Bad to the Bones(55)

Slushy and Lytton had taken me out to meet with Paul. I gave him geographical information about Bihari, told him who to meet with, who had power, who didn’t. Of course I didn’t know anyone’s phone numbers, but now that I could talk to Virginia thanks to a phone Knoxie had given her, she promised to get me a few. I told Paul about the structures they were building for their upcoming spiritual festival. He was sure they were all illegally wired.

We had gone a couple blocks from City Hall to have some smoothies. Though it was raining steadily under a blackened sky, Slushy insisted on his antioxidant juice.

“I like the music here, too,” Slushy said. “It’s like black music that black people don’t listen to anymore.”

“You mean jazz.” said Lytton. He himself had an a?ai drink. I liked looking at the tattoos on his arms that Knoxie had done for him. “Listen, Slushy. How can we prevent this situation from going all Ruby Ridge? The tension keeps rising, people in town are at the f*cking boiling point. Something needs to be done and I don’t know if it’ll wait for ‘the proper channels.’”

Slushy made a blade with his hand and cut the air above the table. “I appreciate you not filling me on the details of what this lovely’s old man has been up to in Krazy Kanyon.” He said to me, “In that respect I’m like an old lady. On a need to know basis. Gives me plausible deniability in the extreme case things go south.”

I said, “He’s not my old man.”

Slushy said to Lytton, “But I tend to agree with you, the wheels of justice turn very slowly. This lovely’s sister is in imminent danger, and that’s not going to be solved with a couple of stop work orders. Bellamy. You’d say they use coercive mind control manipulation up there.”

“Oh, yes, definitely.”

“They required you to give all your money and possessions to them.”

“Yes.”

“You were forbidden from reading critical literature. Everyone dresses the same. You were only allowed to leave infrequently, under supervision. Everyone believes in the exact same things.”

“Why, yes.”

“Boom bam, you’ve got a cult. Have you been in contact with Virginia? The vital question is, does she want to leave? If you don’t got that, you’ve got zip. Then you’re delving into kidnapping territory and it gets more squirrelly.”

“Yes, I’ve talked to her once, yesterday. I’ve been positive and calm, and I’ve told her how wonderful it is at The Citadel.”

Slushy chuckled. “Exaggerating, I see. Good. Well, if she’s willing to go, there’s no legal reason they can hold her.”

Lytton said, “That would be imprisonment, and we could legally nail them in a hot minute. If she’s not going willingly, it’s called kidnapping. In which case the county jail will hold you.”

Slushy cocked his trigger finger at the sergeant-at-arms. “You got it. Either way, I see your sister coming back to you within the week. Question is, will she want to stay? Can you offer her a better life than she has up at Bihari?”

On that, I was confused. “Well, her cafeteria job was pretty decent, but her new composting job is stinky and dangerous. I keep thinking of all those germs floating around.”

Lytton said, “I’ve got a pretty big spread on Mormon Mountain. It’s just me, June, and a couple Leaves of Grass employees. There’s plenty of room for Virginia.”

“When are you guys going to make me an uncle?” demanded Slushy. “Maddy and Ford are afraid to have another child due to that hereditary illness that claimed the lives of some of the other Illuminati boys. Duji and Dominique say they’re too old. Tuzigoot and Brunhilda already have three. It’s time for a new baby, hot stuff. I need a reason to go to Babys’r’Us.”

There was talk that Slushy had a daughter somewhere. The Bare Bones had saved him after he’d done time cooking books for the Ochoa cartel. It was some complex, shady scheme where the Bones sort of purchased Slushy and some valuable intel he had about a tunnel. It seemed the Bones got the unshitty end of the stick because Slushy, contrary to his fluorescent green shirts, wild ties, and bad comb-over, was actually a capable lawyer.

To my surprise, Lytton said, “We’re thinking about it, Slushy. June’s still recovering from, you know, what happened last year. Don’t worry. We’ll deplete your stock of onesies yet. So you’d advise Bellamy to convince Virginia that our way of life is better?”

“Yes,” said Slushy, “the healing and the mind control is up to you, Bellamy. Knoxie seems to be the expert in the deprogramming field. When I first met you, you didn’t have all your dogs on one leash, understandably so. But he’s done a remarkable job. You’re not spouting stuff about your anal beads of nothingness anymore.”

I surprised myself by laughing. “It was the photograph that was nothingness, not the beads,” I said, still a bit defensive.

“Well,” said Slushy, “hand me a hash lassi and I’ll believe anything.”

Slushy had to get back to work in his office behind the archery range. He was working on some articles of incorporation for the Illuminati brothers. “Stay vertical,” he advised us before we went separate ways.

“Well,” I said to Lytton as I opened up my umbrella, “it sounds like if I can just convince Virginia to leave, which I don’t think will be that hard, we can get someone to pick her up at one of the gates.”