Starvation Mountain

by Robert Gilberg

  “Okay, that’s the plan then. What have you heard from Daggett and the SDPD? Are they getting anywhere?”

  “There’s a lot to tell you about.”

  Jim went over the new ideas he and Penny had discovered, and the conversation with Daggett.

  “I haven’t heard yet about getting the notebook from Penny’s place. I’m going to call to see what’s new as soon as we finish.”

  “Then we should end this call so you can do that now, Jim. Things could be breaking minute by minute on that.”

  “I know. I just wanted to update you and Ali first. We’ll talk later.”

  “Too late to call Morton. It’s eight p.m. now—seven San Diego time, and he’s probably at home for the evening.”

  “Try Daggett,” Penny offered.

  “He may not be up to date. They’ll be holding back from anyone not in the department. Information is power, kinda thing . . . . But I’ll try.”

  Before he could punch in Daggett’s number, Jim’s phone rang.

  “Jim, it’s Dale Morton.”

  “Hey, Dale. I was just thinking about trying to call you. What’s the news?”

  “Not good. Penny’s place was hit before we got there. There’s no notebook like the one Penny described. We combed the place looking for it, but it looks like someone found it first. The place had been searched—not ransacked—but clearly searched. They must have found it.”

  Jim had put his cell phone on speaker as soon as he realized it was Morton calling so Penny could listen in.

  “Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Penny yelled. “Are you still there? Go into my office and to my computer. It’s set up as a video recorder with six cameras placed around my house. You should be able to see the thugs who did this. Maybe you’ll be able to identify them.”

  “Your computer is trashed, Penny. They smashed the case, pulled the hard drive and must have taken it with them.”

  “The bastards! Okay then, go to Jim’s house. I set his computer up to do remote viewing and recording. I checked to make sure it was all working before we left. You should be able to see everything up to the point they trashed my home computer.”

  “Jesus, Penny, that’s genius!” Morton almost yelled.

  Penny gave him the user ID, password, and the recorder app name and location.

  “Okay, I’ll get our best video forensics detective and our locksmith and go over there right away. It’ll probably be tomorrow before I get back to you, though. I hope there’s enough recorded that we can get an ID on at least one.”

  “Don’t we all . . . .” Jim muttered. “Good luck. Call me if you need any information about the house.” He added Morton’s number to his contact list.

  “I’m depressed. Let’s go back to the motel and try to forget this, hon,” Jim said to Penny.

  Riding the few miles back to their motel room on Jim’s bike, Penny held Jim tightly, pressing her head sideways against the back of his shoulder and squeezing his waist the entire distance.

  “You were holding on pretty hard, are you okay?”

  “Not really. Seems like everything is turning to shit right now—except for us. Let’s get in bed and hold onto each other. I need to feel safe.”

  “Morton’s right, you know. You are a genius . . . and cool . . . and sexy. Where have you been all my life?”

  “Looking for love—in all the wrong places, I guess.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Twenty - Day Tripper

  “What do you want to do for the next four days?” Jim asked Penny as they ate a leisurely breakfast. “Go on to eastern New Mexico and Taos and Santa Fe where they filmed the next scenes? That’s where they shot the parade and jail scenes, and Nicolson joined the trip. We could do that as a round trip and be back here Tuesday afternoon or evening in plenty of time for our wedding.”

  “I don’t want to do four days of hard riding, if that’s what it’ll take. We’ve been on the road, including the van drive, for four days now and I’d like to take it easy in whatever riding we do from here.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that. Here’s an alternative: We could take short day trips out of here. No rides longer than a couple of hours with plenty of off-seat time, seeing things.”

  “That sounds good. What do you have in mind?”

  “One could be a day trip to Durango. It’s a cool small city with little shops you’d like: art stores, good restaurants, and bars. It’s only around an hour from here.”

  “I like that.”

  “Another option is that, plus another hour’s ride up to Silverton.”

  “What’s in Silverton?”

  “It’s not as interesting as Durango, but the drive is spectacular. Great mountain scenery and fun roads—if the tourist traffic isn’t too bad.”

  “Sounds like you’ve done this before.”

  “I have. I used to ski at Purgatory, just outside of Durango, now and then. But I also rode this entire area after Annie died.”

  “A trip of remembrance?”

  “More like a trip of trying to run away from memories.”

  “I’m sorry, Jim. It seems like it always keeps coming back to Annie . . . .”

  “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I could have told you about riding this area without bringing Annie into it.”

  “Will you ever forget?”

  “. . . Probably not. But that doesn’t mean she controls my life. I don’t think about her when I’m with you. And when I do think about her now, it’s more like knowing I’ve reached a turning point in my life . . . going around a corner. Going around a corner, and there you are.”

  Softly, Penny said, “Okay, I like the idea of Durango and maybe Silverton. We can decide that while we’re on the ride. What else?”

  “Mesa Verde. Do you know about Mesa Verde?”

  “Only that it’s in the Four Corners region and is claimed to have some of the most complete and spectacular Anasazi ruins anywhere. Have you been there too?”

  “Yes, and I want to show it to you. You won’t believe the feelings you’ll have when you see the cliff dwellings and the spectacular canyons there. I want to be with you when you first see it. If you’ve never seen those kinds of ruins before, you’ll get a completely different perspective about the America you live in.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Europeans didn’t bring ‘civilization’ to an empty, primitive, beautiful land. There was a lot going on here before they arrived—and started fucking things up.”

  “Don’t get me started on that. Is that an easy, one-day trip, too?”

  “The riding’s about the same. It’s a loop trip. We take 170 north to 160 west and then follow a trail into the heart of the park. That’s around an hour and fifteen minutes. After we see the park, we can return by looping west and south, and back here. So, the riding is under three hours, but the day will depend on how much hiking you want to do.”

  “I’m going to want to see everything.”

  “I thought so. That’s one of the reasons I like you so much. You’re interested in the same stuff I am.”

  “That’s two days. We’ve got four. What else?”

  “Another option is the Durango-Silverton ride with an extension to Ouray.”

  “Ouray? Never heard of it. What is it, another ruin?”

  “No, it’s a little town an hour past Silverton that you won’t believe. It looks like someone helicoptered an entire, perfect, turn-of-the-century, New England village into a canyon between huge mountains. It was the biggest surprise of all my visits to Colorado.”

  “Then I think I want to see it. Do we add that to our Durango-Silverton trip?”

  “Not exactly. We don’t want to make it a full round-trip in one day. That won’t leave enough time for sightseeing. We’ll split the trip into two days and spend the night in some cute little hotel in Ouray, have dinner, and a wonderful evening.”

  “I like this. We still will have another day to fill, but do we have to do it riding? Wh
at about a day without motorcycles?”

  “I think that’s a good idea, and I think it should be your choice.”

  They extended their stay in the Courtyard hotel through the following Wednesday. Jim made reservations for Ali and Steve for the night before, and the night of the wedding, giving them options for their stay. They sat with their smart phones in the lobby bar, searching Google for a place to stay in Ouray. Forcing the events back in San Diego out of their minds, they relaxed and found their zeal for seat-time waning. A lazy, late-morning cocktail in the empty bar was the perfect thing. Given the news from Morton, they started to rationalize, hoping now that the thugs had the damn notebook, they’d be left alone and able to forget about Mack and his world.

  “But somehow, it all seems naïve, Jim. Things like this just don’t go away on their own. This has to be investigated, prosecuted, and people have to go to jail. And even then—”

  “I know what you’re saying, hon. But let’s try to believe it, anyway.”

  “Don’t you think you should call Morton and see what they’ve found on your computer? They should have been there by now.”

  “Hi Jim, we’re still at your place. Is Penny listening? Bingo! We got two guys coming in the back door. They were wearing ball caps down low over their foreheads—but the camera Penny had on the floor—hidden in the planter nailed them both before they found the video equipment. We know them, and we know who they work for. Downtown is putting arrest warrants out for them now. We’ve got breaking and entering, destruction of property, theft, and everything we need to hold them while we trap the others. That remote recording setup was brilliant, Penny. And hiding that camera down low like that was even more brilliant. We should make you a cop!”

  “Does this tie into Mack, Dale?” Penny asked.

  “Don’t know. It’s too early to tell. But, that fight he was in when he nearly killed that guy was over something big. And this is big. But we have to find the people who hit Penny’s and get that notebook. That’s job number one right now.”

  “Okay, Dale. We’ll let you get back to it. Thanks for the update and good luck.”

  “Thanks, you two. Take care of yourselves. This isn’t over until it’s over; you need to assume they’re still looking for you.”

  “We know. Maybe we’ll go hide in some ancient ruins until this blows over,” Jim said, laughing.

  “Do you want another cocktail; Jack on the rocks? Let’s sit and talk a little more. I’m fine if we do nothing more today. This is a nice place.”

  “It’s too early for a drink that strong. I think I want light Jack Daniels with soda and ice.”

  The waitress delivered the new drinks as the low sun was lighting the still empty cocktail lounge with a rich, golden glow. It was a pleasant way to end a day without the roar of the Harleys’ exhaust notes, constant wind in their faces, and dust covering their riding suits and face shields.

  “I think I’ve driven you to the point where you never want to hear anything of Annie again, and I don’t blame you. But, I’ve been unfair, we’ve never talked about Bruce. You told me he was killed in that accident, but you haven’t told me anything about him as a person, or your relationship with him other than that strange comment you made about hurting several days ago. I don’t want to push you about things you may not want to talk about yet, but I want to give you the chance to tell me whenever you want to.”

  Staring at her drink, swirling the plastic mixing stick, Penny said, “Not sure I want to. I don’t know how I feel about it yet, all these years later. It was a very mixed kind of relationship.”

  “Mixed?”

  “Yes, love—alternating with hate.”

  “Hate, that’s pretty strong.”

  “I can’t call it anything else. It was the most—what do they call it in the tech world—binary relationship ever.”

  “Never heard anyone use that word in describing a man-woman relationship before. But I know what you mean: one minute it’s love and the next minute, hate?”

  “Okay, so now we are talking about it . . . . I loved him very much in the first years after we married. He’d been a college sweetheart, and we grew closer together as we went into our senior year. I think we both knew that after we graduated, we’d drift apart if we didn’t do something. So, he took me out to a fancy downtown restaurant and proposed over dessert and champagne—which I knew was going to happen. There was nothing subtle about it—and there was nothing subtle about Bruce. You always knew what he wanted long before he said it.”

  “Was he a jock? Most jocks are like that.”

  “He wasn’t on any of the school teams, but he was always playing intramural sports. Whatever the sport of the season was, that’s what he was playing. He lived the life of a jock without being a real jock. And, of course, that meant going out with the guys, watching every fucking sport on TV, and talking jock talk.”

  “Doesn’t seem like your type. How did you get past that?”

  “His charm. And warmth—and the fun. He was popular around campus.”

  “Chick magnet?”

  “Yes, I guess. It seemed there was always competition to be his date, or be seen with him.”

  “I’m surprised, you seem so strong and self-assured; like you don’t need anyone to validate yourself.”

  “That was then, and I was a different person. I didn’t have any self-assurance in those days. I had good grades, a lot of girlfriends, but few boyfriends. But Bruce was a tough guy, and he pushed me to be tough just like him. After we married, he refused to take my side in disputes with friends or contractors. If I complained to him about being treated unfairly, or some slight, hoping he’d take my side and fix it, he’d say, ‘It’s your problem, don’t look for me to be your daddy. You take care of it—and don’t lose!’ So that’s why I’m who I am now.”

  “He was a real softy, then?” Jim said with a wry smile.

  “Ha, yes, a real softy . . . . But I could have dealt with that—if it wasn’t for the other things.”

  “The real things?”

  “Yes, two things. The friction over them added up to the hating point. It wasn’t continuous, by the way, but too frequently.”

  “Such as?”

  “He never stopped being one of the boys. Going out without even asking me if I wanted to go along. Staying out, drinking after Padres or Chargers games, or after their all-important summertime, slow-pitch softball games. Coming back half drunk and belligerent if I asked any questions; on and on. That stuff and his Mission Bay Sports Club ‘meetings’,” using air quotes to emphasize the word meetings. “A group of guys that thought they were still in high school and acted about the same.”

  “What happened?”

  “Fights. We’d fight, if you want to call it that. He’d do all the hitting, and I’d do all the hurting.”

  “He was abusing you? Why did you stay around?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I thought it was all about learning to live in a marriage and compromising.”

  “Sounds like you did all the compromising.”

  “I did—except for one thing . . . the other thing.”

  “What was the other thing?”

  “Children; I refused to have children. And that was a big problem for him. He thought we should have kids like everyone else. But I did not want to bring kids into a marriage I had concerns about. He thought that threatened his manhood and such bullshit.”

  “Sounds horrible, fighting all the time . . . .”

  “No, things would be okay for a while—until the next time. I mean it wasn’t weekly or anything like that. It was more like a few times a year. Things would go well between us; we’d go riding with friends, or sometimes on weekend trips to fun places around Southern California. There were some nice guys and wives or girlfriends in the group, and it would all seem worth it—until the next blowup.”

  “So, is that how things were—at a standoff until . . . until the crash?”

  “No, I walked out on him ar
ound a year before that happened. I decided I wasn’t going to keep dealing with it.”

  “But why were you with him when the crash happened?”

  “He kept after me to move back by trying to get me involved with our friends again, thinking having fun with them would make me come back. They were all going to Borrego Springs for a music weekend, which had always been one of our group’s favorite things. So, we were riding in a group—a very loose grouping—spaced safely apart, not like a pack of bikes, you know? More like pairs of bikes spaced several car lengths apart. That’s why I think the accident happened; the jerk didn’t want to wait for us all to pass and tried to dart in between the pair in front of us and Bruce and me.”

  “You must have had very mixed—sorry, that’s the word you used—feelings about it ending that way.”

  “I did. I was lost at times, and at other times I told myself it was my time to get a new start. After a few months I realized it wasn’t because I’d lost a love I’d never be able to replace, but more just the feeling of being alone again. Finally, I started dealing with it: putting on my mental armor every morning—Bruce taught me that—along with my make-up and favorite clothes, and going out into the world and throwing myself into my job.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “The crash was a little over four years ago.”

  Jim took Penny’s hand, nodding his head. They sat together in silence as the sun settled below the horizon and the mood lights in the lounge came on. People started drifting into the bar.

  Twenty-One - Closing In

  “Why are we still doing this if they have the fuckin’ notebook, Tommy?”

  “They want to find out who she talked to about it—and whether she made any copies and gave them to someone,” Tommy answered.

  “Look at this map; nothing but desert. What are we supposed to do, drive up 160 to 163 and go through Monument Valley, then back to 160 and over to Farmington on 164. That’s supposed to be the ‘Easy Rider’ route. There’s nothing out there except the park and a bunch of little Indian villages along the way.”