Read Video Star (Voice of the Whirlwind) for Free Online

crouched in the shadow of a vacation cabin. Drizzle rattled off his collar. His knees were growing wet. He took the aerial for the radio detonator and pulled it carefully along one of the stems of the bush. Marlene stood next to him in red plastic boots. She was standing guard, snuffling in the cold. Ric could hear the sound of her lips as she chewed gum.
    White shafts of light tracked over their heads, filtered by juniper scrub that stood between the cabins and the expressway heading north out of Flagstaff. Ric froze. His form, caught among pyracantha barbs, cast a stark moving shadow on the peeling white wall.
    “Flashlight,” he said, when the car had passed. Moving between the light and any onlookers, Marlene flicked it on. Ric carefully smoothed the soil, spread old leaves. He thought the thorns on the pyracantha would keep most people away, but he didn’t want disturbed soil attracting anyone.
    Rain danced down in the yellow light. “Thanks,” he said. Marlene popped a bubble. Ric stood up, brushing muck from his knees. There were more bundles to bury, and it was going to be a long, wet night.

18
    “They’re going to take you off if they can,” Ric said. “They’re from California and they know this is a one-shot deal, so they don’t care if they offend you or leave you dead. But they think it’s going to happen in Phoenix, see.” Ric, Super Virgin, and Two-Fisted Jesus stood in front of the juniper by the alloy road, looking down at the cluster of cabins. “They may hire people from the Cold Wires or whoever, so that they can have people who know the terrain. So the idea is, we move the meet at the last minute. Up here, north of Flag.”
    “We don’t know the terrain, either,” Jesus said. He looked uncomfortable here, his face a monochrome blotch in the unaccustomed sun.
    Ric took a squeeze bottle of nasal mist from his pocket and squeezed it once up each nostril. He sniffed. “You can learn it between now and then. Rent all the cabins, put soldiers in the nearest ones. Lay in your commo gear.” Ric pointed up at the ridge above where they stood. “Put some people with long guns up there, some IR goggles and scopes. Anyone comes in, you’ll know about it.”
    “I don’t know, Marat. I like Phoenix. I know the way that city thinks.” Jesus shook his head in disbelief. “Fucking tourist cabins.”
    “They’re better than hotel rooms. Tourist cabins have back doors.”
    “Hey.” Super Virgin was grinning, metal teeth winking in the sun as she tugged on Jesus’ sleeve. “Expand your horizons. This is the great outdoors.”
    Jesus shook his head. “I’ll think about it.”

19
    Marlene was wearing war paint and dancing in the middle of her condeco living room. The furniture was pushed back to the walls, the music was loud enough to rattle the crystal on the kitchen shelves.
    “You’ve got to decide, Marlene,” Ric said. He was sitting behind the pushed-back table, and the paper packets of Thunder were laid out in front of him. “How much of this do you want to sell?”
    “I’ll decide later.”
    “Now. Now, Marlene.”
    “Maybe I’ll keep it all.”
    Ric looked at her. She shook sweat out of her eyes and laughed.
    “Just a joke, Ric.”
    He said nothing.
    “It’s just happiness,” she said, dancing. “Happiness in paper envelopes. Better than money. You ought to use some. It’ll make you less tense.” Sweat was streaking her war paint. “What’ll you use the money for, anyway? Move to Zanzibar and buy yourself a safe condeco and a bunch of safe investments? Sounds boring to me, Ric. Why’n’t you use it to create some excitement?”
    He could not, Ric thought, afford much in the way of regret. But still a sadness came over him, drifting through his body on slow opiate time. Another few days, he thought, and he wouldn’t have to use people anymore. Which was good, because he was losing his taste for it.

20
    A kid from California was told to be by a certain public phone