CHAPTER 19 #2
Many of the thugs seemed caught off guard, splaying their hands in the “whoa” position, backing slowly away.
Bridgewater remained impervious, not even glancing at the youngish woman with bouncy tits.
He didn’t seem to realize his troops were abandoning him.
“What proof do you have of this? We medicate our patients with whatever the doctor orders. We certainly don’t over-medicate and I fucking resent the implications!
” He pointed at Jack Hoffman, camera held high.
“Your fucking spokesman has brought all kinds of unwanted and unnecessary criticism down on me and I’m never going to outlive it!
Fucking newsmen, families, agencies, the entire fucking county is converging on us.
We had to shut the place down an hour ago and get our own security guards! ”
I jumped a foot in the air when a gravelly voice yelled from behind me. “Because you deserve it!”
Everyone—our club, nudists, tattooed corpsmen—twisted around to gaze upon Pickett Yarborough.
Looking as though he’d just woken from a nap with mussed, thick white hair, he shoved aside Hunt, Thymus, Gunning and me.
Brandishing the empty vial of tranq, he hollered, “This bottle was prescribed for me by you, and it’s unnecessary, deadly, and evil tranq! ”
That seemed to shut everyone up. You could’ve heard a cock ring drop. Rage getting the better of him, Pickett added, “And you’re not even a fucking real doctor!”
Before we could grab him, Pickett stomped down the few steps to the dirt and gravel common area. When Bridgewater took several strides toward Pickett, that’s when all sorts of wild happened.
Pickett slipped like a Three Stooge, feet flying in the air, ass slamming on the ground. Our protective instinct kicked in, and we all poured down the stairs to lift up Pickett. That’s when I saw the banana peel he’d slipped on. The most tortuous of all fruit peels.
“Did you hit your head?” asked Thymus.
Alessio roared. Raging like Satan with a toothache, he lumbered with outstretched claws.
I watched openmouthed as he headed for the nudist with the spitting cobra around his neck.
Exhibiting zero fear, Alessio unwrapped the black and white serpent, stretching it out to its full length of maybe four feet.
The nudist even grinned as Alessio headed straight for Bridgewater.
The fake doctor must’ve been too terrified to run, although his bodyguard sure weren’t stopped from taking off.
Coiling it around Bridgewater’s neck, Alessio growled,
“Die, you fucking waste of air. Die.”
But Bridgewater whipped a sort of curved knife from one of his pockets, chortling with glee as he expertly sliced the snake’s head off.
He tossed the head to the ground as he cackled like a fizzy beverage, having the time of his life as he unthreaded the remainder of the snake from his neck, only a few drips of blood getting onto his white shirt.
“See? You can’t even get me! No one can! I’m completely immune to your—agh!”
Goons clung to each other as we stepped forward to see what had twisted Bridgewater’s face. Alessio and I held each other’s arms almost in a religious trance. Hunt, Thymus, Denmark, we all leaned in as even Jack Hoffman got his closeup.
Bridgewater wore Birkenstocks. From beyond the grave, the decapitated head had sunk its fangs into the arch of his foot. Cringing and cramping up his arms, Bridgewater now fell to the gravel.
“What sort of cobra is this?” Thymus asked the nudist.
He casually responded. “Why, it’s an Indochinese spitting cobra.”
Thymus swiftly googled on his phone. “Causes death within thirty minutes. Mixture of neurotoxins.”
“Yep,” said the nudist proudly.
Meanwhile what was left of the army was yelling things like “Cobra?” “Spitting?” and “Death?” Down to a man, they fled back through the gate, spreading out so no one could catch them.
Pickett hocked a loogie on Bridgewater. “Good! Serves him right! Bit by a poisonous cobra? That’s kind of tit for tat if you ask me!”
That hadn’t occurred to me, and Alessio and I smiled widely at each other. As Bridgewater had poisoned so many disabled seniors, he now wound up paralyzed on the gravel of a nudist trailer park. A fitting end for the most heinous, corrupt, and malicious person I’d ever come up against.
“Well, hey,” said Alessio. “We didn’t kill him directly.”
The nudist said, “It was an accident.”
“A good accident!” cried the guy with the lei, a hurrah that was taken up by the rest of the group. “Good death!” “Good riddance!” “Good corpse!”
Pickett kicked the stiff corpse in the ribs. “Motherfucking hosepipe!” Bridgewater was now crumpled into a fetal position, clawlike hands frozen in space.
Hunt was asking Thymus, “What’re we gonna do with the body?”
But Thymus’ answer was drowned in the celebratory whoops of the crowd.
“Time for some Bear Whiz beer!” called Ozzie Whitworth, and the party was on.
People brought out chairs to the common area. Denmark found some chairs alongside our trailer too, and Jack Hoffman even put his phone in his shirt pocket to take a chair and some chicken salad handed to him.
Next to me eating an egg roll and drinking from a can that really did say Bear Whiz, Ozzie Whitworth declared, “That was epic! Seekers!” he called, hushing people slightly, although everyone proceeded to serve others. “It looks like this is the end.”
“For Pine Valley!” yelled someone.
Ozzie continued, “Or is it only the begin…?” Eerily, a coyote howled out in the stinking desert. This prompted Ozzie to sigh and conclude, “No. It’s the end.”
“That coyote!” called one of the couple with the plaid belts. “It’s out at the comet hole in the desert.”
Ozzie told us, “That hole leads to the sun at the center of the earth.”
“Well,” said Alessio. “Good thing we’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Yeff,” said Jack Hoffman through a mouthful of food. “I’ll declare on my podcast that you’re dead. How’s that sound?”
“Perfect!” cried Hunt. “Then no one’ll think of looking for you in Rough and Ready.”
Ozzie said, “Maybe say they went to the center of the earth.”
“Wait,” said Erin. “What Rough and Ready?”
I hedged around it a bit. “That’s where the Bent Zealots MC rule.”
Alessio was more direct. Waving a pretzel, he told the rest of our club. “We’ve been invited to hide out with these fine gentlemen. We think it’s an excell—”
“I’m there!” shouted Gunning.
“Count me in!” yelled Denmark.
“Oh, yeah!” Erin declared. “I can work with Thymus at his retirement home.”
Hunt grinned widely. “You’re all welcome. For some reason I think you’ll fit right in.”
“See?” smiled Jack, mouth full. “You found a spot.”
Alessio wrenched my free hand, knitting his fingers through mine. Finding strangers who accepted us was a rare revelation I never imagined happening. We all grinned like enchanted apes at one another. We barely noticed Pickett Yarborough approaching us through the sea of bare limbs.
“Say,” he said casually, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I hate to spoil the party, but what’re we gonna do with that stiff over there?”
We all wiggled our eyebrows, probably each with his own evil or childish idea.