she wouldn’t send bounty hunters after us.”
“And you believed me?” Trip didn’t look up as he’d gotten to the part with boobs. “I left her at the altar and you stunned her three-legged, one-eyed calico, Mr. Charles Xavier Whimsy, Esquire, while we were making our escape.”
“Little lopsided-faced bastard had it coming for always shoving his ass in my face every time I sat down to eat.”
“You gave him a heart attack.”
“And then I gave him CPR.”
“Kicking is not CPR.”
“Got him breathing again, didn’t it?” Rudy licked the last of the gruel off his fingers. “I’m counting that one.”
“Yes, well, throw all of it into a blender and sure as Shatner of course she was gonna send hunters after us. Why you think I suggested we come out here, of all places?”
“Yeah, that did surprise me.” Rudy haphazardly stuffed the dog bowl into the glove compartment, packed with gruel pouches, crumpled paper bags of random ammo and spent shells waiting to be reloaded, an ancient rolled-up 2004 Rand-McNally Annual, and an assortment of game carts and rolls of duct tape. He had to use his knees to force the glove compartment door shut. “This is the last place I figure you’d want to go.”
“Was kinda hoping she’d think the same. Well, lesson learned.”
“That’s all you have to say for getting us into this mess?”
Trip looked up from the Playboy, his eyebrow cocked in almost sincere offense. “How did I get us into this mess?”
“Are you serious?” Rudy asked, glaring at him. “It was a simple scam. We pass ourselves off as arms merchants, gain the Warlord Hu’s trust with a few staged demonstrations, get her to fork over a huge deposit, and skip out before the crates of wooden sticks with buttons glued on them for triggers showed up at her warehouse. You were just supposed to gain her confidence.”
“Which I did,” Trip said, smiling. “By banging her.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t have to ask her to get married right after.”
“Took her completely off-guard, didn’t it?”
“And why wouldn’t it?”
Trip closed the Playboy, tossed it up on the dash. “Look, stealing a couple thousand scrollars of deposit money was nothing. There was a bigger opportunity. She had money. Power. Not just in Cali but in the Mainland. Plus: Frickin’ army. All waiting for a man to take off her oddly long-fingered hands as Mr. Warlord Hu. It was the perfect con.”
“Bullshit. There was no con. You got carried away by a pretty face and went all stupid. Like always.”
“She did have the most amazing eyes. And she could do this thing with her tonsils that...” Trip’s voice trailed off and he shook himself. “Well, trust me, it was special. She was special.”
“So special you grabbed me ten minutes before the ceremony and initiated Operation I’ve-Made-a-Huge-Mistake?”
“Well... she wasn’t exactly the perfect woman, you know. She sang Chinese opera in her sleep. And did I mention the extra phalanges in her fingers and toes? And would you believe she actually wanted to honeymoon alone? Without servants? Not even the cute little redhead with the freckles and knockers.”
“The one you were banging on the side.”
“Yeah. What’s her name.” Trip smirked, lit a cigarette. “Anyway, if I’d gotten hitched, where would that have left you? I’d be busy war-lording it up all day and night, wouldn’t have had any time to hit the road with you anymore.”
“I think I could have coped. Thrived, even.”
“What, you were gonna go out adventuring on your own? Come on... we both know I pull most of the weight in this partnership. You’d be lost without me. I couldn’t do that to my own brother.”
Rudy growled out a sigh. “Just once I’d like to pull a job without your dick complicating things, is all I’m saying.”
“You’re just jealous it’s never your dick doing the complicating.”
“Touché. But still... someday the universe is gonna hit you up-side the head with a Karmic two-by-four. I just hope I’m there to see it when it does. I’m gonna sell tickets.”
“As long as I get half the gate.” Trip sat back, let out a good lungful of smoke at the steering wheel. On the other side of the interstate, a forty-man-drawn flatbed stacked high with corn and its horse-mounted and shotgun-toting Amish escort made its four-mile-per-hour way West. “You know, if Delores was already pissed enough to send cannibals after us, once she’s figured out the Magnums double-crossed her, she’s probably gonna finally be angry enough to pay his exorbitant fees and send the Slash.”
Rudy gave an