“Yes,” Daniel said, pleasantly. The kid slapped him. Hard. Right across the face. Chaingang put a hand up to ward off further blows and that was all it took. The four of them were on him with fists and boots. One of them had recently been hurt during a ruckus after their parade, and they weren't swallowing any more redneck horseshit.
They pounded the crap out of Daniel, the second real kick-ass beating he'd had in his adult life, and when they got tired they dumped him out in the alley, which was the hard part. Beating him up was a snap, but carrying the fat son of a bitch was nigh impossible for the four of them. Bunkowski as dead weight was a pallbearer's nightmare.
Unlike the memories of the worst go-round at the merciless hands of Spanish Rodriguez, or the aftermath of the bad accident, the recollection of this ass-kicking actually had a feelgood side effect. He came to in a pulpy, turnip-headed state of joyous bliss at first, as some body chemistry unlocked by his physical defense mechanisms blended with the Alpha Group II. The end product was sort of a heroin high. Eventually, still on the nod, he found the car, managed to get in, and started the damned thing.
He wheeled out into the light traffic, his mind a whirlpool of confusion. He tried concentrating on reading signs and watching the vehicles: Gas For Less; a silver Acura; bread; cigarettes; Just Add Bacardi; a maroon Gran Prix; Burlington Northern—Hydracushion—Santa Fe; a log truck; a red Celica; Raymond Meara; a Nissan Stanza—RAYMOND MEARA cut through the junk from out of nowhere. He kicked the thing into a hard illegal U and roared back. It was Meara. From a hundred years ago in the Nam. Alive and getting into a beat-up pickup, that bastard Meara!
Only four SAUCOG survivors made it back to the world counting Chaingang: Michael Hora, a dead fucking sniper named Bobby Price, and this boy. He was sure it was Meara. If it was—there was the answer to his ordnance resupply needs. Old Ray would have some goodies stashed round and about here and there.
The last time he'd seen Meara alive and well had been back at base camp where a worthless fuck named McClanahan had briefed them down in his private trailer. The man had offered them up to the little people as a sacrifice, and his mind's eye pictured the two flags and pennant furled around the tall bamboo flagpole above the berm hole that led to his air-conditioned bomb shelter, the U.S. flag, South Vietnam's buttwipe, and the pirate skull flag of their phony recon outfit. The fucked-up monkey men playing soldier.
It took an eternity for Meara to get wherever he was headed, but Chaingang had tremendous patience and he used the time to nurture himself on the poisons that coursed through him, taking the bruises and humiliation of this latest beating and using it to forge new strength. Tailing Meara to the water's edge was child's play. Nobody could stay on a vehicle or a subject the way Bunkowski could. He lagged way back, now and then allowing the red dots or yellow headlights to wink out briefly, but the sudden stop almost made him overrun his man. He was barely able to wheel into a gravel side road in time. Meara was getting into a boat.
Chaingang was out of the ride and moving—a waddling run—surprisingly fast, faster in fact than anyone alive had ever seen him move. He could run very fast for very short distances, and his tree-trunk legs of steel propelled him down the mud road. Meara had his back to the road and was yanking on an outboard motor lanyard when he heard the deep rumble in his ear.
“Don't move anything if you want to live,” Chaingang said, puffing. The smell alone might have cut through and warned him, but Meara stunk a little himself. The voice, once heard, was not one a person ever forgot.
“Right,” Meara said, chilly.
It was a professional frisk job, and when Chaingang Bunkowski patted you down it was almost a sex act. He got the ERMA .22, the pocket knife, even Meara's keychain.
“Listen up. You know who I am?"
“Yeah. Bunkow—"
“Good. Nobody gets hurt here. I need resupply: grenades, claymores, satchel charges, haversacks. What have you got and don't fuck with me, I'm paying.” Money scattered over Meara's shoulder, symbolically.
Meara did not give up his ordnance because of any particular threat, but because of who was behind him. When fucking Chaingang materialized suddenly, thundering up behind you in huge splayed bare feet, big as a sewer culvert, demanding claymores and grenades, you did not screw around, you gave up the claymores and grenades even if you had to go home and make the freaking things. Meara didn't need the pain. He knew the monster personally. He'd seen some of his work. Up close.
“In my barn. Buried under the floor of the barn. I'll dig them up."
“Good. Let's go.” The voice carried on the water's edge. A quarter ton stepped daintily down into the small boat and it damn near capsized before he could center his weight. Meara got a glimpse of something in Chaingang's right paw, but he did not let himself look directly at the man or his weapon. Pistol. Bowie the size of a large machete. Chain. What was the difference? If he decided to hurt you with something that was it.
The motor caught and they were moving into darkened trees. Meara would have at least considered taking a shot when they moved through the darkest overhang of willows and big oak, had it been anyone else, from Jesus San Diego to Jesus himself. But there was never even a glimmer. You didn't think such things in Mr. Bunkowski's presence. The Dai Uy had drilled him good on the essentials long before they'd met. “Never fuck with him; never speak to him by name; never eyeball him; but above all, never fuck with him."
Ray'd been a spear carrier, a half-assed merc, but he knew how good this fucking brainiac was. The problem was, even after he'd given up the goods, there was no way Meara would walk away from this. His brain worked at triple time and a half during the silent boat ride.
They reached the other side, Meara cut the motor, tilted up the propeller, and they coasted into a flooded road ditch until the keel scraped muddy bottom. Chaingang hopped out, agile as a mountain goat but for his bad ankle, grabbed the coiled rope in the bow and pulled the boat, gear, Meara, and the outboard up onto land as if the whole shebang weighed fifty pounds instead of five hundred and fifty. Meara got out and they headed up the road toward his barn, the barefooted beast waddling along behind him.
Chaingang could technically get resupplied simply by communicating his needs to Dr. Norman, his hated nemesis. He was never without weapons. There was a haversack of military high explosive in his duffel, and some shaped charges and det gear. The weapons case in his back-breakingly heavy mobile house included such goodies as a submachine gun; a customized mail-order hybrid, which he carried broken down, barrel and shroud, firing assembly, crudely stamped receiver, overlarge trigger housing, and grips shaped to accommodate one of his massive mitts; as well as a small supply of partially-loaded magazines of 9mm military ball ammo. Why aggravate himself to steal a used Winchester, then Remington, shotgun? And why this business with Meara?
Because Chaingang was a planner. He believed in the soldierly axiom that if one planned hard, one fought easy. He had hard plans for Dr. Norman and whomever else might be in the line of fire, and when he was finished in this floating turd of a hickburg, he wanted his munitions and weaponry cocked and locked. He was always going to pick up disposable shooters, such as the bait shop shotguns, and when he saw Meara, a notorious ordnance freak, he smelled instant resupply. These punks, who'd had the temerity to assault him when he was befuddled by the drug, and the elderly Nazi needed killing. He would stock up with field expedient necessities.