Speed Metal Blues: A Dan Reno Novel

by Dave Stanton

  Outside the law, living by his own rules, judge, jury, and executioner. At least Cody made no pretense of it. He had deemed the world would be better off without Jason Loohan, and so be it.

  Juan, Cody, and I stood there, stars twinkling above in the black sky. For a moment I experienced a sense of joyful relief. An evil man who attempted to kill me and those close to me was dead. The threat removed, I could move on with my life. I could tend to my home and make a living and try again to have a steady relationship with a woman. I could try to lead a normal existence.

  But I knew the death of an amoral person is always a hollow victory. I’d long ago conceded the population of lowlife sadists is inexhaustible. Their kind is replenished continually from an aberrant gene pool no science or law can remedy. In a world where violent criminality is woven into the fabric of every society, salvation is at best a temporary state.

  “He would have died anyway from the gut shot,” Cody said, walking past me. “Besides, I was just tired of messing with the guy.” I smiled despite myself. I could always count on Cody to simplify things and bring my philosophical musings to an end. Good-bye, Loohan. Rot in hell. God love Cody Gibbons.

  • • •

  We never saw the kid from Luther Conrad’s garage again. I imagine he’d scampered off into the woods somewhere, but I didn’t care. I’d dealt with enough grief for the day.

  Cody stripped off his pants and shirt so Teresa could cover herself. He carried her on his back to save her bare feet from the rough terrain while we walked down the trail. Cody, in his boxers, carrying Teresa piggyback. Quite a sight.

  I fell back to where Juan walked behind us.

  “You okay, partner?”

  “I feel fine.”

  “How’d you manage to get behind Loohan?”

  “I saw him coming my way, but I hid behind a tree before he saw me. When he went by, I jumped on his back.”

  “You’re one brave kid.”

  “He said he would kill me. I’m happy Cody shot him.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  “Sorry for what? Those men would have murdered us.”

  “I’m glad that didn’t happen.”

  “Si. So am I.”

  I patted him on the shoulder and we continued without further conversation.

  “Are we in California or Nevada?” Cody said when we got to my truck. He lowered Teresa into the cab.

  I thought about it for a second. “I don’t know exactly. Right on the border.”

  “Why don’t you call Grier, then? I don’t feel like dealing with any of those dildos from Nevada.”

  “First things first,” I said, pulling a flashlight from my gearbox.

  I pointed the light at Luther’s Continental and went through it, careful not to leave prints. On the floor of the rear seat was a bottle of ether and a couple of rags, no doubt used in the kidnapping of Juan and Teresa. Aside from that, the interior and trunk were empty. When I swung the light around on the way back to my truck, it flashed across something metallic in the trees. An off-road motorcycle, covered with pine branches.

  A pair of leather saddlebags was attached to the rear fender. “Jason Loohan’s worldly possessions,” I said.

  “Who cares?” Cody said.

  “The guy was a bitch to hunt down. Maybe I can learn something about him.”

  “Whatever floats your boat, Dirt.”

  • • •

  Marcus Grier wasn’t too happy to hear from me, being well past his quitting time, but he seemed pleased to learn Jason Loohan was no longer among the cast of troublesome characters running around Lake Tahoe. Not pleased enough to come out in person, though—instead a couple patrolmen and two detectives showed up, followed by the meat wagon.

  They managed to haul Loohan’s body out, but picking Luther Conway out of the trees would have to wait until daylight. Grier must have put in a good word for us, because the cops let us go after a single round of questioning, apparently seeing no indication of criminal wrongdoing on our part. They seemed more fascinated by the demonic symbols in the clearing. “Pretty weird shit for a place like South Lake Tahoe,” one said.

  We packed into my truck, Teresa sitting on Cody’s lap, and Juan crushed in the middle. I drove us to the Stateline Emergency Center, where Cody insisted a physician confirm the ether would have no residual effects. We left Juan and Teresa after arranging for Teresa’s agent to drive them home upon the doctor’s release. It was getting on to eleven when we finally headed toward my place.

  “I’m ready for whiskey and I’m starving,” I said.

  “You always get drunk after a case, don’t you?”

  I thought about it for a second. “If it involves death, yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Probably because I just want to forget about it.”

  “Well, in this case, I’d say we have reason to celebrate. So, cheer up. Let’s go mix some highballs and barbeque those steaks in your fridge.”

  I sighed, knowing a boisterous drunk would not happen. Oblivion was probably the best I could hope for.

  23

  When we got to my house, I wheeled the barbeque from the garage onto the deck, while Cody mixed the drinks. I powered down a whiskey-seven and took a cigarette from his pack and leaned on my deck railing and watched the smoke twirl off into the darkness. I felt insentient, like I was in a dazed stupor. I always felt that way in the hours after a shooting.

  I walked back inside, where Cody was clattering about in the kitchen.

  “Grill hot yet?” he said, holding a plate of raw meat.

  “Should be.”

  “You okay? You got that thousand-yard stare.”

  “Hold on,” I said, and walked out to my truck and unlocked the box welded to the bed. Loohan’s saddlebags lay atop my gear. I held the bags in my hands. It felt a little eerie possessing the property of a man who died trying to kill me.

  I went back inside and dropped the bags onto the kitchen table. They were stuffed full, probably packed with clothes, I thought. I popped the snaps on one bag and pulled out two pairs of rolled-up jeans, socks, and a couple T-shirts. I opened the second bag, and beneath some more shirts was a cellophane-encased block about the size of a brick. Within the plastic, the contents were a dull green.

  Outside, Cody was cooking the hell out of the steaks, smoke billowing from the barbeque like the house was on fire. I hustled over and turned the propane to low.

  “Christ, come inside before someone calls the fire department,” I said. “I got something to show you.”

  He followed me to the kitchen table, and I peeled away the plastic wrap. Bundles of money started falling out. Thick bundles, all hundreds.

  “Cowabunga!” Cody opened a packet and began counting.

  “Five grand,” he said.

  “Times sixteen,” I said, the cash spread across the table.

  “Yo ho ho and a bucket of piss!”

  “Drug money,” I said.

  “Who gives a shit? It all spends the same.”

  I stared at bills, briefly wondering what Loohan might have done to come into possession of eighty grand. Something bloody, I assumed. Whatever it was, I hoped the knowledge of it died with him.

  “Probably only cost five thousand or so to get Juan and Teresa’s parents into the US,” I said.

  “I’m having lunch with her tomorrow, before I head back to San Jose. I’ll make the arrangements.”

  “Maybe put a chunk in a college fund for Juan, huh?”

  “I’d say the brave little dude deserves it. Did you really teach him that sleeper hold?”

  “Never thought he’d use it.”

  “Here’s to him. He may have saved our asses.”

  I took a big slug from my glass, and a grin took hold on my face. It felt like a long since I smiled like that, and it felt good, damn good. Some days, the world did seem like a better place.

  Cody laughed and backhanded my shoulder. “Come on, man, let’
s drink.”

  • • •

  And drink we did. When I crawled out of bed the next morning, my head was aching and my pad was littered with beer cans and an empty whiskey bottle lay shattered against the fireplace. I staggered to the refrigerator and drained a Budweiser, the can clicking against my teeth. Nothing like an ice-cold beer to start the day. Just one, I told myself, while a quiet little nudge in my chest said, just a few more, why not? When I was younger, I might have stayed on a roll for days. But now I knew better. Eventually you learn. That’s how age and experience works, I guess.

  After guzzling water, vitamins, and aspirin, I went to work straightening up the place, hoping to make it presentable for Candi’s arrival in the afternoon. Then I fell onto the couch and slept for a while, until Cody woke me.

  “Time for me to hit the road, Dirt.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “Thanks for your help, buddy.”

  He waved me off, and I walked outside with him.

  “You got any plans for your share of the loot?” I asked.

  He squinted out toward the lake, where the sun cast a shimmering brilliance over the water.

  “Something tells me I’ll spend it,” he said. “Listen, I’ll drive back up next week so we can watch Teresa’s debut.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  He started his oversize diesel rig, winked and gave me the thumbs up, then drove off, his tires humming on the pavement until he turned the corner and was gone.

  When I walked back inside, my cell was ringing. Marcus Grier.

  “Sleep well last night?” he asked.

  “Like a goddamned baby.”

  “So did I, to be honest,” he said, as if he was perplexed by the fact. Then he cleared his throat. “I’ve got an update for you, Mr. Reno. They caught the man suspected of murdering Dave Boyce and Joe Norton.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Actually, caught is the wrong word. Douglas County SWAT set up a stake-out last night at Pete Saxton’s house, and at two A.M. they killed an intruder. Probably the most violent shootout ever in this area. Over fifty rounds fired.”

  “Crazy, man. Who was the guy?”

  “They think a cartel assassin from south of the border. DEA in El Paso is working on an identification.”

  “Is he linked to Diablos Sierra?”

  “Don’t know yet, but immigration agents are already heading here to look into it.”

  “Sounds like the local drug trade is in trouble.”

  “Hell, I’d settle for a quiet month or two.”

  “Amen to that, Sheriff.”

  “Is Gibbons still at your place?”

  “No, he left for San Jose this morning.”

  “Well, there may be hope for us yet,” he said, and I chuckled along with him.

  24

  Candi’s two-night stay turned into a week, a series of lazy afternoons in bed and breezy nights out on the town. The week felt like a vacation of sorts, a stark contrast to my solitary home life. I finally conceded it was more than just sex and good company—her casual nature and quirky sense of humor brought a lightness to my life I had long been without. She made me feel like a different person, a better person. When she took off back to Elko, I offered she move in if she got the job she interviewed for at the community college.

  The day after she left, Marcus Grier told me the members of the Diablos Sierra gang had been rounded up and deported, based on alleged ties to the same drug cartel believed to have sent Dave Boyce’s and Joe Norton’s assassin to South Lake Tahoe. All were deported, except for their leader, Rodrigo, who contacted a staph infection and died in the local hospital.

  But that news was soon eclipsed by the reported disappearance of three high-ranking executives from Pistol Pete’s Casino. My eyes bugged at two of the names: Vinnie Tuma, nephew to mobster Salvatore Tuma, and John Switton, who was named as legal owner of the casino. The FBI came to town to investigate and two young agents interrogated me three times at my home. Yes, I know who Salvatore Tuma is. Yes, I know he used to own Pistol Pete’s. No, never met Vinnie Tuma. Never met Vic Severino, either. Met John Switton twice. Seemed like somebody you wouldn’t want to mess with. What else? He had a mentally disabled son who played the hell out of the drums.

  And that was it. Because what else could I tell them? I had no idea what happened to the missing men. No bodies, no evidence of foul play, their homes intact as if they might show up at any moment.

  The resulting void of ownership at Pistol Pete’s created a huge headache for the Nevada gaming commission, as John Switton had no known heirs, other than Robert, who was also missing. Eventually, to save the casino and the jobs it provided, the operation was put up at state auction and acquired by a casino management company out of Las Vegas.

  As an afterthought, I drove to Zeke’s one night after the agents left my house, curious if members of HCU were still hanging around. Not only were they not there, but a white sign on the door said CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. A half-dozen times I called the number I had for Zak Papas, and each call went straight to voice mail.

  On the same day Cody rolled back into town for Teresa’s performance, Candi called to tell me she got the job and would take me up on my offer to move in.

  “What’s next, a couple kids?” Cody asked.

  “Like the woman in Reno said, I’m not complex enough to handle parenthood.”

  “Who said that?”

  “The one with the big fake melons, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. She’s probably right. I don’t think you’re complex enough to handle a steady woman, either.”

  “Thanks for the analysis, Doctor Freud.”

  “Anytime.”

  And so on, over slow beers at Whiskey Dick’s and a light dinner before heading to Pistol Pete’s show hall.

  The production was what I would call casual entertainment, some singing and dancing, a bit of hokey humor, the plot more a satire on spies than anything else. Then the lights went dim and Teresa came from behind the curtain, dressed in black and gold. The spotlight followed her to center stage, where she began to sing.

  The hundred or so people in the audience, many who had been chatting sporadically, went dead silent. Teresa’s voice filled the air with presence, the notes soaring with a clarity and fullness unlike anything I’d heard. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, a strange sensation.

  She finished the song, and the small crowd erupted in applause.

  “Damn, look at the goose bumps on my arm,” Cody said.

  When the show ended, we met Teresa and her manager at the casino coffee shop. Juan showed up a few minutes later, having missed his sister’s performance because he was working the dinner shift at the Redwood Tavern.

  “You’ll have plenty more opportunities to see Teresa perform, I assure you,” the manager said. A gay, clean-cut Woody Allen. “Give me a few months, I’ll have this girl on stage in Vegas. And that’s just the beginning.”

  “Teresa, you need a bodyguard to keep the paparazzi away, you know who to call,” Cody said. Teresa laughed and leaned into Cody’s arm, her eyes delighted.

  “I want to thank you men from saving her from those horrible, devil-worshipping perverts,” the manager said with a shudder.

  “Give Juan credit, too,” I said.

  “Dan, don’t forget, tomorrow nine A.M., at my school.”

  “Shit, is that tomorrow?”

  “And he’s supposed to be Mr. Organized,” Cody said. “Dirt, maybe I better come along to make sure you don’t stick your foot in your mouth.”

  “No,” I said automatically, then I said it again.

  “I don’t think it’s that bad of an idea,” Juan said. “Cody, it would be great if you would come.”

  Oh boy.

  • • •

  First period, Thursday morning, South Lake High School, looking out at thirty teenagers in skinny jeans, baggy jeans, black concert Ts, braces, wristbands, various degrees of acne.

  “Uh, good morning,
kids. My name’s Dan Reno, and this is my partner and good friend, Cody Gibbons. We’re licensed private investigators and fugitive recovery agents, or bounty hunters. A career in this field could mean working for a firm, or working for yourself, as Cody and I do. If you work for yourself, in many ways it’s like running a small business. You need to have an accounting system so you can bill clients and keep track, and—”

  “Dan, hold on a sec,” Cody interrupted. “How many of you guys out there know what a sleeper hold is? Some of you? Good. I’m not going to demonstrate because it’s a very dangerous move, but it’s a darn good thing Juan Perez knew how to pull it off, because just last week we had some trouble with a murderous degenerate, who Juan wrestled and knocked out cold. That’s right, he did, and if not for that, I might not be here talking to you today.”

  “Juan did that?” said a girl, dark hair streaked with blond, blue mascara, testing the school dress code with her tanned cleavage and short jean skirt.

  “That’s right, hot stuff,” Cody said. “The man was armed, too.”

  “Wow.” She looked at Juan in a way that made me think he would probably soon be dealing with a new type of challenge in his life.

  “Hey, Perez, way to go, dude,” said another student, a big white kid. Juan smiled and blushed.

  I started again. “As I was saying, from a business point of view—”

  “Do you carry a gun?” a student asked.

  “Yes, at times.”

  “Often is more like it,” Cody interjected. “Let me tell you, the ability to use a firearm can mean the difference between life and death. I remember once….”

  And that’s the way it went. Forty-five minutes later, and the students were still clamoring for more of Cody’s stories. I managed to slip in a few sentences here and there, trying to provide a little perspective on the realities of the job. But I was just boring them. Besides, Cody was a natural in front of a group, so I finally sat back and enjoyed the show. What else could I do?