The one-eyed man knelt and lightly touched the girl’s cheek. Putting his mouth close to her ear, he whispered softly so no one else could hear, “Consider the bastards chilled.”
Straightening, Ryan signaled for his friends to follow him, then continued the short climb to the top of the hill, heading for the circled trailers and the ville’s most well-appointed gaudy. The double-wide gaudy in question was painted bright pink, as were the rocks that lined the dirt walk leading up to its doorway.
It wasn’t much cooler inside the trailer. A handful of sluts sprawled on a long, broken-down sofa in the foyer, which reeked of once-cheap, now-expensive perfume. The working girls didn’t bother to get up as the potential clients filed past, they just flopped open their gauzy robes to show all.
“Hot pipe!” Dean chirped.
“By the three Kennedys!” Doc Tanner swore, averting Dean’s gaze by spinning the boy by the shoulder. “In all my years, I have never seen such a row of tangle-matted medusas. If they are the blooming roses of this ville, then I know why the diabolical dung heap is called Perdition.”
“Gee, they didn’t look half-bad to J.B.,” Mildred teased.
The Armorer muttered something under his breath, then spit on the floor.
The gaudy’s bartender took one look at the people walking toward him and quickly dipped his hands under the makeshift bar.
“There’s no need for that,” Ryan assured him, holding both empty palms up for him to see. “We’re not here for trouble.”
The bartender brought his hands out from under the bar. He held a cut-down 12-gauge. “What can I get you, then?” he said.
“Information.” When the man frowned, Ryan added, “We’ll pay for it, of course.”
“What sort of information might that be?”
“We’re looking to catch up with some people who passed through here earlier today. One guy in particular you mebbe remember. He was tall, gray-bearded, carrying a fine bolt-action longblaster.”
“These friends of yours?”
“No.”
“I seen them. What’re you paying?”
“Show him,” Ryan said to J.B.
The Armorer stepped forward and rapidly pumped the M-4000’s slide, ejecting two red-cased, live 12-gauge shells onto the bar. The barman eagerly scooped them up and stuffed them into his pants pocket.
“Let’s hear it,” Ryan said.
“The graybeard you’re looking for, along with three others, two men and a skinhead witch, left here mebbe twenty minutes ago after talking to a scrounger name of Grub Hinton. Took Grub with them when they went.”
“He go along willingly?”
“Looked mighty happy to me.”
“Know what they talked about?”
“Had to be discussing Moonboy ville. It’s the only thing people been talking about around here since last night. According to this scrounger, some kind of strange things went on there yesterday noon. He claims some muties popped out of nowhere with tricky, silenced blasters and cut just about everybody in half.”
“Sounds real unlikely,” Krysty said.
“Think your pals had a raid in mind,” the barman went on. “They wanted to get their hands on the extra-special chilling gear.”
“They’re not our pals,” Krysty told him. “They’re cannies.”
“I guessed that something wasn’t right with those bastards,” the barman said. “Goddamn coffin breath on the gray-bearded one practically knocked me down.”
“They’ve been working the riverbed,” Ryan told him, “nabbing the folks trying to cross over from Brigham ville.”
The barman narrowed his eyes and said, “You know, I would’ve chilled them myself if I’d known what they were”
“Yeah, sure you would,” J.B. said dubiously.
“Tell us which way they went,” Ryan said.
“Cost you more shells.”
Ryan nodded to J.B., but instead of cycling out more live rounds from the tubular magazine, the Armorer swiveled on the bartender and aimed the wide gun barrel at his throat. With his index finger resting lightly on the trigger, J.B. cautioned the man, “Next one you collect is going to hurt some.”
“Okay, okay, forget it,” the barman said, carefully putting his weapon on the bar top, then raising his hands in surrender. “No rad-blasted harm in trying, is there?”
Doc used the tip of his walking stick like a prod, thrusting across the bar and jabbing the man in the shoulder. “You would be well advised to reveal without further delay all that you are privy to, or make no mistake, you will suffer the consequences.”