Duane eyes her in the rearview mirror. “Gross,” he says.
Louise puts the batteries in the fanny pack, strips the packaging from the Velcro straps and drops those in too. She grabs another box, a bigger cube.
“Come on, snake eyes,” she says, and cuts the packing tape.
“Just take the knife,” says Duane.
“You’re no fun.”
She unfolds the flap. Inside is another box. The label reads PORTABLE PERSONAL SAUNA, 2L, FOLDING INDOOR SAUNA SPA, WEIGHT LOSS, DETOX, WITH REMOTE CONTROL, TIMER, FOLDABLE CHAIR.
Louise squeals.
“What are you gonna do with that?” asks Duane.
“Something memorable. That’s for sure.”
She puts down the box, straightens, brushing the hair from her eyes. If she’s going to keep her vow, she can open only one more box. So far, she has straps, Velcro, a fanny pack, and some kind of foil spa. She spins in a circle. There must be two hundred boxes in the panel van with her.
“So many choices,” she says, waggling her fingers.
Duane is keeping watch in the parking lot. “Better make it quick,” he says. “There’s a car coming.”
Louise crosses herself, grabs a box. She tears open the tape. Inside is a Nerf gun, a bottle of hot sauce, and a copy of Room to Dream by David Lynch.
“Is it him?” she calls, her mind working.
“I don’t know. Does he drive a red Mercedes convertible?”
Louise stuffs the hot sauce in her fanny pack, zips it up, sticks the Nerf gun into the strap at her waist. “He sure does.”
She straightens. “I’m going in. How do I look?”
Duane looks her up and down. “Psychotic,” he says. “Want me to come with?”
“No,” says Louise. “Keep it running.”
She opens the back doors, jumps down. The asphalt is sticky under her feet. The temperature in the parking lot must be 115 degrees. Louise puts on her sunglasses, walks toward the entrance.
She can see the Troll behind the wheel of his douche-mobile. He’s listening to yacht rock, because he knows it will annoy her. She sits on the front steps and waits. He pulls up, gliding to a stop.
“What are you wearing?” he asks.
She stands, twirls. “You like it?”
“Tell me your panties have some old guy’s dick printed on them.”
“Come on over and find out,” she says.
He taps the steering wheel.
“Seriously,” he says, “we’ve gotta jet. I told the Wizard we’re coming, and he said hurry.”
“Come here for a second first,” she says.
Evan makes his annoyed face. “Kid, I’m gonna leave your ass at the fucking art museum of Riverside, if you don’t get a move on.”
She pulls the Nerf gun from her belt, unzips her fanny pack. “Come on,” she says. “I wanna show you something.”
“What? I can see your whole retarded outfit from here.”
Louise takes a C battery from the fanny pack, slides it into the Nerf gun.
“Dude,” she says, “you’re such a fucking drag. Come and see something hysterical.”
He sighs, puts the car in park, climbs out. He makes a big show of slow walking the steps. “Fine,” he says, “but this better be grade A, supermodel-pussy good.”
Louise pulls back the plastic hammer. “You tell me,” she says, and lifts the Nerf gun at his head and fires.
The battery comes out fast, catches him under the right eye, turning his head and throwing his body off-balance. Stunned, he falls backward down the stairs, hitting his head on the concrete. He lies in a jumble, unconscious.
Louise claps her hands, delighted.
“Did you see that?” she calls, as Duane gets out of the Amazon van and runs her way, looking around to make sure no one else saw. “It was like the fucking Matrix.”
*
She wakes him with the hot sauce. One drop under each eye. Evan thrashes around, but his hands are Velcroed together behind his back, his legs at the ankles. There’s an ugly bruise forming on his right cheekbone. For a long time, he can’t figure out where he is or what’s happening—a windowless van surrounded by stacks of Amazon boxes. And then there’s the fact that he is kneeling inside some kind of giant foil bag, with his head sticking out the top through some kind of rubber seal. It is the portable sauna. Louise has plugged it into the AC jack in the center console of the van and set the remote on high.
“What the fuck?” says the Troll.
Louise sits cross-legged on a box across from him, the David Lynch book open in her lap. She reads. “So we were down at the end of this street at night, and out of the darkness—it was so incredible—came this nude woman with white skin. Maybe it was something about the light and the way she came out of the darkness, but it seemed to me that her skin was the color of milk and she had a bloodied mouth.”