by Avery Duff
“Well, Officer,” Robert might begin, “it’s a funny thing about Bulgarians . . .”
On top of California law, federal law could apply if they disturbed archaeological artifacts or disturbed the desert floor: like digging a hole, Gia suggested.
She ended her memo with: “Federal law, Roberto? Don’t get me started!”
Erik’s reaction had been laced with his usual dollop of common sense.
“If police notified a desert community somebody just found buried millions? The Manson Family reunites for that much money.”
When they showed a park ranger named Rachael a photograph of Delfina’s rock, she suggested they check out the gift shop up the street.
“They sell desert rocks and minerals, objets and other stuff over there,” Rachael told them. Smiling because she’d meant objets and other stuff to be funny.
Objets and Other Stuff, the gift shop’s sign said, too. That and 7 Minute Showers. Named the Tortoise, the shop’s baskets lined its road-facing wall, filled with rocks and minerals: garnet, tigereye, moonstone, gypsum rosettes, hematite, tumbled oco, chrysocolla quartz points, rough fluorite, black onyx, and tourmaline. Iron pyrite, too—fool’s gold.
Gold but not really gold, Robert recalled Delfina saying in the hospital chapel.
And in a basket on the top shelf: dark-gray stamped river rocks, just like Delfina’s.
While Erik scoured rock baskets for his sons, Robert took a stamped rock to the counter and spoke to the Tortoise’s longtime owner, a one-armed red-haired man in his fifties who introduced himself as Baker. First name or last, Robert wasn’t sure.
“The store’s always sourced ’em from Montana. We’re the only high-desert store ever offered ’em for sale. The only manufactured rock in the store, but people go for ’em.”
Robert showed him Teo’s rock with its etched Joshua tree and clack-mark edges.
“Ever see one of these?”
“Been a while,” Baker said, “but when I was a kid, all the time. The artist who made ’em’s long gone, turned out a hundred or so a week. Back then, my family bought all he made, sold ’em for a quarter apiece. My dad put one in my Christmas stocking. Don’t know what became of it.”
Baker didn’t recall Carlos or Teo off their photos—four other clerks helped out here, too, and Baker had turnover on top of that—but ID’ing the brothers in this store was secondary to Robert now. Carlos and Teo had been to this store. First, with Vincent and Zara, way back when. And each of them, at different times, in the last two years.
He brought Erik up to speed in the car: “Carlos came to the West Entrance and stopped at the Tortoise. Once he saw that those etched rocks were history, he substituted stamped rocks, the closest thing he could find, and had ’em framed. That’s where Teo bought Delfina’s rock, too. All because back in the ’60s, Vincent stopped there. Somebody—Vincent, Zara, the boys?—paid fifty cents for two etched rocks and took ’em back to LA.”
“You’re killing it,” Erik had said.
After they picked up supplies in Joshua Tree, they made Indian Cove around dark, unloading stacks of avocado firewood, food, and sleeping bags from the Yukon. Their secluded site butted up against an enormous boulder mound with its own fire pit; an iron grill on a swivel lay across the top of it, ready to go.
As part of Wonderland of Rocks, Indian Cove lived up to that name. Once the sun dropped from sight, the pale sky dripped indigo onto the horizon, darkening until thousands of stars punctured the overhead palette. After reconnoitering in the dark—only ten other campers—they built a fire and downed two bottles of wine, four buttered baked potatoes, and two sixteen-ounce rib eyes.
Robert fed the fire pit till it blazed and radiated heat across the dry air. Lying in his bag, watching the sky, Robert understood their long stretches of silence. He felt small, yet very much a part of whatever it all was, and tomorrow, he and Erik would be two men—doubters might call them two deranged men—scouring this desert for hidden treasure.
From what he’d read, Robert knew they would be in good company. The Mojave brimmed with legends of crackpots and cranks, and the Iron Door cave topped the list. William Keys, a famous local, had built his ranch in the middle of nowhere, decades before the park existed, and set up a mining operation. Iron Door, a cave on his ranch, was to this day sealed by Keys’ very real iron door. The cave had been used to store both dynamite and to house Keys’ schizophrenic son. Whether both uses occurred at the same time, he had no idea.
As the fire died down, Erik spoke first.
“Seriously, dude, what if Ranger Rachael shows up demanding sexual favors?”
Given the setting, Robert had expected something more profound. “Well, the law’s real clear. She’s a federal official—comply, or you’ll do serious time.”
“I will not comply, even with my wife out of the country. Even knowing she’d never learn of my indiscretion—unless someone I trust squealed on me.”
“As your attorney, I won’t rat you out. But for the record? You need to be out here a few days without water before you start talking crazy shit.”
Erik laughed, reached over, held out his fist. “Pound it, boy.”
Robert pounded Erik’s rump roast of a fist and recalled a sparring session when Erik’s gloved meat mallet had caught him with a liver shot. His life force had vacated his body, and he lay down on the pavement for a full five minutes. Time for a little payback.
“Hate to admit it, but I love your truck. Next year, I’m gonna buy the new model. Exactly like yours but a bigger engine, bigger gun safe, and a midnight-blue rhino coat.”
“A deluxe gun safe for a man with no guns?”
“Yeah, and bigger than yours.”
“I don’t care for your tone, sir,” Erik said. “Next you’ll be telling me you’ll have a small secret compartment in your hypothetical truck, same as I have in my real truck.”
“I’m calling bullshit.” Then: “Where?”
“Can’t tell you, Beach, it’s a secret compartment. Maybe after you show me the money . . .”
CHAPTER 37
At daybreak, Robert and Erik drove back to the park’s West Entrance and into the park proper. At the actual gate, Quail Springs Road turned into Park Boulevard, which wound through the park another twenty-five miles before ending at the North Entrance.
It didn’t take long for their first setback. Fifteen minutes along Park Boulevard, Robert realized his theory about Stone Temple and Jesus was dubious at best. What was marked in his guidebook as a gravel road to Stone Temple turned out to be an eight-mile hiking trail, no vehicles allowed. Jesus running money changers from the temple was a great metaphor, but Carlos hiking in to Stone Temple did not compute.
Robert told Erik: “No way Carlos made a sixteen-mile round trip hike into Stone Temple weighed down with money. Two or three trips, more likely.”
“You or me, solo, it’s two days’ work. Him? Never.”
They decided, too, that Carlos would’ve worked alone. Neither of them could imagine him asking for help. Excuse me, sir? I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to hide this bag at Stone Temple. Mark it with a cairn, then come back here and tell me where you put it.
“And no peeking inside the bag,” Erik added.
That left them to find Jesus at Skull Rock, farther into the park. As the SUV rolled along, Robert watched the rising sun spill onto the desert floor. The setting was unlike anything either of them had ever seen. Mile after mile of Joshua trees swarmed a vast alluvial plain, an army of hairy-limbed evergreens throwing crazed morning shadows across sand and rock.
Enormous mounds of boulders—the same ochre-colored rocks as back at Indian Cove—seemed to have sprung out of nowhere. Autonomous mounds of White Tank monzogranite surrounded by miles of flat desert floor. Occasionally, a ten-ton circular boulder appeared, resting on top of a flat rock shelf; some rock faces had joints so tight, they looked like a stonemason’s master work. A circle balanced on a straight line. Unnatural-looking,
but there it was, advanced cosmic design by the celestial landscaper.
They pulled into Skull Rock’s parking lot. Robert already knew this place differed from Stone Temple in a good way: the massive rock rested just fifty yards away, across the road.
“Gotta be it,” Erik said.
Robert’s pulse quickened as they neared the rock’s base, first tourists to arrive. The back quarter of this fifty-foot-tall boulder had sheared off, rounding it into a cranium. On its front, facing them: a broad forehead. Below that, two deeply indented erosion-eyes and nasal openings, all of it creating the eerie look of a human skull, minus its jaw or mouth.
“A simple walk for Carlos,” Robert said. “Right around dark or at daybreak. Two or three easy trips with the money, even for him.”
Erik nodded. “Hides it, buries it, in and out.”
Where, though? Robert wondered.
The rock was a popular spot, so Carlos would’ve hidden the money somewhere out of the way. So they separated and started searching, hoping, too, that Carlos’ cairn would mark the money’s location.
“Or Karen,” Erik added.
After the better part of that day, they met by the Yukon for their fifth water break. They hadn’t ignored a single crevice, gulley, rock bed, or diggable sandy spot, but both came up empty-handed.
“Maybe we were too worried about telling the rangers what we were looking for,” Erik said.
Robert agreed, despite Gia’s legal memo: right now, they didn’t have much choice. “We’ll have to pick their brains somehow.”
Out of the park, on their way down Quail Springs Road, Robert finally picked up a signal and a text from Philip Fanelli about digging into Evelyn’s background at her old law firm:
Bradley Holtzmann called back. Evelyn Levine was covered by NDA with his firm. Couldn’t get him to violate it. Nerve of that guy!
A nondisclosure agreement. Same thing Robert had with Fanelli at his old firm, meaning that Bradley wasn’t at liberty to discuss Evelyn with Philip or anyone else.
Robert texted back, half joking: Maybe Bradley’s old flame, Dorothy, will have better luck?
When he finished, he saw that Erik was pulling into the ranger station. A thought struck Robert.
“Forget it. C’mon, let’s try Baker first.”
The one-armed owner of the Tortoise. Erik liked the idea.
“What’s our cover?” Robert asked.
“Our office scavenger hunt.”
“Done.”
Inside the Tortoise, Baker welcomed the idea of helping two city boys figure out desert clues.
“High school, college reunion, what?” Baker asked.
“For our business,” Robert said. “We work for a software start-up.”
“What’s it called?”
“Priya,” Robert said. “It means beloved in Sanskrit.”
Erik looked at him like a proud father.
“Let’s hear what you got,” Baker said.
First, Robert tried out the Jesus rock-formation angle; Baker came up empty.
“Try these, then,” Robert said. He began riffing on Rx Samuelson: “Rex Samuelson? Doctor Samuelson? Samuelson? Samuelson’s pharmacy?”
“Not ringing a bell,” Baker said.
Using Samuels instead of Samuelson, Robert gave him each variation again.
“Drawing a blank,” Baker said, but he was into it. “Gimme some more.”
Erik asked, “How about Truth and Faith?”
“A church maybe?” Baker asked. “Synagogue? A priest? The Bible?”
To be polite, Robert wrote down church.
“Church,” Erik added. “That’s strong.”
“How about Granted?” Robert asked. “A real chiseler?”
“Damn, damn, damn,” Baker said. “Keep going.”
“O’Meira?”
“Nope.”
Then Robert added O’Meira variations: O’Malley, O’Reilly, O’Neil?
Three nopes in return.
Robert read, “Don’t Forget! Angle Mann, Sticky Mickey, Meet Karen, A real prick, Your Decision!”
Baker slammed his only hand on the counter.
“Got two of ’em! Angle Mann and a real prick. That’s Engelmann. He’s the first botanist to write about the prickly pear cactus grows around here, and believe me, when it pricks you, you remember it. Get it?”
“Nailed it!” Erik said. He started to go for a high five with Baker, then thought twice.
Robert wrote: Engelmann . . . a real prick = Prickly Pear Cactus.
Baker said, “Got a question, though—did you say granted? Or granite?”
“Granted,” Robert said. “Try granite if it helps.”
“Back to the beginning!” Baker said. “Go back, go back!”
Robert read it all to him again.
Then Baker asked, “Why do you keep saying Rex and Doctor and pharmacy around Samuelson?”
Robert showed him the Rx. “That’s our clue.”
“I get it, like a prescription. That’s what messed me up,” Baker said. “I’m going with rocks not Rx. As in Rocks Samuelson—as in Samuelson’s Rocks.” Then to Erik: “High five, big man!”
Baker raised his only arm and smacked Erik’s raised hand.
As Baker explained those rocks and their eccentric Swedish namesake, he filled out the Truht and Faiht clues, too.
“What’s the prize for winning?”
“Trip to Long Beach,” Erik said.
“Shit, all this work for Long Beach?”
“Still a start-up,” Robert added.
Before he left, Robert bought $500 worth of objets and other stuff, and while Erik took a seven-minute shower around back, Robert used his one cell bar to return Gia’s earlier call.
Gia told him she and Delfina—in the back seat—were headed down to Venice Beach and mentioned Evelyn had called her earlier in the day.
“She okay?” Robert asked.
Gia said, “Weak but okay. She wondered why there were so many people at Carlos’ house, so I dropped Delfina at Evelyn’s and went over to check it out.”
Robert winced. “What was going on?”
“See if Reyes’ photos help,” she said. “Had a grill outside, cooking up some tacos de carnitas, de pollo y enchiladas. A steam tray with homemade tamales, chilaquiles. Oh, and a tasty salsa de mole.”
“Tasty? You ate over there?” he asked.
“Sí, Roberto. Delicioso. Plus, some beers and maybe twenty shots of Patrón. I lost count.”
She’d been driving; he knew better.
“How’d the place look?” he asked, closing his eyes.
Gia lowered her voice. “Bangin’. Like an upscale strip club, middle of the day. Stripper pole and four chicas from his side of town.”
“Dressed in . . . ?”
“Not much but tasteful. Twenty or so elderly gentlemen from, I think, around that neighborhood, or maybe he cleaned out Social Security, bused ’em over. Anyway, it was poppin’, mi amor, y todos los viejos estaban muy excitados.” Loose translation: All the old dudes were sexed up.
“How’d he do on the sale?”
“Reyes, guessing, said about thirty thousand after hard costs.”
“What!” He’d been expecting ten grand, tops. “For that stuff?”
“Not exactly. He had a marketing strategy.”
“The girls?”
“Un poquito.” She explained how it worked. Two girls would take one guy into Carlos’ love-pit bedroom. One girl took pictures while the other two messed around on that zebra four-poster.
Messed around, he wondered.
She ran down Reyes’ fee structure: “Picture on the bed with a half-clothed girl, a hundred bucks. Girl’s top off, two fifty. Both girls with tops off, five hundred. One girl naked, a thousand. And so on.”
And so on? he wondered again. Had he sponsored a whorehouse for Delfina’s trust?
“I’d toss out that bed,” Gia advised him.
No longer wondering: Yes, he had.
Her pictures came through. Old dudes on the bed messing around with those chicas. Sitting in those leather chairs, girls in their laps, kings for a day.
So what, he decided. Nobody died.
Just to make sure: “Nobody died, right?”
“Not that I heard about.” Then he knew she was laughing. “Somebody wants to talk to you,” Gia said, and Delfina took over the phone.
Visiting over at Evelyn’s, Delfina said, had been fun.
“Evelyn gave me juice and cookies, and we talked about lots of stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Well, she had pictures, and I asked about them. One was of her house where she grew up. With her daddy and her mom when Evelyn was a teenager.”
The picture, Robert recalled. The studio limo driver with his wife and teenage daughter.
“And then Evelyn and just her daddy when he was real old. He was smiling, and they were standing in front of their house, but it wasn’t their house anymore.”
He recalled Evelyn’s father, his demented smile.
Delfina told him, “Evelyn dated a movie star, and he was so handsome.”
“Chet Jordan,” he said. “He was a real big star.”
“Like Dwayne Johnson?”
The Rock? More like Cary Grant.
“Just like Dwayne Johnson,” he said.
“Evelyn said he was real rich but not happy because he was broken inside. He looked sad in the picture with her.”
After that, they’d taken out Evelyn’s trash, and she’d let Delfina use the garage door opener to raise her garage door.
“Evelyn calls it a clicker; it was so fun,” she said.
She asked about his camping supplies.
“I ate some of the trail mix, but a bear ate most of it because he was hungry.”
“Oso Polar!”
“Yes, and we used your sunscreen and the insect repellent. That was very thoughtful of you, Delfina. We really needed it, especially Mr. Jacobson.”
“I know. He’s so white. Do you still have my rock?” she asked.
