Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet Page 4

  Lester shrugged. “I needed to take the edge off.”

  “Oh, smart thinking,” Walt told him. “A good skunk ape yarn’s that much more plausible from a fella stinking like a whiskey still.”

  “But—” Lester said with a frown, “but it ain’t no yarn, Walt. Hell, you saw the video. You saw the damn thing for yourself.”

  Walt folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t know what I saw.”

  Lester looked at me pleadingly. “Reggie?”

  “Play it again,” I said.

  “From the top?”

  “Just the skunk ape part,” I qualified, with a sheepish glance at Eliza.

  I watched the footage again. Between the dim lighting, Lester’s pisspoor camerawork, and the speed of the creature, if was impossible to say for sure what the damn thing was. Even freezing the film and playing it in slow motion didn’t help. The one thing I knew for sure … ? Whatever it was, it had taken Ned.

  5.

  Constable Randy-Ray Gooch entered The Henhouse through the hole in the window, ducking his head beneath the hanging shards of plate glass. The town lawman was a wiry little guy with the drooping red mustache and fiery temperament of Yosemite Sam. Inordinately proud of his uniform, he seemed to believe it made him not only a foot taller, but also righteous and bulletproof. His Sam Browne belt and boots were polished to a shine that would have been the envy of an Italian fascist. “Happened here?” Gooch said, when he saw Lester’s truck. “You open a drive-through service, Walt?”

  Walt clenched his teeth. “You’re a real riot, Randy-Ray. Let me jot that one down so I don’t forget to laugh later.”

  Gooch waited, seemed to realize Walt wasn’t actually going to memorialize his wit, and then hung his uniform hat on the wing mirror of Lester’s truck, like it was some kind of art deco hat stand. He hooked his thumbs into his belt.

  “Heard you boys had a little trouble with some bikers last night?” he said.

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Walt said.

  Gooch noted my fucked-up face. “Looks like they handled Reggie here pretty good.”

  “There were five of them,” I told him.

  “You counting the girl?” Lester said.

  “Shut up, Lester.”

  Gooch was unimpressed. “Only five?” Like some short men, Gooch prided himself on being a giant-killer.

  “One of ‘em suckered me,” I said.

  “Six including the one in the sidecar,” Walt chipped in. “Sonofabitch flipped me the bird.” He just couldn’t let that go.

  “So this truck-through-the-window bidness,” Gooch said, “it’s blowback from what happened last night?”

  Walt glared at Lester. “No, that was this fucking idiot.”

  “Son,” Gooch said to Lester, hitching up his pants in a sawing motion, “did you drive your truck through Mr. Wiley’s window?”

  “Yessir,” Lester said.

  Gooch frowned, like he’d been expecting Lester to at least try and lie.

  “You been drinking?”

  Lester put down his drink. “Not when I done it, no-sir.”

  “So what happened?”

  No one said anything; funny thing, but none of us wanted to be the one to tell the constable that the Bigelow Skunk Ape had kidnapped Ned.

  “Tell him, Lester,” Walt said. “This is your damn mess.”

  Lester gave a heavy sigh. Then he told Gooch the whole sorry story. From skin flick to skunk ape. To his credit, Gooch let Lester finish. Then he said, “Skunk ape, huh?” Nodding solemnly, as if he’d expected today would herald something like this from the moment he awoke. Then he snatched his hat off the wing mirror and swatted Lester over the head with it. “I ought to charge y’all for wasting po-lice time! You think I don’t have a hundred other better things to do than to come down here and have my peter pulled? Where’s Ned? Hiding out back, I suppose? Ned! Get your ass out here, boy! I ain’t buying it!” He shook his head in disgust at Walt and me. “I expected better from you two boys. This jackass,” he swatted Lester once more with his hat, “not so much.”

  Gooch clamped his hat back on his head and prepared to leave.

  I said, “Randy-Ray, wait.”

  He turned on his heels. “What now, Reggie? I suppose next you’re gonna tell me Mothman and maybe the Loch Ness fucking Monster was in on it, too? They stole Ned away in a flying saucer?”

  I said to Lester, “Show him the video.”

  Gooch’s eyebrows raised sharply when the video started.

  He glanced up from the camera at Eliza, who, to her credit, blushed.

  When the skunk ape appeared, and snatched Ned, Gooch damn near dropped the camera in surprise.

  “Well?” I said, when the film ended. Gooch just shook his head in disbelief and played back the film again. From the top, I noted. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he believed the key to solving this mystery was contained somewhere within the footage of Boogaloo Baboon screwing Eliza. He shut off the camera and stood in silence a moment. Then he said, “First of all, I’m gonna need a copy of that there film.” Lester gulped and nodded. “Second of all,” Gooch said, “take me out to where this happened.”

  * * *

  While Lester and Eliza took Gooch to the scene of the crime, Walt and me towed Lester’s truck from the bar to the parking lot. Walt tried to even the

  score by giving the truck a few kicks, but it was already so beat-to-shit, the extra dents hardly showed. We swept up the broken glass and fixed sheets of plywood and cardboard over the bar’s broken window. Walt spray-painted STILL OPEN across the front of the new facade. When we were done, we sat outside in the sun, sipping bottles of suds and reflecting over what had happened.

  “So what do you think?” Walt asked me.

  I raked my palm across my stubble, still struggling to reconcile myself with the image of Boogaloo Baboon clamped like a giant tick to Eliza’s butt. “Hell, I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn’t put it past Lester that this is all some kind of half-assed publicity stunt for his stupid movie.”

  “That’s crediting the boy with more brains than he’s due,” Walt said. “Lester’s hardly P.T. Barnum.” He sloshed the dregs of his beer around his bottle, clearly troubled. “You ever seen the like of it, Reggie?”

  “The skunk ape?”

  “Well, yeah, that too. I meant skunk ape porn. You’d told me there was a market for that kinda thing, I’d have said you was crazy and then kept my eye on you around the girls.” Walt shook his head. “But did you see the way Randy-Ray and Old Lou were rubbernecking that film?”

  “I’m trying to forget it.”

  “Hell, I remember a time when the lingerie catalogue was all the eye-candy a fella ever needed,” Walt wistfully recalled.

  “Not to point fingers,” I said, “but you do run a titty bar.”

  “This is a respectable gentlemen’s club,” Walt protested, “not some damn Tijuana donkey show! I take care of my girls. I mean, how in the hell did Lester ever talk Eliza into doing something like that?”

  “Ask me,” I said, “she wouldn’t have needed much convincing.”

  Walt looked at me.

  “Eliza’s pretty as you please, but she’s got talent like Lester’s got brains,” I told him. “She’s so desperate to be a movie star, she’d do anything to get noticed.”

  “Movie star?” Walt exclaimed. “You think Meryl fucking Streep’s got skunk ape porn on her resume?”

  “Once she hit it big, she probably took her early work off there,” I said, “but I see your point.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Reggie. I’m never gonna be able to look at Boogaloo Baboon the same way again. If nothing else, Lester and Ned have ruined high school football for me. Both of those jackasses are eighty-sixed.”

  “What if Ned never comes back?”

  “Then I’ll settle for Lester and send the skunk ape a thank you note.”

  * * *

  Shortly before dark, Constable Gooch retur
ned from the Sticks with Lester and Eliza and no Ned. “Find anything?” I asked.

  “Just a whole bunch of nothing,” Gooch said. “It smells like King Kong took a crap out there, but that could be on account of Ned’s Boogaloo suit, and not no skunk ape. Come first light tomorrow, I’ll send some boys back there with the coonhounds to beat the brush. Maybe Ned’ll turn up before then? Here’s hoping. Cuz I’ll tell you, I’m in no kinda rush to file an official report reads ‘Skunk Ape Attack.’”

  Gooch turned to Lester and prodded his chest with a finger.

  “Last chance, Swash. This is some kinda prank, ‘fess up now and I won’t whup you too bad for wasting my time. Cuz I find out later this is yours and Ned’s idea of a joke, believe me, I’ll be taking the last laugh outta your ass.”

  Lester whined, “I don’t know what more to tell you, Constable.”

  “Eliza?” Gooch said.

  “The skunk ape took Ned,” she said firmly.

  Gooch sighed. “Fuck.”

  He took a drink for the road and prepared to leave. “Don’t forget,” he told Lester, but eyeing Eliza, “I want a copy of that video on my desk first thing tomorrow.” He tipped the brim of his hat to Eliza and then left.

  Lester looked at Walt. “So,” he said, “I guess I’m eighty-sixed, huh?”

  Walt gave an exasperated bark of laughter. “You think? I got more good news for you, dumbass. I want your bar tab paid within the week.”

  Lester started saying, “Let’s be reasonable here, Walt—”

  “What about me, Mr. Walt?” Eliza said.

  Walt tried to scowl at her, but couldn’t quite manage it. “What about you?”

  “Am I fired?”

  “So help me, I ought to.” He shook his head and sighed. “I’ll expect you back at work just as soon as those scratches are healed. Make sure you wash ‘em out and disinfect ‘em.” Eliza gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Blushing, Walt said, “And no more skunk ape porn.” Glaring at Lester, he added, “Or any other kind, for that matter.”

  Walt and me watched through the window that wasn’t covered in plywood and cardboard as they trudged outside to Lester’s truck. They climbed in the cab and Lester gunned the engine and the truck growled to life. Lester honked the horn and waved at Walt. “Can you believe it?” he shouted over the engine noise. “Crashes through a bar and she still runs like a dream!” I doubt Lester heard Walt cursing him over the roar of the engine as they pulled away.

  6.

  It was four days before the glass fitter came to The Henhouse and replaced the broken window. For those four days, my ears took the brunt of Walt’s bitching.

  “How can a glass fitter run a glass fitting business when it takes him four fucking days to fit glass!”

  Other stuff happened, too.

  My bruises faded to a rich mahogany color, making me look tan; on the peanuts Walt paid me, a solid beating was as close as I got to looking like I’d enjoyed a vacation in the sun.

  Gooch’s searchers found no trace of Ned Pratt, or the skunk ape.

  When the story first broke in the Bigelow Bugle, Ned’s abduction by the skunk ape was reported as gospel truth. The front-page story included a photo of Lester and Eliza, looking traumatized by their brush with death, and a file photo of Boogaloo Baboon, which I guess Ned would’ve approved of. The article coyly described the trio as “keen amateur filmmakers” who’d been filming a “nature documentary” in the Sticks when the skunk ape attacked. There was also an artist’s impression of the skunk ape, apparently drawn by the news editor’s six-year old, which resembled a rabid Cousin It.

  Eliza was delighted to get her picture in the paper. She even asked Walt if he’d have it framed and put it on the wall next to mine. Eliza was convinced this was the exposure she needed to jumpstart her career as an actress. And compared to a starring role in a skunk ape porno, maybe she was onto something.

  By the second news day, the Bugle had shifted their focus from the skunk ape to Lester. The dumb bastard had put his neck on the chopping block, and now here came the hatchet job. With very little effort, the Bugle dug up an Everest of dirt on Lester Swash, accurately describing the “local sports star turned village idiot” as a natural born fuck-up, and an unreliable witness in his poor friend’s mysterious disappearance.

  As for Ned, incredibly, he was martyred. The Bugle tugged at readers’ heartstrings by recounting Ned’s glory days as our beloved Boogaloo Baboon. He was described as a “lovable local eccentric” and a “simple soul with a sunny disposition,” and not the dim-witted star of a bestiality porno. Funny how the press works. Anyway, it wasn’t long before people in town began to wonder if maybe Lester had a hand in Ned’s disappearance. By the end of the week, I started seeing T-shirts that read, THE SKUNK APE DIDN’T DO IT!

  To help clear his name, Lester posted his video footage on YouTube. The blurred image of the skunk ape—or whatever it was; even I was having doubts by now—not to mention Lester’s shitty camerawork, failed to convert the skeptics, and the video was roundly condemned as a hoax.

  From the riot of Internet haters, only one man came forward in Lester’s defense.

  His name was Jameson T. Salisbury: Skunk Ape Hunter.

  And hell followed with him.

  7.

  The proud owner of a shiny new window, Walt wore a big sappy grin as he polished the glass with Windex. I was watching him from my spot at the end of the slab, happy for Walt, but mostly relieved he didn’t have a broken window to complain about anymore. We both glanced up when we heard the tubercular growl of a clapped-out engine approaching The Henhouse.

  A hell-and-back Dodge Minnie Winnebago, it looked more like a derelict ice cream van than a recreational vehicle, apart from the fact it was painted in jungle fatigue, and fitted with a monstrous grill guard like something from a Mad Max movie. An oversize loudspeaker was strapped to the roof, like the one on the Blues Brothers’ Bluesmobile. On the roof behind the loudspeaker was a lawn chair shrouded with a sheet of tarpaulin. Even for Bigelow, the vehicle was strange; then I saw the Florida license plate, and it made a little more sense.

  As the Minnie Winnie roared towards the bar, a look of horror filled Walt’s face. He must have thought lightning was about to strike twice, that the camper would come crashing through his new window. He looked about ready to throw himself in front of it as a human shield. I started mentally composing my resignation letter; I didn’t think I could stand another week of Walt’s bitching.

  But mother of mercy, the driver hit the brakes in time, and the Minnie Winnie shuddered to a stop in a twister of tire-smoke. Walt breathed a sigh of relief.

  The tire-smoke and exhaust fumes cleared. The driver’s-side door cranked open with a squeal of rusted hinges. A leg wearing khaki breeches, flared at the thigh, tucked into a knee-high leather hunting-boot, extended from the cab and slammed down onto the asphalt. The big bearded man who climbed from the cab looked like a department store Santa who’d turned Injun. Apart from his hunting boots and breeches, and the machete-sized knife sheathed on his hip, he wore a safari shirt with all the pockets a man could ever want, plus a few more for luck, and a fringe buckskin jacket. His shirt collar was open to reveal a thicket of chest hair, like he was wearing an animal pelt undershirt. His beard looked like it was wearing him. A long scar curved from his left temple to his lower-right jaw, carving a line through his shaggy gray whiskers, as if the Grim Reaper had slashed him with his scythe before thinking better of it and letting him live awhile longer. A wide-brimmed slouch hat was tamped down on his graying mane of hair. One side of the brim was rolled up to the crown. The sharp fangs of some kind of critter were tucked around the hatband like shotgun shells in a bandolier.

  “Who the fuck is this guy?” Walt muttered.

  The stranger came inside like a bad man in a Western movie. The only reason the music didn’t stop was because there wasn’t any playing. He gazed around the room, before considering Walt and me.

  “
Gentlemen,” the stranger declared in a boomingly mellifluous voice, “I have traveled many miles, day and night, without respite for refreshment or comfort stops.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I now require the use of your facilities,” he said, “and right quick.”

  Walt blinked, jerked a thumb over his shoulder, said, “Crapper’s out back.”

  The stranger waddled to the men’s room, returning moments later with something more like a swagger about him. “Much obliged to you,” he said. “I really ought to fix the commode in the camper.” He prized the slouch hat from his head, raked his fingers through his mane, and then tossed the hat down on the bar, a cloud of dust coughing up when it landed. He lowered himself onto a stool with a grateful moan. Then he just sat there in silence, his keen eyes darting between Walt and me like a tennis spectator.

  “Uh…” Walt said, “Get you something to drink, mister?”

  “Ginger ale, if you have it,” the stranger said. “I no longer imbibe. In my line of work, it’s imperative I keep my wits about me. Learned that the hard way.”

  He gestured to his scar with a rueful smile.

  Walt poured the stranger a ginger ale.

  The man took a sip and then smacked his lips at Walt as if he’d tasted none sweeter.

  “Exactly what is your line of work?” Walt asked him.

  Then he frowned, “Wait— You’re not selling nothing, are you?”

  The stranger smiled enigmatically. “Peace of mind, friend. Only peace of mind.”

  He took another sip of ginger ale and then put his glass down on the bar.

  “Permit me to introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Jameson T. Salisbury.”

  He seemed to be waiting for that to mean something to us.

  When it didn’t, Jameson T. Salisbury added, “Skunk ape hunter.”

  Walt snatched the man’s ginger ale off the bar.

  “Alright, bud. Get the hell out of here before I fetch the scattergun—”

  Salisbury held up his palm and Walt instantly fell silent, like he’d been mesmerized. A helluva trick; I wondered if maybe Salisbury could teach it to me.