The Slab

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  “Fucking hot,” Ray Dixon said. He had sidled up next to Vic, his gun held like a baby in the cradle of his powerful arms.

  “Yeah it is,” Vic agreed. “Must be that global warming shit.”

  “I heard global warming makes the winters colder,” Ray said. “How’s that supposed to work?”

  “It’s all bullshit anyway,” Vic said, brushing at his mustache. Sometimes on hot days he regretted letting it grow so long, as his upper lip sweated like a bitch.

  The world is a big freaking place, he thought. Just look around at the miles of unbroken desert, dotted with Joshua trees, populated only by lizards and snakes and a few hardy beetles. How could people make it hotter, and what was the problem if they did?

  They followed Rock and Kelly in a kind of loose column, Cam walking alone a dozen paces or so behind the leaders, himself and Ray about the same distance behind him.

  “Where’s Terrance?” Vic asked.

  “Kelly told him to hang back here, make a few loops around the property and then wait inside,” Ray explained. “He doesn’t trust this one, thinks she just might be hiding out to double back and steal the truck or something.”

  “Wouldn’t put it past her,” Vic agreed. “Got a mouth on her, that’s for sure.”

  “That ain’t all she got,” Ray observed.

  “So is he just waiting there till we get back? He misses out on the whole hunt?”

  “She does double back, then he’ll be the only one who gets to hunt,” Ray said.

  Vic thought about that for a moment. It was true. Anyway, it wasn’t the hunting that he found most entertaining, though he thought it was Kelly’s favorite part. For him, it was what came after—having the girl available to him and his friends, whenever they wanted, any way they wanted. The hunting just seemed like a necessary step to break her down, get her to the point where she’d submit to that without putting up a fight.

  Or at least that’s what Kelly claimed was the purpose. Vic wasn’t so sure…secretly, he thought Kelly just enjoyed this part of it.

  “You ever think about the morality of this?” he asked Ray. “What we’re doing?”

  Ray shrugged. They humped a small hill and started down the other side. Rock and Kelly were farther out in front now, Cam still in the middle but dropping back. The girl’s trail cut cross-country rather than sticking to any established path, so they walked through brush, past Joshua trees and low, furry cholla. “Fuck morality,” he said. “Six thousand Americans died last week in New York. Was that moral?”

  Vic didn’t know exactly what that had to do with their present activity, but he answered anyway. “No, of course not.”

  “So what’s one Mex girl up against that many Americans? No more important than a drop of piss in the ocean.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You better just never let Kelly hear you talking that shit. He’s got stories about stuff he saw down in Colombia and Nicaragua’ll curl your fucking hair. He don’t think those people are even human.”

  “But this girl’s not Nicaraguan or Colombian, is she?”

  “Who knows? Who cares? Far as Kelly’s concerned, man, they’re all the same. Me, I think he’s killing the same girl over and over again, in his mind anyway.”

  Ahead, Rock and Kelly had stopped and waited for the others to catch up. When they did, Kelly pointed to a flat slab of gray rock half-buried in drifting sand. On the rock was a reddish-brown stain shaped like the ball of a foot.

  “Why does a woman have legs?” Kelly asked them.

  So she doesn’t leave a snail trail, Vic thought, having heard the same gag every year he’d been going out on the Hunt. But he didn’t bother to say it. Kelly’s jokes weren’t meant to be funny, he’d determined, but somehow instructive. Although what lesson Kelly wanted to teach wasn’t always clear.

  “So she doesn’t leave snail trails,” Kelly said after a moment. “Look, she took her sandals off right out of the gate,” Kelly pointed out. “So she’s already bleeding. I thought this one was going to challenge us, but she’ll be crippled by mid-afternoon. We’ll probably find her parked on her ass begging us to take her back to the cabin.”

  “That’s okay with me,” Cam said, clutching his own groin. “I like it when they beg.”

  ***

  Mindy Sesno cashiered in the Shop-R Mart, two miles up the 111 from Ken Butler’s office. He stopped in to pick up a pre-made turkey and cheese sandwich on French bread and a bottle of Lipton, sweet, no lemon, the way God intended it, a bag of Ruffles and a Hershey bar.

  “Lunch of champions,” Mindy said when he put it and a twenty down on her little conveyor belt and she had conveyed it up to the register. Mindy was thin and remarkably pale for someone who lived in the middle of the desert, and Ken had never seen her when her light brown eyes weren’t sparkling as if she’s just heard, or told, a joke that was both funny and just the littlest bit dirty. Her dark brown hair was almost the same shade that Shannon’s had been, and Ken wasn’t sure how he felt about that because Mindy was the first woman with whom Ken had wanted to sleep, and who he thought might be willing to sleep with him, since Shannon had died, and he didn’t want to see her hair spread on a pillowcase beneath him and forget who he was with.

  “Brain food,” he replied with a smile. “Keeps me thinking.”

  “You looking for that girl that’s disappeared?” Mindy asked. Her tone was one of concern, not idle curiosity, Ken thought.

  “This minute, I’m looking for some change from my twenty,” he said. “But yeah, Billy’s out beating the bushes for her now. I’ve had some other things on my plate, but I’ve been out when I could be.”

  “Hope you find her.”

  “I hope she’s not really out there to be found.”

  Mindy put a hand over her mouth—a schoolgirl’s gesture that somehow looked perfectly natural on her. “Do you think that’s possible?” she asked with surprise.

  Ken shrugged once. “Lots of young ladies disappear every year,” he said. “Most of them are runaways, leaving an abusive relationship, or following the stars, seeking their fortunes. Lucia Alvarez might be one of those. Maybe she just plain got tired of living in Mecca.”

  “Hey, I live in Salton Estates, and do you hear me complaining?” Mindy asked with a laugh like a bell’s chime. “But I heard there was a witness.”

  “There was a man inside his house with the shutters closed working on a forty-eight hour drinking binge,” Ken corrected her. “He thinks he looked out the window once and maybe saw something. Then again, when drunks used to see pink elephants they didn’t bother calling the cops about it. I think I liked those days better.”

  Mindy blushed a little as she put his purchases into a paper bag.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “If she’s out there, in trouble, I want her found and we will find her. But if she doesn’t want to be found, chances are she won’t be.”

  “Well, if she knew you I’m sure she’d feel comforted by the fact that you’re on the case, Ken.” Mindy handed him the sack. “I would, anyway.”

  He took the bag from her, his fingers grazing hers as he did so. He held her gaze a moment, considering whether this would be a good time to ask her to dinner or maybe a movie up in Palm Desert. But the moment stretched too long, and he broke the connection. Probably talking about a potential kidnapping is not the best prelude to asking for a date, he thought. He’d try again soon, leading into it with some kind of more upbeat conversation.

  “Thanks, Mindy.” He shook the bag, as if to demonstrate what he was thanking her for. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Stay out of trouble, Ken,” she said behind him.

  “I’ll try. You do that too.”

  He pushed the glass door open with his free hand and stepped out into the blasting heat, feeling Mindy’s gaze on his back all the way out the door. As he did he examined his own hands, creased and callused, black grime worked so far into the lines and under the nails from working on h
is own car and house that soap and water could never completely clean them. He wondered if Mindy would even want those rough hands on her; he imagined they would shred her supple skin, like silk caught on a nail.

  He was always surprised by how fast news raced around the valley, even though he’d lived here for long enough to have experienced it many times by now. At least she’d wanted to talk about Lucy Alvarez—even that was a relief after the days and days of everyone wanting to yack about the terrorist attacks. Mindy had the now-obligatory red, white, and blue ribbon pinned to her pink blouse, and an American flag flew outside the Shop-R Mart that had never been there before, but it looked like she might be capable of shifting her attention to other things, and Ken considered that a good sign.

  As he walked to the squad car—since he’d loaned his Bronco to Billy Cobb, he was reduced to driving Billy’s cruiser—he saw a an orange Ford Pinto, its paint so sun-blasted it was hard to tell where the rust stopped, backing out of a parking space as another car passed right behind it. He flinched, waiting for the crunch of metal on metal, but instead there was only the long wail of a horn as the passing car rushed by.

  Across the Pinto’s rear window, blocking most of the glass, was one of those American flags that newspapers had printed up. Ken walked up to the driver’s side of the car. The driver was a man he’d seen around but didn’t know, not a resident of Salton Estates but maybe Niland or Calipatria or someplace, a skinny guy with a brand new FDNY ball cap pulled down over stringy hair, wearing a flag T-shirt and sucking on a cigarette. Ken figured someone somewhere was raking in a hefty profit on phony FDNY hats. That and charity scams and car companies advertising deals—like interest free loans for those who needed them least—implying that it was un-American not to buy a new car pissed Ken off no end.

  “I got nothing against the American flag,” Ken began. “But your rear window is no place to put one. You nearly backed into that car. You do that in your Pinto, the whole thing is likely to explode.”

  “You ain’t a patriot, Sheriff?” the guy asked him. His tone was angry.

  “I think I’m as patriotic as the next guy, son. But my job is public safety, and you’re not a safe driver with your rear view blocked by a sheet of newspaper. Please move the flag.”

  “Or what? You going to arrest me for showing pride in my country?” He flipped his cigarette out onto the road. Skin cancer was the number one medical problem in the Valley, Ken knew—no one but the most diligent could avoid the sun beating down day in and day out, most of the year. But lung cancer was up there, as was cirrhosis of the liver: the illnesses of those with little money and less hope. Following those self-inflicted plagues were a variety of others, most of which were possibly tied to the massive amounts of fertilizers and pesticides needed to grow crops in the middle of a desert, seeping into the groundwater.

  “I can’t arrest you for talking back or for being an asshole,” Ken said. “But I can arrest you for reckless driving, and take your car.”

  “I’d like to see how long you kept your job after the newspapers heard about that.”

  “I’d like to see how long you have to walk if you lose your driver’s license for threatening a law enforcement officer’s livelihood,” Ken replied. “Please get out of the car.”

  “You ain’t serious,” the guy said, hands gripping the wheel as if afraid Ken might drag him out bodily. “Arab terrorists are attacking New York City and you’re hassling me over a flag?”

  “No, sir, I’m hassling you over your demonstrated inability to drive safely with a large portion of your rear window covered. Get out of the car.”

  Ken backed away from the door as the man got out. He was tall, and even thinner than Ken had believed at first. His black Levi’s were baggy and torn and flapped loosely around his thin legs. He couldn’t stand still, but bobbed and twitched and wriggled as he waited in the sunlight. Drug addict, Ken thought. He couldn’t tell what the guy was using—crack or crystal meth seemed more likely than heroin, unless he was jonesing for a dose, because of his irritability and tension. Heroin would have calmed him down, not hyped him up.

  “Let me see your driver’s license,” Ken said.

  The guy gave Ken a fuck-off-and-die look but fished his wallet from his jeans and passed it over. Ken studied the license for a moment. Barton Vander Tuin, with an address in Brawley. Brawley and El Centro, Ken knew, had far more than their legitimate share of drug addicts. With a largely seasonal work force, long hot summers, nothing much to do, and an impoverished tax base that couldn’t provide much in the way of social services, too many people turned to drugs to get through the days and nights.

  Ken scribbled the name into a wire-bound notebook he carried and handed the wallet back. As Barton was replacing it in his pocket, Ken leaned into his car, reaching into the back and peeling the flag from the rear window. He folded it neatly along its original fold and handed it to the man.

  “Here’s your flag,” he said. “Put it someplace safe. I don’t want to see you driving in this town with your vision obstructed again, and I don’t want to see you driving under the influence either. Get home safely and clean up, or we’re going to have a problem.”

  “Hey,” Barton started to protest.

  Ken cut him off. “Save it.”

  He turned away and went to his car. Behind him he could hear the patriotic junkie getting back into the Pinto and gunning the engine.

  What a world we live in, Ken thought as he watched the orange car drive off. What a world.

  Ken knew he should have arrested the guy once he’d realized he was under the influence, but he hadn’t trusted his own self-control by that point. Having his patriotism questioned pissed Ken off no end. He had served his country when it was his time to, and done it without complaint. Since then, he’d worked in law enforcement, which he considered service of another, equally valuable kind. It was damn sure no one did it for the money.

  Most of his time in the Nam was a blur of sweat and mosquitoes and fear now, the details, after so many years, mercifully indistinct. Except for one day—the first day he’d experienced the magic—which still remained as fresh in his mind as Mindy Sesno’s peach-flavored scent.

  It was January of 1967, and the 1st Infantry Brigade, 173rd Airborne, was involved in Operation Cedar Falls. The stated purpose of the operation was to clear out the area called the Iron Triangle. About twenty miles outside of Saigon, the VC used the area as a staging area for repeated attacks on the city, and the brass wanted it to stop. The challenge was, it turned out, the VC were operating out of an incredibly complex system of tunnels under the Triangle, so most of the time the G.I.s sent after them couldn’t even find the enemy.

  Which meant that volunteers were needed for a special mission. Since the year before, the name of this type of volunteer had changed, from Tunnel Runner to Ferret, before finally settling on Tunnel Rat. Unlike most Tunnel Rats, Ken was six feet tall, but he was just eighteen, wiry and limber, so he could scoot around the tunnels the VC had dug years ago, when fighting the French, and expanded upon more recently.

  This particular day, Ken had awakened around dawn, as usual. The day was sticky already, not dry and hot like the desert he’d become accustomed to in later years. This kind of heat sapped your strength, and while he hated to fall asleep because you never knew what waited out there in the dark, the fact was that he found himself sleeping a lot, any time there were a few minutes of down time, simply because of the climate. Upon awakening, he’d felt the strange metallic taste in his mouth, but he didn’t know what it was. He purified some water to brush his teeth with, then swished some around in his mouth and spat it out, but the taste didn’t go away.

  Then there was no more time to worry about it, because he had a job to do. With a small patrol, he hiked through the jungle to a spot where they had previously identified a hatchway into one of the tunnels, covered with mud and hidden in a trench. Ken stripped off his shirt, because that just got in the way down there. He was suppo
sed to wear a cap with a headlamp and a microphone attached to it, with a communication wire spool on his belt. The wire would run all the way back to the surface. But Ken hated the whole contraption, which rarely seemed to work like it was supposed to, and which he was always afraid he’d get tangled up in. Besides, talking down in the tunnels, even quietly, seemed like the nearest thing to suicide he could imagine. So he scrapped that. He’d be down there with just a knife, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, smaller and more reliable than the Colt .45 he usually wore as a sidearm on the surface, and a flashlight. Once he had the lay of the land he’d go back down with a satchel charge or a bunker bomb to blow up the occupants, if any.

  Fully outfitted, Ken lowered himself down the hole. He hated this part most of all—going down feet-first, completely blind. Anything could be waiting down there. Mines, feces-smeared punji stakes, scorpions, enemy soldiers—the variety of ways someone could die in the tunnels was just about endless.

  On this occasion, though, none of those things waited right at the entrance. Finding himself completely inside the tunnel, Ken began to inch his way forward. He didn’t turn his light on yet because he didn’t want to make himself a target prematurely. So he moved in the dark, on his belly, probing with his fingers at the hard earth below, around, and above him. A wire hidden among the roots of a tree could, he knew, trigger a mine. Bamboo covered with leaves and mud on the floor could be a pitfall onto sharp punji stakes.

  The doorways were the worst part, though. Sometimes they used sealed hatchways, almost submarine-style, so that if part of the tunnel was flooded or fragged the rest of it wouldn’t be affected. Going through those doors was always terrifying. Charlie could be on the other side with a garrote, waiting for a U.S. head to poke through. Or soldiers might be waiting with rifles. Or any of the other traps could be duplicated. These guys took no chances with their tunnels.