Hidden Palms

by Harry Bryant

  "My sister was killed by a drunk driver," I blurted out.

  She stirred slightly, but that was all I was going to get.

  "Who also happened to be my father," I continued.

  I held my breath and waited. Slowly, she turned her head and looked at me again. "That's . . ."

  "I know."

  And now that I had started, I had to finish. I had to tell the whole story.

  "We were watching TV. Mom, Cathy, and I. Some disaster movie, I think. It involved a boat. I was in the kitchen, making popcorn. We had one of those fancy hot air poppers, and it didn't work quite right. You had to stand there, and shake it every few seconds to make sure the kernels kept moving. I was in the kitchen, and I kept shaking the popper and then darting over to glance at the TV. I saw the headlights, but I was too busy trying to watch TV and make the popcorn. Usually, when he comes home, we see the lights when he turns into the driveway, you know? But this time, they didn't flash past. They turned and kept coming. I went back to shake the popper, and that's when his car came plowing through the picture window."

  "Oh my god, Butch. That's . . . Did he . . . ?"

  "Yeah," I said. "My dad drove the car right into the house. Killed my sister. Broke my mother's arm and hip. Dad had a busted lip and a gash on his forehead. I was the only one who wasn't injured. All I was doing was trying to make sure the popcorn popped evenly."

  She stared at me, and then, in a rush, she leaned over and kissed me on the lips.

  "What was that for?" I asked, when all the fireworks stopped going off in my head. My tongue tingled, like I had licked a battery, and all I could smell was the fresh scent of her shampoo.

  "Because, I wanted to last night," she said shyly. "But I didn't, and all last night, when I was lying in bed—after getting home from the police station—all I could think about was kissing you."

  "And now you have," I said.

  "I have," she said. Her teeth worked at her lower lip. "I kind of want to do it again."

  "Me too," I said, and I leaned toward her.

  The courtroom door opened, and a familiar shape in a familiar uniform pushed his way out. He was holding his hat in his hand, and he stopped for a second when he spotted me next to Dolly.

  "Ah, Ms. Boreal," Hack said, somewhat stiffly. "The arraignment is done."

  He glared at me, and Dolly misinterpreted his look.

  "Franklin—Deputy Franklin Hackman, I mean—this is Robert Bliss," she said. "He's a friend."

  "Howdy," Hack said.

  I replied the same, and even gave him a little wave.

  "They got bail," Hack said. "Tortes is taking care of it. He'll have some paperwork for you to fill out, and, yeah, you'll just have to talk to him about it. Downstairs, in a bit, I think."

  "Okay," Dolly said. "Thank you, Deputy Hackman. And what about David?"

  "They'll release him later. Once everything is all taken care of. You can give him a ride home."

  Dolly shook her head. "I'm still so furious with him," she said. "I mean, thank you, Deputy. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been able to find Mr. Tortes to help me out. It means so much to me that David isn't going to jail right now, but I can't—I just can't see him right now. He makes me so angry."

  Hack fussed with his hat. "He needs a ride home, Ms. Boreal. He can't just walk out of here."

  "Could you give him a ride?" she asked.

  "I will," I said before Hack could reply. "I'll give him a ride."

  Dolly turned toward me, her hands finding mine. "You will?" She didn't see the look of relief that swept across Hack's face.

  "Sure," I said. "I'd be happy to."

  "That's wonderful. Thank you." She squeezed my hands, and then looked at Hack, who waved his hat around for a second, and then ended up pointing toward the stairs at the end of the hall. "Oh, of course," she said. "I'll go take care of the paperwork."

  She stood and then turned to me. "I suppose I should go back to the hotel," she said. "You'll stay with David until I get off work?"

  "Absolutely," I said.

  "Thank you," she said. She leaned over and kissed me lightly on the cheek. "I don't know where you came from, but I'm glad you're here."

  She stood up, and went over and embraced Hack. She kissed him on the cheek before he could get over his surprise. "Thank you, Franklin," she said.

  "No problem, Ms. Boreal," he said gruffly, fussing with both his hat and his belt. "Glad I could help."

  She smiled, glanced at me once more, and then hurried off toward the stairs.

  We watched her go, and when she had disappeared down the stairs, Hack jammed his hat on his head. "You stay clear of her," he hissed.

  "It's been a long time since prom, Franklin," I said. "She's a big girl now. She can make her own decisions."

  He got in my space, the brim of his hat nearly hitting me in the forehead. "You leave her out of this," he said. His face was red and shiny.

  "Do you want my help or not?" I asked.

  He chewed on that for a second. "Boreal will be cut loose within the hour," he said finally. "The public defender got lucky with the judge, but that doesn't clear Boreal. He's out on bail, but the charges are still pending. The sheriff's office is going to make something stick to him, and when it does, he's going to jail."

  "I guess we'll have to take care of everything else before then," I said.

  He poked me in the chest with a stiff finger. "He'll talk," he said. "He'll tell you where he got the weed, and he'll tell you about the CMFMC. You'll see. You'll see how big this thing is."

  "Yeah," I said. "We'll see, won't we?"

  CHAPTER 17

  David Boreal was trouble. He slouched out of the courthouse, wearing baggy pants, an oversized jacket, and a Dodgers cap pulled sideways across his head. His face was long and gaunt, and tufts of hair sprouted from his face like he couldn't quite muster up the attention span to grow a whole beard. He stopped his slow strut when I called his name, and he peered at me, blinking slowly like he was trying to match my face to a sluggish parade of mug shots in his brain.

  "You don't know me," I said as I walked up to him. "But I'm your ride."

  "Nah, man, I'm good," he said, waving a hand at me. "I got someone coming."

  "Okay," I said. "I'll wait with you."

  "You . . . you don't need to do that." He shuffled away from me.

  The automatic doors to the courthouse opened, and a florid man in a leather jacket and boots came stomping out. He had a round face and a round head that was mostly bald. What hair he had left was long and stringy and pulled back in a weasel tail that lay limply down his back. "David!" Weasel Tail hurried over to us, his boots clicking against the pavement.

  "Aw, man, what?" David pulled at his pants, which slipped back down as soon as he let go.

  Weasel Tail looked me over. "You the boyfriend?" he asked.

  "I guess I am," I said. Why not? I was already impersonating a DEA agent.

  "I put up the bond for you, David," Weasel Tail said, which made him Hack's bondsman, Tortes. "If you don't show next week, they keep that money. And then your sister's going to owe me, okay?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I know," David said.

  "I should be locking you up in my basement," Tortes said. He looked at me again. "I must be out of my mind," he said. "This kid's a total flight risk."

  "Where's he going to go?" I asked. "Dad's dead. Mom's gone nuts. Dolly is all he's got left, and she gave everything up to watch over him." I glared at David. "To make sure he didn't fuck up."

  David opened his mouth to protest.

  "And yet, here we are," I said.

  He closed his mouth and stared at the pavement.

  "He's not going to run," I told Tortes.

  "Yeah? And who are you to make sure that doesn't happen?" he asked.


  "I'm the guy who will find him, break his leg, and make him walk back. And if he whines, I'll break the other one."

  Tortes stared at me, trying to decide if I was serious.

  "What? You want me to snap a finger right now to show you I'm not fucking around? One of yours or one of his?"

  He blinked several times as my questions sank in, and then his round face split into an open-mouthed laugh. "You are a funny man," he said, slapping me on the arm. "He's all yours. But I need him back here on Tuesday."

  "He'll be here," I said.

  Tortes waggled a finger at David. "Twenty-five K," he said. "That's what I'll be getting from your sister if you aren't here. Got it?"

  His point made, Tortes waddled back to the courthouse, leaving me and the expensive pothead on the sidewalk.

  "Twenty-five K," I said. "That's a lot of dime bags."

  "It's nuthin," David muttered.

  "Must be nice to know how much you're worth to someone," I said. I pointed toward my car, parked across the street. "Come on, 25K. Let's go for a ride."

  "Don't call me that," he said.

  "Earn a different name, then, bitch," I said, bumping him with my shoulder.

  Was I being hard on the kid? Probably. But he reminded me of myself, years ago. Too frightened and too proud to admit it. All caught up in his own business. Not able to see past the brim of his baseball cap. And because I knew that he had no clue what it meant to have someone give a shit about him.

  "Put your seatbelt on," I told David when we got in the car.

  He ignored me, staring out the window at the traffic moving past the courthouse.

  "I could put you in the trunk," I said.

  "You going to break my leg first?" he asked. There was some defiance in his voice.

  I sighed and started the car. "I was kidding," I said.

  "No, you weren't," he said. And then, quietly, but not so quiet that I couldn't hear him over the throb of the engine: "Asshole."

  It was going to be like that, apparently.

  He remained slumped in the seat, refusing to look in my direction, as I navigated out of the downtown core, but when I drove past the onramp to the highway, he sat up a little straighter. As we drove out of town, he started to fidget. "You missed the onramp," he whined.

  "I didn't," I said. "We're taking the scenic route."

  "Aw, man, really?"

  "You got a pressing appointment this afternoon?" I asked.

  "No, man, it's just . . . fuck, really? The scenic route?"

  "We need to have a chat, you and I," I said.

  "No, man, I don't want to chat. Oh, shit. Man. This is no good. Can you just—can you take me back?"

  "You want to go stay in Tortes' basement?"

  "No, man, I don't want to stay in that dude's basement. I just want to go home. I just want—Jesus, can we just go back to the highway?"

  "Is there something you're worried about?" I asked.

  "You're going to take me out into the woods and rape me, aren't you?"

  I laughed out loud. "No, I'm not going to rape you."

  "You're not?"

  "Is that what you think I'm going to do? Because I called you ‘bitch' back there?"

  "Isn't that what it means? You're going to make me your . . . you know . . ."

  "Where did you get that idea?"

  "I—it's just—you know . . . it's what happens in prison." He plucked at his jacket. "I'm soft, man. Look at me. They're going to send me away for all that weed, aren't they? And some bad dude is going to . . . to . . ." He started to sniffle. "It's just weed, man. I don't deserve to get fucked in the ass for that."

  "You're not going to get fucked in the ass," I said. "Not by me. Not by anyone in prison. If you even go to prison. Look, you're not there yet. Sure, the sheriff's office wants to put you away, but come on, how many times have they tried that with you? Two? Three?"

  California laws about weed were ridiculously harsh, especially when you're caught with a carload of pre-filled baggies. His juvenile record was probably filled with offenses involving smaller amounts, and while he was younger than Dolly, he'd been past that age for awhile. He didn't strike me as the sort of criminal genius who managed to avoided incarceration for the better part of a decade, which meant he'd managed to wriggle out of trouble a few times already. Maybe done probation and a bunch of community service.

  This time, though? He was going down unless he could cut a deal.

  Enter Butch Bliss, ersatz boyfriend and undercover DEA agent who was going to make all that happen, right?

  "Let's figure out a way to keep you out of prison, shall we?" I said.

  He slithered around in the seat, angling his body toward the door so he could stare up at me from under the brim of his cap.

  "Talk to me," I said. "We've got some time before we get back to Los Alamos. Tell me an interesting story. Maybe I can help."

  He licked his lips, but didn't say anything.

  I was going to have to prod him, but what did I know?

  "The Crazies know you are dealing weed?" I asked.

  He flinched, which was answer enough.

  I nodded, like I had known that all along, and I stared out at the winding road for a bit while I waited for him to start talking. Hack was involved in the weed business in this area, as was David. But there was more to it than that, and Hack was starting to get nervous. It had to do with the CMFMC in some fashion, and the simplest scenario said the CMFMC were running coke up and down the coast—probably using The Rose, near Los Alamos, as their club house. They probably had a pretty solid setup, and were now looking to diversify into other drugs. However, Team Weed wasn't so keen to get absorbed by Team Coke.

  So where did David Boreal—wastrel weed wizard and all-around asshat—fit in this scenario?

  He worked at—what had Dolly said?—a Shell station in town. I thought about what I had seen during my ten-minute tourist drive through Los Alamos, and I dimly remembered seeing one of Shell's yellow signs. It had been a gas station-slash-garage, with a couple of bays for car service. Stack of tires on a rack beside the building. David was barely qualified to pump gas, but maybe he had some hidden talents with a wrench and an oil pan.

  It reminded me of my job at Speedy's Car Wash. It had been a good setup. Lots of cars coming and going. Nobody notices a car wash. They're like dump trucks—part of the infrastructure no one notices in their neighborhood. A small-town garage off a major highway wouldn't attract too much attention with strange cars coming and going.

  "What are you doing for them?" I asked.

  "Nuthin," he said. "I don't do nuthin."

  "So why all the fuss about the weed then?" I asked. "And where'd you get it? You growing your own? You got your own basement project?"

  He shook his head at all my questions. Stonewalling me.

  We were out in the country again, heading along the road that would eventually get us back to Los Alamos. The turnoff to Sisquoc was a few miles ahead. Nothing but vineyards and oil derricks. A dull drive if David was going to be all sulky.

  I glanced in my rearview mirror as sunlight flashed off something behind us. David reacted to my change in posture, and he shot up in his seat. He twisted around, looking out the Mustang's back window. "What is it?" he whined.

  "Nuthin," I said, aping his tone.

  The road behind us curved less than a quarter mile back, and for a moment, that stretch of road was empty.

  The road ahead of us was straight for another quarter mile or so, and I put my foot down on the accelerator, and the Mustang's engine throbbed in response. I glanced at the rearview again, and spotted three dots behind us. Too small for cars, and they were spread out across the road, instead of in a single-file line.

  "Oh, fuck," David said.

  Bikers. Crazy Mother-Fuckers.

&nb
sp; CHAPTER 18

  At the next curve in the road, I put my foot down hard, and the Mustang—true to its name—leaped forward.

  "It's them, isn't it?" David whimpered.

  I spared him a glance. "Jesus Christ, put your seatbelt on, already," I snapped.

  The Mustang rocked as a car sped past us in the other direction, and my gaze jerked back to the road. I was too close to the yellow line, and I corrected quickly. There was another curve coming up, and I had to slow down for it because David was still fussing with his seatbelt. As soon as we cleared the curve, I looked ahead for traffic, saw none, and slammed my foot down again.

  "Do you know this road?" I asked David.

  "Wha—what?"

  "Do you know anything about this road," I said. "It runs all the way back to Los Alamos, and I know there's a turnoff for Sisquoc, which"—I glanced at the fields and the mountains beyond, trying to figure out where we were on the road—"shit, we may have already passed. And there's one that takes us up into the mountains and the highway up there. But what else, David? What other options do we have?"

  He was still trying to get his seatbelt sorted out. The strap had auto-locked, which it did if you didn't pull it straight out.

  I saw a sign for the turnoff that would lead us past Hidden Palms and all the way to the 166. I was pretty confident I could outrun the bikes on the open highway—either the 166 or the 101. The only trick was getting there without any trouble.

  The dots were there in the rearview again, but bigger now.

  Up ahead, the road opened up for the road into the mountains. The oncoming lane was empty, but as I started to turn the wheel, I caught sight of a pair of bikes sitting on the shoulder a hundred yards or so past the turn. I jerked the wheel back, and David nearly slid into my lap.

  "God damnit," I swore as I shoved him back into his seat. I lost control of the car for a second, and it wiggled down the middle of the road.

  A truck, barreling right toward me, blasted its horn, and I got both hands back on the wheel in time to get the car out of his lane. My grip was tight on the wheel as I corrected again, keeping us on the road. David slammed up against the car door, and I heard his head bounce off the window.