by Todd Borg
“You heard from her lately?”
He shook his head. “But she doesn’t keep me up to date. Ever since that party got busted over on the California side. They made like my medical marijuana card wasn’t valid. She was smoking, too, and she didn’t have a card. They let her go and hauled me in. What’s that about? But I guess when you look like her, life is easier, huh?”
“Yeah. Any idea where I’d catch up with her?”
He shook his head. “I’d probably talk to Grady at O’Leary’s. You know how she’s always been into that Irish beer. Me, I’m a Coors guy myself.”
“Really? Me too. Guinness makes your mouth pucker,” I said.
“Right on,” he said, high-fiving me. I did the palm-smack. We were practically blood brothers. “Thanks, man, I’ll check out O’Leary’s.”
I drove to the nearest gas station and asked where O’Leary’s was, and was directed to a pub one block off the main drag.
It was dark inside, the major light source being two TVs, one at either end of the bar. There was a program on that showed a bifurcated screen with a news logo at the bottom. Two guys were screaming at each other, blaming each other’s politics for the state of the world. No wonder I listen to NPR. Behind the counter was a guy who wielded a dishrag like it was the star of a ballet, all swirly moves and pirouettes as he wiped down the thickly-varnished mahogany. He wore a dress T-shirt. Above the pocket was the word Grady, stitched in swirling, green thread.
“Hey, Grady. I’m a friend of Carol Champagne Pumpernickel Forest. Darin said maybe you would know where to find her.”
“I’m with you on the name change,” he said. “But she looks like champagne, I’ll give her that. I don’t know where she is, but your timing is good.” He jerked his head toward the window. “You catch that guy who’s getting into his pickup, maybe he can help. He was just getting his afternoon bump and telling me a story. Sounded like her.”
“Thanks.” I trotted out the door. The pickup had backed out of a parking place, was starting to move forward. I got in front of the truck and waved. The driver’s window rolled down.
Inside was a cowboy wannabe, a big guy with the bad-guy hat, black, with a curved brim that looked like it was snarling.
“Afternoon,” he said with post-beer cheer.
“Hi. Wondered if I could ask you a question. Bartender Grady said you just told him a story about a woman, and he thought it might be our friend Champagne. Several of us have been looking for her. Any idea where she is?”
“Hold on while I park.” He pulled back into the parking place. He got out and made a show of getting into position, his back to his truck, his feet out from the truck just enough that he could comfortably lean back. The man eased his butt back against the driver’s door, holding the ring of keys on his belt so that they didn’t bang against the truck’s paint. It was a Silverado pickup of one of the earlier vintages, but freshly polished and shiny black as if it had been recently repainted. His hitched his thumbs into his belt loops, cocked one knee and hooked the under-cut heel of his glistening cowboy boot onto the running board of the truck. His curved hat brim swooped down over his eyebrows and cast dark shadows over his face.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll relate to you the story I told Grady, and you can decide if it might be the girl you want. See, me and my lady were coming through town last night, and we saw this girl get out of the car in front of us. I remembered it because it had been raining and it didn’t seem like a good time to take a hike. I also remembered it because she was one sweet package, and she got out of one sweet ride.”
“Any chance you saw the make of the vehicle?” I asked.
“Make? Mister, I’m in the oil business. Knowing my wheels is how I put cheese on my burgers. It was a nineteen-seventy Hemi ’Cuda hardtop, painted Wheaties-box orange with the deep-gloss finish, tricked out with TQ wheels and Pro-Trac tires. And by the sound of the pipes, I’m guessing he’s got the four twenty-six big-block in it. Very rare. I saw in Auto News how one like it went for seven-hundred thousand at the Strasbenner Auction in Palm Springs. Only car I ever saw sold for more money was the sixty-six Shelby Cobra Supersnake. That ’Cuda’s the sweetest ride I ever saw in Incline. You cruise the land of Lexus in that baby, not much chance of going unnoticed by an oil man.”
“What area of the oil business are you in?”
“I’m an R double L. Retail Lubrication Liaison. Which means I work at a Jiffy Lube in Reno.”
I nodded.
He made a quick, short-lived grin. “So this ’Cuda stops in front of me at a red light, and she gets out, slams the door, and walks down the highway past me and the missus. She goes right by our truck, teetering in these heels that are so high she had to do the wobble walk to keep her balance. I’ve seen circus acts weren’t that impressive. We’d had a little pretend thunderstorm, and the streets were still wet so they reflected the headlights and taillights. It was like she was walking on glass. She had on a long black coat that kept flipping open in the breeze so we could see the little blue dress. It was clear as day what with my new xenon headlights. I said to my lady, ‘Musta been a real hot argument for the model to walk away from that ’Cuda ride.’”
It sounded like the same dress as the one Champagne wore to Ryan’s party. I’d seen her arguing with someone, but I couldn’t see who it was. Perhaps the driver of the ’Cuda.
“You knew that she was a model?”
“No. But if she ain’t, she should be.”
“Where’d she go?”
“Don’t know for certain. Kept walking on down past the cars behind me. Then ’Cuda half-turns, half-spins a U-eey in the intersection, those big Pro-Tracs steaming as they spun the rain into burning rubber. He raced away in my rearview mirror. Then I heard him screech to a stop. So I assume he picked her back up. Unless she climbed into one of those local Lexuses. Now how would you say that in the plural? Lex-eye? Lex-ees?” The R double L laughed and then hacked and spit.
“All I know is, I love my lady. But if I had a piece of work like that model, I sure as hell wouldn’t let her walk away and climb into any Lex-eye behind me. I know that like I know the oil business.”
I thanked him, got into my Jeep and dialed Ryan. I was thinking about how Street described parking next to a muscle car at Ryan’s party.
When he answered, I said, “Do you know anyone who has an orange, nineteen-seventy, Hemi ’Cuda hardtop?”
“What’s that?” He said. The noise in the background was loud like a movie theater lobby.
“Plymouth Barracuda with a special engine that featured cupped, hemispherical combustion chambers. One of the hottest rides of the muscle car era.”
“Never heard of it. By muscle car, do you mean lots of horsepower?”
I didn’t think Ryan could keep sounding even younger and more naive, but he kept surprising me.
“Yes,” I said. “Big displacement engines, lots of horsepower.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about makes and such, but Preston Laurence is into cars with lots of horsepower. That might be like him to buy old cars with muscle, as you call it. Why do you ask?”
“Because Carol Champagne was seen getting out of such a vehicle on the highway last night after your party. Would she do that? Is she tempestuous?”
“Yes, she’s sometimes moody. I’ve seen her temper flare. It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Is there anyone you can call to see if Preston has a Hemi ’Cuda?”
“Let me think. Yeah, maybe. Call you back?”
“I’ll be waiting,” I said.
I headed for a local fast food and was waiting for my serving of salt and fat when my phone rang.
“Yes,” Ryan said when I answered. “Preston does in fact have a Hemi ’Cuda.”
“Thanks. Where is Preston’s place in Tahoe?”
“It’s over on Dollar Point. Hold on, I might have the number in my contact list.”
I waited.
Ryan read me the address. �
�There’s a couple of streets in that neighborhood that are on the lake. There’s a cul-de-sac on one street that looks like a turnaround, but at the end is the entrance to a private road. You’d never notice if you didn’t know it was there. After you go in, you won’t miss the house. Preston bought three adjacent houses and tore them down to put up his.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
I hung up. Spot had his head out the open Jeep window as I approached. He knew what I was up to, and he leaned as far toward me as he could, his nose flexing. He struggled to stick a front paw out next to his head, hanging down over the window sill. He looked ready to jump out, except I knew he couldn’t fit his chest through the window with the glass partway up.
“Stop, Spot,” I said, holding my hand up like I was a rookie back on traffic detail in The City.
He stared at me.
I reached into my bag. “You know this stuff is bad for you.”
He licked his chops.
I Frisbeed a french fry toward him. He snapped it out of the air. Then his tongue carefully rimmed the edges of his cavernous mouth. He stared at the bag. Then at my eyes. Then at the bag. We ended up splitting the fries and the burger, and I rationalized it by deciding that we each prevented the other from having a full onslaught of health-degrading decadence.
We got back in the Jeep.
Time to pay a visit to Preston Laurence.
THIRTY-TWO
I went west around the top of the lake on one of those late afternoons when the sun has turned everything so golden that tourists decide to quit their jobs in New York, cash out the retirement account, put on the mother of all garage sales, sell the house in New Jersey, the beachfront condo in South Carolina, dump the Suburban for half of Blue Book, and point the Mini Cooper west, with no cargo to speak of except the snowboards in the roof rack and the swimming suits in the daypacks.
There was a light chop on the water, which fractured the low sunlight into a billion pieces of glowing amber. Each time I came around a curve, it seemed that I spied another ribbon of perfect sand beach. Here and there were glam-tan teens who were maybe doing a volleyball or sailing shoot for the next Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Their lithe sculpted forms belied the national obesity epidemic and reminded vacationers that there were still places on the planet where outdoor recreation pulled rank on video entertainment and left as its result a level of fitness and sports skill so high that despite Tahoe/Truckee’s tiny population, 14 of our young adults competed in the last Winter Olympics, a percentage perhaps unmatched anywhere else in the world.
Behind the athlete-beach dwellers was a backdrop of water that served as the color model for artists who are always on the lookout for the purest, deepest, bestest blue. And beyond the far shore were the mountains, still dappled with patches of snow, small at a distance, but large enough up close to provide a corn-snow-dream descent for the hikers who carry their boards and skis strapped to their backpacks.
Past Crystal Bay and Agate Bay and Carnelian Bay, I turned off on Dollar Point, and made my way through the street maze that was designed by its planners to reduce the amount of riffraff traffic on the streets by the lake. I found the cul-de-sac and turned down the nearly hidden road.
Preston Laurence’s lakeside cabin was probably a dreary step down from the castle on his 500-acre horse and vineyard ranch in the foothill wine country. But a glimpse at the outside still suggested a living room that could hold a Polo match, a fireplace that could roast a small elk on a spit, the kind of kitchen that made the chef at the Cape Cod Room in Chicago envious, and bathrooms in each of eight or ten bedroom suites that would please Louis the XVI even when he was drunk and ornery.
Preston’s palace was surrounded by a stone wall at least two feet higher than was allowed by county code. The gate to his estate was wrought iron with a shiny golden coat of arms mounted in the center. It had a logo design incorporating a P and an L, and underneath it was an illustration of a horse and a vineyard. It looked impressive on the gate, and was probably monogrammed onto Preston’s underwear, too. The gate was big and heavy enough that it didn’t swing, but instead slid on roller tracks, retracting into a stone housing. The gatehouse was stone and timberframe with a pointy copper roof.
From out of the gatehouse sauntered a big guy. He was not sculpted, bodybuilder big, but NFL-linebacker-gone-flabby big. Under the beer-and-cheeseburger roundness would be heavy slabs of well-marbled beef. I couldn’t see it under the Hawaiian shirt, but I assumed he had a belt-clip holster with a semi-automatic pistol. Despite the approaching twilight, his eyes were hidden behind Ray-Ban Wayfarers. On his left forearm was an Aztec tattoo that meant he’d once been part of the Norteños, a Northern California Hispanic gang that required murder on your resumé before you were admitted.
He radiated brusque toughness, every move a veiled challenge to any other alpha wannabes. I knew the type well, big guys in their thirties and early forties, past their athletic prime, with no attributes other than their bigness. Some were ex-military, some were ex-construction workers, some were ex-bar bouncers, some were ex-cons. But all had difficulty maintaining continuous gainful employment. Their more focused and disciplined contemporaries were making the transition from physical labor into mental labor, gaining a new level of responsibility in the job world. But the guys like the one in front of me weren’t up to the mental exercise. They could only hope to parlay a stint as an occasional bodyguard into an ongoing gig as muscle for a rogue rich guy whose activities weren’t clean enough to employ professional security firms.
“Help you,” he said. Airy voice that indicated past damage to the vocal cords.
“I’m here to see Preston,” I said.
“You have an appointment?”
“Buddies don’t make appointments. Actually, it was Champagne who I just talked to on the phone. I’ll check in with her and catch up with Pres some other time.”
He waited a beat too long before he said, “I don’t know any Champagne.”
“Maybe you don’t know her, but you’ve probably seen her around. Homely girl with blonde hair. But she’s real nice after you get to know her. Pres seems to like her enough.”
He looked at me with dead eyes. “I’ll have to ask you to leave.” He came closer. There was stitched lettering on his shirt. Above the P and L logo was the word Joe in fancy script.
“Look, Joe. I’m sure we can work this out. Champagne wants to see me. If I go in and talk to her, we’ll all be happy. Pres won’t know the difference. But if she finds out that you obstructed my visit, she’ll complain to Pres. I’ll complain to Pres. What will happen to you, crossing the wishes of his dream girl?”
Joe snorted. “If she was his dream girl, he wouldn’t have given her the...” The guard caught himself and stopped.
“Given her what, Joe? The shiner? The bruise? The broken nose?” I was ready to jump out of the Jeep.
He pointed toward the turn-around loop. As he raised his arm and the shirt lifted a little over the belly, I saw the holster clipped to his belt, and next to it, a radio. Which meant that he wasn’t alone in his duties.
“You realize you are an accessory, Joe? Do you want to go back inside?”
He lifted his shirt to show me his gun.
I nodded, drove around the loop, and left.
THIRTY-THREE
I parked on a side street on the opposite side of Dollar Point. The twilight was fast turning to a black, moonless night. I went over my evidence.
At Ryan’s party, Street overheard Champagne talking with other ladies about Heat, and then saying that she was frightened for herself and for Ryan. After the party, Champagne was angry enough, or frightened enough, that she’d gotten out of Preston’s muscle car on the highway at night. Champagne’s mother said that Champagne had disappeared, and that she was worried about Champagne and scared of Preston Laurence. Preston’s guard denied Champagne’s existence, then more or less admitted that Preston had hurt her.
There was a big risk in breaking into
Preston’s house. Eli and Jeanie had already died. From everything I’d seen, Ryan’s life was at stake. If Champagne was in fact being abused, then her life was at stake. I didn’t have any other leads. And I’d learned over the years that pulling on the errant thread often unravels the fabric.
I let Spot out of the Jeep. I took his collar. Spot is tall enough that I don’t need a leash. He matched his pace to mine. We walked under the stars down a dark street that led to large houses on the lake. Some were nestled behind serious fences. The rest had the size and style that suggested the presence of comprehensive alarm systems. I wasn’t planning to break into a house, but I still didn’t want cameras covering the grounds.
A vehicle approached from a side street, its headlights washing over us as we walked through an intersection. It came to a stop, then turned away from us, but not before they got a good look at the neighborhood interlopers. After its headlights moved on, I looked to see the vehicle make. There was only a dark shape and taillights to see.
Spot was alert, focusing eyes and ears at things that were invisible to me. As we moved along the lakeshore houses, my idea of borrowing a boat to get around the fence at Preston Laurence’s castle seemed ridiculous. I could see boats down at the docks, but they were all powerboats. I needed something silent, like a kayak, or a rowboat, or a canoe.
Spot and I walked down another street, then another. A pickup came up from behind me, went on past, and pulled into a short driveway. The driver got out, shut the door, and pushed a button on his key fob. The pickup’s lights flashed and the horn beeped as the alarm was set. The driver went into the closest house.
The pickup’s bed was covered by a topper. Attached to the topper was a custom rack. Strapped to the rack, and extending out over the pickup’s cab and even its hood, was a two-seat rowing shell. The shell was about 18 inches wide. I’d seen narrower, longer shells in the past. But this looked to be as precarious a boat design as one could imagine on Tahoe, which is so big it rarely has calm water. With a length of maybe 24 feet from one pointed end to the other, it looked more like a double-ended missile than a boat. The hull was round from side to side, and it would no doubt be very tippy to sit on. The shell had two sets of triangular frames that projected out from the sides of the boat and served as the oarlocks. Two seats were perched up above the deck and mounted on tracks that allowed them to travel forward and backward as the occupants rowed. While the design was perfect for practiced rowers, it was a capsize-waiting-to-happen for a landlubber like me.
