Page 45 of It Takes a Thief

Slayer knocked on the door as we kept our backs to the wall, our pieces raised for action. “Buenas tardes, Noodlum. He traido más mujeres para usted.” I have brought more women for you.

I was surprised at how quickly the door opened. To hasten the action, I kicked it in and held my barrel to the guy’s head. It wasn’t Noodlum. Just one of those Rez dogs dressed all in black.

“Where’s Noodlum?” I growled, while my brothers swarmed the room looking for more men.

“I don’t know any fucking Noodlum,” the guy tried to say, but I loudly chambered a round. I think my men were coming up empty so they were starting to untie the poor girls. Didn’t ungag them yet, though. The women were all piled together in a corner of the room, probably the farthest away from the stabbed, dead body on the bed. A rose garden of different blood blooms was splashed across the white sheets. “Noodlum said he had to teach a lesson to someone, then he headed north to Holbrook.”

I took the human trafficker into the bathroom and shot him through the forehead anyway. He was a lowdown associate of Noodlum’s, was wearing a Cutlass cut, and his brain blood splattered the white tiles like a Jackson Pollock painting. I admired it for a second, that’s how cold-blooded I was. At least when it came to Noodlum. I fished the keys to the rape van out of his pocket and went back into the room.

Slayer and Faux Pas were still untying the girls’ hands. There were two Native American women, so petrified they couldn’t stand. The blond girl who had been mauled by Noodlum seemed unearthly calm, shaking out her pained arms to get blood back into them when Faux Pas removed her bonds. I personally removed her gag because I didn’t think she’d scream. We were her saviors. I was right.

“I’m so sorry about your captivity,” I said. “The Cutlasses are our sworn enemy, so we’re on your side.”

“I hate those fuckers,” she seethed. “I’m just a lowly nurse working here in Show Low, and that fucking Noodling or whatever his name is comes into the ER having a seizure.”

“See?” gloated Slayer. “I told you so. What sort?”

“A petit mal,” she said, “but when I got off my shift to walk to my car, he grabbed me. Told me the usual TV shit, like I wouldn’t be harmed if I didn’t struggle. What a load of crap. He’s sending girls up north and east for fucking profit. Lots to brothels in Nevada. Human trafficking.”

“I know,” I said gently. “I’ll return you to your home where you can feel free to make a report against him. Just do us a favor and leave us out of it.”

“We can leave this poor girl here,” said Faux Pas, indicating the stiff, “to back up your story.”

I added, “And the guy in the bathroom.”

“Certainly,” she agreed, and started rummaging around in the dresser, presumably for the rest of her clothes. “Then Noodling gets a call. Apparently another one of his guys went apeshit and killed some poor Navajo girl up in Chinle.”

Chinle. The blood stopped moving in my veins. Immediately I knew what I had to do.

“Who’s going to drive the rape van?” asked Faux Pas. “Not me.”

“Not me,” said Duji.

“I came in my Fiat,” Slayer pointed out.

I said, “I elect Faux Pas to drive. You and Duji drove here two up.” They had, because we’d known we’d somehow have to get some poor and possibly injured girls out of there. Having the rape van handy was just extremely lucky.

While my brothers put the girls into the van and Slayer asked them in Spanish where they were from, my sister-in-law June called me.

“Ford. Sorry to bother you. But Maddy just called. She said she’s heading over to the trailer of a guy who rents from Galileo. Thinks he might have to do with the Rez murder. Just thought you should be aware of that. I doubt it has any connection to Galileo, knowing him like I do. Just thought you’d like to know. Maddy knows the guy, or at least met him once.”

“Yeah, I just heard. Think I’ll take a ride up there now, but don’t warn Maddy.”

“And one more thing. Sapphire was telling me you were curious about a photo of Claire from Outlander? If there’s any connection to Maddy, you should know that Claire Fraser from Outlander is a nurse.”

A nurse. I said goodbye to June and wandered to the corpse on the bed. The skin on her fingertips already looked like rubber, sliding off in a sort of liquefaction called “skin slip.” Tiny writhing grains of quinoa filled her belly button. Maggot flies had already laid eggs on points of entry, her eyes and mouth. Already a thick, cloying fruit smell emanated from her. I hoped to fuck the pigs would track down Noodlum, but then I realized I wanted to get there first.

The dead girl’s right foot was blue, see-through almost. Maggots under the skin were munching on fat, little white splinters swimming around underneath a sheet of fine rice paper.

I’d seen so much death and decay. Going against popular trend, I wanted to be buried in a safe, secure grave that no one would dig up. I wanted to return to the earth, not melt and burn in an incinerator.

I said goodbye to my brothers and ripped it up the highway north, though not fast enough to get a Fast Riding Award.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MADISON

“Have you also seen his wallet made of human skin?”