“I know we’ve locked horns, but I always appreciated the quality of the work you did. Would of done yourself a favor if you could of kept a lid on your emotions a little more.”
“I wish I hadn’t threatened you, and I want to apologize for that.”
“What’s done is done. Point is, you get sprung tomorrow. And when you’re walking around on the outside I got a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to think about me.”
“That’s all?”
“Finito.”
Quiet minutes pass and then Jimmy hears snoring. Hard does not say another word for the rest of the night. The air is cool in the cells and the smell of disinfectant fills his nostrils. Jimmy does not sleep. As he lies there staring at the caged light he considers how the consequences of our behavior adhere to us as we move through life and concludes that if Hard is the author of his situation so Jimmy’s destiny will be his own to seize. He knows his brother Randall has put him here. At least he thinks he’s certain of that. Or is there a possibility that Randall is not behind Jimmy’s current situation? He wonders if events occur that do not fit into a pattern, outliers that impede rational analysis? What happens when there is no sense to be made of a situation?
As Jimmy turns this over, he reflects that tonight might not be the worst time to be in a jail cell since it will keep him from doing something he might live to regret.
From his days burgling pharmacies for ingredients to sell to meth factories, House Cat knows independent businesses are easier to break into than chain stores since their burglar alarms are often less elaborate. For this reason, he is lying in the back seat of Odin’s Impala in the parking lot behind Jojo’s High Desert Pharmacy, a few miles outside of Victorville. The business is in a strip mall with a hardware store, a nail salon, a fried chicken restaurant, and an insurance broker. In the two hours he’s been there a patrol car has driven by twice at forty-minute intervals. He’s got burglar’s tools with him and when the tail lights of the patrol car vanish down the highway a third time, he grabs them and walks across the parking lot to the back of the building.
It takes him about ten minutes to disable the system, then once he is inside another ten minutes to pry open the locked cabinets and locate enough anti-anxiety meds to treat a herd of neurotic elephants. By three in the morning he is back in the motel room where he hands them over to a grateful Odin.
http://WWW.DESERT-MACHIAVELLI.COM
11.6 – 11:53 P.M.
Election post-script. The Machiavelli is a little bleary-eyed right now. I got back a little while ago from an incognito appearance at the Duke victory celebration where I had a few too many Singapore Slings. I’ll get my thoughts together when I wake up and post them when my hangover wears off.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Kendra and Randall return to their house in Little Tuscany after one in the morning. When they are certain Brittany has gone to bed they share a nightcap in the kitchen. Still in the dress she wore to the party, Kendra has kicked off her pumps and put her feet on a chair at the kitchen table. Randall has taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. He is pouring them each a snifter of brandy. Holding the amber liquid up, Randall toasts his wife.
They clink glasses and sip the brandy. Having managed to suppress troublesome thoughts of Nadine so far this evening Kendra gazes over her snifter at her husband. Although he is exhausted, he shaved before the party and his helmet of political hair is perfect. He may have his faults as a spouse, she thinks, but when Nadine threatened to derail their plans, Congressman and Mrs. Randall Duke remained steady in the whirlwind.
“Does Harding Marvin being in jail bother you at all?”
“You know he killed an illegal, don’t you?”
“I read that in the paper.”
“So this is payback.”
Kendra takes another sip of the brandy, feels the burn in her throat. “You ever think we might get payback sometime?”
Randall smiles, the corners of his mouth barely turning up. He takes the bottle and refills his glass. He takes a sip and swishes the brandy around in his mouth, feeling the fire on his tongue and gums. With the toe of one shoe he pushes down the heel of the other and kicks it off. He scratches the sole of his foot then removes his other shoe. Stretching both legs in front of him, he puts the snifter on the table, places his hands behind his head linking his fingers and leans back. “If I worried about payback,” he says, “I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.”
“He could get the death penalty.”
“Better him than my brother.”
“That’s pretty cold.”
“You want to succeed in this business, you can’t worry about hurt feelings.”
Kendra considers Randall’s words. Life is a zero-sum game now and the world of politics exists as the unvarnished version of what Americans deal with each day. It’s a nation of winners and losers and Kendra believes if you’re not one, you’re the other. Losers don’t necessarily deserve to die, but Nadine’s mistake had been to get in the way of a winner. The further her death recedes, the easier this is to believe.
As Kendra thinks about what has happened over the past week, the stress and the strain and the endless inner gyrations, she vows it will be the last time she will allow guilt to dominate the more rational part of her mind. What is the point in feeling guilty? She hasn’t violated the rules. The way she sees it, she’s playing by them.
She and Randall finish their drinks and, hand in hand, retreat to their bedroom. There they climb into bed and, believing a celebratory gesture is required, proceed to have sex for the first time in over a year.
Wallet, belt and cell phone returned, Jimmy sits with his fellow prisoners in an enclosed area to the side of the courtroom and listens as Judge Jaime Iglesias conducts examinations. His short gray hair is side-parted and horn-rimmed glasses lend him a professorial air. He moves swiftly through a drug deal, a burglary, shoplifting, and an assault. When Jimmy hears his name called he takes his place in front of the bench. He has appeared many times in front of the Judge in his capacity as a police detective. Iglesias raises his eyebrows when he sees him.
“Grand larceny and falsifying a police report?”
“I saved an innocent animal from a cruel fate, Judge.”
The magistrate is unmoved by this explanation. Jimmy enters a plea of not guilty and is surprised when he is not remanded to his own custody but informed that bail will be ten thousand dollars. The judge explains that, despite the circumstances—which he promises to listen to in great detail at the trial—it is nonetheless a serious crime and it would not look kosher were he to be seen as going easy on a former police detective and current employee of the District Attorney’s office. Jimmy is allowed a phone call that he uses to contact a bail bondsman he knows and is out in an hour. He doesn’t bother going to the office, a call to Oz Spengler confirming his suspicions: suspended without pay, pending the adjudication of the State of California v. James Raymond Duke. A marshal he knows at the courthouse gives him a ride in an unmarked back to the Cahuilla Casino so he can pick up his truck.
Jimmy sits in the passenger seat pleased the marshal does not try to engage him in conversation. Driving north on Highway 111, he gazes up at the sky where a jet is flying west. In the plane the passengers are settling in for the short flight. The interior is hushed, the only sound the roar of the jet engines. In Row 12, Seat A, a woman looks out the window at the desert below, sees the granite mountains with their rough skin of scrub vegetation encircling the green oasis of Palm Springs, and all of it surrounded by the endless brown plain of the vast desert floor. To Princess the vista seems remarkably neat and ordered. Chance King has already drifted off to sleep in the seat next to her. Removing the bottle from his mouth, she places it on the boy’s lap, then smoothes his hair. The trip to Los Angeles will take less than an hour. There they will change planes and board a flight to Manila. Princess knows she has
seen the last of Odin. He will not follow them. And she will not return to the desert.
On a private airfield in the western Mojave, a striking woman in designer sunglasses and a red Armani suit stands with four children. A twelve-passenger Gulf Stream jet is parked nearby, the morning sun sparking off its windows. It is a more recent model than the one on which she served as a stewardess and she contentedly reflects on how far she has travelled. From the hangar, her husband emerges with the pilot. He puts his arm around his wife and they herd their family on to the jet. After calling Randall Duke to congratulate him on his victory, the Swains stayed up late talking and sipping wine. Mary was spoiling for a recount, but Shad talked her out of it, explaining that it would look unseemly in a House race and no one likes a sore loser. The two of them agreed that the reason she lost was she did not aim high enough. They toasted a former politician who failed in his first race for the House of Representatives, before being elected Governor and then President. It was decided that two years hence Mary Swain would run for Governor of California. In the meantime, she and Shad would establish the Greater Freedom Foundation for the purpose of funneling money to candidates of their political stripe.
An offer for a reality show had arrived—the producers want to show how a busy politician/mom runs her brood while swimming in the shark-infested waters of electoral politics—and there is a book deal on the table. And she had lost! Imagine what will be hers when she is victorious. All of this confirms Mary Swain’s belief that the nation wants more of what she’s selling and that she, not the Randall Dukes of the world, represents tomorrow: a glamorous, child-bearing woman who can run with the lions.
The jet taxis down the runway and rises into the autumn sky. The Swain family is heading for Hawaii. There, the four children will gambol in tropical waters under the watchful eyes of a nanny (who signed a non-disclosure agreement when she took the job) while their parents take long walks on the white sands and plan for the coming days. In the evening, with a cool drink in her manicured hand, Mary Swain will stand on the beach and gaze east toward the star spangled shores of her future.
A restless night spent on an aqua-colored vinyl day bed in Maxon’s guestroom does not leave Dale in a good mood. Maxon scrambles some eggs for breakfast, then tells Dale to make himself comfortable in front of the television while he goes and runs a quick errand. Once more Dale asks about getting a gun for protection and Maxon tells him they will deal with that later.
Dale wheels himself into the bathroom to wash up. Having spent the previous three years in a state prison, he still can’t get accustomed to the grooming products on display in Maxon’s immaculate pink and white tiled bathroom. There is spiced pepper body wash, green tea under-eye ointment, skin-balance toning lotion, anti-aging cream, moisturizer, cleanser, and high-performance shaving gel. As Dale examines this panoply of self-indulgence he tries to envision Maxon on the yard in Calipatria and the incongruity of the image almost makes him laugh.
When Maxon returns he informs Dale they’re going for a ride.
“There’s a surprise for you,” Maxon says.
“I don’t need any more surprises,” Dale says.
“You’re going to like this one.”
“I can always give these guys your address, Maxon. You need to remember that.”
“We’re on the same side here, my friend. You’ll thank me when you see what’s coming.”
Maxon loads Dale’s substitute wheelchair in the backseat of the Toronado and they drive toward Indio, Maxon’s eyes hidden behind dark glasses. The car radio is tuned to a pop station and neither man talks. Dale thinks about Randall, how he needs to speak with him, to explain what has occurred, how he wanted to help and how he is collapsing inside now, how he feels that he has gone back to prison but the prison he’s in today is one from which he can never escape or be paroled. And he wants to receive absolution. These thoughts are interrupted when Maxon pulls on to a car lot, Lucky Bob’s Chevy, Dale looking around wondering what they’re doing here.
Maxon walks into the office as Dale gazes admiringly at the rows of clean, new sedans, four wheel drive vehicles, trucks and vans. Calculates once again how much he’s going to need for a down payment on something of his own.
Lying on his bed in prison, one of his most persistent fantasies involved an endless motorcycle ride, nothing but the sun, the wind and the eternal road. He has made his peace with his bad legs, and settled for the idea of movement. But the craving is as desperate as any he’s known and being on the lot of this auto dealership is stoking it this morning.
Maxon returns a minute later, opens the trunk, pulls Dale’s wheelchair out, rolls it to the passenger side and tells him to get in, he wants to show him something. Whether because of the beautiful morning or the aimlessness of a day that has allowed him to temporarily shove his troubles aside, Dale is in a more accommodating mood than usual and slides into the chair. Maxon starts to push it but Dale tells him to take his hands off he’ll do it himself. He rolls alongside Maxon until they’re standing in front of a brand new black Chevy sport utility vehicle.
“You like it?” Dale tells him he likes it fine. “Well, its yours.”
Dale stares at the vehicle for a moment, not sure if what he’s hearing is true. He says: “I’m not taking this.”
“What do you mean you’re not taking it? We got it fitted out with hand controls and everything.”
“Serious?”
“You can drive it right off the lot. Lucky Bob’s a friend of the campaign. The man believes in redemption, Dale. He wants you to have the vehicle.”
Dale looks from Maxon to the SUV, then back to Maxon. “Forget the damn vehicle. I need the money to pay those motherfuckers.”
“We can get you the money in a day or two. In the meantime, lets take it for a drive. You want to earn the money yourself, we’ll work out some kind of payment plan with Lucky Bob.”
“Cause he’s a friend of Randall?”
“You know the drill.”
Dale is too tempted by the proximity of wheels that have been personally kitted out for him to resist and finally agrees to take the SUV for a drive. The exquisite sense of joy that suffuses him as he steers off the lot is unlike anything he has known since the accident. He tests the hand brake a few times and twists the grip that controls the accelerator.
Now they’re headed down Highway 111 toward the Salton Sea. The sun is high enough that the light on the mountains has flattened out. A few wispy clouds drift overhead in the piercing blue sky. Dale straightens his back, sits up as tall as he can. The traffic is moving, the hand controls easy to use. The highway, the desert air and the speed all improve his mood immensely. They ride in companionable quietude.
“You have a good time at the party last night?” Maxon asks.
“Okay, I guess.”
“People seemed to like meeting you.” Dale eyes Maxon, tries to decide if he’s kidding. “You keep your nose clean, there’s no reason you can’t work in Randall’s office in Palm Springs if you want.”
“Already told you I didn’t want no more charity from Randall.”
“I’m just saying, your brother has faith in you.”
Dale turns the radio on. It’s a Spanish language station. Dale has no idea what the announcer is saying, but the man has a deep, mellifluous voice and he figures that maybe now he won’t have to hear any more about Randall.
Maxon says, “Why don’t we stop at the Date Oasis, get a shake?”
“Serious?”
“Didn’t you want to do that the day you got released? You said that place has the best date shakes in the world.”
The Medjool Date Oasis has been on this stretch of highway just north of the Salton Sea since 1921. On the edge of a dense grove of date palms imported years ago from the Middle East, the well-maintained one-story building is the kind of roadside attraction now usually seen only on kitschy postcards.
Dale and Maxon sip their date shakes at a picnic table to the side of the b
uilding. Two older couples, golf shirts and floppy hats on the men, loose skirts and baggy tee shirts on the women, sit at a nearby picnic table enjoying the lazy morning.
“Look at those people,” Maxon says. “No worries at all. Imagine that.”
Dale nods. It’s difficult for him to conjure a state of mind devoid of worry and he doesn’t bother to try. But the shakes are so thick Dale is eating his with a spoon, and today that will suffice.
“I grew up in raisin country,” Maxon says. “Flat, agricultural land, bore you to death. It amazes me sometimes how far I’ve come, working with Randall.” Maxon gazes at a pickup truck gliding south on the highway. Dale doesn’t step into the silence. “I’m thinking about the consulting business now, other people’s campaigns.”
“Yeah?” Dale says, wishing Maxon would just shut up.
“Have to build up my own war chest, can’t just be a one-trick pony, but my heart will always be with your brother.”
“Mine, too.” Dale thinks that must be what Maxon wants to hear.
“When he runs for higher office, I’ll be there.” This time Dale just nods. Figures if he stops responding, maybe Maxon will just let the conversation die out. The older couples ramble toward their RV. Dale and Maxon sit in silence for a full minute during which time only an eighteen-wheeler owned by a giant supermarket chain rumbles past on the highway.
“Why don’t we take a look at Bombay Beach?” Maxon says.
“What for?”
“Heard you didn’t like Mecca.”
“It’s a shithole.”
“I made a few calls, think we can swing you a place down near the water.”
Dale looks over at Maxon in disbelief. Could this be possible? Whatever he thinks of Randall, he is a man of his word. Now the risk he has taken on his brother’s behalf seems once again more understandable. He’ll get the money to pay Odin and House Cat and before long be in Bombay Beach with a view of the Salton Sea and his own hand-controlled SUV. A week after being paroled, it is as good a situation as he could reasonably hope for.
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