On University, I found a fifties style diner. The place looked about a week old but everything had been pre-aged so it had the feeling of a real greasy spoon, in a creepy Disney-land sort of way. This was a town that had real history, which they tore out and replaced with fake history, just because they could. As we walked in, four Stanford boys craned their necks to watch Cass walk by. They looked at me and I could hear the laughter at some joke being told. I moved us to the counter with our backs to the boys, I knew if I had to look at them it would get ugly and that wasn’t why I was here. If Cass noticed any of it she didn’t say, it seemed she’d become immune years ago to the bullshit her looks brought out in men, unless she was using it for a purpose, then she knew how to turn it on like a light switch. We ordered and Cass powered down two double burgers and an order of chili fries. I still had no idea where she put it, but watching her eat I forgot about the college boys and beating the crap out of them and I laughed.
Drinking some of the best diner coffee I’d ever had from a to-go cup I watched the house. At around ten the lights upstairs went dark. “Let’s do it,” I said to Cass. At the door I leaned out of sight against the wall, my.45 hung in my hand. Cass rang the bell, we could hear it echoing into the house followed by footsteps. An iron port in the door swung open spilling a square of light onto Cass.
“Sorry to bother you, but my car died, well it didn’t die, it ran out of gas and I left my cell phone at home, and well… I wonder if I could use your phone to call my husband?” she said.
“Sure, just a minute.” a male voice said. I heard the deadbolt click and the door opened. I moved into the light, aiming the pistol at his chest. He was a tall skinny man of about thirty, he had gold rimmed glasses and a ponytail. “What the hell?” he squeaked.
“Shhh, why don’t you invite us in,” I said, clicking the hammer back on the.45.
“No, my wife and kids….” he blurted out.
“…Will wake up when they hear me shoot you if you don’t do what I say.” I pushed him into the house. Cass closed the door behind us.
“I don’t have any cash,” he stammered.
“And I don’t want any. Play this straight and an hour from now we’ll just be a bad memory. Fuck with me and you better hope your life insurance is paid up. Got it?”
“No… what do you want?”
“Hot Horny Stripper, you prick. Does your little wifey know where you get your cash?” Cass said.
“Who sent you?” he asked.
“Unimportant. Fact is we are here now and we want answers,” I said. From upstairs a woman’s voice called out.
“Jerry, is everything ok?”
“Fine honey, go back to bed.” At gunpoint, he led us out the back door, through the backyard, past his kids’ redwood jungle gym and into a detached garage. The garage had been converted into a triple insulated, windowless, high-tech bunker. The door closed with a swoosh behind us and all sound from the outside world disappeared, replaced by the low hum of computer fans. The room was climate controlled to a chilly sixty five degrees and clean of all particles of dust, every surface was shiny white, even the floor. A row of computers flashed and blinked into the night. Cass wanted to know which server held the porno site. He pointed to a terminal, she sat down and started typing.
“Where is Gino?” I asked him.
“I don’t know who you are talking about.” I whipped the barrel of the automatic down across his cheek, he stumbled back holding his face. I could see a slight smear of blood where the front sight had cut him.
“Let’s be clear, porn-boy. I don’t like you one bit, so splattering you will be a pleasure. Your only value is what you know.” I smacked him again and he started to cry, his face growing pale. The reality of his situation was sinking in.
“Stop, please, I’m just a provider, it was Gino’s idea. He came to me. I didn’t want to do it but when Apple laid me off I had to do something,” he said through his tears.
“How did he find you?” I wanted to smack him for crying, tell him to be a man.
“I met him at a club in the city,” he sniveled.
“Barbary Coast?”
“Yes,” he said, looking down.
“Moses.” Cass was trembling and pointing at the computer screen. Moving to her side I looked and saw Kelly on the screen, she was being held by an anonymous fist. His fingers were laced into her curly hair, he was forcing her to give him head. The faceless figure pulled her mouth off his cock. He struck several hard slaps across her face, a trickle of blood ran down from her nose. He forced her bloody lips back down onto his erection. Her eyes were wild, like a trapped animal. I felt my stomach clench, bile backed up into my throat. Blood pounding in my brain, I grabbed the monitor ripping it off the desk and hurled it at the skinny man. It caught him in the chest and he tumbled back into the wall. Cracking the plasterboard with his back he fell to the floor. I let out a pain filled cry and jumped on him, with my knees on his chest I shoved the barrel of the pistol into his forehead. I had to fight not to pull the trigger and rid the planet of this weasel.
“Did you film this?” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Yes…but I didn’t know what he was going to do. He just lost it.”
“Gino?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else involved?”
“No… He went crazy on her.”
“And you kept filming. ‘Cause you lost your job and all?”
“Yes.” He was gasping for air as I bore down on his chest.
“Kill him.” Cass stood over us. Her jaw set, her eyes devoid of life.
“Not yet, baby girl,” I said, then turned back to his tear and blood stained face. “Where is Gino? No bullshit or I’ll give her the gun and leave the room.”
“I don’t know, we always met in different restaurants … Every week I’d give him his cut… He hasn’t called in several months… I don’t know where he is, really I don’t, I swear I’d tell you if I knew.” He was telling the truth, he didn’t have the balls to lie to me. Standing up, I handed the gun to Cass.
“No! What are you doing, I told you all I know!” he cried out. I turned and walked out of the garage. Cass had paid dear for this moment. In the backyard I found a box of sports equipment. In it was just what I was looking for, a Louisville slugger, America’s favorite solid oak baseball bat. When I reentered the garage the ponytail boy was curled up in a ball, I could smell the rank odor of urine. A yellow stain spilled out onto the white linoleum beneath him. Blood flowed from several fresh cuts on his face, she must have given him a pistol whipping. If that was all he got that night he would be a luckier son of a bitch than me. Cass looked down at him in disgust. I put a firm hand on her shoulder and spoke quietly.
“He isn’t worth it,” I said.
“No he’s not…” she said turning away from the crumpled waste of a man. Swinging the bat I let all my rage out on the computer towers. The plastic and metal exploded across the room. I broke them to pieces and then broke the pieces into pieces. Wires and circuit boards scattered across the floor. I handed the bat to Cass and let her go wild on the monitors. Glass shattered with a pop, she screamed, her face contorting with the fury she felt. She was ugly and marvelous, clear for the moment of the guise of beauty she wore so well. She screamed and kept swinging. While she vented on the equipment I searched a tall file cabinet, it was mostly tax information, receipts for computer gear, warranties we had just voided. In the back I found an envelope with four small cassettes, DV videotape. Each was labeled as Girl One through Four. I slipped the tapes into my pocket. Cass stood, panting over the wreckage. The punk was sniveling in the corner. I leaned down, rolling his limp body onto his back so he could see me.
“One day I’ll be back. You will pay for what you have done. You won’t know when, you won’t see it coming, but you will pay the price.” We left him there and walked down the driveway out onto the peaceful street. A street full of happy families, all sleeping comfortably, all unaware of
the pain merchant in their midst.
I got on the 101 and headed south. It was time to go home, back where I had the connections to find out what the hell was going on. “How did you know I wouldn’t shoot him?” Cass asked.
“I didn’t, but I figured it was your choice to make.”
“I could have.”
“I know.”
“Thank you,” she said. In San Jose I pulled off and bought a bottle of whiskey and one of ginger ale. This time Cass drank with me. It was the first time since I met her I’d seen her drink anything harder than diet coke. Purring over the 152 past Casa de Fruitas we rolled into the mountains. Billowing clouds drifted past the moon, casting huge moving shadows across the landscape, obscuring and illuminating the steep hills that climbed around us. Sharp rocks stabbed up out of the smooth brown grass and a grove of oak trees dotting the mountainside looked like monstrous skeletons reaching out their many arms to grab wandering strangers.
“You’re a good man, Moses,” Cass slurred after her second drink. “Really, you are a good man…fuck ‘em all that’s what I say… She was just a sweet little girl, why’d they do that to her?”
“I don’t know, baby girl, I don’t know.”
“Fuck all men… All but you, Moses, you’re a good man.”
“Ok.”
“I mean it Moses, you are a good man…” Cass was out cold by the time we reached the 5, she fell asleep curled up in the seat with her head on my lap. I had tenderly stroked her hair until she had finally let go and drifted off. I wished she hadn’t had to see her sister like that, I wished I could protect her from all the ugliness in the world. But the best I could do was hold her head and let her sleep.
Highway 5 stretched out before us, a long dark ribbon that ran in a straight line to the horizon. All around us was an endless expanse of nothing, flat dirt broken up by small scrub brush and then more dirt. Few cars were traveling at this late hour. I blew past a tractor trailer pulling a load of onions, the scarecrow driving the rig shot me a thumbs up. My guess is he was glad to find out the Crown Vic wasn’t a cop car. Then I was out on this lonely stretch of hell, I saw no lights for over an hour. I was left by myself, just me and my dark thoughts. Whoever killed Kelly was out there somewhere, by now they would have figured out what I did in the desert. Could they be hunting me at this moment? In the rear view mirror a pair of low-slung headlights flew up out of the horizon. I was doing a clean eighty but they were quickly closing the gap. I eased the hammer down and let the beast roar. The speedo’ read 120 mph, but the headlights kept coming on, burning up the miles between us. I left my guns in the trunk out of fear that we might get stopped by the cherry tops. But now I would have gladly dealt with a cop just to have my trusty.45. I could start to make out the silhouette of my pursuer, it was a sports car, either an Audi TT or Porsche. I pushed it up to a buck forty, but couldn’t gain any ground on them, it had to be a Porsche. White light engulfed the interior of the Crown Vic, I flicked the mirror up to keep from being blinded. In a rush of wind a deep purple Porsche whipped past me. As they passed I looked over expecting to see the barrel of a shotgun, what I got was a glimpse of a salt and pepper haired man with his bimbo girlfriend. They were both laughing and bouncing along to what ever music they had ripping on their stereo, they didn’t even look over. I wasn’t a blip on their radar. Dropping back down to a less cop attracting speed, I noticed my knuckles were white as they gripped the steering-wheel like it was a life preserver and I was drowning. Maybe I was, and I was just too simple to know it. Just because some old fuck in a purple Porsche made me paranoid didn’t mean I wasn’t being hunted.
After a pit stop in a rest area, to piss and make myself a fresh cocktail, I rejoined the road. My pulse was back down to its normal speed driven thump. I slipped Joshua Tree into the CD player and let The Edge’s guitar licks take me away. Bono sang about how he had climbed mountains and ran through fields and still had not found what he was looking for. I knew the feeling only too well.
At the end of the central valley the highway snaked suddenly up the Grape Vine into the steep mountains. In only a couple of miles the road gains two thousand feet in elevation, the incline forces lesser cars and trucks with trailers to slow to a crawl. The Crown Vic purred up the incline at a steady 80 mph. If only I could trust the woman I was rolling with like I trusted this car.
CHAPTER 11
It was five AM when I dropped down out of the mountains and into LA. The sky was the palest of blues in the dawn as we passed the old WPA bridges that cross the LA river up and over the freeway. They were built a long time before the twisted web of concrete we call a freeway system scarred up Los Angeles. This town was like that, look at it from the proper angle and you were transported back to a time when Humphrey Bogart ruled the silver screen and instead of paying folks to stay at home and worry, they paid them to build wonderful stone bridges.
I carried Cass into my house. She stirred once when I laid her down in the bed, she reached out and touched my stubbled face and then went back to sleep. I unloaded the Crown Vic, and placed Marilyn on the kitchen table. Curling up on the couch I held my.45 to my chest. I still had phantom feelings of the highway moving under me. Sleep seemed many rumbling miles off. My brain was a jumble of fears and plans. What I should or shouldn’t do, who I should talk to, what wrong step might get us both killed. I blinked and an hour and a half had disappeared off the clock. I sat up, not much more rested but a little less blurry. I brewed a pot of coffee and sat on the back stoop drinking the rich black brew. My backyard was small and tangled, weeds had taken over the lawn and the orange tree was in bad need of pruning. The three roses had grown into wild bushes. The rent was cheap, my landlord was a widow who had moved to Oregon to be near her grandchildren, so I was left to do as I pleased. I hadn’t noticed how small and shabby the house was, but I’d never had a guest in it before. An hour later I checked on Cass. She was sleeping the sleep of the innocent. The hard edges from her face erased, she looked like the young girl she was. I left her a note and a loaded.45 and headed for the dog park.
Angel saw me as soon as I cleared the double gates. She let go her grip on Bruiser’s neck and galloped across the grass. Going to my knees I let her lick my face and nibble on my ears and nose.
“She missed her Daddy,” Helen said, offering a hand to help me up. She had a firm strong grip. “How was your trip?”
“Rough.”
“Looks like it. Getting any sleep?”
“Some. How’s the writing going?”
“We’re on hiatus, I should be working on a spec script, but life is short and I’m lazy.” While we talked, Bruiser came over and tried to get Angel to play, but she wouldn’t leave my side. She leaned into my leg, keeping contact. “Your girl can eat!”
“No, really? She’s always so demure at home,” I chuckled. We chatted about nothing important, new plans for the park, the city was tired of watching the trees it planted die from dog piss, everything but where I’d been. They were planning to build a lattice structure for shade and there was talk about replacing the struggling grass with ground up concrete. Five hundred dogs a day used the park, making it one of the rec. departments most used spots. Helen told me about her show, it dealt with vampires infiltrating the Mob, it had been picked up for a second season, so Bruiser wouldn’t starve this year. After the last few super charged days it was good just to chat. As I went to go Helen caught my arm, looking me square in the eyes.
“Are you ok, Moses?”
“I will be…”
“Kelly?”
“Among other things, yeah,” I said.
“If you need to talk, I work weird hours and don’t sleep much, so call me.” I wondered if she knew the truth about me, Kelly, the dead men, would she be so ready to be available? Maybe when it was all over I’d test her out, then again maybe she didn’t need this crap rattling around in her brain. Let Kelly remain pure in her memory, if no place else.
Picking Angel up I went back to
my crib. She liked the Crown Vic, jumping from the front seat into the back and then up front again. To her it was a big rolling playpen. From the floor she watched my foot flexing on the accelerator, dropping onto her forepaws her eyebrows scrunched up and her butt wiggled as her body tensed. As I rounded a corner she leapt like a wild beast, all forty pounds of her landing on her prey, my foot, driving it to the floorboards. The Crown Vic gained velocity as it lurched forward toward the stalled traffic in front of me. Racking the wheel to the left I skidded across the path of oncoming cars and up a small alley. Picking Angel up by the scruff of her neck I sat her on the seat. After all I had survived it would be a real bitch if I died in a car wreck because of a puppy.
Cass was still sleeping when we returned with a bag of pan dulce. Angel curled up at my feet while I called Lowrie. “How are you, son, you doing ok?” he asked after telling me he had no news on Kelly’s case.
“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” I said.
“I’m booked full up, narcotics pulled three detectives from our division, new mayor has the war on drugs on the brain. So we’re pulling doubles. I haven’t seen my wife in a week.”
“I need to see you.” There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. He finally let out a sigh.
“You know the Denny’s on Santa Monica?” he said.
“Yeah, off Cherokee?”
“Be there at eleven.” He hung up without even saying goodbye. Angel’s head popped up, I turned to see Cass standing in the doorway, wiping grains of sleep from her eyes. Angel jumped up and ran to Cass, leaping at her bare legs. It was the first time she had left my side since I had picked her up.
“Who’s your friend?” Cass asked, scratching Angel behind the ear.
“Angel, she was Kelly’s.”
“And you took her in? You’re not a big tough guy after all, are you?”
“No, I’m a big sissy, afraid of the dark, my turn-ons are puppy dogs and long walks on the beach, my turn-offs are cheeky girls who sleep in my bed without so much as a thank you.” I said with a grin.
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