Scorched Noir

by Garnett Elliott

  He walked up to the side of a nearby unit and rapped his knuckles. "Hear that?" Corrugated aluminum. It starts cooking as soon as the sun comes up, and with all this blacktop the grounds never really cool at night. I suppose in some states a manager could make extra bucks letting someone live inside a unit. Not in Arizona, though. With a concrete slab, and no ventilation, the temperature will creep upwards of a hundred-ten degrees. And that's in the spring. In the summer, you can bake bread inside these suckers."

  Opp wiped sweat from his forehead.

  "I've got fifty units here," Pender said, "some the size of a closet and some could hold a boat, and each one takes a special key plus the master to open. If you guys want, I'll go get the board with all the individual keys and we'll start checking, unit by unit. It'll take at least an hour. Assuming we're not that thorough. Otherwise …"

  Satoshi nodded at his partner and the two of them walked about ten feet away, where they leaned close and spoke in low voices. Every now and then Satoshi glanced up at Pender.

  They walked back over.

  "Look," Pender said, taking a step toward his office. "I've got plenty of time, okay? A couple hours doesn't mean anything to me. I'll just get the keys and we'll start. Only one master, though, and it's got to turn at the same time as the unit key, so we can't split up or anything."

  Satoshi didn't reply. He peered at him like they'd never met before, his black eyes steady. Appraising.

  Pender took another step.

  Opp puffed out his cheeks and said: "Maybe later. We're on kind of a schedule, here."

  "It's not a problem."

  "We appreciate that," Opp said. "You being so cooperative."

  Satoshi had already turned and started walking back toward the motorcycles. Opp made an apologetic gesture and joined him. Their boots clik-clikked against the asphalt. Pender watched them put their helmets on and kick the bikes started, neither one saying anything. They roared off down the frontage road.

  He watched until they were two black specks that merged with freeway traffic.

  He watched the specks disappear.

  Back inside his cramped office, he took two Gatorades out of a mini-fridge and opened the heavy steel cabinet behind the desk. Rows of keys hung there. He selected one in the lower right corner, slid it inside his pocket, and left with a Gatorade tucked beneath each arm.

  He walked down the rows of storage units, feeling the blacktop's warmth creep through his shoes. The last row was marked 'G.' He approached G-9, a smaller unit toward the center, and set the drinks down. He had to crouch to insert the unit key and the master in the locks at the door's bottom. The locks snapped open. He grabbed hold of a little bar and hauled the door up about six inches.

  Furnace-air wafted from the crack. There was a scrabbling sound and then half a face pressed itself up against the opening; a strip of tanned flesh with a gasping, unshaven mouth. Sweat dripped down the stubbled cheek.

  The face had a teardrop tattoo, beneath one brown eye.

  "Your rent just went up," Pender said. "I had to lie to some cops about you. They might come back to search."

  The eye glared at him. "Cocksucker," came a near-whisper of a voice.

  "You know how long they'd pop me for aiding and abetting? With the risks I'm taking I figure you owe me an extra hundred a day. Payable now."

  Yrigoyen looked like he wanted to spit. His eye roved up and down Pender, and then it noticed the Gatorades sitting on the blacktop. The eye widened.

  "You want a beverage?" Pender said.

  "What do you think, asshole?"

  "Costs twenty bucks."

  Yrigoyen cursed a string of liquid Spanish. Pender opened one of the plastic bottles and took a long gulp, making wet, smacking noises. "You about finished? Because if you want I can open the door all the way and let you out. There's a convenience store with cold drinks about three miles down the road."

  "Puta motherfucker."

  "Don't think you'd make it, though."

  "I know what you're trying to do," Yrigoyen said, his half-face contorting in a sneer. "Squeeze more money out of me while I'm hiding here. Well, you're not going to get it."

  "The extra rent plus Gatorade, that comes to a hundred-twenty bucks."

  A brown hand curled itself along the bottom of the door. The fingers looked muscular and throbbed with blue veins. "I'll kill you right now. Break your fucking neck and stash your body in here."

  Pender shook his head. "You do that, you'll never make it to Mexico. You need my help. They've got Feds swarming the border right now, and I figure it'll take a week before you can even try."

  "A week." The hand gripping the door went limp. "Jesus, that long?"

  "At least."

  "I should've never turned in here. I should've kept on going, taken my chances."

  "You should've planned your getaway better."

  Silence.

  "Tell you what," Pender said. "You give me the hundred-twenty, I'll throw in a portable fan. How's that? Cool drink and a fan doesn't sound so bad. Make things tolerable, at least."

  All the malevolence drained from the brown eye. It kept sliding back to the bottle of Gatorade, a couple feet away.

  "Okay," Yrigoyen said.

  The sweating face disappeared and Pender listened to him crawl through the semi-darkness. He pictured the two big duffel bags stashed back there, fat with cash. He'd seen them on the front seat of Yrigoyen's car while they were hiding it in one of the bigger units, throwing a boat-tarp over top. Poor bastard was probably using the bags for a pillow now.

  The face reappeared, and the hand slapped six bills down on the concrete. Pender grabbed them. The money was damp with sweat. "Wonder if this was tucked in some girlie's g-string," he said, rubbing the twenties against his cheek. "Oh, well." He nudged the Gatorade toward the gap with his foot, and Yrigoyen snatched it inside.

  "You enjoy that," Pender said. "I'll be right back."

  He slammed the door down and locked it.

  A walk from the back row to the office would normally take less than four minutes. He took a lot longer than that.

  When he came back to G-9 he was holding a small plastic fan. He undid the locks and yanked the door up higher than before. Yrigoyen stared at the thing like Mecca had sprouted up through the pavement.

  "Go ahead," Pender said.

  Both arms reached out and pulled the fan through the gap. Pender waited, a grin on his face. He heard a series of clicks followed by more cursing.

  "You fucking with me again, puta?" Yrigoyen's face reappeared. "This thing doesn't work."

  "It runs on batteries."

  "So?"

  Pender took a pair of coppertops out of his pocket, cradled them in his palm. "Batteries'll cost you fifty bucks."

  †

  Bad Night at Burning Rock

  Shari pulled into the campsite late afternoon. She'd almost missed the sign. The gravel lot had one other vehicle parked, a dusty Toyota pickup. Beyond that lay two concrete picnic tables and a crude restroom, the walls painted olive green. Creosote hemmed the little clearing on three sides.

  She got out. The first thing that hit her was the stillness. Absolute. No wind to rustle the plant life. Nothing but ceaseless blue overhead.

  People came here to die.

  Her athletic shoes crunched gravel as she followed a trail past the restroom, toward a concrete building not much bigger than a toll booth. The seal for National Parks and Recreation was affixed to the window.

  "You the student?"

  A middle-aged man came lurching around the building's side. He wore a light green shirt and dark green slacks, his gut bulging out over the waist. Scraggly beard. It took her a moment to realize he was in uniform.

  "Name's Carl," he said, and stuck out a hand.

  "Shari." His grip seemed to linger too long. "I'm from the university, yes. I would've gotten here sooner, but I was up late last night at the health center. We had a potential suicide."

  "Grim busines
s."

  "I'm getting used to it."

  "I suppose I am, too." Carl settled his hands on his hips and let out a breath. He wore sunglasses, but she could swear he was leering at her beneath the scratched lenses.

  "So, you want to show me this rock everyone's talking about?"

  * * *

  From fifty feet away the sight failed to impress. It looked like a big red boulder, plopped down on an otherwise flat expanse of scrub and sand.

  "I don't get it," Shari said. "Are people jumping off that thing? It doesn't look high enough to kill anybody."

  Carl laughed. "No, no. They wait until the sun sets behind it. Usually. The rock turns all crimson, like it's on fire. Why they call it 'Burning Rock.' Then, most times, they shoot themselves."

  "How many have you found?"

  "Me personally? Seven. Christ, the first one was enough."

  They'd hiked a quarter mile down a ravine to get here. Not too far for someone determined to end it."

  "Let me show you one more thing," Carl said. "Kind of creepy, but I think you should see it."

  He led her past a stand of ocotillos to the rock's base. Several little crosses, the kind you sometimes see along the highway, had been thrust there. Garlands of dried flowers. Withered photographs. Pieces of stationery paper, with messages written on them. She picked up one near her shoe. A woman's cursive handwriting read: 'You're gone now, and the rest of my life is just filling the time.'

  She let the paper flutter to the ground.

  Jesus, it was creepy.

  "I think you've got your work cut out for you," Carl said.

  * * *

  Evening was coming.

  A pair of bikers roared into the lot. They sat on a picnic table, smoked cigarettes, and flicked the butts into the creosote bushes. Shari watched from a distance. It dawned on her she hadn't thought this through. Did she just go up to people? Ask how they were doing?

  "Don't worry about those two," Carl said, shuffling up behind her. "Jackasses. Do us all a favor if they snuffed it."

  But the bikers didn't linger. Another round of smokes and they were climbing back on their motorcycles, kicking the engines over.

  "How late do you stay?"

  "However long it's going to take. I'm not exactly on the clock out here. You want to hang around a little past sundown, that's fine with me. I'll be in my office."

  At sundown a beat-up Saturn rattled onto the lot. The driver got out; a lone guy with sandy blond hair and polo shirt. Fanny pack around his waist. He marched toward the Burning Rock trail and something about the way he moved sparked Shari's intuition.

  She followed him.

  Halfway down the ravine he must've heard her catching up, because he turned around. He had puffy little bags under his eyes.

  "I'm from the University," Shari said. "We're, ah, doing a survey. About why people come here."

  He stared at her in the failing light.

  "So can I ask—"

  "This is a public place."

  "Well, yeah," Shari said, smiling, feeling her skin prickle, "it is, but what the university really wants to know—"

  "Lady, I came here to take pictures of the sunset." He pointed toward his pack. "That okay with you? I want strangers to come up and chat with me, I'll go to a bar."

  He looked so angry for a second she thought he was going to hit her. Just the two of them out here, with help a quarter-mile away. But he turned again and stalked off.

  Okay, this wasn't working.

  Instinct told her she should be pestering the guy until he showed her what he had in that pack. Instead, she stood there. Mr. Angry Man's silhouette grew smaller, hiking with purpose toward the big red boulder.

  Tomorrow, she'd have a talk with Dr. Mott. Figure out some kind of protocol for this.

  Walking back up the trail, toward her car, she strained her ears against the desert's absolute quiet, ready to flinch at the echo of a gunshot.

  * * *

  "It's too awkward. Going up to people with no pretense. And if you made the decision, drove out all that way to kill yourself, are you really going to let some college student talk you out of it?"

  Dr. Mott steepled his fingers. "You mean you feel awkward, approaching them. Alright, it's awkward. So is suicide."

  He had silver-gray hair cut to '70s proportions, a full moustache and little round glasses. Success crowded every available surface in his office; diplomas, certificates, framed letters, bronze plaques. Biggest ego in the Psychology department, and she'd been assigned to him.

  "So you tell people you're taking a survey," he went on. "An ice-breaker. We could print up actual forms, get you a clipboard. After some questions you'll have a feel for who really might be at risk, and shift into counselor mode."

  "Is that ethical, though? Lying about why I'm really there?"

  "Close enough."

  "There's something else." She remembered Angry Man's face, still fresh from last evening. "It's—you know I'm not that squeamish, but the campsite's out in the middle of nowhere, and it's not, exactly, safe."

  His lips curled beneath the expanse of moustache. "Parks and Rec told me they'd have someone with you at all times."

  "Yeah." But I don't feel that safe around him.

  "Look, Shari, are you getting second thoughts about the project? Because I don't need to remind you, it's important. State's got no budget left, and people are blowing their brains out. This is a chance for the university to work with the community. We need the PR, believe me."

  She remembered the crosses scattered around Burning Rock. Suicide hit the living, not the dead. "Okay. Okay, but—"

  The door to Mott's office creaked open. A cute undergraduate's face framed there, some Slovakian girl Shari had met before, giving Mott a timid wave. She wore a tight blouse. Mott's eyes shined with focus and Shari sensed there'd be no more discussion about her assignment at Burning Rock.

  Dismissed.

  * * *

  Carl had called her into the little concrete building. She'd been about to sit down on an offered chair and froze, lips parted, because two feet of mottled crimson and black death squatted there. A Gila monster, eyes gleaming up at her.

  Carl laughed so hard he hiccupped.

  Another couple seconds, she noticed the lizard wasn't breathing. Its eyes twinkled like glass beads.

  Carl picked the thing up by its stiff tail. "Ol' Bernie here, I bring him out for the kids. They get a real kick."

  She wanted to give him a real kick.

  "You know the legend about Gila monsters, don't you?" He leaned close, not sensing how pissed off she was. "When they bite they clamp their jaws shut. Only the sound of thunder makes them let go."

  He reached over and pinched a chunk of her forearm, as if to demonstrate. His breath smelled like microwave dinners and loneliness. She planted her palm on his chest. Pushed back, not so hard that he stumbled, but firm enough he'd know he wasn't crossing this line again.

  "I'll be outside," she said, and left the cramped office.

  Outside the sun had yet to sink far. Maybe an hour or so before evening, and no other cars but theirs in the lot. Her clipboard lay on the edge of the picnic table. She fought the urge to fling it into the nearest creosote.

  Useless. The whole assignment was useless.

  Carl came out of the office and slunk to the lot's opposite end. He jabbed a cigarette in this mouth, somehow conveying hurt through the sunglasses and thick beard.

  Second day on the job and already she knew too much about him.

  She'd been surprised, how willing he was to stay late, until she put it together he had nothing to go home to. The depressing part was, neither did she. Just a studio apartment in a bad neighborhood. A mountain bike she never used. A long-distance relationship back in St. Louis, petering away through e-mails and instant messages that came further and further apart.

  The thought hit her: maybe this thing she was trying so hard to prevent, it wasn't such a bad idea.

  * *
*

  Carl left without warning, still in a huff. He slammed the door to his pickup and tore off as evening was about to descend.

  Well, screw it.

  No point hanging around. Not the way she was feeling. She got the car started and pulled onto the road, thinking how the next couple weeks were going to be hell. Tomorrow, she'd have to make some kind of overture to Carl.

  A BMW appeared in the opposite lane ahead. It roared past, the driver's pale face and gritted teeth visible for a second. The same intuition that had warned her about Angry Man struck a gong in her brain.

  She glanced at the rearview. The BMW swerved into the lot she'd just left, kicking up dust and spewing gravel.

  Awful hurry to get to a campsite.

  But she wasn't going back to check on him. No way.

  * * *

  Cursing herself four minutes later, she found a widened shoulder on the road and turned into it, slowing so she could pull a U.

  One quick look. See if the guy was alright and she'd be back on her way.

  But when she got there, the BMW's cab light was on and the front passenger door open a crack. Nobody inside. She cut her engine and waited, scanning the rest of the lot. It wasn't so dark she could miss anyone standing around.

  Maybe the driver had gone to the restroom. That would explain his hurry. She slipped out of the car and drifted over to the stalls. A six inch gap stretched from the top of the wall to the roof. Normally, standing this close you could hear everything going on inside.

  Dead silence.

  She turned to the Burning Rock trail.

  A slice of early moon had already risen above the scrub-lined horizon. No need to get a flashlight. She took a tentative step. Pictured Mott's face, his smug features melting into surprise when he found out she'd thwarted a suicide.

  Okay, that was getting ahead of herself. And this could be dangerous, going after someone in the near-darkness, alone.

  She went anyway. Hurried down the ravine trail, keeping an eye on where she planted her feet. The silhouette of Burning Rock loomed ahead. Its fire had already winked out with the sunset; now it looked like a tombstone, gray and black. Some thirty feet away she made out a smaller shadow. Bulky, moving slow, and she caught the gleam of a shaved head. The driver?