Page 64 of Three-Inch Teeth

“Please, just take what you want,” Rob said.

“That’s what I’m doing, idiot.”

“There’s some high-grade weed in our bedroom.”

“Stop talking, idiot.”

*

WITH THE STILL-UNCONSCIOUS Britney and bleeding Rob bound and sitting back-to-back against the wall in the living room, Cates said to Rob, “I was happy to see that you didn’t move the duct tape from the utility closet.”

“I told you,” Rob said, his voice choking with emotion, “just take what you need and leave us alone.”

Cates said, “Some partner you are, Rob. You haven’t even checked on Britney.”

She sat slumped with her chin on her chest, a knot on the top of her head and a bloody gash in her scalp where the broken lenses had cut through the skin. But she was breathing.

“What do you want?” Rob asked.

“I want you two squatters to shut the fuck up,” Cates said as he stripped a six-inch length of tape from the roll and approached Rob.

“Squatters?”

“This is my house,” Cates said, bending down and roughly applying the tape to Rob’s mouth. “Llamas?” he said as he did so. “Fucking llamas?”

*

CATES WENT OUT to the pickup. “It’s handled,” he said as he opened the passenger door. “Lee, go park the truck in that garage over there. We don’t want anyone to see it in the daytime.”

He could see the couple’s white SUV inside the open garage and an open space next to it.

“Are those people okay?” Johnson asked with a nervous giggle. “I saw that skeleton lady go flying.”

“They’re just fine,” Cates said.

“Welcome to command central,” Soledad added from the backseat.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Eagle Mountain Club

“TWO HUNDRED TWENTY PSI and climbing fast,” Lee Ogburn-Russell called through the sliding window in the back of the pickup at four-thirty the next morning. “The air compressor seems to be working like a charm.”

“Gotcha,” Cates said from behind the wheel.

“Can you please turn the heat up in here?” Johnson asked. “It’s fucking freezing.” She was in the backseat. Soledad rode shotgun.

Cates said, “Sure,” but did nothing. He liked the sharpness of the cold morning on his face, which was why he kept his window open. It made him hyperaware and alert.

Cates doused his headlights as he crept the vehicle over a suspension bridge that spanned the Twelve Sleep River four miles downstream from the Eagle Mountain Club. The old planks on the bridge made a rat-tat-tat as his tires rolled over them. Cates could see the white undulating reflection of the moon and stars on the black surface of the river as he passed over it.

On the other side of the bridge, he turned left onto a grassy two-track that paralleled the river to the north. Spring floods had washed out parts of the road, and he flashed on his lights at a couple of turns to make sure he didn’t drive over a gouge-out into the water. As soon as he was confident of the pathway ahead, he turned his headlights back off and navigated by natural light. It was pure luck that the moon was full and bright enough to illuminate the silvery branches of the ancient cottonwood trees and cast shadows across the road.

“Five hundred PSI,” LOR announced from the back through the window.

*

THE EAGLE MOUNTAIN Club was the very exclusive gated country club and golf course outside of Saddlestring. Cates knew it well because he and his high school buddies used to sneak onto the property and steal all the flags from the holes the night before summer tournaments, which enraged the members. There was a real clear “town vs. gown” atmosphere in those days, when ultra-wealthy Eagle Mountain members arrived on their jets and held their noses as they passed through Saddlestring by limousine from the airport en route to the club. At the time, there was very little interaction between the members and the locals, and few if any local members. Locals were hired to clean rooms, landscape the grounds, and pick up garbage. The club even brought in their own waitstaff from other clubs for the summer.

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