Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(86)

They trailed behind him to the Airstream. The trailer seemed solid enough, when they climbed the steps. Cox could hear a chugging sound from outside, and when she asked Ralph told her that it was the diesel generator on the other side of the hill.

The inside of the Airstream was like the inside of a pill capsule—much of the original finishes had been ripped out, except a café-type table with couch-like seats on either side. A bed was visible in a room at the far end of the capsule, with an added real-house-type door for privacy. “I don’t got much to eat except frozen pizzas and some canned Boy-are-dee,” Ralph said.

“We’re okay,” Cole said.

“Exactly what kind of trouble you in?” Ralph asked Deese.

“Hard to explain,” Deese said.

“Deese ate some people back in Louisiana,” Cox said. “And tonight he killed a man.”

She was obviously serious, and Ralph laughed. “If somebody asked me, that’s what I would’ve guessed. How’d them people taste?”

“Okay,” Deese mumbled.

“You barbecue them?”

“Man . . .” Deese said.

“Love me some barbecue, like your daddy used to make,” Ralph said. “How’d you ever come to do that anyway?”

Deese, now exasperated, said, “Look. Remember when we’d all go deer hunting and haul them carcasses out of the woods? All that meat? I’d hauled some of these deadasses back to my place to bury them and carry them back there, behind the house, but it was just . . . meat. I got to thinking about it. And so one day . . .”

Cox: “Yuck! That’s disgusting. That’s probably why you smell.”

“What?”

“Let it go,” Cole said. “What are we doing?”

Deese shook his head and turned back to Ralph. “I want a place to sleep for a while and then we’ll get out of here. You still got that old green motorcycle?”

Cox said, “He shot a whole bunch of people in a mall down in Las Vegas. Then he kidnapped Gloria here.”

“Jesus Christ, Clay, you leave anything out?” Ralph asked.

“Hey . . .”

Ralph glanced at Cox with a teasing grin on his face. “Is there a reward for him?”

“Not as far as I know,” she said, still serious. “He was being chased by the FBI and the U.S. Marshals, and then the Los Angeles cops, and now the Vegas cops.” She glanced at Cole. “Did I miss anybody?”

“The Louisiana cops,” Cole said.

“Oh, yeah, them too,” Cox said.

“Well, shit happens,” Ralph said. “We gotta figure out where we’re all gonna sleep. I could spoon up with this one here.” He nodded at Cox.

Cox said, “Fuck that, you old monster.”


“WE GOTTA lot of talking to do before morning,” Deese said to Ralph. “You still cook up some meth?”

“From time to time,” Ralph said. “Getting tougher, though.”

“Probably gonna need a few hits to stay awake tomorrow,” Deese said. “How about that old motorcycle? You still got it? Still work?”

“Works fine. It’s the only way I can get up to the mine.”

“We’re gonna need to take it with us. And your truck,” Deese said. “Anyway, we’ll talk later, tell you about it. Right now I’m gonna take Gloria in the back room for a few minutes.”

Gloria had been snuffling all the time they were in the trailer and now Deese pushed her toward the bedroom.

“Don’t let him do this, don’t let him do this,” she pleaded with them, looking mostly at Cox. “Don’t let him . . . You know what he’s going to do.”

Then the two were in the bedroom and the door slammed.

Ralph asked Cole, “How much do you want for this one?” and nodded at Cox.

“What’s wrong with you people?” Cox asked. To Ralph: “Fuck you.” And to Cole: “We gotta get out of here. You got the car keys.”

Ralph took a couple of steps back and lifted his shotgun. “Can’t let you do that. I’m gonna need some of that money Clayton’s after. Sit down and take it easy and we’ll talk to Clayton when he gets done.”

Gloria Harrelson cried out from the bedroom, and Cox said, “You know what he’s doing back there.”

Ralph took another couple of steps back and sank into a rickety wooden chair, the gun still up, and said, “Well, hell. That’s what women’re for. Always has been, always will be. Might rip off a piece myself, if Clay says okay. Been a while since I been down to Vegas.”

“If you do that, you’ll have to kill her so she doesn’t come back on you,” Cole said. “That’d be cold-blooded murder.”

Ralph pulled at the top of one ear, then said, “Well . . . yeah, I guess. That seems to be baked in the cake anyway.”

They could hear sex sounds from the bedroom, and Cole asked, “You got any music here?”

“I got a radio,” he said. “It’s behind you. The right knob turns it on. It’s old rock and roll.”

Cole turned, saw the old brown Bakelite box, turned the right knob, and Led Zeppelin came up with “Whole Lotta Love.”

“I hate that old shit,” Cox said. They heard another cry from Gloria Harrelson. “Turn it up louder.”