Jail Coach

by Hillary Bell Locke

  “I’m no lawyer, but I’d say you’re reasonably clear.”

  “That’s very comforting.” I shut up then. She didn’t have to draw me a picture.

  An hour or so later she slowed down and started to survey the landscape carefully, as if trying to make sure of her bearings. I’m not sure what the technical definition of “desert” is, but if what we were driving through didn’t qualify someone should revise it. Nothing but scorched earth and rock. Not even a cactus, as far as I could tell.

  Hilliard nosed the Jeep toward an outcropping of rock that climbed thirty feet into the air. She stopped the Jeep in the shade that the rock provided. Even before I got out I saw signs that people had been here recently: bits of footprints, a few cigarette butts.

  The first thing Hilliard did after hopping out was take the gas cans and water bottles out and line them up on the shady side of our vehicle. I gave her a hand with it. Then she pulled the tarp back to expose a dozen well-filled camelbacks and a bunch of MREs still in their Pentagon-approved pouches. A “camelback” is a large water pouch designed to be carried comfortably on your back if you’re hiking or mountain climbing. According to the Defense Department, “MRE” stands for “Meals Ready to Eat;” according to every GI I’ve ever heard express an opinion about it, “MRE” stands for “Meals Rejected by Ethiopians.” Not exactly fun food, in other words, but they’ll keep you alive.

  “Can you give me a hand with the tarp?”

  “Sure.”

  We laid the thing out on the ground and folded it over one time. Then we carried the folded edge to the base of the rock, where Hilliard worried it into a crevice as best she could. I held the open end up for her while she carefully arrayed the food and water pouches on the tarp’s ground surface. She did this methodically and without wasted effort. Once she had all the stuff stashed, we pulled the tarp’s top flap over them. We pounded tent pegs through the grommets to secure the tarp—and that was work; I didn’t think ground could be that hard. We sealed the deal by scrounging some more or less flat rocks and piling them along the tarp’s edges, between the grommets. I don’t think our efforts would have defeated a real determined coyote, but any coyote that got into this Godforsaken country would probably be trying to commit suicide anyway.

  “Okay,” Hilliard said cheerfully, “time for lunch.”

  “When will it be time for Katrina Thompson?”

  “That’s up to her, but I told her I absolutely had to leave here by two. I really want to get back to El Paso before it’s too dark, like I promised Tom.”

  Lunch was turkey and lettuce on hard rolls. I’m not sure the rolls were hard when they left the bakery, but they’d gotten that way by now.

  “So.” I let the syllable just lie there while I meditatively chewed turkey and rabbit food. “This would be, like, an artificial oasis for illegal aliens—excuse me, unauthorized entrants—sneaking in from Mexico.”

  “Yep. I-C-E would like to know where the oases are, but that’s more a nuisance than a real threat. There could be twenty or thirty people here tonight. Or tomorrow night, or some night this week.”

  “So you don’t have any problem with them coming into the country illegally?”

  “I have a huge problem with people dying of thirst in the desert, regardless of how they got there.”

  “You understand that if some U.S. Attorney decided to be a total jerk about it, you could go to prison for doing this, right?”

  “I’ve been to prison.” She said this placidly, the way people say they used to smoke or went to Europe once. “One-hundred-ninety-seven days actual time served for trying to break into a nuclear facility as part of a protest. Second offense, post-nine-eleven. The government was not amused. Same prison in West Virginia where Martha Stewart served her sentence.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I actually found it a very fruitful time. I had a chance to read and pray and think, and manual labor can be very satisfying. Plus, it gives me some credibility with girls like Maria. It’s amazing how bracing it is for them to see the picture of me in my orange jumpsuit. I realized when I saw women serving five and six and eight years for low-level drug running that my real vocation was with girls like her. With time to think things through and prayerfully reflect, I got it through my skull that the nuclear break-in stunt was grandstanding. Searching for martyrdom without really moving the ball. I figured the bad parts about prison—the indignity, the strip searches, using the toilet in front of other people, the lousy food, the zero privacy—was a way to atone for my self-importance. ”

  “Well what you’re doing now sure isn’t grandstanding.”

  “I’d feel very blessed if I went to prison for doing this. That would be true witness.”

  A few seconds after Hilliard’s last sentence I heard an engine that, as it turned out, was still almost a mile away from us. I heard it because there just wasn’t anything else to hear. Popping up to sidle to the edge of the rock, and then peering cautiously south toward the sound, I saw a plume of dust.

  “That would be Katrina, unless I miss my guess,” Hilliard said.

  It was. It took her a good two minutes to reach us, but she eventually parked a Ford pickup truck that looked like the younger brother of the one her dad had driven. It had a little palm-tree-and-water sticker in the upper right-hand corner of the windshield, just like the one on Hilliard’s Jeep. She and Hilliard gave each other a quick hug and a broad smile, but they didn’t spend all afternoon at it. Thompson got right down to business.

  “Can you spare one of those gas cans? Dad hasn’t gotten this crate into the shop in a while and it drinks more than it should.”

  “Sure. I got gas just before we left the interstate, and one can will be more than enough to get me back to that station. I brought the water for you, too, except what I need to refill my bottle.”

  “That’s wonderful. Thank you.”

  “It’s really good to see you again, Katrina. I’ve been praying for you, and I ask all my girls to pray for you.”

  “Well I just love the way Mexican girls pray, and I need every Ave Maria I can get. So thank you for that.”

  I went to help Thompson transfer the spare gas and water. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t drive all the way out here to tell me to go to hell.”

  “Nope. I’m goin’ back to LA, and you’re welcome to ride along. ’Course, if you’d rather ride back to El Paso with Amber and fly out from there, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “No, I’ll take you up on your offer. Somewhere along the way, in fact, I’d like to trade you for that Russian pistol clip I gave you in Tucson.”

  “As long as it’s a trade, I’m fine with that. But I need a loaded clip in return.”

  “I understand. In LA, you might run into Chaladian again.”

  “Yes, I just might.” She turned and looked directly into my eyes, her unblinking gaze fierce but not angry. “And if I do I’m gonna take that sonofabitch out.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  It took us the rest of that day, all the next day, and part of the following morning to get to LA. Until we finally reached southern California, we didn’t drive a mile of the trip on interstate highways. The roads we drove show up on maps as narrow red or blue strips.

  For the first two hours I don’t think we said a word to each other, except for my offering to share the driving and her saying she’d let me know if she needed me. I didn’t tell her that if she did get within striking distance of Chaladian, the odds were about twenty-five-to-one that she was the one who’d end up dead. I may be dumb, but I’m not crazy.

  Somewhere after that two-hour mark she glanced in my direction and spoke over the tinny hum of Tex/Mex music from the radio.

  “You’re back with your lady, aren’t you?”
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br />   “Yeah, I am.”

  “I could tell, somehow. Don’t know how. I just could. Anyway, I’m real happy for the two of you.”

  “Thanks.” I waited about five beats, then continued speaking. “I wouldn’t have guessed the Oasis Project was something your dad would support.”

  “He’s a funny old buzzard. Says the illegals are just like pioneers in the old west. ‘You wanna stop ’em, then git the Army out there an’ goddamn seal the goddamn border. But don’t let the desert stop ’em for ya.’ That’s pink water bullshit, that’s what that is. I don’t hold with that.”

  “That’s a pretty good imitation of him.”

  “I’ve had lots of time to work on it.”

  That covered us until it was time for her to ask whether I wanted burgers or chicken for dinner.

  This being the American west, I didn’t have any trouble finding a gun-and-ammo store the next day. In a dusty Arizona town called Les Calles I stepped into Desert Empire Fishing, Hunting and Sporting Goods while Thompson pumped gas into the pickup’s tank and then into the reserve cans. I’m not sure about the ‘Empire’ part, but everything else on the sign was dead accurate.

  The crusty old gent who ran the place knew a mark when he saw one. For a spare nine-millimeter clip he charged me roughly a quarter of what the whole gun would have cost. He sold me the box of cartridges at the sticker price, so thank God for small favors. While he was ringing me up, I asked him how the town got to be called Les Calles instead of Los Calles.

  “Founded by Lester Calles.” He pronounced the last name Cawls, and grinned at me under his white, soup-strainer moustache. “Went by Les.”

  I loaded the clip and traded it to Thompson for the one from Chaladian’s gun. I held my breath when she slipped it in. No guarantee, after all, that American and Russian clips are interchangeable. But it clicked into place with that neat precision that makes firearms so beautiful. I wrapped Chaladian’s clip in a handkerchief and stuck it in my lower right pants pocket.

  I offered to drive, again, and Thompson again said no, she’d just as soon stay behind the wheel. Fine. I leaned back as best I could and put the Stetson over my face.

  I dreamed about the Iraqi teenager.

  Chapter Forty-five

  I delivered Thompson to Trowbridge in an elegant suite at the Beverly Hills Hilton that Trowbridge was paying for, so screw Trans/Oxana’s cap on hotel rates. The Beverly Hills Hilton caters to exactly the kind of people you’d think it does, so it has security that makes Fort Knox look like a main street bank in Hooterville. Go through the last ten years of People sometime and see if you can find a single paparazzi shot taken inside the BHH. That’s why we were there.

  The Thompson/Trowbridge hug seemed real, and so did Thompson’s squeal and the radiant glow on Trowbridge’s face. Who knew how long it was good for, but at least it wasn’t fake. Plus, while they were locking lips I had a chance to filch the valet parking ticket for Thompson’s truck from her purse. I called Proxy to give her the good news: Thompson and Trowbridge hooked up, Trowbridge mellow (for him), and no uptick in the body count (yet). I didn’t say yet out loud.

  “So far so good, then. Listen, as long as you’re out there running up charges against my budget anyway, I need you to do something. See if you can squeeze a word out of Wells or someone about how the MPAA negotiations over the rating are going. I’ve been drilling dry holes on that for a week, and I’m getting nervous.”

  “Will do.”

  I had some other things to do, but I figured I could fit that in. On the way down to the lobby I called Wells, got a voice mail prompt, and left a message asking him to call me back. As I re-holstered my phone, I pulled the valet tag from my side pocket and stowed it in my wallet. I wanted to keep it safe. I couldn’t control the timing of what I had in mind. What I could control was the preparation, so I wanted to get that right.

  I stepped from the lobby onto the sidewalk bordering the vast drive-through area in front of the hotel. Surveyed the street and the sidewalk across from it. Chaladian had to have someone watching the main entrance. Judging by the paparazzi congregated as close to hotel property as they could legally get, everyone in LA knew that Trowbridge was up to something at the BHH. I was looking for someone sitting in a parked car or lolling in a doorway or walking up and down the sidewalk across the street. Probably someone with binoculars, because all they’d have is a physical description of Thompson or at best a grainy, third-generation copy of a digital photograph.

  But nada. This hypothetical spotter was eluding my attention. Then, just in case I wasn’t bummed enough, I had a paparazzi surge to contend with. The eight or nine pathetic souls started trotting after a brown Infiniti that pulled into the driveway. Some of them were shouting, “Car-rie! Car-rie! ” Two Hilton security guys moved in to make sure they didn’t get too close. The Infiniti pulled to a stop about ten feet past where I was standing. A lovely young woman who looked vaguely like Carrie Deshane but wasn’t Carrie Deshane got out.

  The surge stopped. The collective letdown was palpable.

  “It’s no one!” a camera-jockey yelled. He said it as if it were the woman’s fault they’d mistaken her for a star. Then they all turned and headed back toward their original gathering place near the street.

  All except one. A woman who looked nineteen or twenty, with two cameras slung around her neck, hadn’t moved. You don’t need binoculars if you have telephoto lenses. You don’t need to sit or wander with suspicious aimlessness if you’re ostensibly there to snap candid pictures of famous people. I’d just spotted the spotter. But I needed to confirm that theory.

  Step one: check the Asset. I took a look at my watch. 3:10. I dialed Thompson’s mobile phone number. Got her on the third ring.

  “What’s up?”

  “Is Kent within arm’s reach? I need to talk to him about something.”

  “No, he’s in the fitness center while I’m gettin’ gone over in the spa. Not the regular fitness center. The Presidential Fitness Center.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  It took me ten minutes to find the damn thing. The key to my plebian, $400-a-night room didn’t open the door. Trowbridge noticed me through the glass, though, and sent one of his handlers over to let me in. I found him doing curls with twenty-five pound weights, and he didn’t miss a rep when he started talking to me.

  “Hey, my man Jay.” Big grin, delighted expression. “What’s on your mind?”

  “First, my brass are panting for an MPAA update. I left a message for Wells and he hasn’t called me back yet.”

  “Good luck with Wells. His dad said something to Saul that got the kid sent on some boondoggle to China for two weeks.”

  “Nuts.”

  “I know. Sucks to be you.” He put the weight down, mopped his face and neck with a towel, then glanced up with another grin. “Fortunately, I can help you. I don’t work for Saul so I’m not as important as Jeff, but I happen to know what’s going on with MPAA.”

  “That’d be a big help.”

  “They’ll get the deal done. The last hang-up is a little ass-slapping that Carrie couldn’t restrain herself from. We’ll snip the actual bodily contact, leave in the sound, and let imagination do the rest. That should pull us off the R.”

  “Thanks.”

  Trowbridge grabbed one of his handler’s wrists and glanced at the guy’s watch. Then he shooed the crew away and gestured toward the weight bench opposite him, inviting me to sit there.

  “Katrina has a good hour left in the spa. If you’ve got a few minutes, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Namely, Katrina.”

  “Namely Katrina. Seems like the pitch is going okay, but I don’t feel like I’m closing the deal. You know what I mean?”

  “Yep.”

  “So. Help! Please.”
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  I took a deep breath. Coming to me for advice about chicks is like asking George W. Bush to help you with your particle physics homework. But Trowbridge didn’t need to hear that, so I tried to come up with something else.

  “In the time I’ve been working on this project, I’ve run into a lot of people. Some good people, some lousy people, one total bastard, but mostly people who are just doing their best to make it through the day without hurting anyone else.”

  “Out of curiosity, which category am I in?”

  “I’d say you’re sharing space with me in the make-it-through-the-day crowd. Nothing close to saints, but better than Levitt or Korvette.”

  “Talk about low bars. I’m not sure a C-plus will cut it with Katrina. What can I do for extra credit?”

  I’d been leading up to something when I was talking about all those people I’d met. The only two that I really admired were Thompson and Hilliard—two women who had absolutely nothing in common except that neither one of them wanted Mexicans to die of thirst in the desert, and they’d both been behind bars for something that mattered more to them than themselves. But spelling that out to the Asset could lead to awkward questions the next time I was in Hartford. So I fell back on something else.

  “The basketball coach I had in high school believed that any idea that really mattered could be expressed in three words: ‘It’s called pride.’ ‘Pick and roll.’ ‘It’s called honor.’ ‘Pass the ball.’ ‘It’s called guts.’ ‘Take the charge.’ ‘It’s about teamwork.’ ‘Be a man.’ One of the English teachers would make fun of him, and I used to laugh at it myself. But you know what? When I was overseas, I never saw anybody risk his life for Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

  “So you think maybe your coach was onto something.”

  “Doesn’t matter what I think, does it? What matters to you is what Katrina thinks. And I’ll give you eight to one on a fast track that she’d say my coach was the smartest guy who ever lived, except Jesus.”