by Todd Borg
The log ripped at my ear and temple.
I struggled to stay limp.
My head dropped back down to the sand. Harder now. Sand over rock. Or cement.
“You sure he’s dead?”
“I cracked him hard. He wasn’t breathing, far as I could tell. But I’ve learned, it’s hard to know if someone’s really dead. That’s why we drop ’em overboard. They get dead eventually.”
“Stick him and make sure.”
I knew I could never lie still for a knife stick.
“Here, roll him over on his back.”
They twisted my legs again. I flopped over. I left my mouth open, tongue bulging the sand pile inside my mouth. Eyes half-open. It was very dark under the pier.
“Gimme that paddle.”
I gritted my teeth and tensed my stomach muscles. If he aimed at my head or neck, I really would be dead. I pretended that I was outside of my body. It was a rusted, dented vehicle. Bang it up some more, it wouldn’t make much difference.
I heard movement. An intake of breath, a tiny grunt of exertion.
The blow hit my stomach.
An explosive wallop unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Babe Ruth hitting one out of the park.
But I stayed limp. I’d never had such discipline before. My body jerked with the impact, my lungs exhausted their air, then I was still. My diaphragm was paralyzed.
“He’s dead. Or next thing to it. Nobody coulda took that without squealing.”
“Help me roll this carcass over the kayak. On his stomach. Like he’s strapped over the back of a horse.”
They dragged me out into the water, rolled me, lifted my limp form over the center of a kayak. The motion helped disguise my efforts to suck in a little air.
“Okay, you get in the forward seat, I got the rear. I’ll push us out.”
They got the kayak into the water and paddled.
On one side of the kayak, my legs were in the water. On the other, my arms and head were in the water. I spit sand and muck out of my mouth, and turned my head a little so that my mouth and nose were a bit closer to the surface and one ear was exposed to the air. The wave motion rocked the kayak, brought my face out of the water for a quarter second.
I sucked some air.
“How you gonna weight the body?”
“Two twenty-five pounders from muscle beach. I’ve done it before. They’re just the right size to put in the front and back of a guy’s pants. It’s enough weight to keep the body down through decomposition. Eventually, the fish will chew through his pants. But by then, he’ll mostly just be bones.”
The paddle of the guy in the front seat hit the side of my head as it came out of the water at the back of his stroke. A sharp blow. Then again.
“Guy’s head makes it so I can’t paddle.”
The boat rocked a bit. I sucked more air.
“This far enough?”
“Not even close. Boss always stresses the half-mile rule. Except for this place we use down the coast where there’s an underwater drop-off. Here, you go out a half mile ’cause otherwise the surfers and snorklers and boaters might see the body on the bottom on the clear days. Don’t want that.”
“No. Wouldn’t make my boss happy. Wouldn’t make your boss happy, either.”
“This is freelance for me. My boss doesn’t know.”
As the kayak rocked, my micro breaths barely sustained me. A swell lifted the boat. My head came clear of the water. I got a larger breath.
“I always thought you dumped bodies in the desert.”
I heard the words, but I wasn’t tracking well. The hot poker was still thrusting into my head. My lungs felt empty, unable to get a comfortable breath. But I knew I was running out of time. I needed to move while they were distracted.
“It’s the Rodriguez family always uses the desert. But this is so much easier. It’s right under everyone’s noses, so they don’t think to look. Takes less time. Easy for a cop bird to see headlights out on the desert. But not us out here in the black of night.”
“Right.”
I felt another swell lift the kayak, rolling it so my head popped out again. I took as large a breath as my spasmed diaphragm allowed, shifted my weight so that the boat rolled back fast, then snaked into the water. As I went under, I grabbed the edge of the boat with my fingertips, putting my weight into it.
The boat capsized. I heard the men yell as I dropped beneath the waves.
Long ago, when I was a kid at my uncle’s cabin on the lake in New Hampshire, I learned the basics of survival under water. You relax. You don’t thrash for the surface, gasping for air. No matter how much you need air, you recognize that it’s there, just above, just a few relaxed seconds away. Staying relaxed allows your brain to go many more precious seconds without oxygen.
I took three breast strokes through the black water, staying several feet under. Then I rose to the surface slowly, head tipped back. I broke the surface with only my mouth and nose, forced myself not to gasp, just breathed four deep breaths in and out.
With my ears under water, I heard muffled yells and thrashing bodies. Maybe their frantic movement would bring the sharks.
I was on the ocean-side of the kayak, a bit to the north. I submerged and swam the length of an Olympic pool, northwest toward Malibu, then resurfaced, treading water, breathing more comfortably, watching the vague dark shapes, listening to the men swear as they tried to climb back onto the slippery kayak.
“Hold it still!”
“I am!”
“Damn thing’s full of water!”
“Get in! It still floats. We can still paddle it.”
“Christ, what was that! Hurry! Something bumped my leg!”
“Maybe it was the body.”
“You think maybe he’s still alive?”
“No way.”
“Good thing I got his wallet. That’ll slow the cops down when they find him.”
“The current, sometimes it keeps bodies at sea long enough the fish chew on the face. Gotta use teeth and DNA for an ID.”
“Let’s hope.”
With my lungs better fed, but my head and stomach still screaming, I submerged again, swam another swimming pool, breathed more, then another.
Soon, I was a hundred yards away from the men. I swam to the beach and walked out of the water northwest of the pier.
I seemed to be alone on the dark beach, well away from the commotion on the pier. And with the tide out, I was a long way from the people up on the sidewalk and street.
I stripped and wrung out my clothes, then put them back on. My running shoes remained squishy.
I walked back to the pier, and retrieved my cell. I looked for another piece of driftwood, but there was nothing but smooth sand. I walked up to Appian Way, the road parallel to the beach, and flagged a passing cab, got in.
“I’m Detective Carver,” I said. “I just tangled with two suspects out on the water in a kayak.” I pointed. “You can see them out past the pier.”
The driver looked, nodded.
“Pull over to that dark spot under those palm trees.”
He drove forward and stopped.
“When they come out of the water, they may separate. If so, I need you to follow the taller one. He walked here from Venice. He may walk back. But he might boost a vehicle. Can you do that? Follow him so he doesn’t know it?”
“No sweat, amigo,” the driver said.
We sat there ten minutes before the men paddled their water-filled kayak up to the beach.
They walked up toward the parking lot closest to the pier, then split. Stefan, the tall guy, went across the street and stopped. He was just visible from where we sat. Even from our distance, I could see water dripping from him.
The shorter guy walked up to a Camaro that was parked with its parking lights on. He bent down to the driver’s window. Stayed bent. Straightened up and began gesturing. Lots of arm movement. Then gave the driver the finger.
Both driver and passenger do
ors opened. Two burly young men got out. The guy stopped gesturing and ran. The young men ran after him.
Stefan calmly walked over to the Camaro, got in and drove away, past us in the cab, beeping the horn.
One of the young men turned at the sound of the horn, saw his car leaving, yelled. The other young man turned, and they both ran after the Camaro.
The Camaro went past us at medium speed. My driver followed at an easy distance.
After a block, the Camaro turned off Appian Way, drove back streets the other way, came back to the boulevard and picked up his wet comrade who was leaning against a palm tree a couple of blocks southeast of the pier.
They drove back to Venice, stopped near the boardwalk and got out, leaving the Camaro’s parking lights on, the engine running, windows down, like an advertisement for a free ride.
The two men split up again, Stefan walking down a side street, the other continuing down the boardwalk.
My driver was a pro. He stayed back, did a slow-and-stop pattern so that any time Stefan might look back, he would just see normal cab motion, not a vehicle on slow cruise.
Two blocks in, Stefan turned. We came around the corner, and I saw my opportunity.
“Drive past him, pull over at that yellow apartment building a block and a half ahead of him. I’ll get out, make like I’m paying you through the window. Then you drive ahead another block, take the first left and wait for me out-of-sight. I need to question the suspect. I’ll find you in about ten minutes.”
“No hay problema, amigo.”
The driver drove past Stefan at a good speed, like a typical cab in a hurry, then pulled over where I requested.
When I got out, I stayed bent, moved with difficulty, like an old man on his way home. I turned away from Stefan as he approached from a block back. I held my keys in my hand, out in front of me, and stepped over into the entry of the yellow building. I didn’t think he’d recognize my wet clothes in the dark. After all, he thought I had drowned.
Without a weapon, I had only surprise. My head throbbed, and my abdominals were still seized up, but I ignored the pain. I stayed hidden against the entry wall.
Stefan appeared on the sidewalk. I waited until he was past me. I exploded out, hit him hard low on his back, my arms wrapped around his hips. Saw the bus at the last moment. Angled his body to give me maximum cushion.
We hit the side of the passing bus. Stefan bounced hard and dropped to the street. I fell on top of him.
The bus braked to a stop.
I felt Stefan’s pants, wondering which man had my wallet. I found my pocketknife and wallet in his right front pocket. I pulled them out, opened the wallet up to my Virginia City 19th century Sheriff’s badge, and held it up as the bus driver ran up.
“LAPD official business. I need you to leave the area. Now! GO, GO, GO!”
The driver turned and ran back to the bus. He drove away.
I dragged Stefan up to his feet. His eyes rolled. Blood coursed from his nose. I sleep-walked him over to the shadowed side of a red brick building. I patted him down, felt the gun. Using the fabric of his shirttail, I pulled it out, ejected the clip, put it in my left pocket, and the gun in my right pocket. I took his wallet, his phone, and his keys out and slid them into my pockets.
Stefan moaned and started to regain consciousness. I remembered from his and Preston Laurence’s tough-guy visit to Ryan’s house, that Stefan was a lefty. I stood behind him, took his left wrist in my right hand and bent his arm behind his back. I pushed it up hard, then put my left hand on the left side of his chin, put his face up against the rough brick, and held it there with serious, skin-break pressure as Stefan started to mumble.
“What is Preston trying to do to Ryan?”
“Dunno what you mean, man.”
I grabbed the hair above his left ear, pulled his head back a couple of inches and slammed it to the brick, hard enough to maybe break the zygomatic bone under his right eye.
He grunted. Impressive self-control.
“What is Preston’s game?”
Stefan relaxed. I knew what was coming. He wanted me off-guard. I pretended to relax. He tried to spin, pull his wrist out of my grip. But my hand was a vice. I jerked his arm up, twisting the wrist. I heard loud squeaks and pops from his elbow or shoulder. Maybe both.
Stefan screamed.
“You make one more loud sound, and I’ll twist your arm out of its socket like a chicken bone.”
“Okay!”
“Did you kill Eli Nathan?”
“Who?”
“What about Jeanie Samples?”
“Never heard of her.”
“Did you set the fire?”
“I dunno know what you mean. You lost me, man.”
He sounded sincere, but pathology takes a lot of forms, one of which is the ability to fool any listener, including shrinks and professional lie detectors.
“How many guys have you dropped in the ocean?”
“None, man. I swear.” He sounded like he was crying. “You were gonna be the first.”
“How many in Tahoe?”
“Never. I can’t say for Pres before I was around. But you took his girl, man. No one takes Pres’s girl. He, like, cracked.”
“You work for the Mob?”
“No. I know some guys, that’s all. I’ve done some things to a couple dudes who deserved it. But they didn’t die or nothin’. You were the first to die. ’Cept, you didn’t die, either.”
“How much did Preston pay you to kill me?”
“I get regular pay.”
“He would give you a bonus if you succeeded. How much?”
“Ten large. I promised Carlos I’d split it with him.”
I swept my foot under Stefan’s. I gave his arm another twist as he fell. He cried out, landed face first on the concrete. I bent down, positioned my knee between his shoulder blades, jamming the broken arm up toward the back of his neck. I put some weight on my knee. Stefan moaned.
“What is Preston’s goal with Ryan?”
Stefan could barely utter the words through his pain. His lips were against the sidewalk as he spoke.
“Pres wants Ryan’s company. Either Ryan caves and sells him controlling interest in CBT, or Pres steals the research and starts another company. That’s my call, anyway.”
“Why? What is it about Ryan’s company that is so special?”
“He’ll kill me if I say.”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
“CBT has a research facility up by Mt. Rose. They’ve made some kind of discovery.”
I thought about it.
“With only one good arm left, you can still continue your scumbag occupation,” I said. “So I planned to solve that. But I just thought of a way that you can keep me from breaking your other elbow before I leave.”
“What, man?” He was frantic.
I got out my cell phone. “Gonna do a quick little video interview. I ask your name, and how long you’ve worked for Preston, and the details of some of your nastier jobs like this last effort to drop me in the Pacific. And we’ll talk about that discovery.”
“Whatever you say.”
He performed like a star on Oprah, sincere and earnest and heartfelt.
I clicked off my cell video.
“I’ll leave you with one thought,” I said.
“What?”
“I ever see you in Tahoe again, I’ll tie a concrete block to your neck and drop you in the middle of the lake.”
“I promise, man, I’m never going back to Tahoe again.”
I stood up, walked away, found my cab down the next street.
I had the driver stop twice. Once so I could drop the gun down a storm drain, and once so I could drop the clip down another. I used my own shirttail both times. Then I had the driver leave me at a corner, five blocks from my hotel. I knew I had cash in my wallet that I’d retrieved from Stefan, but I paid him with cash from Stefan’s wallet, still using my shirttail.
“I will
remember you, but you won’t remember me or this trip,” I said as I gave the driver all of Stefan’s cash, an amount that worked out to more than a 1000% tip.
The driver nodded once, his face blank. “Gracias, amigo. Never seen you before,” he said, and drove off.
I dropped Stefan’s wallet down a third storm drain.
My clothes were dry by the time I got back to my hotel.
FORTY-THREE
I made calls to Street and Ryan, explaining that I was delayed, leaving out the details of Stefan’s efforts to drop me in the ocean. After I said goodbye, I ate a takeout sandwich and drank a quart of milk in my room, and I lay there in the dark thinking about Preston and his goal to unhinge Ryan so that he could persuade him to sell controlling interest in CBT. From what Stefan said, the scientists had made a high-altitude discovery that had enough potential to drive Preston to extreme measures. A discovery that Ryan hadn’t told me about, an omission about which I was going to try to be calm when I talked to him in person.
But my bigger problem was that Stefan said that he had nothing to do with the murders and the other incidents involving Ryan. I’d put Stefan under considerable stress when he said it - and he revealed important information - so I believed him.
Which meant that I had two bad guys, and I didn’t have a clue who the other one was. But Preston had a lot of employees. He wouldn’t tell each worker what all the other workers were doing.
The next morning, I caught the shuttle back to Reno and was over Spooner Summit and back to Tahoe by noon. I drove up the mountain to my cabin to pick up some clothes and other personal effects, then drove to Kingsbury Grade.
I saw Street’s VW bug at her lab, and pulled in.
Street was sitting on a stool by her microscope station. The ceiling lights were off. She turned as I came in the door.
What happened to your face and ear?” Street said, frowning, reaching up to touch the side of my face.
“Had a scuffle with Stefan, the guy who works for Preston.”
Street’s brow was furrowed with worry.
“I’m sorry that the bad part of my world is spilling over into yours,” I said.
