Inside, at a scarred desk five feet behind a bare countertop, Byron was on the telephone while writing on a yellow legal tablet. The desk had baskets of papers and documents.
Diesel leaned on the counter. He could smell cigars, and sure enough a couple of stubs were in an ashtray on the desk.
Byron said good-bye and hung the phone up. “You’re …”
“I called about McCain.”
“Right … right. I didn’t get your name.”
“Charles Carson.” Diesel took out his wallet and extracted the gold piece of plastic. It was five grand in hand. Money said all that was necessary.
“Okay, Mr. Carson. I did some checking. Your buddy is in the Multnomah County Jail on suspicion of violation of Oregon Business and Profession Code, Section One-eight-five-three, subsection A—whatever that is. Credit card something. There’s no bail right now, but the recommended bail is fifteen hundred. I can get the writ signed in half an hour. I already found the judge on call. He’s at home and I talked to his law clerk.”
“Very good. You’re on your job. What’s the tab for all this?”
“Three fifty to run the writ, ten percent of the bond as premium, and the security, which you get back when he shows up in court.”
“Here you go, champ.” Diesel pushed the card forward, then stopped. “One thing, when it gets exonerated, the money comes back to me. Not him. Got it?”
“No problem.” He took the credit card and went to the phone to call and make sure it was good. “Have a seat,” he said.
Diesel sat down and picked up a Sports Illustrated with an article on Mike Tyson’s trial for rape. Dumb fuckin’ nigger, Diesel thought, with more feelings of compassion than contempt. Diesel was certain that the “victim” had played the hard-dicked buck like a fish on a line. She’d known exactly what he would do, and what she would do afterward. It made Diesel feel smart. He was ignorant about many things, but he was smart about the games that people play.
Byron put the phone down and got up. He was a little guy. He made an O signal with thumb and forefinger, and winked again. “Good as gold,” he said, reaching for a raincoat hung on the back of a chair. “I’ll get the writ signed right now. You’ve got a car, right?”
“Yep.”
“You’ll pick him up?”
Diesel nodded. He sure was. He had money to retrieve from Mad Dog. The little maniac wouldn’t have a weapon when he came out of jail, and Diesel would make sure that he couldn’t obtain one until the money was paid. If he doesn’t have it … Diesel stopped his thought right there, not wanting to commit himself to anything even in his own mind.
Byron checked his watch. “I can get the bond signed and drop in at the jail in about an hour. But they won’t let him out until after they finish booking in the daily catch. Get it? The catch of fish …”
Diesel grunted and half grinned. It was all the laughter the joke deserved. “So …”
“So why don’t you be at the jail around ten, or ten-fifteen. That’s when they start the bail releases.”
“That sounds good. Where is it?”
Byron winked again, making Diesel want to ask if he had a nervous tick. He brought out a mimeographed street map with a series of arrows showing how to go from “Byron’s Office” to “County Jail.”
Byron then turned on his answering machine and ushered Diesel to the door.
Diesel ate at a Denny’s, and vowed never to do so again. A few minutes after ten o’clock, Diesel drove past the Multnomah County Jail. It was a nineteenth-century fortress of granite blocks, reminding him of Folsom. It had bars and frosted-glass windows, behind which he could see moving shadows.
He drove around in the rain for another fifteen minutes and came back. He cruised slowly past. No parking places at the curb.
About fifty yards from the entrance, he found a space at a fire hydrant. That was okay. He wasn’t leaving the car. He would move if a fire truck appeared. He could see the jail door.
He turned on the radio and ran through the dial, seeking an oldies but goodies station but stopping when he heard a sporting event. Basketball … It sounded like the Trailblazers. He turned the dial again. Natalie Cole. He’d go for that. He drew the station in clear and sat back to look out at the rain.
The jail seemed a crackerbox. Maybe it was super-maximum security from inside, but from out here it looked weak. No doubt it had some hard lockups somewhere down in its bowels. Even minimum-security institutions had a maximum-custody lockup somewhere, but for the average sucker, the security here looked light. Any jail where you could get at an outside window was asking for it. Anything could come in, anything go out. Cut a bar and a body would go through.
Headlights struck the Mustang from the rear. The glare filled the car and a bus went by and turned in, a jail bus with wired windows and faint splashes of white as faces stared out. “Poor suckers,” Diesel muttered, and then added, “better you than me.”
Soon a Jaguar pulled up and double-parked outside the lighted entrance. Quickly the driver got out and ran through the rain toward the entrance. Diesel exited the Mustang and hurried along the sidewalk. “Byron! Hey, Byron!”
The entrance gate buzzed and Byron entered. Diesel continued up the walkway and stopped next to the door. Should he wait here? The overhang kept away most of the rain. Then he saw the closed circuit camera. As soon as he looked at it, a voice came from a speaker, someone obviously watching on a monitor. “State your business, sir.”
“I’m waiting for a bail bondsman. He just went in.”
“Sorry, sir. You’ll have to wait on the sidewalk. Nobody is allowed to loiter where you are.”
“Okay, you got it.” Diesel grinned his biggest Irish grin and touched his forehead in a loose salute. He went back to his car and lowered the window to better see the entrance.
A minute later, a couple of deputies came out and got into a car parked closer to the walkway. Diesel pulled up to their space. When Byron came out, Diesel flashed his headlights, then got out and went over. “There you are,” Byron said. “Your buddy’s coming out in a little while. I talked to him and told him you’d be waiting.”
“You did great,” Diesel said. “Thanks.”
“I told him, but I’ll tell you, too. The court appearance is on Thursday, Division Two. Remind him … if you want the money back.”
“I’ll remind him,” Diesel said.
“Gotta get outta this rain,” Byron said. “Good luck.”
“You, too.”
They shook hands and Byron hurried toward his car. The Jaguar engine had a powerful, humming roar as it pulled away, taillights blazing as it braked for the stop sign on the corner. Then it turned and disappeared.
Half an hour later, men started coming out of the jail every couple of minutes. To Diesel it was obvious, as the first two walked by, that they were being released—one of them wore a tank-top undershirt in the rain.
Half a dozen more came out before Diesel recognized Mad Dog McCain. It was too dark and distant to see the face, but Diesel knew the body language of the walk. He flicked on the headlights and opened the door. “Hey, punk!” he yelled. “Here’s your man waiting for you.” He hoped the jailhouse banter would soothe residual hostility from their last meeting. As the bony little figure came over and got in, Diesel tried to read the face for attitude. He wanted a toothy grin. Instead he got a tight smile. “Let’s blow quick before they change their minds,” Mad Dog said. “How ya doin’?”
“Kickin’ ass and takin’ names.”
When the car was underway, Mad Dog said, “Thanks for saving my ass, man.”
“Where to?” Diesel asked.
“I gotta pick up my car at the impound. You got any dough on you?”
“No, man. I gave the bondsman all my money,” Diesel lied. “I gotta get money off you. I can’t get gas to go home without it.”
“Yeah, okay. You know how to get to the house?”
“Uh-uh. Not from here, anyway.”
“Turn right at the second light.”
During the drive, Mad Dog said he’d been arrested at the gas station when he went to pick up his car and tried to pay with Sheila’s Chevron card. “She reported the fucker lost.”
“She can straighten that out, can’t she?”
“Yeah … sure … whenever she gets back.”
Diesel was uninterested in what Mad Dog said. He disliked Mad Dog and, although he would have sneered if someone accused him of fear, the truth was that Mad Dog made him uneasy. The guy was too paranoid and unpredictable. In San Quentin, he and another maniac had stabbed a guy about a dozen times because he thought the guy was staring at him. The prison surgeons were able to save the guy’s life, but his plumbing would never be the same. Diesel knew many killers who didn’t give a rat’s ass if it clouded up and rained dogshit, but they were predictable. Maniacs like Mad Dog were liable to go off for any reason—or no reason. Except for Troy, who said he could handle Mad Dog, Diesel would never have had anything to do with him. Troy’s final argument, which carried great weight, was, “At least you never have to worry about him ratting you off.”
“Turn here,” Mad Dog said.
Diesel turned. Now he recognized the street. The old frame houses were on a slope, high above the street with the garages dug into the hillside beneath them. He parked below the house.
“You wanna wait down here or come upstairs?”
Diesel envisioned Mad Dog going out the back door and over a fence while a big fool sat waiting in the car. “That’s okay. I’ll go up with you.”
“Suit yourself.”
Mad Dog got out and Diesel followed him up the stairs. Mad Dog led the way around the side of the house to the back porch, where he took a key from under the steps and let them in. They walked past a refrigerator and freezer on the old porch and entered the kitchen. Mad Dog turned on the lights. The kitchen was immaculate and reminded Diesel that Mad Dog was a “clean freak,” a name used by convicts for compulsive cleanliness. It was a common trait among those laden with guilt.
They went through the kitchen and entry hall to the living room. “Wait here,” Mad Dog said.
Diesel started to say he was going along, but that was both disrespectful and a sign of weakness. It would look as though he was scared of being ripped off. “Go ahead,” he said, and sat down on the decrepit sofa. He heard the front stairs squeak as Mad Dog went up to the second floor.
While waiting, Diesel felt the need to urinate. He remembered the half bath next to the kitchen. As he entered the bathroom, he heard Mad Dog coming down the narrow rear stairs to the kitchen. Motherfucker’s getting slick, he thought, listening intently. If he heard the back door open, he would charge out and beat the shit out of the little turkey. He inched forward to the kitchen door. He could see Mad Dog on the back porch, lifting the lid of the freezer. Getting the money, Diesel thought, pulling back out of sight.
He went back to the living room. A minute later, Mad Dog appeared, holding out a wad of money. “Two grand,” he said. “Wanna count it?”
“I trust you.”
“You’re gonna drive me to the impound so I can get my car?”
“Sure. Let’s roll.”
They went out the front and down the steep stairs to the car. Mad Dog gave directions to the impound garage. When they got there he had to fill out a form and wait in line.
“I’m rollin’, Dog,” said Diesel. “You don’t need me anymore.”
“No. I’ve got it covered from here. Thanks, brother.” He extended his hand and smiled. As Diesel shook hands, he looked into Mad Dog’s eyes. They were flat and somehow empty. If you could see the soul through the eyes, Mad Dog had none.
“See you when Troy raises,” Mad Dog said.
“Yeah—and then we’ll all get rich.”
As Diesel pulled away, he saw Mad Dog McCain smoking a cigarette outside the impound office door. Should I do it? he thought. What’s the downside? Lose his friendship? That was no loss at all. Maybe have to kill him? Doubtful.
Ahead was the intersection where he had to decide. Left to Interstate 5 southbound, straight ahead to the old house and the money in the freezer.
The light was green and he went straight ahead.
He drove past the house, went around the corner and parked. Better to walk an extra half block than risk Mad Dog coming back and seeing the car. From the glove compartment he took the .38 and a flashlight. He got out and walked back.
Diesel went up the stairs with surprising speed and agility for someone his bulk. If it was big money, he could wait and waste Mad Dog when he came back.
Around the rear of the house, no hesitation. The key. Up the steps to the back porch. It was dark and he didn’t want to turn on a light. A neighbor’s window threw off enough light to outline shapes. He went straight to where Mad Dog had looked, the freezer. He lifted the lid with one hand and held the flashlight with the other, training the beam down inside.
The flashlight illuminated Sheila’s face and open eyes, frozen solid and covered with a layer of frost.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up, something he’d never previously experienced. He yelped and jumped back, letting the lid crash down. His heart pounded and he shook. Good God. No wonder the motherfucker wanted out of jail so bad—before somebody else looked in the freezer.
What about the kid?
Diesel saw a dish towel hanging over the refrigerator door handle. He grabbed it and used it to lift the freezer lid again. This time he knew what to expect. Sure enough, the child was under the woman, part of her arm sticking out. “Dirty, stinkin’ motherfucker,” he muttered. He could accept that an adult deserved to die for something, but a little kid … It knotted his stomach in pain and disgust. For a moment he thought of something he had never once considered in his entire life: putting a coin in a pay phone and snitching. He erased the idea instantly.
He had to get out of here. What about the money? Fuck the money. He had no idea where it was. Mad Dog had checked on bodies, not the money stash.
Diesel wiped the freezer lid with the dish towel. He had left fingerprints elsewhere in the house, but there was no way to get rid of them. All that really mattered was the freezer, and that was okay.
He went out, locking the door, and headed for his car. During the long drive back to the Bay Area, he repeatedly saw Sheila’s face covered with frost. He didn’t want to see it. He wanted to forget it.
When he got home, the memory of the horror weighed so heavily that Gloria asked him if anything was wrong. He almost blurted it out, but then he shook his head. “Everything is cool.”
A few weeks later, Mad Dog McCain called Diesel to say that he had moved back to Sacramento. He left his phone number and said that he had already written Troy with the address. “He raises pretty soon; right?”
“Four or five weeks.”
“Man, I’m jack ready. We’re gonna be a crime wave all by ourselves.”
When Diesel hung up, he was shaking. What would Troy say about the murders? Maybe he could explain how somebody could kill a little kid. It was beyond Diesel’s understanding. “Junior, come here,” he called, catching his son and swinging him up into his arms.
4
Unlike most of San Quentin’s inmates, Troy Augustus Cameron was born solidly to the upper middle class. His father was a wealthy Beverly Hills urologist, his mother the U.S.C. Homecoming Queen. For the first twelve years of his life, Troy lived in a two-story house in Benedict Canyon and attended an exclusive private school, where his grades were perfect and tests indicated his IQ was 136. Contrary to outward appearance, his life was less than idyllic. His father was a periodic binge drunk and wife beater. Once or twice a year, a binge ended in a psychotic episode. He drank until he became an animal, blind and brutal, invariably knocking his wife around while accusing her of infidelity.
At age twelve, with pubic hair and testosterone, a boy thinks he is a man and should protect his mother, even from his father. Troy got between
them and was backhanded across the room. He took a .22 from an upstairs closet, loaded it, and put three bullets in his father’s back.
His father survived, which was probably worse for Troy, because his mother denied what Troy described. That raised a question of sanity; however, the psychiatrists said he was legally sane and extremely intelligent and very rational—but also extremely sociopathic. His values, his beliefs, what he saw as the right and wrong of things, were atypical. They also talked psychological jargon about unresolved Oedipal complex. Notwithstanding all of that, he might not have been served to the Beast except that he had seriously injured a black youth who had stolen Troy’s shoes. The black kid was two years older and thirty pounds heavier. When they were in the mess hall, Troy picked up a mop wringer from a bucket and slammed it into the back of the extortionist’s head. He lay there, toes pointed upward, in the expensive athletic shoes. Troy grinned; he thought of the Wicked Witch of the East … The officials found his grin especially damning. It got him sent to the Fred C. Nelles School for Boys.
Reform school was harder for him than most, at least initially. An only child from the upper middle class, he stood out among the generally underclass youths of all races. He talked with perfect grammar in the land of the vulgar and inarticulate. He was educated; most of them were illiterate. Within a few months, however, he had assumed the coloration of the world surrounding him, the argot, the swagger, and the codes of what was virtuous and what was not. His dreams, however, were born in the world of books, to which he escaped as much as possible, to Zane Grey, Jack London, Rudyard Kipling. Troy had a dearth of civilizing influences and was alien to the position in the world that Fate had decreed for him. He was incapable of the 11th Commandment, Thou shalt adjust.
Even then he might have blended back into his former world, except that he found himself ostracized. The girls he’d known as a child were now forbidden to see him. He was as marked as Cain by what he’d done at age twelve. The Christian myth of forgiveness and redemption embodied in the Prodigal Son was bullshit. In a way he was glad it was bullshit; hypocrisy provided him self-justification—and self-justification is all anyone needs to do anything.
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