by Billy Kring
Troy broke the silence first, saying, “I used to have some great times in this town, back when I was a teenager. My friends and I would pile in a van and leave the beach after riding some waves at dawn to come up here.”
I asked, “What was there to do up here for a teenage surfer?”
Troy pantomimed taking a drag on a doobie, “Some fine grass around Bakersfield when we were kids. And cheap, too, because of the Mexicans. They never had a lot of money, which was good for us, because we didn’t have any, either. They had friends in Mexico that sent the grass up to them.”
Hondo said, “Sounds like a way for you to make some bucks, too. Buying up here and selling in Los Angeles.”
Troy looked at him, not smiling. “I did that a little, yes. Made enough to pay for acting classes, and a few other things.”
Hondo nodded but didn’t say more. Derek said, “I’ve only been in the Central Valley a few times. I grew up in Nebraska, and came to L.A. right after college. I lucked out, thanks to Archie, who helped me get a part in a sword and sandals movie. I played a mute gate guard, didn’t have a single line, but I made some friends and kept working. Funny, I’ve never been back to Nebraska, not one time.”
“Do you miss it?” I asked.
“Not really. My family is all gone, and the friends I had then have moved. This is my home, now.”
Troy asked Hondo, “What about you, where are you from?”
Hondo pointed at me and said, “We’re from a small town west of San Antonio.”
“And then you came here?” Troy asked.
I said, “We took a little detour through the Middle East first.”
“The Middle East? Israel?”
“No, but in the general neighborhood.”
Derek said, “They worked mostly in Afghanistan, with a few side trips into other places, if I remember what Archie told me.”
Troy said, “I didn’t know we fought in other places.”
I said, “We had to go into a few neighbor’s backyards for a bit.”
Troy said, “I should have gone to war and won a bunch of medals. Did you win the Congressional Medal of Honor, either of you?”
Troy was getting tiresome very fast. I said, “No, neither of us. That medal is reserved for heroes.”
Troy said, “I’d have won one, maybe two or three if I’d gone over there.”
“Why didn’t you go, then?” Hondo’s voice had some frost in it.
“Asthma. I didn’t try to volunteer because I knew I had asthma. So, I went into acting, portraying soldiers and other heroes.”
“Almost the exact same thing,” Hondo said.
Troy said, “Yes it is. No difference at all, really.”
On that one, Hondo stood and said, “I’m hitting the rack.”
I said, “Me, too,” and walked out of the Oil Baron Suite with him. “Troy has a way, doesn’t he? Like a piece of gravel in your shoe.”
Hondo said, “If we get a chance, we need to split off from him. Either that or I’m going to duct tape his mouth shut.”
We reached my room first and I opened the door, saying, “In the morning.” Hondo nodded and continued down the hall. I couldn’t sleep, and tossed most of the night thinking about Bodhi and Amber, especially Amber. Around four AM, I drifted into a restless sleep, awakened minutes later by a text from Jericho Moon. Casa Loma in Bakersfield. Sorry no address. Peace. What do you know, I thought.
I rose at dawn and left my room to find some coffee. I saw Troy exit his room, so intent on talking on his iPhone he didn’t see me. I closed the distance until I was six feet behind him and heard him say into the phone, “We’ll make it work.”
I stepped up beside him in another few strides and he appeared startled, then put up his phone and grinned, “I didn’t hear you coming.”
“You don’t have to hang up on my account.”
He waved that off, “No, it was nothing. I was through talking anyhow, but I have good news.”
“What’s that?”
“I received information that Bodhi is in the Casa Loma area, near the airport. TJ did some investigative work for me.”
“Did you get an address?”
“A general area is all, but it’s more than we’ve had.”
I said, “Are the others awake?”
“Downstairs, I think. I was on my way to tell them.”
I gestured for him to lead. We met Hondo and Derek in the lobby where Troy filled them in on what he’d learned. He added, “TJ is here, and going with us.”
Hondo said, “Are we going to split up to cover more houses? That would be faster.”
Troy said, “I’ll go with TJ.”
Derek pointed at Hondo and me, “We’ll go together, then split up and work it on foot.”
It didn’t take long to get to the Casa Loma area, a depressed neighborhood of crime and gangs. Hondo and I got out on foot, and we didn’t see Troy and TJ as we walked the streets. People saw us and pulled their curtains closed, or went back inside and closed their doors. It was quiet except for the occasional noise of airplanes taking off and landing at the nearby airport.
I moved two blocks south and west of Hondo into an area of houses with torn screens and abandoned cars in yards. At a house on my left someone had two pit bulls, chained to iron stakes driven deep in the front yard. The chains looked long enough to allow the dogs to reach anyone going for the front door. They didn’t bark, but they eyed me as I went by, making me feel like a tall dog biscuit.
I talked to a dozen people as I made my way along the streets, getting answers like, “No”, or “No hablo ingles”, or “Get the hell off my lawn.” No one shot at me, though, so I had that going for me. Twenty minutes later, and closer to the municipal airport, I stopped to call Hondo. Before I did, a young kid on a bike slid to a stop beside me.
He said, “You lookin’ for some girls?”
“Women,” I said, and pulled out the photos of Bodhi and Amber. “Seen ‘em?”
“Not them, but the others, the regular ones.”
“Do you remember where?”
He looked disgusted, “I’m not a retard-o, mister. Sure I remember. They’re two blocks over and down some, the gray house with the blue van in the drive.”
I put my hand in my pocket, pulled out a crumpled twenty and pitched it at him as I trotted off. He said, “Hope you find them.”
Five seconds later I heard a muffled shot coming from the direction of the gray house. Two more shots sounded, followed by the sounds of vehicles squealing tires and racing away from that area, first one, then a second vehicle a minute later.
I raced two blocks and looked, spotting a gray house, but no van. As I passed a tall hedge that partially blocked my vision, I saw a body sprawled halfway out of the front door. I pulled my Sig and started to call Hondo, then spied him coming fast, gun in hand.
We approached at a quick trot. A woman across the street poked her head out of the door and I pantomimed calling on a phone and said, “Policia.” She disappeared and the door slammed shut.
We reached the body. It was TJ, and two red, wet stains like spilled strawberry syrup showed on the silk blouse. Hondo checked for a pulse on TJ’s neck. He shook his head. I called Troy’s number but got no answer. His car wasn’t in sight, either.
Hondo went in the door first, going left as I went right. We found no one, only evidence of hasty departures from every room, but nothing that identified the women we hunted.
We returned to the cluttered living room as Derek arrived. Before he asked, I said, “They took off again.” We heard sirens in the distance, and I wanted out of the house, so I edged by TJ’s body and stood in the yard. Hondo and Derek joined me.
I saw someone short speed around the street corner towards us and realized it was the boy I had talked to earlier. He slid the bike to a stop at the curb, and his mouth opened when he noticed the body. I said, “You need to leave, the police are coming.”
He said, “That van with all those girls in
it, they left and I followed them on my bike. They turned left on Watts Drive. I couldn’t see them after that, but it just happened.”
“The van that was here?”
“Are you hard of hearing?” He said it like he thought I really might be deaf. He continued, “You all need to hurry. Those girls are nice, but those men aren’t.”
I reached in my pocket and only brought out a dollar bill. Before I could reach for my wallet, he waved my offer away, “You already paid me enough.” He glanced beyond me to Hondo and Derek again, “You need to go or those girls will be in big trouble.”
“You’re pretty smart for a kid.”
“I turned eleven last week. I’m not a baby.” He took off on his bike and I told Derek and Hondo what the boy said.
Derek said, “Somebody has to stay here and talk to the police.” He tossed me the keys to the Navigator, “Go. I’ll talk to them. Keep me posted. I’ll get a rental and come later.”
We boogied out of there and far in the distance we caught a glimpse of a blue van moving through traffic. The van didn’t speed, but didn’t go slow, either. I pushed the accelerator and worked my way through the cars, trying not to be obvious to anyone in the van.
The van turned left at an intersection and the red light caught us. I looked left, right, left, right, and Hondo said, “Do it.”
Squealing the tires, I cut into traffic and caused a few slight skids and several honks, but was back to where we could see the van. I gradually closed the distance to two hundred yards, and kept that space as we followed them into the miles of green agricultural fields south of Bakersfield. I tried Troy’s phone again but got nothing.
Five minutes later, the van turned left again and drove East in thinning traffic. Hondo said, “Don’t three lefts make a right?”
I squinted my eyes and looked at him. I said, “That was such a useful bit of information. Remind me to thank your geometry teacher.”
Hondo said, “The driver’s spooked, but I don’t think he knows we’re here.”
“Chalk that up to my excellent tailing abilities.”
“I’ll chalk it up to the driver never seeing this vehicle before.”
I dropped back another fifty yards when traffic thinned. As we continued behind the van, I tried to keep my mind from dwelling on Bodhi and Amber, but didn’t succeed. I decided to keep my mind busy and glanced at the activities on both sides of the road. Picking crews worked in the fields on both sides. I watched the people stooping, then rising. “Zucchini,” I said.
Hondo said, “There weren’t any other vehicles there.”
“And?”
“I tried to call Troy as soon as we reached the house, but he didn’t answer. So, either Troy left in the one he and TJ used, or the bad guys took it.”
“I tried him, too. Twice, and got zip. So where does that leave Troy and his car?”
“If they took it, he might be in the van,” he nodded his head in that direction. “If not, I don’t have a clue.”
“Try him again.”
He did, and again got no answer. We drove in silence, watching the blue van and thinking some dark thoughts. Twenty minutes later we passed the Bakersfield National Cemetery and turned right on Bena Road, just before the Barstow-Bakersfield Highway. We paralleled the highway for several miles before the van turned onto a dirt road leading into the foothills.
I slowed because there was no vehicle between us, and if I turned in behind them, they could spot us immediately. Hondo said, “Drive straight and put the next hills between us. We can climb to the top and see what they’re doing.”
I sped up and found a good place to park off the road. We were out of the Navigator and going fast up the incline of a hundred-foot hill dotted with brush and sparse grass. The evening had turned colder because of an early cold front that passed through, so we didn’t sweat during the climb.
We crawled on our bellies to the top and peeked into the small valley. The van turned onto another road leading to an isolated farmhouse backed against a large cluster of house-sized granite boulders. Brush and enormous green oaks grew in the gaps between them.
The blue van stopped at the house and two black men exited, then opened the sliding side door, hustling the women into the house. The women huddled together and scurried inside, with the two men following on their heels and closing the door. We couldn’t tell if Bodhi or Amber were in the group because they all had shawls covering their heads. Troy definitely wasn’t there.
Hondo rolled on his back and pulled the Sig, checked it, then put it in his holster, “How do you want to play it?”
I looked at the farmhouse again and saw smoke coming out of the chimney. I said, “I’ve got a plan.”
Hondo’s eyes rolled, then he said, “What.”
“Give me your jacket.”
“No, it’s cold.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“You’re going to ruin this great plan. Really, it’s awesome, one of the best ones I’ve ever had.”
He sighed and took it off, leaving him wearing a gray tee shirt. Goose bumps popped out on his arms. He pushed it at me, “Here.”
I looked at his chest. “Your nips are standing at attention.”
“Hurry up so I can get my jacket back. And take yours off, too.”
I scooted down the incline towards our vehicle and said, “Come on, I’ll fill you in as we go.”
“If this is gonna take a while, give me my jacket back.”
I kept mine on and carried his over my shoulder, “I’m conditioning it for the mission.”
Hondo pulled it off my shoulder and slipped it on. I said, “Okay, but only for a few minutes.”
He zipped the jacket to his neck, so he really had been cold. With his level of body fat, I could see why. I said, “We’re going to the other side of the valley and come across those hills to the rear of that farmhouse.”
“And?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.” He didn’t ask more questions. We piled in the Navigator to retrace our route until we were beyond the valley and had another range of larger, steeper hills between us. We parked and used Google Maps on our phones to work out which path to use. Once we had it, we started the climb. I stopped once to call Derek, but got no answer, so I left a quick voicemail and a text with the GPS position.
We climbed the ridge and found a descending trail that offered brush and trees between the house and us all the way to the cluster of boulders. The temperature continued to drop so that smoke came out our mouths when we breathed. I studied the house for a moment and saw what I needed to see.
Hondo said, “What are you looking for?”
“The back door. See? They have it padlocked on the outside. That’s perfect.”
“I’m not following you.”
“I’m going on the roof and stuff your jacket into the chimney, force all of them to come out the front, where you’ll be waiting with your Sig and your nipsters.” He took off his jacket and tossed it to me. I looked at his chest, “Fabio is jealous of you right now.”
He ignored my comment and said, “You going to help, or stay on the roof and applaud.”
“I shall descend on the unjust like a plague from Heaven.” I saw his look. “I’m gonna jump on them when they exit the door. See? I told you, this plan is epic.”
He went around the corner, crawling on hands and knees to stay below the windows.
I took off my jacket, and the cold hit me. It felt like hugging a block of ice. I shivered. Goose bumps popped up on my arms. It was cold. I tossed the jackets on the roof and went to one of the large oaks, climbing up and using one of the massive branches extending over the roof. It appeared in good shape, so I didn’t worry about falling through. I lowered to the roof and eased slow and quiet towards the brick chimney, which had a nice, thick stream of white smoke rising into the sky. I stood by it for a moment before stuffing the two jackets in the opening, pushing them down a foot inside so they fit tightly. No
more smoke lifted into the air.
I moved to the front side of the house and knelt at the lip of the roof. The interior sounded quiet for ten full seconds before I picked up several muffled voices rising in irritation. I heard them fumbling around, trying to unstop the chimney, then lots of coughing and voices of alarm. I readied for the jump.
The door opened and a ball of white smoke boiled out and rose in front of me. I smelled it, the pleasant smell of oak as it ascended.
The front door squeaked open and women staggered outside. The two black men emerged last, hacking and coughing as they rubbed their eyes and noses. The two men staggered like drunks, moving to the side of the yard, stopping eight feet from the door. One wiped snot from his nose and retched. I decided to take him down first.
Leaning my head and shoulders slightly forward over the edge, balancing on the balls of my feet, I pushed off with my legs. I sailed high and came down with my knees aimed like twin battering rams to collide with the man’s shoulder blades and put him on the ground. I saw Hondo come around the corner, going for the other one.
That instant of me glancing away threw a big fat monkey wrench into my great plan.
My coughing target suddenly bent forward at the waist and vomited just before my knees reached his back. I flailed my arms as my knees shot past his shoulders and hit empty air. My feet caught on them, flipping me in a spastic somersault.
I tried to go with it, tucking tight and increasing the spin, hoping to land on my feet. I hit the hard bare earth in an awkward splay-legged limbo dance and rolled my right ankle to the outside. I heard it pop, and went to the dust in a crumpled heap.
The big guy’s eyes bugged at me, and he straightened, still staring like I’d dropped in from outer space. All the women screamed and huddled together.
I pushed to a standing position and hopped on the good leg, staggering around like a beginner on a pogo stick. I steadied after a half dozen hops, and stood that way while keeping the injured foot a foot off the ground. Shock held the pain at bay momentarily.
The big guy’s eyes locked on mine. They turned from surprised to furious. I glanced at Hondo, hoping for help, but he looked busy with the other one.
