What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [100]
“So tell me, what’s all this about an army?”
El Jefe slurred his words together. “Cadmon. Bill Cadmon’s got an army. ‘S dumb. Bunch of damned rednecks. Secessionists.” He made a snakey, ‘s’ sound, stretching the word “secessionists” much, much further than is really considered to be appropriate in polite company.
“Why does he have an army?”
“Dunno. Doesn’t need ‘em. Whitford’s got one.” El Jefe thumped the steering wheel arhythmically and burbled a tuneless ditty. “Got one. He already – got one.”
“Wait, what? Whitford?”
“The …” he stretched this word out too, and then kind of sneezed out the rest, “Governor. He’s the Governor.” He waved on hand in the air as if to say, what can you do? He’s the Governor. Yep, the Governor. ‘S weird, you know? Whitford already had an army. And it’s a big one. So now they got one whole army they don’t even need. ‘S crazy. But you know what?”
“What?”
“We got one too. Big army. Lots of guns. Lots n’ lots.”
“You—” said Satan. El Jefe’s head lolled and the car began to swerve. “Steady now.” Satan breathed for a pensive moment. “You were taking me somewhere. Some kind of headquarters? Yes?”
“Uh, yeah. HQ. Right on up the way. Meet the boss. Meet the honcho. He’s the big boss. Big, big boss.” El Jefe pointed northwards.
“Good,” said the Devil. “Take me to your leader.”
Chapter 37. The Rain Is Disgusting
They – “they” being those folks who seem to be responsible for all the bits of wisdom for which nobody else wants to take credit – have a saying: If you don’t like the weather in Texas, wait a few minutes. It’ll change. They probably say that sort of thing in a lot of places, but Texas is special. The weather lurches about in fits of contradictory indecision so extraordinary and unpredictable that it might lead a reasonable weatherman to throw up his hands in disgust and denounce the local weather god (or gods) as “Just plain nuts.”
It started to rain. Liam flipped on his windshield wipers, but the blades just smeared the water around in big, blurry streaks, as if the window were very dirty. This was odd, because the car wasn’t dirty at all. In fact, Liam was fanatical about keeping the car clean. He glanced over at Lola, who was on the phone with her boss.
“No, no. Not goats. Sheep.” Lola pressed the phone to her ear, trying to hear over the sound of the car’s engine. “That’s what he said: It was just sheep. Right. No, the guy’s name is Festus. Festus. No, Festus. It starts with an ‘F’.” Lola pulled the phone away from her ear, and turned to give Liam a nasty look. Tiny but clearly audible barking sounds emanated from the handset. “He wants to know who Festus is and why he was there.” She thrust the phone at Liam. “You get to explain that.”
Liam frowned and took the phone. The stream of barky noises continued unabated as he held it up to his ear. He turned the wipers up a notch. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, downshifting and pulling into the oncoming lane to pass a school bus. “No, that’s right. His name is Festus. He’s a friend of mine, and—” Lola tried to explain that they needed to go after Festus, but all Boehner seemed to care about was sheep vs. goats and why the hell Festus had been there. Typical Boehner. “They took him. Yes. Yes. Correct.” He dropped the phone as he swerved to avoid an oncoming military convoy. The train of military trucks finally roared by, and Liam downshifted again, gunning the car into the oncoming lane. He reached over to take the handset from Lola, who’d grabbed it off the floor. She turned around in her seat, trying to get another look at the bus, but it was already well behind them.
Lola said, “Was that a school bus—?”
“—full of naked guys,” said Liam. “Yes, it was.” He stared straight ahead, a look of grim determination on his face as he listened to Cas Boehner rant.
“Huh,” she said. “Odd.”
“It’s not the first group of naked guys I’ve seen today.”
“I’m sorry.” Lola settled back into her seat. “What’s wrong with your wipers?”
Liam ignored her question. “No, Cas, I wasn’t talking to you.” The tiny, angry noises coming from the