Young Americans

by Josh Stallings

  There was a flash of fire from the grass twenty feet to their left. Three bullets struck the towhead. From the jaw up, his head disintegrated into a bloody puff. He tumbled backward.

  Sam swiveled the revolver’s barrel to Clem and pulled the trigger. The shot was high and wild. Clem whipped the barrel up from Jacob’s head, firing without aiming. He was trying to kill Sam. His shot was low. Blood danced off Callum’s head and he fell onto his side.

  Big Bob aimed into the meadow, searching for the sniper.

  Valentina steadied herself against the redwood’s trunk. She took a gentle breath, held it and fired. A three shot burst hit dead center of the giant hillbilly’s chest.

  Big Bob fell like a tree crashing to the earth.

  A bullet singed Valentina’s wig as it whizzed past her. Bark jumped from the trunk above her. A second slug dug up the dirt five feet to her left. The shots came from the tree line on the opposite side of the meadow, but their exact location was a mystery. They, on the other hand, sure as hell had her position dialed in. Dropping to her belly she thumbed the M16’s selector to full auto. Her people needed her. She let rip with a burst of suppressing fire. Aiming high, the Dodge rocked and its glass shattered from the impacts.

  Sardine and Cracker fired a volley toward Valentina’s position, kicking up chunks of dirt and grass. She lay motionless.

  Breeze took off, heading to the trees from where Sardine was shooting, limping away as fast as possible.

  Jacob dropped onto his belly, crawling under the Dodge. He was in full-on freak-out mode.

  Clem and Sam stood aiming at each other.

  Sam shook her head. “Walk away, Clem.”

  Clem turned and ran after Breeze.

  Sardine and Cracker continued to fire across the meadow.

  Valentina rolled to the left. On her back she flipped the magazines and slapped the fresh one home. Bullets sprayed dirt and snapped the branches around her. They didn’t have her yet, but they would if she fired or ran.

  Terry slipped his hand into his pocket, finger wrapping around the snubnose’s grip.

  Sam dragged Callum out of the line of fire, putting the Dodge between them and the hillbillies.

  Sardine and Cracker poured bullets toward Valentina as fast as they could jack rounds in. She was pinned down. One was aiming to her left, the other to the right. They were walking the shots in. She was running out of time.

  Breeze and Clem disappeared into the trees.

  Like a stoner Butch Cassidy, Terry pulled the snubnose out. Aiming at where the hillbillies’ muzzle flashes had come from, he fired. With five quick, completely wild shots he emptied his revolver into the brush.

  His gun clicked empty.

  And then it all went silent.

  Terry stood in the open, waiting for a bullet that never came. Slowly he turned from where the hillbillies had been to the place he last saw Valentina.

  The first wisps of evening fog started to roll into the meadow.

  After a long moment, Valentina broke through the brush. Terry moved toward her, slowly at first, then at a run.

  Sam looked down at Callum, pushing his blood-soaked bangs out of his eyes. “Don’t you die, asshole.” She pounded her hand onto his chest. His eyes popped open.

  “Stop, I’m OK.”

  “For now.” She struck his chest again.

  “Your bedside manner sucks.”

  Sam snapped her Buck knife open. Callum went silent. Roughly rolling him over, she cut the cord tying his wrists together. Eying the knife still in her hand, Callum sat up and silently rubbed circulation back into his hands. He seemed unaware of the copious amounts of blood running from his scalp onto his face.

  Sam folded the knife and dropped it into her pocket. “You’re bleeding.”

  “A bit.” He reached up and felt his scalp.

  “Is there a hole?”

  “Nope, a weird part-line but no hole.”

  “Too bad. I like your hair.”

  “Noted. Did Binasco get the weed?”

  “No, had some Chinese cat from Oakland take it.” Sam spoke looking over him into the forest.

  “You saying if I put an APB out on Binasco his car would turn up clean?”

  “Yes. But if you want me alive you won’t.”

  “A Chinese cat?”

  “That’s right.”

  Callum thought about it. The fog was getting thicker by the moment. “He wasn’t my primary target anyway. Breeze? No way I’m going to catch him in this.”

  “We both know where he’s headed.”

  “Rapunzel’s.”

  “No place else to run,” Sam said.

  “Thank you for not shooting me.”

  “Any time.” They played it off light, but both knew whatever they had was over. There was no going back from the look in her eyes that had said to protect her brother she would shoot Callum.

  • • •

  At the tree line, Terry and Valentina didn’t speak. At first they looked each other over, scanning for bullet wounds or other signs of damage. The fog pressed in on them, keeping visibility down to five or six feet.

  “Running out like that, Terry, was fool crazy. Brave, but crazy.”

  “Didn’t think,” Terry said and lit a Marlboro. “Kind of spooky out here.”

  “Funny, I find it cozy.” Valentina took the cigarette from Terry. “I’m almost getting used to these.” She shivered from the cold. Terry draped his arms over her shoulders and pulled her back into his chest, keeping her warm. “Terr-Terr, I know this must be really strange for you.”

  “Hush,” Terry whispered in her ear. “Some things only make sense if you don’t worry about them. That’s not right. I’m trying to say . . . When I saw them shooting, you know, at you, and you didn’t return fire . . . I thought . . .”

  “What did you think, when you was thinking?” she purred.

  “Valentina, if you didn’t, couldn’t, make it out, it would be a tragedy. Made worse if I never said diddly to you about this. I, well, there really aren’t words that make sense, but I would miss the hell out of you. I . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I never felt this way about any girl, none. But you’re not a girl.”

  “No, Terry, I’m not. I’m a woman.”

  “Exactly.” He hugged her even tighter to him. “Exactly.”

  “How about that hippy chick waitress?”

  “Not my type, as it turns out.” He moved her around to face him. Cupping her face in his hands, he pulled her to him and kissed her, then looked into her amazing eyes. “My mom is going to shit a brick.”

  “Because I’m black?”

  “Something like that.”

  CHAPTER 33

  * * *

  “Here are we, one magical moment, such is the stuff from where dreams are woven.” —David Bowie

  Driving down the mountain, Breeze knew his run was over. It was time to hoist anchor and head south. With the cash from the disco heist and what he had put aside from his pot and pimping empire he had almost two hundred and fifty grand stashed in the safe at Rapunzel’s. Plenty for a rich retirement in Baja. He didn’t know how long it would take the feds to gather up a tactical force, but he was sure it was better if he left tonight.

  There was only one problem.

  A big problem.

  When he opened the safe in his office and took out the vintage Girl Scouts backpack, the one that usually made him smile, the one that should have been full of money, he found it stuffed with phone books.

  Then it hit him. A nagging feeling had been in the back of his mind since the night Sam and her crew had braced him. She left first, leaving behind her brother to do the talking. Why him, why her little brother? The kid and the others must have been a diversion, kept Breeze and his boys busy, giving Sam plenty of time to climb in the window and open his safe. The big boned bitch. He really should have shot her.

  “What’s wrong, cuz?” Sardine asked. “Look like you been bit by a diamo
ndback.”

  “I was, name of Sam. How much cash you have?”

  “You mean other than what you owe me?”

  “I mean that you can get a grasp on this minute.”

  “I guess a couple hundred between Cracker and me.”

  “Get it.”

  “You ain’t thinking of blowing town without paying us are you, cuz?” Sardine moved into the doorway, blocking any exit.

  “No, I’m just cash-strapped and I need to lay low for a while. I will be back and I will make good on my debts. Does your van have any gas in the tank?”

  “Oh, now you want my cash and my van? And you ain’t paying us for our labor, provided at no small effort or risk. That sum up the situation, cuz?” Sardine pulled a hunting knife from a scabbard on his belt.

  “We’re blood.”

  “That’s why you are still breathing and I ain’t called Cracker over to help me skin you. You always push us around, well, how’s that shoe fit on your foot?” Sardine weighed the knife and looked cold at Breeze.

  “Wait.” Breeze’s eyes darted around the room searching for anything of value. “You don’t think I’d leave you holding nothing? No way. Not my mother’s sister’s kid.” He dropped a sheaf of documents onto the desk.

  Sardine prodded at the papers with the knife’s point. “What’re those?”

  “Deed to Rapunzel’s and the cribs. Yours. All I want is your cash and the van. Can I be any more fair?”

  A smile spread across Sardine’s face. He called in Cracker and told him they had finally made good. They readily gave up the cash they were holding. As Breeze drove the van away, Sardine slapped Cracker on the shoulder. “What you say we sample some of our new wares?”

  “Our what?”

  “Hookers, Cracker, a pussy smorgasbord.”

  Laughing, they crossed the road to explain to the ladies about the management change.

  • • •

  At the Mad River Hospital’s ER Callum held off an irate nurse while he dripped blood on the linoleum and called his bosses in D.C. He relayed a version of the events in the high country meadow. He told of the pot deal gone sour, and the informant who tipped him off to it. He rightfully painted Sam and her crew as heroes who saved his life. He gave them Sam’s sketchy description of a Chinese man from Oakland; sadly it was all they had to go on. He left Maurizio Binasco out of it. He told them they couldn’t trust local law enforcement. By the time a young intern was done putting twenty-five stitches in Callum’s scalp, a National Guard chopper set down on the hospital’s helipad.

  A gauze-turbaned Callum led a mixed team of feds and National Guardsmen in a raid on Rapunzel’s. Sardine and Cracker flipped on Breeze faster than hungry baby pigs hit their momma’s tit. They gave a description and the license plate number of the rusted van. Callum had no evidence connecting Sardine and Cracker to any of the day’s lawlessness. They hadn’t participated when Breeze snatched him and he hadn’t seen them in the forest. After a vague threat of jail the cousins quickly drew Callum a map of Breeze’s hidden pot farms.

  The feds taillights hadn’t rounded the first bend when Cracker said, “Maybe time we went straight. We can live comfortable off strippers and whiskey.”

  “Well, strippers and whiskey and pussy. Hate to put the crib girls out of work.”

  “OK, strippers and whiskey and pussy. Nothin’ else, right? I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “I only gave them half of Breeze’s stash . . . Can’t see any good comes from letting that go to waste.”

  “But after that were out, right, cousin?”

  “Absalootin-tootin, cousin.” Grinning like a couple of fools, they left the cold night air and took their seats at Breeze’s old booth.

  • • •

  Less than an hour later a Highway Patrol cruiser came upon Breeze by the side of the 101. He’d made it a hundred miles south of Humboldt when the van’s engine seized.

  Breeze escaped drug charges for lack of evidence, but he was arrested on charges of kidnapping and the attempted murder of a federal officer. Ten minutes into his interrogation he rolled on the sheriff, rushing to be first to make a deal. He was promised a reduced sentence for his cooperation, one he might even survive if he kept his mouth shut about Maurizio Binasco’s involvement or any mention of a heist in a gay disco.

  Humboldt’s very own Sheriff Winslow was arrested that night. He indignantly protested his innocence as they cuffed him and read him his rights. By the time the investigation and subsequent court case was over, he and three of his deputies would be doing hard time.

  The local news station took up the story. It went out on the wire, then went national. By the time Sam and the crew hit San Francisco their faces were plastered on the front page of the Examiner.

  “Local heroes risk their lives to save a federal officer,” Sam read. They were in Valentina’s flat, drinking coffee and watching the sun come up. “And Jacob, brother of mine, what goes to the victors?”

  “In a Jacksonian sense, that would be the spoils, big sister.”

  “Exactly.” Sam turned over her backpack and dumped all the cash she had taken from Breeze onto Valentina’s dining room table. She divided it into six piles. They unanimously decided Jinks got dick.

  Terry took his pile of currency and set it on top of Valentina’s. “My baby is going to Stockholm.”

  Valentina glowed. “I love you, my fabulous and dazzling Terr-Terr.”

  • • •

  Later, as they were getting ready to drive down to Mountain View, Terry and Jacob stood on the stoop smoking. “What are you going to do with all that filthy lucre?” Terry asked his best friend.

  “Give it to Moms, I guess. It’s what my pops would have done.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “You ready to roll?” Jacob asked.

  “No, think I’ll stay here for a couple of days. Me and Val have some things to work out.”

  “You really are in love.” Jacob smiled at the thought.

  “Yeah, it ain’t perfect, but what relationship is, right?”

  “Isn’t that the truth. See you at school Monday?”

  “Yeah. I think Val would kick my ass if I tried to drop out this near the finish line.”

  “And she could do it, too.”

  “I know. Isn’t she magnificent, Jake?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  • • •

  Sam borrowed the Galaxie and she and Jacob drove out of San Francisco. The Transamerica Pyramid stabbed up into the dispersing fog. The double-decker Bay Bridge stretched out toward Treasure Island behind them.

  “Candy called it Oz,” Jacob said, looking out the back window, watching the city slip away as they headed south on the 101.

  “We had some fun there,” Sam said. “Don’t guess we’ll be welcome back.”

  “No, I’d say the city is off-limits.” Jacob continued to look out the back window.

  “Jacob?”

  “Yeah, Sam?”

  “You still hate me?”

  “No. Don’t get me wrong, all is definitely not alright, but you’re my sister. When the shit went down in the meadow, I cratered. Not you. You’re more like Pops than I’ll ever be.”

  “You, my brother, are not like any of us. And that is the good news.”

  • • •

  Entering the hospital lobby, all of Jacob’s attention was on finding Candy. He walked past where Esther sat reading a tattered copy of Time with Margaux Hemingway on the cover. When she called his name, he stopped and looked at her, confused.

  “Moms?”

  “I knew you’d come here. Where is your sister?”

  “She’s in the car. Candy?”

  “Getting better. I spoke to her parents. I told them they could be as angry at our family as they wanted, but not you. You, I told them, are different. Special. A good boy who loves their daughter.”

  “How’d that go over?”

  “About like you’d think.” She took out a cigarette and
started to light it.

  Jacob shook his head. “Moms, can’t do that here.”

  “Since when?”

  “I don’t know. What room is Candy in?”

  “Two-seventeen. Jacob?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You are . . . never mind. Go see Candy,” Esther said, standing. “I need to go thank your sister.”

  “OK.”

  “For keeping you both alive, I need to thank her.” Esther kissed her son on the cheek and walked away. The fact that Sam was the reason anyone’s life was in danger to begin with was left unsaid by Jacob. Stepping into the elevator, he found he was smiling. Screw Sam and his mom and his messed up family.

  • • •

  Candy’s parents stood in front of her bed, trying to block Jacob from seeing her.

  “I’m sorry,” Jacob said.

  “Mom, Dad, you can’t keep him out.”

  “Yes, we can,” her mother said.

  “No, I’m twenty. He’s my friend.”

  “He’s just another one of them,” her father said.

  “He’s staying. Please.”

  Candy’s father looked ready to punch Jacob. He also looked like he had never been in a fight in his life.

  “Don’t make a scene,” Candy’s mother said to her husband, then spoke to Candy. “Five minutes, and we’ll be in the hall.” Taking her husband’s elbow she led him out. As they passed Jacob they glared at him. He didn’t care. He was so happy to see Candy sitting up.

  “You look good,” Jacob said as the door closed.

  “I look like hell. Dirty hair, no makeup.”

  “You look amazing.”

  “Do we really want to start with lies?”

  “No, my dear, dear Candy, we’re not. You look amazing.”

  Candy laughed, looking into his grinning face.

  Jacob sat on the bed, holding her hand. He told her all that had happened, told her Terry was staying with Valentina. She said that was the best news she’d heard yet. He told her about how he’d been terrified when the shooting started, how he’d hidden under the truck.