Speed Metal Blues: A Dan Reno Novel

by Dave Stanton

  “You think they’ll proceed with the case?” I asked Ruby.

  “I doubt it. The DA here is a woman I’ve known for years. She seemed to think the charges probably don’t have much merit.”

  “They don’t, especially considering the source.”

  “Be careful. Joe Norton may be an ex-con, but he has rights like anyone else.”

  I considered his remarks as he drove us the five minutes to where Cody’s truck was parked on the side of the road near the Horizon Casino. “The cops who arrested us,” I said. “Did you get their names?”

  Ruby pulled a pad of paper from his briefcase. “Pete Saxton and Dave Boyce.”

  “Thanks for everything, Sam.”

  Cody and I climbed into Cody’s truck as Ruby drove away. He would send me a bill later for his services. It would probably be at least a thousand dollars. Shit, I thought. My flush financial situation wouldn’t last long at this rate. Other issues aside, going after Jason Loohan was turning out to be a bad business decision.

  But I had another, more pressing concern, one that had been gnawing at me since Candi called yesterday. She was the only woman I’d had serious thoughts about in three years. Every time I reminded myself she’d be here in a few days, I felt a warm buzz of anticipation in my heart, followed by a lump of unease. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. To say it would be awkward if Cody and I were running around trying to find Loohan while she was here would be an understatement. Worse, having her stay at my house potentially gave Loohan a target for a hostage. I felt my teeth grinding and opened my jaw, trying to relax the muscles.

  I had fried my first and only marriage, the result of my inability to deal with the fallout from my career. My ex-wife was a good woman, and I suppose she had wanted what I thought most women want—a reasonably sober man with a steady job and positive prospects for the future, a man who could be a good husband and father. Given what I was going through at the time, it was too much to ask. I remember telling myself that my downward spiral into the world of 2 A.M. dive bars was normal, just a way to wash the taste of death out of my system. By the time I realized my rationale was bullshit, my wife was long gone.

  “Goddammit, Cody,” I said. “We could be just spinning our wheels here. We have no evidence Loohan is still around.”

  “We saw tire tracks in Norton’s garage,” Cody said. “My gut tells me he’s out there. I don’t think Norton was lying when he said Loohan would find us.”

  I sighed. It had been three days since our run-in with Loohan, and besides Norton’s comments, we’d turned up no solid evidence he was still in the area. I was beginning to think that if he wanted to come after us, he would have already done so.

  “I guess we could politely knock on the door and inquire if Mr. Norton could direct us to Loohan,” Cody said, steering off the shoulder onto the road.

  “I suppose there’s no law against that.”

  “His house is only five minutes away.”

  We didn’t say much on the way there. I was tired from the lousy night’s sleep, hungry after missing dinner and skipping the lousy jailhouse breakfast, and feeling lousy about the fact that an ex-con lowlife like Norton had not only arranged to have us arrested, but was also the only lead we had in the search for a man who was either long gone or possibly nearby, waiting for the right moment to take us out of the equation permanently.

  I rubbed the fatigue from my eyes as Cody turned onto the street where Norton lived. We could see his blue Chevelle in the driveway from a dozen houses away.

  “Looks like he’s home this time,” I said, while we parked across the street.

  “Just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll bring your shotgun,” Cody said.

  “Better safe than sorry, my mother always told me.”

  We walked up to the front door and when I knocked, the door swung open a few inches. The jamb had not been repaired from the night before.

  “Hello? Tahoe Gas and Electric here,” Cody said loudly.

  No one replied. I pushed the door open all the way.

  “Gas and Electric,” Cody repeated, louder. No reply.

  We looked at each other. “Maybe he’s asleep,” I said. “He seems to keep late hours.”

  “Wait here,” Cody said. “I’ll go see if I can look in his bedroom window.” While Cody walked to the side yard, I stepped inside the house and took a quick look. Not a light was on; the place was still—too still. I retreated to the porch and stood motionless, straining my ears for the slightest sound. It was warm in the shade, the sky almost cloud free, the afternoon turning unseasonably hot.

  “Ah, shit,” Cody said, coming around the corner of the house. Trouble, his eyes said.

  “What?”

  “Norton ain’t gonna help us find Loohan. Someone painted the walls with his brains.”

  • • •

  Through the bedroom window, I could see Norton’s body sprawled on his blood-soaked mattress. He wore only boxer shorts, his muscular torso bare, the pale, tattooed skin coated in congealed blood. By my count he’d taken at least a half-dozen bullets to the chest, and one to the head, a kill shot above his left eye that had indeed blown bits of his gray matter onto the wall above the headboard.

  I started dialing 911, then cancelled the call and punched in the numbers for Marcus Grier’s mobile phone.

  “Hello, Dan,” he said. He sounded like he was in an upbeat mood. I wondered what effect my next words would have on his emotional state.

  “Hi, Marcus. Listen, I need to update you on a couple things. Cody and I got a tip Jason Loohan was hanging with Joe Norton, who lives at a house on Zane Avenue, right across the state line.”

  “Yeah, I know where it is.”

  “Anyway, we met with Norton yesterday, and he was less than cooperative. Things got a little rough, nothing major, but he filed charges against us with Nevada PD. We were brought in last night by the two cops who were hassling the Mexican gangbangers at the Pinewood Apartments. Pete Saxton and Dave Boyce are their names.”

  “Those two, huh?”

  “Yeah. So, after spending the night in the Douglas County holding tank, we decided to talk with Norton again. But when we got here, we found him dead. Shot to death.”

  “What? Are you there now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you called 911?”

  “I wanted to let you know first, Marcus. I’d appreciate it if you could drive over here and be present. I’m not sure what to expect if Saxton and Boyce come out.”

  Grier didn’t say anything for a long moment. I knew he was wrestling with the fact that Nevada was out of his jurisdiction, but the two Douglas County plainclothesmen had trampled over Grier’s turf previously, on their own volition and without the slightest courtesy.

  “Call 911 now,” Grier said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  16

  Two squad cars arrived first, bubble lights on, their engines revving as they came down the street. Cody and I stood on the sidewalk as four uniforms poured out of the vehicles.

  “In the bedroom,” I said, jerking my thumb at the house. Three of them began scouting around the outside of the structure, probably hoping to find evidence and score points without disturbing the crime scene. A young patrolman stayed by our side, removing his sunglasses and squinting at us as if we were an alien species.

  “Which one of you called this in?” he said, pen poised over his call book.

  “Me,” I said. My eyes were focused down the street, from which direction I could hear the whine of a siren.

  “Can I see your ID, please?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said, as an ambulance followed by a white van turned onto the street and bore down on us. The vehicles stopped and two paramedics in blue coveralls wheeled a gurney to the front porch. A slender man in a brown sport coat walked around them and into the house, his pace steady and measured.

  “Your ID?” the patrolman asked again.

  “It’s in the truck,” I said, a
nd then we were distracted by the sound of rubber squealing on pavement. An unmarked car fishtailed around the corner and hammered down the lane, its tires raising a plume of brown dust. The passenger braced his hands on the dashboard as the driver jammed the brakes, and the sedan screeched to a stop at the curb. Their side arms were leveled at us when they jumped out of the car.

  “On your knees, hands on top of your head,” Dave Boyce yelled.

  “Hey,” Cody said. “We’re the ones who called it in.”

  “Do it now!”

  I shook my head in exasperation. “A couple of real cowboys,” Cody muttered.

  Boyce cuffed us while Saxton began reading us our rights.

  “Excuse me, Officer Saxton, but what are the charges?” I said.

  “You show up at Norton’s house, and he ends up dead, and you gotta ask?”

  “How about murder one, tough guy?” Boyce said, cranking the cuffs down on my wrists.

  “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense,” I replied. “We killed him, then called 911.”

  “I never did think you were too bright.” Boyce said.

  “Your ME is in there looking at the body,” Cody said. “He’s probably already determined Norton was shot while we were enjoying your hospitality.”

  “It’s an honor to be around such experts,” Saxton said. He and Boyce walked into the house and left us kneeling on the sidewalk. I could feel the hot sun beating on the back of my neck and the steel cuffs digging into my wrists. We sat there for a minute or two, until Marcus Grier pulled up.

  Grier stepped out of his cruiser, his eyes shaded under his sheriff’s cap, a sheen of sweat on his dark jowls, the skin shining like polished walnut. Mouth downturned, he took in the scene, and said, “Saxton and Boyce?”

  I nodded. “They’re inside.”

  “Over here,” he said, motioning for us move out of the sun.

  Cody and I stood and walked into the shade of the single tree on Norton’s lawn, where Grier waited, his hands on his hips below his gun belt.

  “Hey, I didn’t say you could move,” the young patrolman said.

  “It’s all right,” Grier said to him. He started to object but stopped when he saw the look on Grier’s face.

  “Marcus, this arrest is nothing but harassment,” I said. “Could you do me a favor? My cell is in Cody’s truck. The number for my attorney is in the address book. Once I talk to him, he’ll call the Douglas County DA and shut this bullshit down.”

  Grier nodded and retrieved my phone. He found and dialed the number for me, and I was cradling the phone and talking to Sam Ruby when the man in the brown sport jacket came out of the house.

  “That’s the medical examiner,” Cody said to Grier. “Ask him how long Norton’s been dead.”

  Grier intercepted the brown-jacketed man and they had a brief conversation. The man then told the paramedics it was okay to go inside, before continuing to his van and driving off.

  Grier walked back to where we stood. “He estimates the time of death around two A.M.”

  “We were in the Douglas County roach hotel from eight last night until noon today. So there’s no way we could have killed him,” Cody said.

  I finished talking to my lawyer. “If they bring us in for this, Ruby says he’ll have us out by nightfall.”

  Grier didn’t say anything, waiting with us for the detectives to reappear. The uniformed cops began cordoning the area with yellow crime scene tape, trying to figure a way to cover the perimeter of the driveway and front yard.

  By the time the paramedics wheeled Norton’s bagged corpse out the front door, we’d been standing under the shade tree for half an hour. A minute later Saxton and Boyce finally stepped out into the yard. Saxton held a brown grocery bag in one hand. He ignored us while he walked to his car and locked the bag in the trunk.

  “What are you doing here?” Boyce said to Grier.

  “I hear Joe Norton’s been murdered,” Grier said.

  “What’s it to you?” Boyce said.

  “He was a person of interest in my department’s investigation of drug dealing around the Pine Mountain Apartments.”

  “Norton lived in Nevada and died in Nevada, Sheriff,” Saxton said as he walked up, one eye squinted shut against the sun.

  “Members of Norton’s gang were feuding with a Mexican gang over turf at the apartments, in California,” Grier said. “I think Norton’s murder is probably connected. What do you think?”

  “You let us deal with it,” Boyce hissed, his voice charged with a seething energy, as if a cattle prod had been shoved up his ass. But Saxton’s demeanor had definitely shifted. The irreverent smirk on his face was gone, replaced with an expression of uncertainty, I thought, or perhaps it was something else. Something not good.

  Saxton stepped behind us and unlocked our cuffs. “You’re cleared,” he said simply. We rubbed our wrists, facing him and Boyce.

  “You think Jason Loohan was involved in this?” Saxton said.

  “Don’t know what his motivation would be,” I said. “I’d heard him and Norton had been together, but I don’t know what their relationship was.”

  The five of us stood there looking at each other. Boyce glared at Cody and Grier and me, but no one said a thing. Finally, Saxton handed me his card.

  “We’ll be on the lookout for Loohan,” he said. “You get any ideas where he is, call me.”

  The Nevada cops left after that, the detectives and uniforms driving away slowly, as if unclear what direction they were heading.

  “What the hell, numb-nuts throws us in jail and now he wants to be your asshole buddy?” Cody said, and began walking to his truck.

  I shrugged at Grier. “Thanks for coming out, Marcus. Sorry if this screwed up your day.”

  Grier raised his cap, smiling and letting the sun hit his face. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth looked less pronounced than I remembered, and his dark skin took on a vibrant glow. He suddenly seemed transformed into a man basking in a newfound serenity.

  “No problem, Mr. Reno. Like Saxton said, Norton’s murder is Nevada’s problem. Look at that, not a cloud in the sky. This weather is something, isn’t it?”

  • • •

  “I’m so hungry I could eat half a horse’s ass,” Cody declared as we crossed the state line into California.

  “As long as you don’t eat the ass whole.”

  “I see a night in jail has done nothing to diminish your wry sense of humor.”

  “Let’s go pound some burgers at the Redwood Tavern. Take a right up here.”

  “They serve beer by the pitcher?”

  Cody parked near the front door. The place was nearly empty at three in the afternoon. The building was just off the beach, and offered a wide view of the lake from the windows behind the bar. A few patrons sat out on the sundeck under umbrellas, sipping drinks and enjoying the weather. Previous to becoming the Redwood Tavern, the restaurant was called the Tahoe Mining Company, or something similar, and the new management had kept the wood plank décor, the yellow lanterns, even the mining paraphernalia mounted on the walls.

  We sat at the bar and ordered half-pound burgers and a pitcher of Bud. Cody downed his first beer in one long swallow.

  “That’s better,” he said, wiping his mouth and pouring another. “Any ideas on what happened to Norton?”

  I drank from my beer and studied the lake. “Looked like a professional hit. Someone must have caught him asleep and emptied a clip into him.”

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “A guy like Norton…could be any number of things.”

  “True, but let’s get specific here, Dirt. You saw some of Norton’s boys at the table where the Mexican gangbangers were dealing. That means HCU is in the drug trade. More than that, to be blatantly encroaching on another gang’s turf, it means they’re into it in a serious way.”

  I nodded, though I didn’t see how HCU’s activities might be connected to Jason Loohan.

  “So, let’s assume, for the sak
e of argument, Norton’s death is drug related. Who would want him dead? The Mexican gang, for one, right?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Seems like they would have motive.”

  Cody fell silent. “Okay, then,” he said after a long pause, “let’s assume Loohan’s relationship with Norton was business related, to some degree. So Loohan’s involved in the drug aspect.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Maybe Loohan killed Norton for drug money.”

  “Hell,” I said, “maybe Loohan killed him so he could take Norton’s spot as the leader of HCU.”

  Cody started to smile, but it was more like a grimace. “That’s a stretch,” he said. “Loohan’s more of a loner, don’t you think?”

  “He seems to be.” A wave of weariness swept over me, and I remembered I’d not slept much the night prior. I rubbed at my unshaven face, the skin oily to the touch.

  “What about the Douglas County detectives?” I said. “Did you catch Saxton’s attitude when he came out of the house?”

  “Yeah. Like he’d been bitch-slapped. My guess is Norton was paying him off.”

  “I think we need to go have a talk with the remaining HCU boys,” I said. “Without their leader around, we probably have a better chance at learning whatever they know about Loohan.”

  “Your friend, the guitar hero? What’s his name?”

  “Tom.”

  “Right. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see us again.”

  “I don’t give a shit whether he’s happy or not.”

  A waitress came out of the kitchen and served us our late lunch, the first food I’d had in twenty-four hours. The salty flavor of the ground beef and onions was a blessing, and with each bite I felt my energy return. Cody and I devoured our meals without conversation, and when we were finished, he ordered another pitcher.

  “If we don’t find Loohan by Wednesday morning, I say we call it quits,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know. Your broad is coming to town.”

  “I’d like to get this shit behind us before she does. Cancel the beer and let’s get back to work.”