Bad to the Bones(62)
“Nikki’s in love with Juan, but he didn’t say the same thing back to her. Look in that backpack for her phone. Someone said she had a phone,” Poona instructed the nurse.
“Oh, Juan’s in love with Nikki, all right,” protested Jambo. “She’s a pediatric nurse. What’s not to love?”
“Only if you love silly, shallow cunts,” snapped Poona. She might not have been overly into these television people—her normal personality was just snappish and nasty. They talked some more about Nikki and Juan then Poona said, “Listen, do you think Operation Eggplant will be a go the day before the elections? Did you finish with all the vials of chicken pox?”
What the f*ck? What would they be doing with vials of chicken pox virus?
“It’s smallpox,” Jambo corrected her boss. “My people just have a few small tweaks and we’ll be ready to roll the day before elections. The eggplant will be placed on faucets at the courthouse, in salad bars around town. Rhetta is going to the nursing home, another to Safeway. Beware anyone who actually purchases eggplants at Safeway! How are you coming with your part of the operation?”
“None of your business.” But Poona couldn’t resist a chance to brag, and she told Jambo, “You should’ve been there. It was the swiftest undercover work ever. I built him up, stroked his ego, told him about the masses who worship him. You know, the usual stuff that works on egocentric narcissists like him.”
“Did you get anything on tape?”
“Oh, did I. You’ll be there when I play it for the others tonight. Get this. I managed to get him to say in plain English that ten thousand people would need to die to justify the life of one savior.”
“No! You didn’t!”
I could feel the pride in Poona’s voice, see her chest all puffed up. Was I hearing correctly? Poona was plotting against Shakti? But he wasn’t the only egocentric narcissist around there. She could have been talking about anyone. And the “eggplant”? The poisoning of Rizzoli and Harmon had obviously just been a trial run for a much more widespread poisoning operation. “I did! Wait until the others hear that their lives are no more important than a bug’s to him.”
“Ten thousand? That’s about how many people are in Bihari.”
“Exactly. Shakti thinks his life is more important than all of us rolled together. Well, he’ll soon find out otherwise, won’t he? Look under those beds. We’ve got to find stupid cunt. Someone swore she was here with her sister.”
My eyes were frozen wide open. Jambo got on her hands and knees and looked down the other row of bunks. In a fraction of a second she would turn and look down my row and I’d be caught.
My only chance was to run for it. I could f*cking outrun a feeble, sickly fanatic and a clueless nurse. I’d have to race past Poona, who was standing near the only door. My brain must have calculated the odds, because before I knew it, I’d shot out from under the bunk and was through the door. The look of shock on Poona’s face would later be priceless, I remember thinking.
Only, I hadn’t counted on the daimyo standing guard outside the door.
Quick as a whip, one of them stuck his foot out and tripped me. It was as simple as that. I was suddenly flat on my face with what felt like a broken tooth. The warm, metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth as I was viciously yanked to my feet.
At first I saw only the sky. I remember a giant black thunderhead shaped like a happy dog running. Then, as they rattled me around and yelled, the daimyo’s faces, a couple I recalled as working directly for Shakti.
Then Poona, glaring like one of those Hindu monobrow statues with a dozen arms. Rearing one of her arms back, she slapped my face. The daimyo groaned as some of my blood hit his face, his shirt. “You! You despicable cunt! Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused for us just by staying alive? And now you’re causing even more.”
Then she spit into my face. She spit! I had seen that a couple of times on the TV I watched at Madison’s house, but I didn’t think anyone actually did it. She hocked a big old loogie into my face and seethed, “At least your sister will be finished after today. I should’ve told the daimyo to finish you on that mesa along with those f*cking juicers.”
“Let’s finish her now,” said Jambo, her eyes little slits.
“No. We can’t. We have to keep up the pretense to Shakti, so we need to take her to him first. He’ll want to see her. We can’t mess her up any more.”
So that was how I was hustled into another waiting Hummer and given an audience with Shakti one last time.
One last time. Yes, now that I say it that way, that’s true. It was Shakti’s last audience ever.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KNOXIE
“I’m laying this on the table for you all to consider. The invasion and occupation of this part of Arizona has to stop. The test results from Mrs. Illuminati’s lab tell the whole story, all we need to know. They’ve got smallpox, salmonella, staph—f*ck, did you see the results that showed they’ve got ricin?”
“I saw that,” said Ford, accompanied by a round of emotional murmurs from the other men.
It took all Knoxie’s will to keep himself from leaping to his feet to make his point. It was his first appearance in chapel, and the adrenaline rush to his ego pumped him up even more. For the first time, he had a conference table of cold sober, business-minded brothers taking him seriously, and he was going to make the most of it. He had the table, and he didn’t care if he was pounding the f*cking pulpit. This needed to be said. “This is how I’m rocking, brothers. This takedown needs to happen now. This form of f*cking bioterrorism can’t be tolerated. Now we’ve got your old buddy Riker driving another load of A-1 Sinaloan White up to those whack jobs so they can profit off ruining our kids’ minds with their cheese heroin.”