by Gregory Ashe
“I think a shriveled grape is called a raisin. And honey doesn’t come out of a bee’s butt, not exactly. And I don’t know why the moon would make any difference.”
Jem sighed. This was going to be harder than he’d thought.
Four boxes later, when Tean was spitting out pieces of mini Charleston Chews, Jem said, “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I think I’m going to do it.”
“You know I’ll help you with the menu. And the reason it’s important is because you need to keep trying new types of texts, new levels of difficulty, and—”
“Not the menu. Andi deserves—deserved better than what she got, I guess. And I want to know if Antonio is telling the truth. I’m going to try to find Tanner.”
“Ok.”
“That’s all?”
Tean’s dark eyes were very big and very soft behind the broken glasses. “I think this is a big part of your life that’s unresolved. I think it makes sense that you’d want to know, one way or the other, if these guys have killed someone. Can I be honest, though?”
“All the time, unfortunately. Sometimes brutally.”
“I’m worried that you’ve got a different motivation, maybe one that you’re not even fully aware of.”
Ruffling Scipio’s ears, Jem said, “Revenge?”
Tean nodded.
“Oh, I’m fully aware. If I catch any of those three in a dark alley, I’m going to put them down. Hard. And then I’m going to cut off their dicks and turn them into festive earrings. Because they have tiny dicks.”
A tiny smile tugged at Tean’s mouth and then was gone. “And you’re not worried that wanting revenge will skew how you interpret things? You’re looking for a way to punish these guys. You don’t want to tell me what they did to you, and that’s fine, but I can tell it was bad. You’re not worried that will affect how you think?”
“Not really.” Jem popped some Nestle Crunch bites in his mouth and, around them, said, “Two reasons: first, if Antonio is full of shit and I can prove it, then he’ll still go down for murder. That’ll make me almost as happy as watching Tanner go down. It’s win-win. And second, because you’ll be there to keep me from making any mistakes.”
Tean’s jaw sagged. The glasses were hanging off the tip of his nose, and Jem gently settled them in place again.
“What? Was it supposed to be a surprise? All this pussyfooting around, asking me if I’m worried, blah, blah, blah. Obviously you’re going to help me; you’re my best friend.”
“Normal friend.”
“You’d give up your life for me.”
“I’d give up my Saturday afternoon for you. But not to move anything heavy. And not a good Saturday, like when there was a traffic accident I could watch on TV.”
“God, what I would give for five minutes inside your brain.”
Tean grimaced. “I did get a call today. The ME asked me to consult on Alexandria Fontella’s autopsy.”
It took a moment. “Andi’s?”
Tean nodded, and then he told Jem the rest of it.
When he’d finished, Jem said, “Antonio mentioned the dart-gun thing. He said Tanner liked to use it to torture people. Holy fucking shit. He was telling the truth.”
“He told the truth about one detail,” Tean said. “That doesn’t mean he told the truth completely. And unfortunately, the dart syringe doesn’t really narrow anything down. There are herds of wild horses all over the state, and the BLM has offices and supplies in several locations. We’re not really any closer to pinning down where Tanner might have gotten the weapon or the syringe with ZonaStat-H.”
“What about Moab?”
“The BLM has a herd-management area on the west side of Canyonlands. Or there’s the Onion Creek HMA, which is east of Moab.”
“You just happen to know where all the herd-management areas are near Moab?”
“No, I looked up all the HMAs in the state after the autopsy. I was actually focused on Tooele, because it’s close to Salt Lake, but it sounds like that’s not where we should start. There’s a BLM office in Moab too.”
“I guess I’m going to Moab.”
“We’re.”
Jem smiled, and it felt like the first real one in over a day. “Thank you.”
“We’ll have to take Scipio; I can’t find someone to watch him this late.”
“You could come down tomorrow.”
“And let you go by yourself tonight?” Tean shook his head. “Nice try. You’ve got some clean clothes here from the last time you crashed on the couch. Pack those and your emergency comb. I’m going to get a bag together, and then we can go.”
As Tean headed toward his bedroom, Jem said, “Tean? Seriously. Thank you.”
“What are casual acquaintances for? Oh, and you’re really going to have to up your candy game. If that’s the best you can find, I really don’t understand why you like it so much.”
“Noted.”
“I remember when I was a kid my grandma used to have these little pink and white ones.”
“Oh God. No.”
“They tasted like licorice. Wait, why are you covering your face?”
“Go away before I die of grief.”
10
The drive took a little over three and a half hours. Scipio slept in the back seat as they followed US-6 to US-191, which carried them out of the shrub-steppe along the Wasatch Front, across the mountains, south and east onto the desert plateau that stretched across Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Jem had never been here before, although he’d seen pictures of southern Utah. Pictures of Arches National Park. Pictures of Canyonlands. Hard stone scoured clean by wind and time. Orange rock in bizarre, twisted formations. On the drive, though, with darkness settling in, his only impression was of a vast emptiness and the crowded stars overhead. A lone service station broke the horizon, a blaze of sodium-vapor lighting like a spotlight on a stage.
“Maybe we should fill up with gas,” Jem said as they got closer.
“We’ve got three-quarters of a tank.”
“Maybe we should get water.”
“Are you thirsty?”
“Not now, but I will be when we run out of gas and we stagger for a hundred miles with nothing but tumbleweed and rattlesnakes for company, and eventually we die in each other’s arms in a best-friend hug, and the vultures pick our bones clean, and the desert polishes them until they’re so bright they hurt your eyes to look at them.”
Tean shifted in his seat, glancing over, his eyes bright. “What about sunburn?”
“Christ, the sunburn. You’ll be fine, you miserable son of a bitch, but I’m going to fry. I’m going to get those horrible, third-degree burns where your skin cracks and oozes and they have to do skin grafts.”
“If you survive.”
“If I survive, which I won’t. You, on the other hand, will probably find some kind of desert cow and drink its blood and have a nice base tan when someone eventually finds you and rescues you.”
“You probably won’t believe me, but in some areas, they actually do run cattle down here. In the winter. Not as much anymore because economies of scale make it less profitable, but there are a few holdouts.” After a slow breath, he added, “Not that I don’t appreciate this detailed imagining of our gruesome deaths, but that’s normally my thing. Could you explain what prompted it?”
“I don’t like this—all this space. I don’t like being out here. And I don’t like deserts or sand hogs or things that want to bite me and pump me full of poison.”
“What is a sand hog?”
“I don’t know. You’re the vet; figure it out!”
“Ok, so, a couple of things. First, just so you know, that way is east. It’s where the sun comes up.”
“I know how to find east.”
“And if somehow you got stranded out here, you could go east and follow one of those ravines until it took you to the Green River. And then you’d have water.
And you could eat sedge and sego lilies so you wouldn’t die.”
Jem crossed his arms. “Ok.”
“Or you could go to the Flying J that’s coming up.”
Jem grunted.
“Is this real or fake? I can’t tell.”
“It’s both, dummy. I’m nervous. I’ve never been somewhere this dark, and there are too many stars. I don’t like being in the middle of nowhere. I don’t like not knowing how to take care of myself. And yes, I know you’ll take care of me, and that’s actually even more fucking terrifying, believe it or not. Not because I don’t trust you, but because—God, I don’t even know. So just let me borrow a page from your book and imagine disasters until I’m safely back in range of a cell tower.”
They drove for two more miles before Tean said, “If it helps, you can also think about scorpions.”
Jem groaned and slid down in his seat.
The Pinyon-Pine Lodge was a two-story, ramshackle building located east of Moab, far enough out on US-128 that the city lights were lost. The siding was rough-hewn logs with adobe chinking, although the windows were relatively modern and satellite dish receivers dotted the roof. Lights blazed behind curtains, and silhouettes showed the lodge was busy—this was tourist season for Arches and Canyonlands, as well as the less well visited La Sal Mountains. Pinyon pines and juniper trees studded the grounds, but instead of the brush and scrub that Jem had seen on the drive, a neatly tended, vibrantly green lawn wrapped around the hotel and ran all the way down to the Colorado, which was ruffled with starlight and easily visible from the parking lot. Money to burn, maybe. Or, more likely, just Mormons and their obsession with perfect lawns.
They got out, and it only took some minor coaxing to convince Scipio to stay in the cool, dark car with the windows down. The air was even dryer than Jem had expected, and he smelled the red-rock dust that coated the curb, the asphalt, and a few of the cars. The river made background noise. Music was playing on the patio behind the lodge, accompanied by the clink of glasses and silverware and laughter. A guy stumbled into view, bent at the waist, and puked. Two guys came after him, both of them bellowing laughs, and caught his shoulders when he looked like he was about to fall.
“Maybe that’s how they keep the grass so green,” Jem said.
“This is ridiculous,” Tean said, hands on his hips as he looked around. “We might as well be staying at a Marriot.”
“That sounds great. Let’s stay at a Marriot. In Salt Lake. With room service. In fact, let’s go now.”
“This was your idea.”
“I know. That’s how you can tell it was stupid.”
Tean started for the building, and Jem went after him.
Inside, the lodge continued its pseudo-Western theme. More exposed wood on the walls, glossy with some kind of sealant. Pine floorboards that had been sanded until they were white. To the right, just off the reception area, an antler chandelier hung over a dining room, the tables and chairs all knotty pine, the napkins—from what Jem could judge at a distance—blue chambray.
“Just like the cowboys,” Jem said.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What now?”
“Now we find out if Tanner and Blake are really staying here.”
“How?”
“God, I have no idea. I should have thought about that.”
The expression on the doc’s face was worth it.
“Glasses,” Jem whispered as he passed Tean, slapping his butt as he went.
The glasses fell straight off Tean’s face.
While the doc squatted to pick them up, Jem headed for the reception desk. Riffing like this was what he did best—and, if he were honest, what he enjoyed most. He took his time crossing the room, sizing up the kid on the other side of the counter. Eighteen. Maybe a very young-looking twenty. Hair dyed black and worn long. Lots of split ends. Black-painted fingernails. He was wearing a green polo with an embroidered brown logo: a tree, and words running around it in a circle. The outfit was complete with a pair of khaki-colored chinos that Tean was going to drool over. Polo and chinos, Jem thought. But what this kid really wanted to wear was a cloak.
“Hi,” Jem said, with the game-show smile. “How’s it going?”
“Welcome to the Pinyon-Pine Lodge,” the kid mumbled to the computer screen, the words running together, “where your dream vacation is our destination how may I help you?”
“Sweet hair,” Jem said.
The kid threw him the horns without looking up.
“We’re meeting up with some buddies,” Jem said with a grin. “Bachelor party.” He looked around the reception lobby. “This place is tight. Could we get our keys?”
“What’s the name of your party?”
Strike one, Jem thought. “I don’t know what name they put it under. They said they were going to be the only bachelor party here this weekend.”
The kid leveled a dead-eyed stare at him.
“How about Blake Bigney?” Jem said. “Or Tanner Kimball?”
The kid typed a few times. He made a face. He typed some more. He made the same face. He might have been doing some quick mental math about how much his pancake makeup was going to cost him this month.
“Have you worked here long?” Jem asked.
The kid’s mouth twisted.
“I don’t mean anything by that,” Jem said. “I didn’t mean you seem like you’re new.”
“My parents own this dump.”
“Oh. So you grew up here? Pretty cool.”
“It sucks.” Footsteps moved nearby, and a woman with 90s bangs and a royal-blue cocktail dress, complete with shoulder pads, poked her head into the room.
“Russell, is everything ok?”
“Yes, Mom.”
Mom retreated.
Then, to Jem, Russell said, “I’m sorry, neither of those guests has anyone else listed in their party.”
Bingo bango bongo, Jem wanted to say. Instead, he smiled. “Damn it. They’re so fucking dumb. Can I run up there and get them? They’ll come down and tell you.”
“I can’t give out guest information, sir.”
“I don’t want any guest information. I just want to ask them to come down here.”
The kid shook his head, the split ends of his hair swaying. “I can’t give out their room numbers.”
Jem pretended to check his phone. “God, I don’t have any service. Could you call their room?”
Frowning, Russell seemed to consider this. Then he shrugged. “Which room?”
“Let’s try Blake.”
After punching in the elaborate code of 90232, the kid passed the phone over to Jem. He listened to it ring. He imagined Blake answering. The call cut off without connecting.
“Do you want to try again?” the kid asked.
“What about Tanner?”
Another uncrackable cipher: 90234. When Russell passed the phone to Jem, Jem’s hands were sweaty. Hey, fuckface, how’s it hanging? Maybe that would be a good opening line. God, it was an inferno inside this place. The ringing went on and on and disconnected.
“No luck,” Jem said. “Are you sure I can’t run up there and knock?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
By this point, Tean had joined him at the counter. Jem threw him a quick look; Tean was studying him openly, his bushy eyebrows drawn together.
“We might have to book our own room,” Jem said.
“That’s fine.” The bushy eyebrows made a fuzzy vee. “Are you fine?”
“Great,” Jem said. “Fantastic.” He turned to the kid. “Could I walk back to the patio? I saw some of our friends out there. I can get the name and find out how they booked the rooms.”
“We’re really not supposed to—”
“I’ll be super fast.” Jem smiled. He thought about the black fingernail polish, the dyed hair, the sullen resentment. His smile got bigger. “Hey, you’re really lucky to live out here, you
know? The beauty of nature. Feeling one with the universe. I bet you can feel God’s hand sheltering you every day, just pouring blessing into your life. I just thought of that right now: you’re so lucky. I hope you realize that.”
“This place?” The kid sneered. “This place is the asshole of nowhere. And God is a fucking joke. Life is a fucking joke. People are just pieces in a machine. Existence is meaningless, and—”
From the other room, in a lilting voice: “Russell, did you do the toilet check at nine?”
“Yes, God, Mom.” To Jem, in a slightly quieter voice, “And when the Earth is consumed with a dark and unquenchable hellfire sent by the Dark Lord—"
“Did you finish folding those napkins?”
“Jeez, will you stop crawling up my butt? Yes, I folded them. Why can’t you treat me like a grownup?”
“Language!”
Leaning over the counter, the kid added in a whisper, “And when the Dark Lord’s eternal flames burn all the meaningless shit out of people’s lives, only those who have sworn the Blood Pact will survive, in a realm of pain and terror and—”
“Did you replace the urinal cakes?”
“Mom!”
“I’m just going to check on my friends,” Jem said. “Tean, take it away.”
“Russell,” from the other room in that singsong voice, “pull up your pants. I can see your undies.”
“Hail, Satan,” Russell whispered fiercely to Jem.
Tean, eyes bright, stepped up to the counter. “You know, that’s a very interesting point about an infernal conflagration consuming the world. But have you ever thought that maybe the sheer pointlessness of existence is because the universe is itself meaningless, rather than because a diabolical power hasn’t yet purified everything with a dark, refining fire?”
“Um,” Russell said.
Jem grinned as he jogged into the dining room and waved at Mom.
The last thing he caught behind him was Tean saying, “Let me tell you about Camus.”
Inside the dining room, the guests were mostly middle-age and older, enjoying dinner and drinks as couples or in small groups. A wall of French doors opened onto the patio, where a younger crowd, mostly guys, was laughing and drinking. Something with a good beat was playing. After a quick glance, Jem ignored them; Blake and Tanner probably enjoyed a party as much as the next guy, but this was a crowd of friends, and they looked like the nerdy-with-too-much-money type. Probably tech guys from Utah and California, probably reassuring themselves of their manliness with a weekend drinking beer in a lodge in southern Utah. Not Blake and Tanner’s crowd—not unless things had changed drastically.
