Wackos to Obliterate: Book Three (Chapter 13)

The next morning, George and Mavis woke up around seven and enjoyed their usual breakfast of granola and coffee. Having been busy the day before with driving and two short meetings (one with Rick and the in-the-dark one with Bill), George hadn’t kept up with the online TRinket saga since he did his trolling in the morning before Ryuji or Malcolm uploaded the pictures taken in Cincinnati. Yesterday evening he had gone online to check his email and just read the two-word message from Julian. Shortly after, they ate and then he went outside with Bill. This time with Bill combined with the cryptic message from Julian and an overall anxiety festering in his brain over what the morning meeting would entail, resulted in his lying awake until four or so. For him, though, three hours was enough rest to act like a zombie, which was probably the best strategy: a short-circuited brain would help keep him from digging a deeper ditch from which to crawl out.

With a cup of coffee in hand, he headed to his standing desk, turned on his computers and soon was scrolling through the difference a night can bring.

“The Yellow Peril has struck!” he read on Jimmy’s page. As he scrolled down, he found the page flooded with comments that were not only racist, but which had a new spin: hints of sexual impropriety with minors. There were even links to online encyclopedias and blogs that cover legal issues focusing on statutory rape.

A couple of hours later, George sat with Rick and Todd in the living room of Rick’s house.

“Genius, fucking genius,” Todd said, repeating what he had just said from a few minutes before. “Damn, it was an amazing insight to meet up with Ryuji in Cincinnati. How did you know using your connection to him would result in this? I’m sure they never would have posted a picture of Ryuji and Jimmy so intimate if the two of you weren’t in it. What a masterful stroke. Not only is Ryuji a sexual degenerate, but he appears to be a predator of young boys as well!”

“See what can result from reefer madness!” Rick said, laughing.

Todd, although in his late sixties with sagging jowls and liver spots, sounded like a young bully enjoying the dilemma his team had placed Ryuji in as he laughed along with Rick and added, “If only we could find out that he’s been downloading kiddie porn, the major press would run with the story until some sort of conviction would stick.”

George sat on a sofa watching the other two take delight in delivering pain to fellow human beings. Of course, having never met their victims, it was easy to dehumanize them as being wackos to obliterate; in the same vein as soldiers can kill the enemy without remorse. George, however, knew the ‘victims’ and could not indulge in the joy these old men seemed to experience. Since yesterday morning this meeting had filled him with dread. He was sure they’d berate him for being irresponsible and risk putting the whole enterprise in jeopardy. Instead, they were praising him for exposing their victims to greater vulnerability.

“It’s a hard row to hoe, but you’ve eliminated a lot of the drudgery; much like a miracle herbicide just hit the market,” Rick said.

“Yeah, ‘Rounding up Wacko Already’ or something,” Todd said. “In addition, Julian was tickled you could get him tickets for the Washington show.”

Still grinning, Rick said, “I’m glad he received them before this new attack. I’m sure Ryuji’ll never be so generous again.”

“Not after Gerold and the boys blitzed them.”

At lunch, Bill sat relaxed since there was no talk about the duck photos; pleased that the new assault on Ryuji and Jimmy was front and center.

George glanced across the booth at Bill smiling as Gerold babbled: “Ryuji Butt-Whomper’s new group should be called ‘Jailbait’ and their first hit could be ‘Jailhouse Rock’ except the ‘r’ should be replaced with a ‘c.’”

It was rather strange to see Gerold (who in George’s memory usually was the brunt of the joke) being treated as the brightest bulb in the room. Perhaps that was due to Todd being present, who after all, brought Gerold into the fold of the group originally; and who after all, was not at any of the meetings at the Fast-Track that George had attended.

Todd had smiled at Gerold’s lame attempt to be humorous, but then with a straight face he looked at the trolls. “One thing we mustn’t lose sight of is to keep up whacking heads that pop up. Any medical news report concerning cannabis or legalization has to be addressed.”

“Don’t relent, be merciless,” Rick added.

Gerold grinned and pumped the air. “Pow, pow, pow.” Bill looked at George, rolled his eyes and winked.

“Oh I almost forgot,” Todd suddenly turned to George. “Remember Mylo at the RV park?” George nodded his head. “Well, he said there’s a space available you could use for a few days gratis. It’s just a small way to show our gratitude for the effort you and your lovely wife did to expose Ryuji.”

“Bill’s been very kind to let us use his parking lot,” George replied, nodding to Bill.

“Aren’t your tanks getting full of shit?” Gerold asked, his grey mustache framing a big grin.

“I don’t think we’ve accumulated so much since we left the park in Cincinnati,” George said, addressing the squirrely-looking little man. “But I’m sure Mavis would appreciate having the rig fully hooked up.”

“Just drive down there and Mylo’ll take care of everything,” Todd said.

“Speaking of gratis, both you and your better half are welcome to use the blind later this afternoon if you’re up to it,” Bill said. “I think Patti said your licenses cleared.”

“Does that offer go for everyone at the table?” Rick asked.

Bill gave him a mock look of surprise. “Are you kidding? I’m a businessman for Christ’s sake!”

By the time Bill and George got back, there were a couple of cars and a pickup truck waiting in the parking lot. Bill pulled in first, followed by George.

“Damn, they’re here already. I thought we’d beat them, oh well,” Bill said after George rolled down his window. “They’ve reserved two hours. Around four-thirty, another small group is arriving. You and Mavis are welcome to join them.”

George shook his head in agreement. “We’ll take the trailer over to Mylo’s and then try to make it back a little after four.”

“Sounds good,” Bill said, made a small wave toward the fifth wheel in case Mavis was looking out a window and then walked toward the three-car garage he had converted into DuckBill.

As George entered the trailer, Mavis looked up from the book she was reading. “I think Ryuji and Malcolm were here about an hour ago.” She then proceeded to explain that a man, who looked like Malcolm except he had a shaved head, had gotten out of a pickup identical to the one they were driving in Cincinnati. He was in the shop for about ten minutes. She couldn’t tell if anyone else was in the cab, but as the guy returned to his truck he looked over to their trailer and stared at it for a few seconds before he got into the cab and drove off.

“You think he recognized it?” George asked.

“I don’t know, but I got a little paranoid, so I hid behind the curtain.”

George smiled at the way she made it sound a little suspenseful. “Did you go over to the shop to ask Patti what he wanted?”

Mavis frowned a little at him. “What business is it of mine?”

“That’s true: Oh, by the way, do you think Patti knows anything about what has happened to Jimmy since he posted those pictures?”

“I only talked with her that short time in the shop yesterday. I thought today we might’ve met, but I was busy writing and she never bothered to drop over here. You know, I thought she would; at least ask if the electricity and everything was fine.”

“Well, in a few minutes we can go over and tell her we’re going to move to the RV park.”

“Why?”

“It’s free: courtesy of the owner, Todd Green.”

As soon as Ryuji and Malcolm got their camper hooked up at the RV campground in which they had previously stayed while visiting Centerville, Malcolm fired up his laptop, typed in the password for the free Wi-Fi and sent the couple of pictures he took at DuckBill’s to the IT people at Summit.

“It’s easy for us to locate the picture from that collage of photos,” Ryuji said, as Malcolm finished sending the email to L.A.

“Yeah, but they can do that almost instantly and then they can start digging into the background of Bill McGregor, et al,” Malcolm said as Ryuji seemed to stare at his shaved head. For Ryuji, Malcolm’s new look was a real treat. He had never seen him without his rather longish, wavy, black hair. It was interesting to view his oblong skull and the brown birthmark that existed behind his left ear. He really didn’t look like the same person.

Malcolm looked up and noticed Ryuji staring at him. “Yeah, I know my bald head is very humorous to you, but it made it easy to enter that shop undetected.”

“Yeah, no one would recognize you except for George or Mavis if they were in that trailer in the parking lot,” Ryuji said.

“You really think that was their trailer? I agree it looked a little like it, but hell, that was a couple of years ago. There are tons of similar-looking rigs all over the place. The chance that they’re here is pretty small,” Malcolm said as he turned off the laptop and walked over to their coffee maker to pour a cup from the pot Ryuji prepared while Malcolm worked on the computer. “If you look out the window here, you can see several fifth wheels that look much the same.”

Ryuji followed his advice and looked out the small window that provided light for the small table at which they sat facing each other. Occupying the camping space next to them was a fifth wheel that did look like the one in DuckBill’s parking lot, but the pickup and trailer currently going past their space looked exactly like their rig. “You’ve got to be joking,” Ryuji said, watching it slowly drive by on the access road.

“What?”

“I think they’ve just moved into the neighborhood.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” George said at exactly the same time Ryuji did.

Mavis turned to look at her husband as he drove slowly through the park. Through his side window, she could see the camping combo they were passing, which was obviously the cause of his surprise.

“Should we just keep going and forget about staying here?” she asked.

“That’s probably the best bet. There’s no way they won’t notice us sharing the park regardless where our space is located.”

“Where’re we going to stay? It’s a little late in the day to just head back to Virginia,” she said, watching him continue on towards Mylo’s office.

“We could go stay another night at Bill’s, but it would look like we’re hiding something. I mean, we just spent time with them in Cincinnati. I’m sure they probably saw us drive by,” he said as he parked in the side lane to the right of the office (reserved for campers waiting to sign in).

Mavis shook her head in agreement. “You’re right. It’s easy enough to justify why we’re here. After all, we do know people in the community and it would be rude not to drop by since we were just in Cincinnati.”

Within thirty minutes Mylo had got them settled in their spot, which had a nice view of the river – no doubt, it was the best camping space in the park. It was good getting the toilet and shower hooked up and it was great to have a strong Wi-Fi connection. While they were at Bill’s they could barely connect to his Wi-Fi; one major reason George hadn’t looked at Jimmy’s site before he went to Rick’s for the morning meeting. George noticed it was still about an hour before they were planning to go back to Bill’s to hunt.

“Would you like to walk over to their camper with me? It probably would be best to be upfront about everything,” George said as he looked out a window the direction of the camper, which he was relieved was not visible from there.

“Yeah, we’ve got nothing to hide,” she said, then frowned and looked at him. “Actually, I don’t have anything to hide. Deception with guilt: that’s your department.”

In a few minutes, George was knocking on the aluminum door of the camper. Ryuji glanced out the window from his seat at the table and saw the Kincaids standing outside. Malcolm had just gone to the toilet.

Ryuji got up and stood beside the door to the toilet. “That’s MG outside,” he whispered. “Don’t move.” He then walked the couple of steps to the entrance and opened the door. “Long time, no see. What’re you doing here?”

Both Mavis and George smiled, momentarily looked at each other and then George looked at Ryuji. “That’s what we were wondering. You didn’t say anything the other night about coming here.”

“Neither did you.”

“Seeing the two of you reminded us that, since we’re so close, we should visit the friends we have here before heading back to Virginia,” Mavis said.

“You know, that’s what Malcolm and I thought. Once we got back to Muncie, we started to get this call from the ducks, so after we dropped off Jimmy we headed here. Unfortunately, Malcolm must have caught a terrible virus in Cincinnati. He’s got a high fever and a horrendous case of the runs.”

“We’re sorry to hear that,” Mavis said.

“Thanks for including ‘me’ in that,” George said, grinning. “Anyway, we thought we’d drop by and see if this camper really was yours. By damn, it is. Mavis thought I was mistaken.”

“Well it’s us and we’ll probably head back in the morning. I guess we’ll have to wait until the next time to hunt.”

“You can join us if you want,” Mavis said while George stared at her, wondering why she made that suggestion.

“We made a reservation at Bill’s place. We’ve got to be there by 4:15. If you’re game, you can join us. I’m sure Bill would love another picture of you to put on his wall,” George said, winking to Ryuji.

Ryuji smirked and said, “I’m sure he would.”

“You could ride over with us,” Mavis said.

“You know, I think I’ll take you up on your offer. Malcolm could stay here and rest. By the way, who’s ‘us’?”

George elbowed Mavis and said, “Her and I.”

Ryuji grinned and replied, “I’ve got to see this. I’ll be ready by four.”