She Rides Shotgun

by Jordan Harper

  “I think,” Boxer said, “when it comes to taking out the president of Aryan Steel, I think it’s a seller’s market.”

  “Word on the street is you and the Steel are in a cold war,” Nate said. “They’re cutting into your business a little more than you’d like. Maybe the next president will be more friendly to y’all.”

  “You think I need some gabacho stickup artist telling me La Eme business? Don’t try to play above your weight, dog.”

  “Name the price for Crazy Craig. Any price. If I can pay it, I will.”

  “The cash, dog, we’ll call that payment enough that I let you walk out of here, don’t turn you over to the Steel myself. That’s what the cash bought you. But you and the little badass here, you ain’t got nothing I need.”

  Here it was. The last chip.

  “I got one thing,” Nate said.

  “What’s that?”

  Nate walked toward Boxer. Polly started to follow. Nate gave her a hold-back hand signal. She stayed. Nate got close to Boxer. He whispered his offer to Boxer.

  “Respect,” Boxer said. “You got balls. But I’m going to pass. It’s too big, dog. Too big.”

  Nate felt the world give way. This was the only shot he had. He couldn’t let it pass.

  “Think about—” Nate said. Boxer cut him off.

  “I told you, you don’t get to tell me how to play my game. Now you and your little girl, you leave—”

  “I like your tattoos,” Polly said, and Nate almost jumped. Boxer looked at her like huh? She walked to his throne, Nate too surprised to think of stopping her until it was too late. She pointed at Boxer’s chest, over his heart. “‘Gracias Madre’ means ‘Thanks Mom,’ right?”

  “That’s right, little badass.”

  Under the words on Boxer’s chest, a cartoon drawing of a woman’s face. A tear in her eye. Polly reached forward and touched the drawing.

  “Crazy Craig killed my mom,” Polly said. Tears wet down her voice. “She never did anything to anybody and she’s dead. She was my mom.”

  Carnales traded holy shit looks. They traded little badass looks. Boxer reached for her with his stay/down hands. He took Polly by the chin. He mussed her watermelon hair. He nodded.

  “Maybe there’s something, little badass. Maybe there’s something. But it’s too big for just me. I got to make a call. Got to check with the inside. But maybe there’s something.”

  Polly turned around to Nate. The face she made, only for him, only lasted a split second. Ha ha, her face said. Fooled them, it said.

  He’d never been so frightened of her.

  33

  PARK

  LOMPOC

  Park hated prisons.

  Prisons smelled like human shit and armpits. They sounded like the inside of a maniac’s head. The light was always too bright or too dark.

  Park hated prison leads.

  Prison leads always worked an angle. Prison leads were only given for reasons. A love of truth and justice was never one of the reasons. That didn’t mean they were bullshit. That was the problem. If they were all bullshit, he could have ignored them.

  Park’s life had bled to grayness in the two months since he’d talked to Polly McClusky on the phone. His leads had dribbled out. He’d put together what he could. The murder of Ground Chuck Hollington leading to the Aryan Steel greenlight. He’d even found the punk kid in Susanville, the one who’d tipped Nate off the night before his planned murder. Crazy Craig had made one mistake. He’d wanted to wait to hit Nate and his family the day of his release. Some sort of maniac irony. This punk kid, a Steel hanger-on, had passed a warning to Nate. “He didn’t fuck with me,” the only reason the kid could give.

  Park had been able to put together where Nate had been. But where he was now, that was still a straight mystery. The media had lost interest the second week. A starlet found floating facedown in a Hollywood Hills home had grabbed the spotlight. The media was a living organism, and it ate beautiful dead things. Polly got forgotten. Park got other cases. He couldn’t get a buzz going. Park wondered how he could get it back.

  Then, two days ago, Miller had passed along a tip. An Aryan Steel heavy named Dick Carlyle in Lompoc wanted to talk. Noteworthy, as Dick Carlyle was a big fish who had never snitched before. Ghosts floated in Park’s skull. He made the trip up the coast telling himself to ignore the buzz. To not get hooked again.

  Dick Carlyle sat in Lompoc’s interrogation box like he owned it. His legs spread wide, giving his balls plenty of air. He had eyes that made you reach back and touch your wallet. He had a smile like fuck you.

  “You help me, I help you,” Park said as he sat. Keep it simple. “First thing I need to know is what you want from me.”

  “A favor to be named later,” Dick said. There were layers in his voice, warning Park that Dick here was a master cellblock manipulator. He’d hide his angle inside an angle.

  “You can have an ask,” Park said. “But you don’t get to own me.”

  “I’m just trying to be a good citizen here,” Dick said, bullshit so transparent it counted as honesty.

  Park showed him Nate’s photo.

  “You know this guy?”

  “You think he killed his old woman, huh?”

  “No,” Park said. “I think you guys did.”

  Dick did a good job of covering his surprise, but not quite good enough.

  “But you’re looking for him.”

  “Kidnapping is still a crime,” Park said.

  “Just want to make sure this tip ain’t a waste of time is all,” Dick said. This was the angle, Park realized. The first one, anyway.

  “You want him on the inside,” Park said. “So you can touch him.”

  “So?”

  “So maybe I’m no Aryan Steel errand boy.”

  “What you going to do, stop looking?”

  Park stood.

  “Me Chinee, me drink Coke,” Dick said. He pulled his eyes slanted. He busted up laughing.

  Park had never hurt a man before. Not just to hurt him. He didn’t know where to start. The thinking about it made the moment pass. Dick saw him, like he was naked. Dick dropped a major eyefuck on him.

  “Get one of the screws in here if you can’t get it up,” he said with his fuck you smile. “They don’t mind slapping us around.”

  Park gripped the table. Knuckles popped. He kept the pot from boiling over.

  “Tell me what you have to tell me,” he said.

  “Word is he’s in L.A.,” Dick said. “Word is he’s taking down Steel businesses. He’s taken down serious weight. A lot of crank. A lot of taxes. He’s nigger rich now but he’s still going. He says he won’t quit till the Man Himself knocks off the greenlight.”

  “Sounds like bullshit.”

  “Check out the Chinatown shootout. Your boy Nate’s been running and gunning. He’s a threat to society. Him and the girl both.”

  “How’s this supposed to help me find him?”

  “There’s a woman,” Dick said. “Her name’s Charlotte Gardner. She’s taken up with them. You find her, you find them.”

  On his way out, Park stopped at prison services, took a look at Dick’s approved visitor list. Found what he knew he’d find. Charlotte Gardner, approved visitor with regular visits to Dick that stopped suddenly two weeks ago. That was Dick’s angle. Revenge on a woman. It made Park feel better. Made him feel like he could move ahead. Made him allow himself to feel the buzz.

  Park kept the buzz under wraps. It was actionable intelligence. He knew the Steel’s angle. Now he just had to figure out his own.

  34

  BOXER

  FROGTOWN

  He’d told the crazy whiteboy not to teach him how to play the game. He meant it. Boxer loved speed chess. He’d learned it on the inside. When the whiteboy leaned down in his ear, told him he’d kill anyone Boxer and La Eme wanted, that he’d gun down the president of the United States and die smiling if La Eme would take care of his daughter, Boxer’s chess brain j
umped around the board. It landed in Hangtree.

  Hangtree, California. The high desert just north of the border. A legendary place. Meth lab fumes and mirage shimmers all blended together. The Sinaloa cartel used to move weight through Hangtree no problem. Then the bosses switched. A sheriff named Houser took the throne. Houser had whiteboy sympathies. He had his own ideas about law and order. He organized the meth cooks. He gave them a patch of the desert. An old army base, nothing left but concrete slabs in the desert. The cooks set up. Houser became meth baron of the desert. He ripped off any cartel loads he could find. Him and his deputy. Legend had it Jimmy liked to snatch drugs and experiment on the carnales who passed through the local lockups. The ones lucky enough to live told about crazy drug cocktails Jimmy would cook up. Said he had mind-control theories and nutbag eyes.

  Mostly Houser just robbed them and let them go. After all, he had a badge. The badge made him bulletproof. He let most of the cartel runners go. But not all of them. Boxer knew Houser dumped their bodies in the desert. Coyotes around Hangtree learned the taste of long pig. They got fat on La Eme flesh. They cracked teeth on buckshot hidden in the meat.

  La Eme wanted Houser dead. La Eme knew killing a white cop in the desert could destroy them. Brown killers taking down an American cop, hell, it could lead all the way to military interdiction. Seal Team 6 cruising down to Sinaloa. And Houser knew it. He was bulletproof. He was fucking fearless.

  A few months back Houser had grabbed a mule named Luis. Somebody found his body in the desert. He’d been gutted. They’d cut him open just to get out the balloons in his stomach.

  Luis was Boxer’s cousin. When they found him outside Hangtree, Boxer got mad. He had cop-killer daydreams. Then he thought it through. He played the chess game out. He lost every time. La Eme would never sanction a hit on a white cop. He learned to live with the idea that some folk were untouchable.

  Then the crazy whiteboy dropped in his lap. A whiteboy willing to do anything. And then that little badass girl had shown him her wounds, and it had reopened the wounds inside Boxer, and he thought why the hell not? Fuck that the-cop-is-untouchable shit. No one’s untouchable. If JFK can get got, the whiteboy could take out one lousy dirty cop. The white in whiteboy was key. If it went bad, nobody would blame La Eme. They’d put it on whiteboy insanity. Even if they took him alive, he’d never get a chance to talk. The Steel would have him dead in hours.

  Boxer makes some calls. Coded messages spelled out the plan to El Presidente in Pelican Bay. El Presidente sees Boxer’s logic. He likes the way it keeps their hands clean. El Presidente says greenlight on the high-desert cop. Send the crazy whiteboy. Killing Aryan Steel’s president will be bad for business, at least short-term. But they only have to pay the price if the whiteboy lives. If he dies, they don’t pay. Crazy Craig lives and the greenlight on the girl continues. Boxer doesn’t like it. But he sees it’s a pure business call.

  Boxer calls in the crazy whiteboy for another meeting. Boxer meets him alone this time. He gives him the decision. He’s going to assassinate a cop in the middle of the cop’s own dirty kingdom. Boxer has to hand it to the crazy whiteboy. He keeps his face calm. Boxer can only see the fear in the whiteboy’s throat, how it jerks and pops.

  The crazy whiteboy isn’t that crazy. He knows there’s no coming back from a cop killing. He knows the price he’s paying. His eyes a little too shiny, a little too wet. His voice comes out strong. No cracks in it.

  The crazy whiteboy says, “I’ll do it.”

  35

  NATE

  KOREATOWN/NORTH HOLLYWOOD

  One last night. It’s all Nate could ask for. Just let it be good.

  Polly didn’t know he’d seen Boxer. Didn’t know the price he’d agreed to pay. Charlotte didn’t know what he had to ask of her. Neither of them knew he was leaving tonight.

  He took them all out to eat Korean barbecue. They dug the grill at the center of the table, where the strips of meat sizzled. They wrapped the charred meat in lettuce leaves. They didn’t dig kimchi. Polly poked at it with a chopstick. She sniffed it. She said no thanks. She ate meat. She dipped her lettuce wraps in hot sauce. She laughed, her chin shiny with grease.

  Charlotte laughed. She rubbed his leg under the table. She smiled. She leaned over and whispered, “This is nice.”

  If Nate could freeze life he would have done it just then. But of course he couldn’t.

  Later, long after Polly had gone to a meat-drugged sleep, Nate breathed in the scent from the sweat-soaked hair at the back of Charlotte’s head as their two sweaty bodies pressed together, moving in their unspoken rhythm. He thought about how you could care for someone and still use them at the same time. Maybe that’s the way it always was. And then she reached back and her nails clawed his neck and for a while he didn’t think anything at all.

  Later, in the quiet and the dark, Nate told her what he had to do. What she had to do. She didn’t try to fight it. She leaned in to smell the sweat of him. Asked him when he was leaving.

  “Tonight,” he said. “Will you do it?”

  She said, “I will.”

  They moved cat-quiet through the house. He packed his bag. He took a fistful of the cash. He left the rest for them. Charlotte kissed him deep.

  Polly slept nose to nose with the bear. Nate stood in the shadows watching her sleep. Felt something like hooks in his flesh tearing out parts of him.

  He climbed into the green monster and drove out toward the high desert.

  Part III

  Zombie Walking

  The High Desert

  36

  POLLY

  I-10

  This couldn’t be Fontana, the place she’d lived her whole life. Only months gone and now, as the places of her girlhood buzzed past them on the I-10, it looked to Polly like the streets and houses had all been torn up and put back together not quite right. The streets a little too small, the houses with angles just a little wrong, the sky a weird smudged color.

  Everyone she cared about gone.

  She should have known he’d leave her. She had believed him because she was stupid. Who cared about IQs or book reading or anything. When it came down to it she was dumb dumb dumb. She’d believed they were a family.

  Charlotte drove with her knuckles white on the steering wheel, chewing chunks of skin from around her nails the way Polly used to do. Driving so careful, glancing over at Polly, not meeting her eyes. She was still scared of Polly after what had happened today.

  Good.

  She’d burst into Charlotte’s room an hour before, her heart so violent she could feel it in the roots of her teeth. Living things danced all over in her.

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Polly, listen, honey.”

  “His bag is gone,” Polly said. “The guns are gone.”

  He left you alone, her brain teased. Just like you knew he would.

  “He’s doing this for you,” Charlotte said.

  “I knew you’d ruin it. I knew it.” The wriggling things rolling up her throat with the words.

  “We’re going to wait for him.”

  “He needs me,” Polly said. “He can’t go alone. He can’t.”

  “Well, he did.”

  The things wriggling inside Polly had to come out. She picked up the water glass from the bedstand. She pitched it against the wall. Plastic cracked. Water splashed. It wasn’t enough. She grabbed the lamp next. Raised it over her head.

  “Now wait a goddamn second,” Charlotte said. She grabbed the other side of the lamp. “Your dad is out there risking his life for you and you’re here and that’s all it is, so will you just chill the fuck out?”

  Polly let go of the lamp. She realized of all the nutso things she was smiling. Smiling so big the corners of her mouth ached.

  “Out there where?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Out there where?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Where?”

  “Out in the deser
t.”

  “We’re going.”

  “Polly, no.”

  “You can’t stop me,” Polly said. “You can’t and you know you can’t. I won’t stop. I won’t. So you take me to him.”

  “Polly, you can’t—”

  Polly had screamed then. A noise of rage. A warrior noise. And then she watched Charlotte shrink. Somehow Polly was the older one now.

  “Get your keys,” Polly said. She felt scared and alone but also somehow clean. “I’ll get the bear.”

  Charlotte got the keys. They were on their way ten minutes later. As they pulled away, Polly saw a man, handsome and Asian, walking toward the building. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him before they drove down the road and he shrank out of sight.

  37

  NATE

  HANGTREE/SLABTOWN

  See Nate in the desert.

  See the corpse of a meth cowboy, his head turned round the wrong way, tire tracks crushed across his chest. See torn fences and smashed skulls. See a man naked but for a plastic apron letting scrub tear the flesh of his ankles as he runs away from the madness. See a rolled-over pickup truck. And Nate on the floor of the desert, searching for his breath, staring up at a condor in a clear blue sky while Houser stands above him, reloading a strange little rifle.

  See Nate’s silent lips move. Read them.

  Polly, I’m sorry.

  Nate had driven through the night to make Hangtree by dawn. He found some little AM radio station, some never-ending rock jam. Songs about space voyages and electric vampires. All of it faraway fuzzy like the signal had bounced off the moon. It fit the alien twists of the Joshua trees that hunched black against the star-filled skies.