A wasteland of strangers (19 page)

He was quiet again, watching me.

"I do know a safe place," I said. "I can take you straight to it and get you inside."

".. . What place?"

"You'll see. It's safe, believe me. Nobody goes there. Nobody has any reason to anymore."

"Get there by boat?"

"Right to it. You won't need to try hot-wiring the ignition, either. I know where Ms. Sixkiller keeps the key." On a hook next to the fridge in her kitchen; I'd seen it and some others hanging there on my way out with the blankets and other stuff. "It'll only take me a couple of minutes to get it."

"You know how to drive a boat like this?"

"Sure. It's not hard. From a distance, with my scarf over my head, I'll pass for Ms. Sixkiller and you'll be hidden back here under the tarp. After you're safe, I'll bring the boat back and she'll never even know it was out."

"Unless she comes home meanwhile."

"It won't take more than an hour and a half, round trip. That's more than enough time."

"She could still come back early. What if she's here when you bring the boat in?"

"I'd tell her I went for a ride. She wouldn't turn me in to the cops or anything. Just yell at me a little. She's cool."

"The things you took from her house—she's bound to miss them."

"No, she won't." She would, once she saw the broken bathroom window, but I didn't care about that right now and I didn't want John to worry about it. I was so torqued up over helping him escape that nothing else seemed to matter, including the fetus growing inside me. It was dangerous, yeah, but it was also, like, major exciting. And I was doing it for all the right reasons, wasn't I? Besides, my life was so totally screwed up now, what difference did it make if it got even more screwed up later on?

John said, "I don't like it."

"But you know it's the only way. Neither of us wants you to go to prison or the gas chamber for something you didn't do."

"Yeah." He said it hard and angry, but it wasn't me he was pissed at. I knew that. "But you be careful. And you promise me something before we go. Promise me if we get caught together, you tell the law I forced you to help me. Threatened you, and you were too scared not to do what I told you."

"If you say so."

"I say so. Promise me, Trisha."

"I promise. So let's stop talking and just do it, okay?"

"Okay," he said in that same angry voice. "We'll do it."

Anthony Munoz

THE FIRST THING Mateo says when I walked into his pad was, "Where were you last night, little brother? You know what went down? You hear what a wild-ass scene it was?"

"I heard. The old man was yapping about it when I got up."

"Cracked her skull, man. Cracked it wide open."

"Yeah. Leaves a bad taste, man. That Mrs. Carey was a fox."

"Lagarta's more like it. Jode y una mamada, that's all she was good for. Well, she picked the wrong dude this time."

"Yeah. But she didn't deserve no cracked skull."

"You don't think so? I think so."

"Why? Because she dissed you that time you tried to hit on her?"

"She was a bitch, man."

"I don't know, man. Dyin' like that..."

"Ain't no good way to die, is there?"

"Got that right. Old man says Faith drowned in the lake."

"Maybe the dude did, maybe he didn't."

"Or he iced out there. The old man says—"

"The old man don't know his dick from a paint scraper." Mateo laughed. "I'd love it if the dude's still alive, gets away with it. I'd love it, man."

"Why?"

"Told you, bro. She was a bitch and she had it comin'."

"I don't know, man."

"What do you know, man? Sometimes I wonder about you."

"Wonder what?"

"Just wonder. So where were you, Anthony? Man, we had a bigger street party than ten freakin' Fourth of Julys. Dudes cruisin', dudes doin' crank and blow and weed right in front of the heat, TV trucks, even a freakin' TV helicopter. A freakin' circus, man. And you missed the whole show."

"Yeah."

"Out balling Trisha, huh? Don't you ever get enough pussy?"

"Too much pussy, that's what I been getting."

"No such thing, man."

"She's knocked up."

"No shit? Trisha?"

"Who else."

"You go divin' without a wet suit?"

"One time. One freakin' time."

"That's all it takes, bro. Sure it's yours?"

"Yeah, it's mine. She don't lie, man."

"So what, then? She wants you to marry her?"

"What the hell else."

"What'd you tell her?"

"I told her no way, man."

"That's my man. Marriage sucks."

"Big time. Yeah."

"It's for jerks and squares, man."

"Yeah."

"Look at the old man and old lady. Him so wore out from paintin' houses all day, he can't do nothing at night except yell and swill down cheap wine. She ain't no better. Don't give a shit about me and you, each other, nothing but TV and Carlo Rossi."

"Yeah."

"Dudes like us, we got to be free. Free and easy, man. Go places, do things, see the fuckin' world, get ourselves a piece of the good life. No wives, no babies, no tied-down bullshit for Anthony and Mateo. Right?"

"Right."

"So how'd she take it? Trisha."

"Went ballistic, man. Jumped out of the car, ran off and hid in the freakin' trees. I couldn't find her."

"Where was this, man?"

"The Bluffs."

"So what'd you do?"

"Drove off and left her."

"Yeah, man." He put his hand out and I slapped it. "So then what'd you do?"

"I was pissed, you know? Wild. Drove around lookin' for you, Petey, somebody to hang with. Nobody around."

"We was partyin', man. Leon's homestead."

"Never thought to check Leon's. Shit."

"So then what'd you do?"

"Drove down to Southlake."

"Lookin' to score?"

"Yeah."

"What'd you get? Crank? Blow?"

"No man. Ecstasy."

"Cool. How was it?"

"Lame, man. I still don't feel right."

"How about some grass, pick you right up."

"Nah. I don't wanna get high."

"Half quarts of Green Death in the fridge."

"Not that neither. Too early, man."

"Never too early. Come on, let's pop one."

"Yeah, okay. What the hell."

Mateo went out to the kitchen to get the brews. I didn't want one, but I felt wrong for sure and I needed a lift. Wrong about leaving Trisha up there on the Bluffs even if she did go hag-crazy on me, all that cagueta about the baby and then running off and wouldn't come out of the freakin' trees. Wrong about that Mrs. Carey, too. Murder, man ... it ain't right to kill somebody unless he's tryin' to ice you. It ain't right to hurt a chick that way, no matter who she is.

Mateo's pad is cool, man. Real dank. Old building down by the boatyard, second-floor pad with a little balcony so you can sit and check out the lake when the weather's right. . . suck down a brew or smoke a joint, whatever. Nobody lives here gives a Frenchman's fuck. He's got it fixed up with NASCAR posters, blowup color pix from Laguna Seca and Sears Point and Indy races. Not much furniture, none of the crap

most people have. He's got the front seat out of a '52 Olds for a couch and buckets from a 'Vette and a TransAm for chairs. Can't get much more dank than that.

I got up from the tuck-and-roll 'Vette bucket and went to look at the biggest blowup. Real fiery Indy crash, one driver spinning out and hitting a wall, another car sliding into the flames. Cool. But I couldn't get my head into it. I kept flashing on Trisha and that goddamn baby, her going hag-crazy and me leaving her up there. Wasn't right, man. No matter what Mateo said, I shouldn't've done it.

Well, she'd got home okay. That was one thing I didn't have to sweat about. No answer when I buzzed her homestead this morning, so I took the wheels over there. Wasn't nobody home, but one of the neighbors says she seen Trisha walking off somewheres about a half hour before. So that was like a major relief, man. Didn't want nothing to do with me or she'd've tried to get in touch. Then why'd it keep bugging me like this? I didn't want a kid, and she wouldn't either when she thought it over hard enough. Her old man sure as hell wouldn't, not thJiWude. He'd tell her to lose it same as I did and she would and that'd be the end of it, right? She'd never have nothing more to do with me, but what the hell, I didn't love her or anything, right?

"What's the sad eye for?" Mateo was back with a couple of half quarts of Green Death. "Trisha?"

"Yeah." I popped the tab on my can and sucked down half the ale before I came up for air. "Trisha, that Mrs. Carey, the lame stuff I scored in Southlake .. . everything, man. Nothing feels right today."

"Most days, man."

"Yeah."

"It's this town, bro. Town, lake, county, the whole fuckin' sack."

I didn't say anything. I was thinking maybe I oughta go find Trisha, talk to her. Yeah. Talk some sense into her. I didn't want a kid, didn't love her, but that didn't mean I didn't have no feelings for her.

"Boneyard's what it is," Mateo says. "Keep on hangin' here, you end up hung dead and worm food. You know what I'm sayin'?"

"Loud and clear, man."

"So why don't we get out, man?"

"Get out?"

"Split for a place that's got life, action."

"Like where?"

"Like L.A. You know that's where I always wanted to be, man. I been thinkin' about it a lot lately."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Plenty happening down there, man. Couple of young dudes like us, hot with engines and wheels, we grab us a piece of the good life in no time." He winked. "Plenty of almeja down there, too, man."

"You mean just pick up and split?"

"We got nothing keepin' us here, right? Old man and old lady'd love it if you moved out, both of us outta their hair for good. And no more sweat about Trisha's kid. I mean, suppose she tries to stick you for support? Can't pry cash out of a dude if they can't find him, right?"

"Yeah. But when would we go?"

"Sooner the better. Tomorrow."

"Oh, man, that's too fast..."

"Listen, Anthony, either we put this hole behind us, change our freakin' lives, or we don't."

"I don't know, man. I got to think about it..."

"Yeah, sure," Mateo says. "Just don't think too long. I made up my mind—I'm outta here. With or without you, little brother, real soon."

Douglas Kent

THEY WOULDN'T LET me see her. I wasn't a relative by blood or marriage, friends of the victim were not allowed viewing privileges, members of the media weren't allowed viewing privileges, the autopsy had yet to be performed ... a litany of official bullshit. The word "autopsy" funneled bile into my throat. Images of Storm with that beautiful head of hers shattered, lying cold and waxy and forever still on a metal table, was bad enough; images of her being drawn and quartered like a butchered heifer, her juices running in troughs or being sucked up through vacuum hoses, was intolerable.

I demanded an audience with the coroner, Johanssen. Pomo General's head nurse didn't want to let me see him, either. Head pounding, stomach churning, Kent pitched a small and voluble fit. When she saw I was perfectly willing to escalate into a large and disruptive fit, she went and fetched Johanssen.

Waste of time. Mine. He was harried and snippy and wouldn't tell me much of anything. Had instructions not to release specific details gleaned from his preliminary examination of the deceased, he said. That was what he called her, "the deceased," even though he'd known Storm well enough—they both belonged to the country club, attended the same charity fund-raisers.

No, Johanssen said, he couldn't tell me whether or not she'd been raped. No, he couldn't say if she had suffered any wounds or traumas other than the blows that had killed her. (But he insisted on providing me with a full medical description of the cause of death, as if he needed to prove his qualifications for the job of corpse handler. "Temporal skull fracture leading to subdural hematoma of mid brain. Death of brain due to necrosis or mass effect. Secondary edema causing herniation through foramen magnum, that is, the brain stem." Jesus!) Had I spoken to Chief Novak or Mayor Seeley yet? No? Well, why didn't I go and do that? Or perhaps I'd be better advised to go home and sleep it off.

"I'm not drunk," I said. Yet.

"Your breath and your appearance contradict that statement."

Kent stood in impotent rage as the pompous little prick walked off, his back straight and his bald pate gleaming in the hallway fluorescents.

A hand plucked at my sleeve. Dietrich, the overeager wanna-be; I'd forgotten he was there. "We'd better leave, Mr. Kent."

"I wish it'd been that bald head of his."

"... Mr. Kent?"

"The temporal skull fracture, the subdural hematoma of mid brain," I said. "His head opened up like a melon, his glop that poured out. Him the corpse on the table instead of her."

"Oh, wow," Dietrich whispered.

"Yes. Exactly. All right, let's get out of here."

We went to the police station. Arrived just in time to catch Chief Novak exiting into the side parking lot, alone, hotfooting it for his cruiser as if he expected to be assailed by a mob of slavering Fourth Estaters at any second. The only Fourth Estaters in the vicinity, one slavering, the other wishing to Christ he had a drink, drew up alongside. He recognized us, but he went ahead and hopped into his cruiser anyway. No one wanted much to do with Kent today, it seemed. Including Dougie his own self.

I said, "Hold your horses, Chief. A few questions."

"Not now. I don't have time."

"At least tell me about Faith. Found yet?"

"No."

"Lakeshore still being searched?"

"Not the way I'd like it to be."

"Explain that."

"Talk to Sheriff Thayer. Or the mayor."

"Dissension in the ranks, Chief?"

He didn't answer that. His face, bruised, discolored, bandaged, resembled a Halloween fright mask; muscles wiggled under the skin surface like maggots on a chunk of spoiled meat. (Poor choice of simile, Kent. Summoned up fresh images of Storm on the autopsy table.) Novak's eyes burned hot: pain, hate, determination. I knew exactly how he felt. My lust had been unrequited, his hadn't; that was the only difference between us as torchbearers in the Storm Carey Olympics.