Page 55 of It Takes a Thief

We found their real lousy clubhouse just south of the meteor crater. I staked a couple men out there, but no Noodlum. By that time, my rage had morphed from aimed at all Cutlasses to aimed directly at Noodlum. Zelov went across the street to beg my men not to bomb his pathetic shack of a clubhouse, and by that time, I agreed not to. We talked on the phone. He said Noodlum had gone cowboy and he hadn’t even seen him for a week.

Would that brain-addled thug move on and find someone else to harass? I didn’t really want him to. I wanted to end this, and end it my way.

I hated leaving Maddy behind. I rode into P&E feeling twenty years older than I was. Just fucking bone-weary. I wouldn’t blame Maddy for serving me with divorce papers. I’d never find another old lady as fine as her—never. I’d just remain a weary, bitter old bachelor like my old man did, after spitting out half-Yazzies all over several Rezzes. Maddy was the best thing that could ever happen to me, and I didn’t feel free to move forward with her until I’d smoked that ditzy bastard Noodlum who had threatened the very foundation of my life.

I didn’t curse or blame the club. This was part and parcel of being in a club. We’d been through hell and back, my brothers and me. We’d faced down the Outfit, the ATF, sicarios with see-through bones, cartels and too many other bloodthirsty clubs to count. We’d expanded our base, actually. We’d pretty much put the Ochoas out of business, just as I’d almost put our favorite “Kindly Sicario” out of business by cold-cocking him. I’d had to grovel a little to get him back on our side.

What I’m saying is, a couple hippies talking about vortices weren’t top on my list of priorities. I didn’t make it to The Bum Steer until the next day, by which time said hippies were gone, of course. Sock Monkey was tending bar for no one other than Wolf Glaser and Knoxie, who were playing pool, maybe a few sweetbutts. A couple of citizens ate grilled cheese sandwiches at a tall table.

I ordered a grilled cheese from Sock Monkey and lifted my hand in greeting to my brothers. Knoxie set down his pool cue and came over first. “Ford, I got to tell you. These hippies here yesterday were pretty damned adamant about that vortex calendar we keep as a joke behind the bar.” He went behind the bar to get the thing off the wall. It was something put out by Shirley MacLaine or one of those woo-woo organizations that follow shit like that. Sometimes we got tourists at the Bum Steer who were fascinated by the energy channels alleged to dot the whole P&E area, so each bartender was well-versed in the ins and outs of the whole tree-hugging thing.

Knoxie held out the calendar. “I didn’t follow it exactly, but it had something to do with Saturday the twenty-third of November. Day after tomorrow.”

He jabbed his finger at it, and I grabbed it from him. Some moon phases and other astrological junk were printed on that day, along with the loony words, “Red Rocks Showdown.”

“This could mean anything,” I said with disgust, slapping the calendar back onto the bar.

“I was here yesterday,” said Brandi, a sometime Bare Bones sweetbutt. I think she flew choppers for EMTs when she wasn’t out here playing darts and giving skull jobs. She was one of the higher-class ones. “I think those hippies are onto something.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. Her reddish curls bobbed around her shoulders. She had a very distracting neck tattoo of Betty Boop with giant tits riding a cartoon bike. “I’d say pay attention to that date. One time, the calendar said ‘Bell Rock’ so I went out to that vortex. I saw colored orbs.”

“Colored… orbs?”

“Yes. The energy I exuded brought them to me. I tuned out my mind and tuned in my heart.”

I refrained from making a giant lip fart. Brandi always helped out at fish fries and Toys for Tots runs, so I didn’t want to piss her off.

It was Wolf Glaser who put down his cue and came forward, lured by the talk of colored orbs, I guess. “Yeah. The hippies here yesterday were the ones that helped with my compost pile and the organic garden. They say that our old runway mesa’s got the most colorful orbs around.”

I sighed patiently. “Okay. But what are orbs?”

Brandi said excitedly, “They’re interdimensional angels! Look, I took a picture of one once.” She started swiping around on her phone.

“I did, too,” said Wolf. He was the first to hand me his phone. Someone in a deep canyon had shot upward toward the rim above, and a bright circular area appeared. “Course, I know it’s just camera flare. I didn’t really think it was an orb.”

“Oh yeah?” I laughed. Sock Monkey slid my sandwich plate to me. “Why not?”

“Well, you can see real orbs before you take the photo. Camera flares just appear afterward, when you’re looking at the photo.”

“So you believe in angelic orbs, then?”

Wolf made a sound like “pshaw!” But he didn’t directly ridicule the idea. “You know, it’s highly doubtful they can actually be photographed. It’s a bit of a reach to think they’d appear right next to your head when they’re supposed to be, you know, more angelic than we are…”

“Knoxie? What you think? About the calendar, not the orbs.” Knoxie had spent time saving some folks from a local guru up in the mountains. If anyone knew woo-woo, it was Knoxie.

To my surprise, he didn’t completely blow off the whole drum circle concept. “I think we should pay attention and be on our guard on that date. But this calendar doesn’t give a location. Just says ‘Red Rocks Showdown.’”

Then it struck me. Our official club name was The Bare Bones MC, Red Rocks Original. I put down my greasy sandwich. “Sock Monkey. Wolf. Can you find these hippies who were yammering about this shit yesterday?”

“On it,” said Wolf, who evidently had the hippies on speed dial. Everyone watched him as he wandered away, phone glued to his ear. “Hey, Sunshine? Yeah, it’s me, Wolf, from the Citadel. Oh, thanks for checking the temperature of the compost pile. I added a bunch of worms I dug up from a borrow area. Don’t worry, I washed the clay off. That’s how I’m rocking, man!”

Knoxie rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable.”

“I’m starting to wonder,” I said, picking the sandwich back up. Two people were coming in the door, so I put it down again.

“Oh, I do that all the time!” declared Tobiah, holding the door open for Tracy. “The grow room temperature is hugely important to the photosynthesis of the plants.”