had been wearing since early morning.

THAT MORNING! It was only twelve hours ago that Oscar had picked up Vernon to report for work at H & H Auto Body, but it seemed more like twelve days.

Pum would miss his old truck and his small apartment where, from one window, if he leaned out while standing on the tips of his toes, he could see the top of Elden Mountain. The extinct volcano was partially eclipsed by the neighbor's roof and chimney. Meanwhile, Pickle smiled at the prospect of never again having to wrestle with his Dodge Dart, and he wouldn't miss the landlady's yappy dog much either.

They found an overhang in the Tapeats Sandstone and built two crude stacked-rock walls on the sides so only the front of their shelter was open to the elements. There they commenced to spend the most uncomfortable night they could remember save for each other's first night in prison.

Vernon had dropped Bulldog's matches after lighting the newspaper while under the Mexican's limousine, so a campfire was not in the cards. The sun had set. Without lights or a fire they had no choice but to settle in and holdout for the morning sun. What could they do? Sleep was an option, but being cramped and cold made going to sleep a tall order.

After thirty minutes of lying wide awake in conditions that a scorpion would have found objectionable, Vernon asked, "What would yeh give ta be in da Red Dog right now, Oscar? With a full pitcher of beer in front of yeh, and a job ta go ta in da mornin'? What would yeh give?"

Oscar did not hesitate, "Oh, dat's easy. I would like da beer. Yes, I would. And I would give eight dollars 'cause dat's what pitchers cost in da Red Dog."

And Oscar asked right back, "What would yeh give to be in a real bed with blankets and maybe dat girl in da red dress yehr always talkin' about? What would dat be worth, huh?" Oscar gave a laugh, which contained a hint of lust.

But Vernon did not respond at first. When he did, he confessed to his friend in a sad voice that there was no girl in a red dress, and that there never had been. In fact, he'd only had sex twice in his life. Once was with a prostitute, and the other time was with his Aunt Pauline from Payson. And that was another thing that he'd lied about. He was not from Payson at all but from Prescott, Arizona, where he was known as the town dumb ass.

Oscar lay in the dark and said only, "Oh."

It might have been more information than the big man cared to know, but he did wonder about that "Aunt Pauline thing." Oscar Pum thought about his own aunts who were at least thirty years older than himself and who each weighed in the neighborhood of 400 pounds, and then a gigantic shudder went through the man from South Texas—like when the _Titanic_ hit that iceberg. Oscar decided then and there never to ask Vernon Pickle about his Aunt Pauline.

When they finally fell asleep, wraith-like images of Bulldog Finch haunted their dreams until morning.

* * *

They survived the night of May sixth, but the truck thieves were the worse for the experience. The following morning, thirst consumed them, and because Pum had heard that a person could extract moisture from a cactus, they smashed a prickly pear with a rock and carefully sucked out pitifully small amounts of pulpy fluid, which provided no relief whatsoever.

From where they stood two miles of trail separated them from the life-sustaining but brown waters of the Colorado, and they set off toward the river deciding that cactus juice was only good when fermented.

The two miles would have been an easy hike for those in good condition. But by this time neither Vernon nor Oscar could make that claim, impaired as they were by dehydration. The "walrus in the desert image" came back to haunt poor Vernon as he staggered and stumbled toward the muddy Colorado. He still retained the notion that behind him sniffed a relentless Bulldog Finch, and Pickle stole worried glances in that direction.

As the desperate adventurers neared their destination the noise of water rushing through the Tanner Rapids was like a beacon drawing them forward. In fact Vernon, in the lead, began following the noise rather than the trail, and the noise drew them off the actual path and onto a tree-covered sand dune.

Pickle and Pum crashed through brush and weaved past acacia and mesquite trees until the dune came to an abrupt and unexpected end. Both tumbled, cold and thirsty, down fifteen feet of steep sand and onto the upper beach. When the two stopped rolling, they found themselves surrounded by several startled individuals who had formed a circle. In the middle of the circle stood a beautiful vision with flowing blonde hair and dressed in a white robe.

Oscar Pum thought that he had died and gone to Heaven. The vision approached the two lying in the sand, said something that neither understood, and then knelt down and caressed them both. The experience temporarily stole from Oscar the power of speech, which in Oscar Pum's case was not a felony but petty larceny only.

However, before the "vision" had gathered Vernon into her arms, Pickle had looked over in the distance and saw something the likes of which he had never seen before: five men wearing cowboy hats and what he took to be bright, orange dresses. The men were watching in wide-eyed amazement while absently but earnestly scratching their balls!

END OF BOOK TWO

Thank you for reading _Flying High._ The following two chapters are from Book Three, _The Confluence of Disorder._ If you like the sample, go to my Smashwords.com page for the third installment.

But first a bit of overview: an unorthodox rafting company is introduced in Book Three. Grand Canyon Zen Adventures caters to rich eccentrics in need of spiritual enlightenment, and on one fateful float trip in 2004 characters from Books One and Two merge with those of Book Three in what can be described as a "confluence of disorder."

Enjoy. Neil Ackerman

### Book Three: The Confluence of Disorder

CHAPTER ONE: ZACK CANNON AND VICTORIA BUGG, 1998

"Listen Son, you're makin' a big mistake!"

"No, Dad, selling insurance is a big mistake." His dad looked hurt. "Come on Dad. Not for YOU, you like it. It has meaning for you. For ME it's nothing. It's not what I want to do the rest of my life."

"But Zack, you're a natural. You could be a millionaire by the time you're thirty."

"I sell insurance and annuities. Yes, I make money at it, but I feel nothing here," Zack Cannon pointed to his chest while pleading his case. "I want to work outdoors; I want to make people happy!"

"You want happy? I'll show you happy. Sell some schmuck a policy. Three days later he drops dead. Hand the widow a check for 200 grand! That's happy! Without a genie and three wishes, you can't get any happier than that!"

* * *

Zack Cannon replayed in his mind the conversation that he'd had with his dad a month ago. He'd replayed it three times in the last five minutes. Sitting at his desk with the conversation running through his head, he looked at a shelf in the corner where three identical gold-colored, plastic beavers resided—awarded annually by the Golden Beaver Annuities and Life Assurance Company for a job well done. The grim-faced beavers wore runner's shorts, singlets, and track shoes, and were posed, tails erect, in the familiar stance assumed by sprinters in starting blocks awaiting the sound of the gun.

When he wasn't explaining the advantages and disadvantages of Roth IRA's or of Golden Beaver's Golden Age-Golden Annuity to Flagstaff's older citizenry, Cannon daydreamed of kayaking and rafting through the Grand Canyon. An outdoor kind of guy Zack was caught in an unnatural, indoor world, and he considered his nicely appointed office to be little better than a cage.

A month and a half before breaking with the company Zack Cannon looked at the same three Golden Beavers resting on his shelf. He adjusted the beavers so that they were perfectly aligned then looked into their faces, and, like Zack's face, their faces did not appear happy. The thought that someday there could be as many as thirty unhappy Golden Beavers burdening the same shelf was too oppressive for Zack to consider, and he checked out of the office early to drink a beer.

As Cannon walked from the building he thought of a place on the east side of town that he had not visited since college. He was certain that his would be the only Mercedes parked in front of the Red Dog Saloon.

* * *

Zack drove east on Old Route 66. After pulling into the parking lot, he put his coat, tie, and cell phone in the trunk, hit the lock/alarm button on his remote, which made the car's lights flash once, and then he walked inside the red metal building—its windows crowded with bright neon beer signs. Inside sawdust covered the floor, country music twanging on the jukebox, and the pleasant sound of conversation supplied a steady buzz. The bar had a reputation of being a bit left of center, and that was alright with Zack Cannon because he was contemplating giving up his six figure income and getting into a business where the financial rewards were substantially less and were more along the lines of fresh air and sunshine—two commodities that were in short supply inside the Red Dog.

The saloon was reputed to be a second home to "river rats," that is, guides and oarsmen who worked for various Colorado River rafting companies based in "Flag." Cannon stayed late, talked to many patrons, and began to formulate an escape from the cage that was the Flagstaff sales office of the Golden Beaver Annuity and Life Assurance Company. Zack Cannon wanted his beavers to be happy beavers with flaccid tails and laid-back attitudes. He wanted to trade in his Mercedes and drive a pickup—maybe even wear a cowboy hat. And why not?

Up until this point Cannon's attempts to break away from his dad's agency had been largely flights of fancy, which would usually wear off about the same time as his hangover. But not any more.

Despite strong objections from his father, who proudly sported twenty-seven Golden Beavers and was virtually assured of number twenty-eight, Zack made a partial break with the company. Cannon boxed up his Beavers and moved into a small, second-story office in "Old Town." He had stationery printed up with "Frontier Rafting Adventures" as a banner across the top.

The break was not total. Zack worked it out with the elder Cannon that he would float March through October and sell insurance during the winter months. His dad agreed because he figured his son would make a hash of the rafting business, and that Zack would someday return, tail between his legs. The older Cannon would give his only child enough rope to hang himself, and then accept him back into the fold fulltime when the enterprise had run its course. After all, he had been young once himself. He must have been; he just could not remember much about it.

Frontier Rafting Adventures would start business with seven, eighteen-foot, five-person rafts—four clients per raft. The fifth person would be oarsman and guide and would handle a pair of oars from the middle of the boat. He explained to his skeptical father that he wanted his clients to have more of a "feel" for the river. Many of the companies were going with motorized, bus-sized rafts and were piling the customers on top of one another—big profits but not much personal touch.

Zack Cannon, the super salesman, had no trouble filling his float trips. But after the first season, he was not breaking even. There were a lot of rafting companies, and Zack had to reduce his prices to stay competitive. Despite dipping into his savings to keep his company afloat, he was having the time of his life and decided not to give his father the satisfaction of saying, "I told you so."

_One more year_ , he promised himself. _If it doesn't turn around, maybe then I'll throw in the towel._

* * *

Quite by accident Cannon did one thing right. He hired a receptionist who had recently graduated from Coconino Community College. Shy but efficient, the young woman came cheap. She kept her blonde hair in a tight bun, weighed barely ninety-seven pounds, and wore thick, dark-rimmed glasses that were a throwback to the 1970's. Once Miss Victoria Bugg had settled into her position at Frontier Rafting Adventures, she proved herself to be resourceful and energetic, reporting to work early and staying late.

Miss Bugg was named after Queen Victoria whom her mother had admired. In fact Victoria's mother had often fantasized that she herself was a queen. And like a queen, she chose not to demean herself by accepting employment outside the home. She raised three children, Victoria, Elizabeth, and Charles and would shrivel like a slug crawling across a salt block when the neighbors perverted their names into Vickie, Beth, and Chuck. The matronly Mrs. Bugg tended to royal affairs, watched soap operas, and did everything that she imagined real queens did, except for the fact that her spouse earned his living driving a truck, which meant she had to clean her own toilets (in her favor, it was a task she performed in an aristocratic manner and to genteel perfection and for which she dressed tastefully yet not ostentatiously). Her husband did not own polo ponies and thought that cricket was an insect only. Yet the queenly Mrs. Bugg loved her mate despite his obvious shortcomings.

Fortunately Victoria turned out to be much more down-to-earth than her regal mother. Victoria Bugg had graduated with three certificates: accounting, office administration, and graphic design. At first glance one would not have known that Victoria possessed the drive and determination that seethed within her small frame because she hid her talents rather well behind a mousy and understated exterior. However, her Williams High School yearbook included a prediction that Victoria Bugg would be "The person most likely to rule the World!" and listed her credits as: editor of the _Williams High Bugle_ , float builder, class treasurer all four years, and special events chairperson. Miss Bugg's picture appeared on almost every page of the yearbook her final year of high school.

Victoria had put together her senior prom almost single-handedly. The theme had been _Religions of the Far East_. A stickler for authenticity, she read extensively on Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Zen Buddhism. The band dressed in orange robes, and she somehow convinced the musicians to shave their heads for the occasion. Miss Fortune's home economics class whipped up vegetarian snacks, and couples, dressed in formals, posed for pictures in front of an eight-foot paper maché Buddha.

The stage, which Victoria Bugg designed and built with the assistance of Mr. Moon's industrial arts students, was an ethereal "Golden Pavilion" and was used for the crowning of the King and Queen. Despite objections from the local Baptist minister whose sermon that Sunday morning centered on false gods and idolatry, the prom was truly a night of magic and is still a subject of delight with the class of 1997.

* * *

Zack Cannon had always gotten by on charisma and strong, athletic good looks. People wanted to be with him in hopes that some of what Zack had would rub off and make up for their own shortcomings.

Despite his personal magnetism the second floating season had come and gone, and Frontier Rafting Adventures remained in the red. It looked like Cannon was condemned to selling Golden Beaver investment products fulltime, and he called Victoria Bugg into his office to break the bad news.

He explained to the Bugg how the company teetered on the brink of insolvency. She listened patiently. But, hell, she kept the books; she knew that they were hanging by a thread, so she decided that this would have to be her moment.

After hearing her boss out, the astute Ms. Bugg produced from her attaché case a thirty-two-page, typed business plan complete with charts, graphs, and projections. It teemed with new, fresh ideas and yet was backed by an accountant's sound practicality. _Grand Canyon Zen Adventures_ appeared prominently on the cover page.

The upshot was that they would cater to a different clientele—well-healed sophisticates in need of spiritual overhaul. They would keep the personal touch and provide their customers with meditation sessions, a gourmet vegetarian diet, specialty teas, and an advisor who would insure that everyone aboard would contract a case of "canyon euphoria." A Grand Canyon Zen Adventure would not be simply a river trip; it would produce a spiritual awakening! It would amount to therapy and would spark rejuvenation; it would be a true ZEN ADVENTURE! And the best part of the business plan: they would charge three times the going rate. Suddenly Cannon saw another side of Victoria Bugg—a quiet dynamo unleashed!

Zack Cannon leafed through the entire thirty-two pages. It contained an artist's rendering of hairless river guides in Buddhist monk-style orange robes. There were specifications for fabrics, and detailed plans for a foldable, lightweight "Golden Pavilion" with Persian carpets rolled out to form a floor. Appendix B provided a listing of publications with reader demographics and advertising expenses. One of the publications entitled _Eastern Religions Outdoors_ had a small, but affluent, patron list. Another the English language edition of the _Katmandu Times_ , whose circulation was limited mostly to coastal California, held high the fact that the median family income of its U.S. subscribers was $493,000.

Appendix C laid out an Internet strategy and included web pages, pop-ups, security, forums, server . . .

All was there. Zack Cannon, his head spinning, said, "Give me twenty-four hours."

That evening he called with his answer, "Yes."

Victoria could hardly contain her enthusiasm. She said, "Okay." The next morning at 7:00 A.M. she was hard at work turning her brainchild into reality.

CHAPTER 2: VIRGIL COOK

Virgil Cook seldom showed emotion, but he had the dubious distinction of throwing more bean balls than anyone in Texas Baseball League history. When it came to registering insults, both real and imagined, he had the eye of an eagle, the memory of an elephant, and the imagination of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Cook did his talking with "errant" pitches: he had a curveball that was, perhaps, the most articulate in all of southeast Texas, and possessed a fluent slider as well as an eloquent sinker. But he used his fastball more than any other pitch to redress his many grievances.

It was said that Virgil's arsenal of pitches included a voluble knuckle ball until one got away from him during a game against the South Padre Stinging Jellies and killed a low-flying sea gull. He was against killing under any circumstance, for sport, for food, or for revenge, and he never again threw another knuckle ball.

The last straw for Cook came when Karl Onion, looking like a Samurai in his catcher's gear, set up behind a batter's back. On the previous pitch Onion could tell there was something on Virgil's mind, and he trotted out to the mound to have a word. Virgil Cook said his piece.

"Yeh sure?" Karl asked, and Virgil calmly nodded.

Cook's fastball grazed the batter's buttocks before slamming squarely into Onion's mitt exactly where Virgil's battery mate had positioned his glove.

"Sonuvabitch was crowdin' the plate. I was just givin' him the rest of it," Virgil explained to the unsympathetic umpire as he was being ejected from the game. It proved to be his last game.

"Cook, get some counseling!" Virgil did not take the ump's advice, but he did head directly toward the showers.

One hour later Virgil Cook held an official release notice in his hand. Just minutes before, it had been delivered to him personally by the General Manager. "Fifteen fuckin' years in the minors," was all that the washed-up pitcher for the Galveston Fighting Sand Crabs had to say.

"Whad'cha gonna do now, Virg?" Karl Onion asked his longtime friend in the locker room after the game. Onion's voice betrayed his sadness at the prospect of Cook's eminent departure.

That evening Cook and Onion staggered back from the Blue Lagoon, a sleazy strip club not far from the ballpark. Virgil began a drunken babble in answer to the question that Karl had asked several hours before.

"I'm movin' back ta Arizona. Get a job as a chef. Would suit me jus' fine if I never throw another baseball da rest ah my life."

Ten minutes later Virgil was on his hands and knees emptying the contents of his stomach on the Fighting Sand Crabs' pitcher's mound—officially his last hurl in the Texas Baseball League.

Playing for the Fighting Sand Crabs meant being parked on the bottom rung of professional sports. The job did not pay a lot of money, and Virgil, along with Karl Onion and most of the Crabs for that matter, took other jobs during the off-season. K.O. (Karl Onion's nickname), for example, worked as a bartender/bouncer for his dad's brother in Kansas City at a place, not surprisingly, called "The Onion Bar and Grill."

Virgil Cook had taken a succession of jobs during his fourteen off-seasons, but liked restaurant work the best. And with baseball behind him, a "cook" was what Virgil became. He was serious and focused when it came to the kitchen, and the "bean-ball king" did not suffer fools or critics lightly. He never got mad when customers, bosses, or co-workers offended him. However, the former pitcher always managed to get even, but, unlike his baseball days, in secret and quiet ways which seldom drew attention to himself. Virgil had learned his lesson well.

Victoria Bugg discovered Virgil Cook working in a vegetarian restaurant near the university in Flagstaff. It was exactly one year before the "birth" of Grand Canyon Zen Adventures. She had been a vegetarian since her senior year of high school despite her mother's insistence that royalty were, without exception, meat eaters.

The Bugg became a regular at Vishnu's Cantina and Sports Bar and routinely sent her compliments to the chef. Twelve months after first tasting the meatless creations of Virgil Cook, Victoria offered the ex-ball player a job with a few sticking points: he would have to shave his head, wear an orange robe, do the laundry for himself and five others, and learn to row a raft through the Grand Canyon's rapids.

Cook responded with an emphatic, "No." And abruptly returned to his stove where he had been in the midst of preparing a curry.

But the Bugg persisted. Reappearing the following week with an amended offer, she dropped the shaved head requirement.

Virgil Cook, again, said, "No." But not immediately and, after excusing himself, disappeared into the kitchen to begin soaking twenty pounds of dried lentils.

On week three Ms. Bugg traded the "orange robe" requirement for "chef's hat and apron" and sweetened the money side of things as well.

Virgil asked, "Just how would I go about learnin' to handle a raft?"

She explained.

He said, "I'll get back to you," and accepted the business card that Ms. Victoria Bugg slid across the table.

The card read:

GRAND CANYON ZEN ADVENTURES

An Awakening

Rafts, Nature, Meditation, Vegetarian—

A Renaissance of the SOUL

Victoria Bugg, Business Manager

On the reverse were address, phone number, fax, email, and a picture of a Buddha serenely sitting in a raft.

Two weeks later Virgil Cook was taking rafting lessons from Zack Cannon and was finalizing the menu for the first ever Grand Canyon Zen Adventure.

###

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