What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [76]
“Well,” said Liam. He relaxed a little and nodded. His eyebrows promptly made their way up his forehead. “That’s exactly what Boehner said.”
“Ha!” said Festus. “And you’re the one who’s always telling me not to think with my dick.”
That comment led to a few moments of uncomfortable silence.
“So where are we headed?” asked Festus.
Lola ignored him. She was too busy holding on as Liam roared down an exit ramp without slowing at all. Not even a tiny bit. She turned to Liam. “You’re going to get a ticket.”
He nodded the slow nod of a stoner contemplating the pot-enhanced profundity of a “Shit Happens” bumper sticker. “Yeah,” he said without turning to look at her. “I guess.”
She smiled, but then noticed a sign on the side of the road. “Hey,” she said. “I think this is where we’re supposed to t—”
Liam flung the car through a ninety-degree turn onto a two-lane ranch road, causing Festus to let out a high-pitched and diphthongal, “Ha-aa!” as he smashed up against the side of the back seat. Up in front, Lola squelched a couple of gross gulping noises. But the car stayed on the road, and even managed not to spend too much time sideways. There was a bit of smoke, and some urping sounds from the tires that made it sound as if Liam was driving on a road paved with disgruntled baby seals, but Lola’s breakfast stayed put, and nobody died. So it was a good turn.
They turned again onto an even smaller country road a minute or two later, but there was a lot less room for high-speed antics this time, mostly on account of the presence of a very large and heavy-looking gate which someone had – obviously in an egotistical and self-centered fit of aristocratic xenophobia – inconsiderately placed across the pavement. It had a sign that read “Private Property” in large, unfriendly letters. Liam smashed down hard on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop inches from the gate. Festus and Lola immediately busied themselves breathing again and shivering and giving thanks to various deities. Liam, on the other hand, calmly backed the car up a bit, and reached out the window to tap the “Call” button on an intercom panel that stood just outside his open window – having been installed there, presumably, by the same inconsiderate person who’d erected the gate.
He turned to Lola. “I assume this is the place?”
Lola checked the scrap of paper on which she’d written the address. “Yeah,” she said, craning her neck to read the numbers on the gate. “This is it.”
Outside, the speaker on the intercom panel made a double-beeping sound as if Liam were placing an international call. Festus piped up from the backseat. “This is the United States calling with a collect call from Mr. Floyd to Mrs. Floyd, will you accept the charges?”
“Festus,” Liam sighed. “Please shut up.”
The speaker made a staticky click and a smoky, Latin voice answered. “Hhhello? Hwho is it?” His H’s were extra breathy and sexy.
Liam leaned toward the speaker. “Liam McEwen and Lola Ford. We’re here to see Alistair Preston.” There was a murmur of protest from the back seat. Liam glanced in the rearview mirror. “You’re not officially here.”
“Jes.” The speaker buzzed and crackled and, between the bits that sounded more or less like human speech, made staticky wooshing sounds. “We hab been espectine jou.”
Liam turned back to Lola, a slightly confused look on his face. But then the big gate swung open. He shifted into gear, easing the automobile over a cattle guard and onto a road that wove its way off ahead through patches of gnarled cedar trees and dried-out, scrubby brush.
They traveled along the road – which was apparently just a driveway – twisting and turning for several minutes and catching only sporadic glimpses of their destination. Finally the trees opened up to reveal a well-trimmed garden in front of a palatial building. It was really less of a garden, though, than a football-field-sized menagerie of non-indigenous plants