The Rolls was parked by the trailer.
“I told you,” Frisbee said as we drove by it. “Moose hates roosters. He don’t get up till he has to pee.”
“How often does he pee?”
“Whenever he feels like it. Except in the morning.”
I parked Gordo in an unused parking space of an abandoned mobile home. The kind of mobile that meant you could cut it in half and stick it on two trucks and paste it back together somewhere else. Nobody ever mobilized them. But theoretically, they could. People either died in them of old age or moved out to go live in jail or with a daughter. Either way, they weren’t worth the hassle of moving them or selling them. Eventually, the park tore them down and fed them to the dumpster.
Frisbee waited in Gordo while I went to get the Rolls. I had a duplicate key to it. I tiptoed to Frisbee’s trailer. Old Fred was sitting on the steps to his trailer talking to his dog. He saw me go by.
“Hey, Blue,” he called out. “Where you been? Haven’t seen you lately. Why are you tiptoeing?”
Shit. He had a deep, hoarse voice that made him growl too loud. You could hear him all over the place. Fortunately, he didn’t have many front teeth, so you couldn’t really know what he was saying. It sounded like, “Hay glue. Wear lube inn. Half an see mule ate leaf. Wire tulip owing.”
Hopefully, Moose wasn’t up peeing and didn’t know how to speak Fred.
I waved at him.
I stopped at the front of the trailer next to Frisbee’s and peeked around the propane tanks. The Rolls was backed into Frisbee’s parking space, so the driver door was next to the trailer. Piss.
I tiptoed around the front of the car and put my key in the door lock. Just my luck. The lock was one of the extra loud locks that came with certain models of Rolls-Royce’s like mine. When I turned the key, the lock made a very loud thunk.
I could hear the toilet flushing in the trailer.
I yanked open the car door.
The trailer door flew open and Moose made a dive at me. I ducked aside and his head plunked into the bottom of the door frame. He pushed himself up off the ground and sat with his back against the car, blocking the doorway. His forehead was bleeding. It looked like a serious owie.
He sat there grinning up at me, blood leaking down his nose. “Nice try, Blue. It’s my car now. You can’t have it back.”
He had a point. I couldn’t call the police. Then again, neither could he.
I kicked him in the foot. “Get out of the way, asshole.”
“Make me, old man. C’mon, try it. I’d love to kick your ass.”
I slammed the door against him. He pushed it away and flung himself up onto the car seat. He was rubbing his arm where the door had banged it. Then he locked his arm around the steering wheel so I couldn’t pull him out.
He forgot to pull up his legs. I slammed the door on them. He howled and grabbed his shins. As he was bent over, I slammed the door on his head. He stuck his foot out so I couldn’t slam the door on him anymore. He glared at me like a wounded beast.
“Get out of the car,” I said.
“Fuck you.”
He got to his feet and bared his teeth at me. There was blood on them. He was breathing heavily. He heaved me aside like a pair of pants headed for the laundry basket. I stumbled backward and fell over a patio chair, then rolled over and jumped to my feet. He stalked towards me. He had crossed the line from toying with me to stomping all over my face.
I backed up to lure him further from the car. Also, I was scared shitless. He picked up a flower pot and heaved it at me. I fended off the pot with my hands, but the dirt flew out of it and splattered my face and shirt. Some idiot had watered the plant and the dirt was mud. It stuck all over me.
I grabbed the hose and turned on the water. The nozzle had six settings. I pointed it at Moose and squeezed the trigger. It was set to mist. I threw it at him. He caught it and set it to fire hydrant and blasted me.
I backed up further, fending off the water. He was aiming at my eyes. It was hard to see and fend at the same time. Suddenly, I was up against the fence. I leaned against it, battling the hydrant. The fence was rotten. It collapsed. I was on my back. He honed in closer, fiendishly hosing me down.
I reached down and got my gun and pointed it at him. “Back off, bucko,” I said.
It worked. He shut off the water and roared with laughter at me. “You ain’t going to shoot. You don’t have the nerve.”
It unworked. He started hosing me again. I had no choice. I shot him in the thigh. Frisbee was going to be really pissed about this. But there was nothing else I could do. The guy was a bulldozer with no one driving.
Oops. My shot was off line and put a hole in his crotch. Lucky for him he was wearing low crotch jeans.
He dropped the hose and looked at his crotch in shock. He looked at me. “You fucking jerk. You tried to shoot off my dick. I’m going to kill you.”
I should have bought the shotgun, like the guy suggested.
I rolled underneath the trailer. He got on his knees to come after me. I poked him in the eye. He jerked his head up from the pain and conked himself on the undercarriage. I bounced a rock off his nose. He conked himself again.
I rolled forward a couple of rolls and then back out the side, coming out so I was between him and the car. He was still half under the trailer. His butt was sticking out. I couldn’t resist. I extracted my gun. Pop. Conk. Pop. Conk. He groaned and whoomped flat on the ground. He didn’t move.
I ducked into the trailer and grabbed the photographs from under the cookie sheet in the oven, then jumped in the car and drove away. Fucker wouldn’t be sitting on his ass for awhile, that was for sure.
I waved at Frisbee to follow me in Mr. Wheels. Fred called out as I drove by. “Ice eating stew a jamb loo. Humpbacks noon.”
I drove to our house and parked the Rolls in the back. Frisbee pulled in behind me and parked Gordo next to the Rolls.
“What the shit happened to you?” she said when she saw me.
There was mud all over me and my clothes were soaked.
“Moose attacked me with a hose. I gotta change clothes.”
“Oh my God. Is he all right?”
“Is he all right? Is he fucking all right! You’re asking me if he’s all right? Shit. What about me? Ask me if I’m all right.”
“I can see you’re okay. You’re just all wet.”
A big grin came over her. “You tricked him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I tricked him.”
She clapped her hands gleefully. “I knew you couldn’t whip his ass.”
I kicked a tire of the Rolls.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “You’ll hurt Princess Diana.”
To be continued . . .
