Chapter 5
The black 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood glided over the road’s surface as if the tires never actually touched pavement. Its Nevada license plate read GMBLR. Not overly original for Nevada, but that’s what made it special. Everybody wanted it, but this was the only one.
The journey across the Nevada and Utah desert was brutal, barring distinctive differences between any one point and another. It represented nothing more than a monochromatic display of sand, dirt, and rock. It was like driving on the moon, he had heard thousands of times from broken down, disheveled gamblers in and around the Las Vegas strip. He eased the Fleetwood off interstate 70 into a mom and pop gas station somewhere in the eastern Utah desert.
“Good god, Andy, where are we?” Sylvia asked. She arched her back in a post REM stretch and placed her hands tightly against her temples, rubbing in circular motions.
“We’re somewhere between Mars and the dark side of the moon,” Andy replied as he stepped out of the Caddie. “These pumps looked like they’ve been here since the Eisenhower administration.” Rust covered the pump’s weathered seams where the chrome butted up against the old metal casing. He half expected the gas pump to crumble to the ground when he lifted the nozzle from its side. Andy perused the parking lot from end to end. It was a series of potholes, busted concrete, and loose gravel. The building more resembled a border town tin shanty than a profitable business. “What a dump,” he said to himself.
Sylvia leaned over toward the driver’s seat and asked, “Do you think the restrooms are in any better shape than the outside?” Sylvia was pretty sure that the answer couldn’t be yes.
“No, I’d imagine its mostly imported Italian marble with gold inlays,” Andy said. “They’ve probably even got a copper bidet sitting right beside a crapper molded out of silver with an emerald flush handle. Money’s no object, seeing how they haven’t spent a dime on the outside. Very clever of them, what with going for the hovel look at first blush. Shrewd business people, I’m sure.”
Sylvia laughed at the notion. “Well, if that’s the case, I know where I’m going to park my butt for the next few minutes.” Sylvia got out of the front passenger seat and stretched again, this time reaching for the sky.
“Suit yourself,” Andy replied. “If it’s too ornate for you, those pine shrubs and cactus around the corner of the building might be more to your liking.”
“I’ll take that into consideration,” she said as she walked across the decrepit parking lot, dimly lit by a mercury vapor lamp hanging five feet over the front door. The loose rocks along with sitting in a car for the past five hours made her feel somewhat unsteady on her feet as she made her way to the front door. Of course age probably played a factor, too. She and Andy were no spring chickens, she’d heard him say a dozen times a week. As long as he didn’t call her his “old lady”, she was willing to let it go. Besides, they’d just received their AARP cards. We’re fine wine, she often said to herself. Just getting better with time.
Andy returned his attention to the gas guzzling beast that was rapidly draining his wallet. The warm evening air blew through what was left of his mostly gray hair. He stepped over the gas hose that was nestled inside his prize car’s gas tank. He’d owned this beauty for 15 days now. He’d pulled out a straight flush, and his counterpart was sitting on four tens with no intention of folding. The old boy was light on the pot, so the keys got tossed in the middle of the table. The look on that dude’s face made Andy momentarily start to dial 911. First he went ghostly pale, that was followed by some breathing difficulties. After all, who loses with four of a kind. Andy felt for the guy, because he’d been down that road before, himself. Thinking back, Andy hoped for this guy’s sake he didn’t get attacked by a turtle while in a drunken stupor in his own house like he did the night he lost the family’s new boat. Funny, how things go full circle, he thought.
The pump clicked off, and he returned the handle to its original resting place on the side of the weathered pump. He took long, purposeful strides toward the front door, wishing to make his time in this pit stop as short as possible. Just a few short feet of reaching for the door’s handle, it swung violently open, almost slamming back against the building.
“Pine and cactus be damned!” Sylvia said as she stormed out the door and headed for the side of the building.
“Hover safely,” Andy replied. It was times like this that he truly appreciated standing urination. “Cactus can be particularly unforgiving on and around specific body parts.”
Sylvia gave him an exacerbated grump and threw up a middle finger to complete the non-verbal communiqué. Andy chuckled and considered providing her with some dirty oil rags in lieu of the toilet paper that was not likely to be stocked next to mountain desert foliage. But even gamblers have limits, and he wisely decided that this might push the envelope too far.
Andy entered the building and took in the aromatic bouquet of day old coffee and roasting hotdogs, deeply blistered as they slowly rotated on the rotisserie of heart disease. A gambler by profession and by nature, Andy swore off the booze and artery clogging foods that he so dearly loved in the earlier days. Now his only vice was gambling and coffee. In a pinch this caffeinated swill would suffice, minus the box of powdered donuts. However, he was a man of the French Press, supporter of baristas far and wide. He’d let the GPS guide him to a more sophisticated coffee shop when they reached a civilized and greater populated area. This hamlet would not support such an establishment.
The old Mexican woman sitting behind the counter gripped her husband’s arm and hoarsely whispered in Andy’s direction, “Blanco Diablo.”
“No, no,” the old man sitting next to her said. “Good evening my friend. How can we help you?” he asked with a heavy accent, but perfectly understandable.
“Just the gas tonight. We’re on pump number three.” Andy gestured toward the parking lot, realizing they were the only customers there anyway.
“Blanco Diablo?” the old Mexican woman asked again in a whispered hush to the man running Andy’s credit card.
“Well, I may be white, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the devil,” Andy responded to them both. Living in the United States southwest almost required one to have a good grasp of the Spanish language. Andy was always surprised when he ran into people in Vegas who couldn’t speak a lick of it.
The old man waved his hands and shook his head. “Oh, no señor, I know you are not Blanco Diablo. My wife is a little rattled from a traveler who came though a few hours ago. No, no, you are a good man. I can tell.”
“So the devil came through here a little while back?” Andy asked, not really wanting to know the answer. He’d lived his earlier life dancing on the edge of evil and he had no interest of crossing that line these days, even if we were just talking about an overactive old woman’s imagination.
“I no like speak bad of people, but this man….,” the main trailed off and his eyes gazed upwards. “You could tell there was something wrong about him. Have you ever felt that way?”
“Oh, yeah,” Andy replied. “So what did this Blanco Diablo look like? I sure don’t want to run into him if I can avoid it.”
“He was mucho tall. Yes, very tall,” the man said reaching high above his own head. Andy thought everybody probably seems tall to you, partner, until the old man motioned that this nefarious stranger barely fit through the doorway.
“Well, I’d imagine he’d be hard to miss,” Andy said, sizing up the entrance.
“Yes, it is hard to miss an albino. Very white,” said the man.
“Albino?” Andy questioned. “Why, yes, indeedy, I’d say a six foot seven plus albino would kind of stand out in a crowd. Now I understand the blanco part of it all.”
“Si, blanco,” said the man. “White skin, white hair, white eyes, white everything, but his clothes. His clothes, they are all black. He looks like Blanco Diablo.” The old man handed Andy back hi
s credit card after he signed the receipt. Andy stuffed the card back in his wallet, nodded toward the couple behind the counter, and headed for the door. As he hit the parking lot, Sylvia came scurrying out from around the side of the building.
“Everything come out OK?” Andy asked.
“I would very much like to be on our leave so I can make this dreadful detour a distant, bad memory. This place just makes me feel like there’s something wrong, and I’m not just talking about the restrooms.”
“I know what you mean,” Andy said. He peered back through the opaque glass door and imagined that old couple and the spooky traveler they called Blanco Diablo. “Yeah, let’s put some distance between us and this shit hole.”
They climbed back into the Caddie, and Andy turned the ignition. The beast roared to life and Andy carefully steered his way through the broken parking lot and back onto the service road that lead to the interstate. As they drove down the highway, Andy shared the story from the old couple in the store with Sylvia. Sylvia shuddered at this traveler’s description and was confounded by the fact that the old couple never mentioned whether he was traveling alone, in a car, or on foot. Andy never thought to inquire, just assuming that he was in a car if he had come into a gas station.
“To be on the safe side, I’ll avoid picking up any hitchhikers,” Andy said.
“Agreed,” Sylvia replied.
Feeling the same sense of trepidation about this stranger, too, the old couple in the store felt it best to telephone their son about this encounter. They had a bad feeling, and family must be protected first, no matter where they were. The telephone rang on the other end several times before their son’s familiar voice answered the line.
“GFD Coffee, this is Miguel.”
The Bernie Factor Page 5
