He had the desire and the passion. he certainly had the ability. But that wasn't everything. Tubal Cain also had an agenda. Right now he was short on materials. There wasn't much hope of acquiring what he needed here, but for these cretins, he'd make the effort. "You know something? You should all be damned straight to hell!" There weren't too many things that got him riled, but these pigs on wheels were the exception. Motor homes! These monstrosities of engineering were a blight on the landscape. Colossal steel bullets?red from the devil's cannon to cause woe and destruction wherever they landed. Without their intrusion, this oasis turnoff beside Route I-10 in Southern California had its own beauty. A semicircular drive ran up to an artesian well, and trees had been artfully arranged to block the view of the interstate. Laurel trees made a pretty silhouette against the star-?lled sky, but not when a goddamn Winnebago hunkered beneath them, square, unnatural, and spewing light from a cabin the size of the?ight deck of the USS Enterprise. "It's enough to make you sick," Tubal Cain said.
Neither Mabel nor George or whatever the hell they were called argued the point. George was equivocal on the entire subject. However, that could be expected. Speaking could be dif?cult with a gash the width of your thumb parting your trachea.
For her part, Mabel was pretty verbal, but nothing she'd said up until now would change his opinion. She was too intent on screaming for her unheeding husband. Another thing: she wasn't giving any clues to George's actual name. She'd only refer to him as Daddy. She was obscene, like a wrinkly Lolita.
"Aw, for crying out loud!" Cain said. "Put a lid on it, will you? How do you expect me to work with all that racket you're making?"
Mabel hunkered down in the kitchen compartment. She was a hunched package stuffed beneath a fold-down counter, looking like the garbage sack George had been about to drop into the bushes when Cain surprised him.
"Daddy, Daddy! Help me, Daddy!" she screamed for about the hundredth time. "Daddy's not interested," Cain pointed out. "So you might as well shut up."
Daddy sat in the driving seat, surrounded by the luxury of leather and walnut. But he was of no mind to point out the lushness of his surroundings. The elderly man was currently preoccupied with trying to stem the tide of blood?owing down the front of his pullover. Chalk white, his features showed he was losing the battle.
"Daddeeee…"
Cain took the man's hands away from the wound, guiding them to the steering wheel. His?nal earthly experience would be gripping the wheel as though with the intention of taking the Winnebago through the Pearly Gates with him.
The knife snicked through tendons and gristle, the old man's death grip loosened, and his hands?opped onto his thighs. Sans thumbs, his hands looked like dead squid.
Moving toward the woman's hiding place, Cain slipped the thumbs into a sandwich bag and dropped them in a pocket.
"People have to learn to take their trash home with them, Mabel." If there was anything that got his goat even more than motor homes it was the irresponsible and harmful littering George had been engaged in. Bad enough that he destroyed the picturesque beauty of the desert with this huge beast-but then he deposited its shit before he left. "Maybe if George wasn't so indiscriminate with his garbage, I wouldn't have had to call on you and teach you such a valuable lesson."
"You killed Daddy because there were no trash cans?"
"Yes. And for his ridiculous taste in vehicles."
"You're insane!" Mabel shrieked.
"No, Mabel. I'm angry."
"You killed Daddy!"
"Yes."
He stooped down, pulled her from beneath the counter. She slid out as boneless as an oyster from the shell. Cain didn't like oysters. Didn't like anything boneless.
He rapped a knuckle on her head. Just to be sure. The clunk was only partway reassuring.
"How old are you, Mabel? Seventy? Eighty?"
Her turquoise-framed spectacles lent an extra dimension to her incredulous blink. Confusion reigned, terror tamped down by befuddlement. Her mouth drooped. At least she'd stopped screaming.
"I wouldn't ask, but it is pertinent," Cain said.
"Eighty-three." Saliva popped at the back of her throat.
"Hmmm. Quite elderly." Cain gripped her shoulder. He kneaded with a masseur's skill. "Frail under all that padding. I bet you suffer from arthritis, eh?"
She showed him her misshapen knuckles.
"Thought that might be the case." His sigh sounded genuinely remorseful. "What about osteoporosis?"
He was offering hope, and she wasn't so distraught that she didn't recognize it. Even after such a long life, when faced with dismemberment, an octogenarian can still desire further years. "I'm riddled with it. I only have to sneeze and I can break a rib."
"Doesn't bode well."
"What do you want from us?"
"Nothing."
"You cut off Daddy's thumbs…"
"I did, Mabel. I have a purpose for them. But you needn't fear. You have nothing that I want." "Thank the good Lord!" Mabel sobbed. "But only for small mercies," Cain concluded as he slipped the knife back in his pocket. He didn't require a knife when dealing with an invertebrate. The heel of his shoe would be all he'd need.
Ten minutes later he was back on the road.
The Mercedes SUV he drove made a?ne chariot. Interstate 10 stretched out before him, an umbilical cord drawing him ever westward, toward the fertile stalking-grounds of Los Angeles.
Billy Joel was cranked high on the SUV's CD player. A window open so that the warm breeze ruf?ed Cain's fair hair. He was a happy man. Beside him on the passenger seat were the tools of his trade,?agrantly displayed in total disregard of law or common sense. If someone saw them, well, so what? A cop died as easy as any man did.
With that thought in mind, he reached over and lifted the?ap of the pouch. Inside was an array of knives, scalpels, and other cutting utensils. Tap, tap, tap. He danced a?nger over the dozen or so hilts. Tap. Rested momentarily on the sturdy hilt of a Bowie knife.
"Ah, sweet baby," he said. Such fond memories.
A would-be knife?ghter back east in Jacksonville had bestowed the knife upon him. What unashamed southern generosity. Such a polite man, too.
"You're going to have to take it from me?rst, sir," he'd offered.
"Gladly," Tubal Cain had agreed.
The blade was broad and easily a foot long. Whenever it was thrust into?esh, it made a satisfying thunk! A?rm favorite for instilling fear in the hearts of his victims. Sadly, it lacked?nesse. If carnage was your only desire, then?ne. Ever the artist, he preferred a little more delicacy to his cutting.
Now this was more to his liking. Black plastic hilt, slim and unadorned. Grasping it lightly, he teased out the cutting edge. Muted moonbeams played on a curved, very utilitarian blade backed by saw-toothed serrations. Beautiful in its simplicity. It was a?sh-scaling knife acquired during a northern foray to Nova Scotia. The blade had seen employment on a number of occasions since, but never on anything so mundane as trout or salmon.
Happy with his choice, he pulled the scaling knife free and held it up for closer inspection. With a thumb, he tested its keenness. "As keen as I am, eh?"
The knife went into an inside pocket of his sports jacket.
Billy Joel was winding down, Christie Brinkley demanding his full attention. The CDs spread over the passenger seat beckoned. Cain selected a Robbie Williams disc: Stoke-on-Trent's best-known export doing his best to capture the cool of Sinatra and not doing a half-bad job. He changed the CD, then bobbed his head along with the tempo swinging from the speakers.
"My kind of music," he whispered. An aptly named track-a cover of "Mack the Knife." He cut lazy?gures of eight into the air with his right hand. Like conducting a big band, but instead of a bandleader's baton he imagined a blade in his hand. With each swing of the music, he cut another strip of meat from a faceless victim.
"Swing while you're sinning." He grinned. A nod toward the title of the album.