Crushing (The Southern California Wine Country Series) (13 page)

“Shit!”

“– What’s going on?” Amanda looked over her shoulder at the other car, filling the horizon full of grill.

“Gas gage is empty. I should have had more than two bucks in it.” The massive car coasted forward. Another check in the mirrors showed Nick approached fast.

Kyle knocked the shifter into neutral and let the vehicle coast.

Nick accelerated as he approached. His car thumped into the rear of Kyle’s car. Kyle saw the bent bumper jettison itself in a whirling figure like parade confetti. Nick swerved but increased speed again. Kyle’s car slowed below thirty miles an hour when Nick struck them again. Nick’s car clipped the corner of Kyle’s and the vast speed difference spun Kyle’s car and punched him over the ditch. The car hurtled through olive scrub and wedged in a sandy bank. Kyle’s head struck the steering wheel and bobbed about like he was drunk but is senses returned and he glanced at his mirror.

Nick parked at the side of the road leaving his car engine rumbling behind as he ran toward them. When he neared, he held up a gun pointed at Amanda.

Kyle flipped the door lever and eased out of the car.

“I thought we could have had something, Amanda, until I saw you at my house and the place explodes. You were with this guy.” Nick swiveled his arm so the gun pointed at Kyle sliding to the rear of the car. “Don’t move.” Kyle paused, lifting his hands. Nick rubbed the sweat from his face with the back of his wrist, “Amanda, get out of the car.”

Amanda pushed on the door. The front fender bent against the door panel so the metal groaned when she tried opening it. “Careful, Amanda.” Nick waved his gun at her. Kyle slid his feet toward Nick. “After getting fired from Shokworthe, I lost my house in Detroit. The house you blew up was my only place to live. What’s taking you so long to get out of there, bitch?”

Amanda said, “The door is stuck.”

“Then climb out the damn window.”

Amanda nodded and pulled the door closed until the latch clicked.

A metal clang of an engine consuming itself from overheating, seizing, and fracturing internally belched out of Nick’s car at the road. It wheezed in a cloud of steam and died. Nick gripped his gun tighter, “Fucking car. Now I’ll be walking back.”

Amanda wiggled through the window, thinking of how his statement neglected to include all of them walking back. She eased her legs over the sill to stand on the ground next to the car. Nick watched every move she made. He heard a stick snap and pointed his gun where Kyle should have been, but Kyle had moved closer. “Back up.” He waved his gun. “Back up!” Nick walked toward Kyle. “Wait! Get down on your knees.”

Kyle knelt down at the edge of the car, but before his put his weight into his knees, he twisted his body and scooped sand in his fingers. He threw the debris at Nick’s eyes. Nick fired at Kyle. Kyle picked himself up from the ground at the edge of the car and sprinted at Nick. Amanda shrieked and Nick fired at the direction of her noise. Nick stumbled back trying to clear his eyes to aim at Kyle.

“Kyle!” Amanda screamed. Nick swung his gun around and fired again at Amanda’s voice. “Oh, God.
Oh, God!
” Amanda cried. Kyle reached Nick and tackled him.

They wrestled for the gun. Nick fired the gun twice more while Kyle rolled him over. The bullets struck into the sandy hill several yards away. The dried scrub gouged Kyle’s shirtless back. Kyle slammed his fist into Nick’s face. Nick kicked at Kyle and rolled away holding his eye. Kyle snatched at Nick’s ankle and dragged him back. Nick brought his gun around and pointed in the direction the body attached to that hand tugged him.

Kyle saw the gun barrel come around and the empty hollow of the barrel’s blackness pointed at him. He lunged and slapped Nick’s hand. The gun fired off away from Kyle.

Amanda whimpered in the dirt beside the car, putting her hands around the deep red slice in the side of her thigh, the sand catching the blood boiling from her leg. Little black sand fleas hopped away to avoid being drowned by the large sticky red drops. “
Oh God
…”

Kyle gripped the gun barrel. Its heat seared his skin but he bent the weapon away.
More for my hand to heal
. His finger searched for the safety but this brand of gun had too small of a lever for him to flick away from his side of the weapon. He did locate the button for the clip so the springs shucked the magazine from the gun handle. He twisted the gun away, feeling Nick’s wrist bones crackle from his fear-induced strength, heightened because he knew one more bullet hid in the chamber.

Nick brought up his knee and banged it against Kyle’s still healing ribs. Kyle folded from the pain. Nick brought his knee up repeatedly. Kyle’s grip loosened on the gun. Nick reached with his other hand and wrenched the gun free. “I got you now, you shit.” Nick pointed the gun at Kyle, one of his eyes seeing his target through crumpled lashes and wet debris. He squeezed the trigger slow and easy to make his last bullet count.

Kyle slapped the gun up. Nick’s finger jerked on the trigger so that the weapon tipped off his target and fired into the Crown Victoria. The bullet pierced the fender. It sped through the wheel well and into the vertically mounted fuel tank full of fumes and the little puddle of gasoline that always settles away from the fuel uptake pipe – enough to ignite the car on fire. Kyle gripped Nick’s shirt and slammed his fist into Nick’s face. Nick blacked out and fell limp against the dirt.

Kyle pulled himself up and took the gun. He shoved it into his back pocket as he hurried to Amanda. He came around the side of the car and found Amanda pressing her hands against the blood oozing from the long gash in her leg. She scooted away from the burning car. “Call 911.”

Amanda looked at him, her face white with fear, “The bullet cut through my pocket and my phone.” Kyle saw the discarded phone on the sand. He felt for his pocket and remembered, “Shit, Sardis took my phone roofing this morning.” Kyle looked around at the road. Few cars came this far on the road since the last of the wineries were farther west. A sign on the other side of the road, closer to civilization, told him how far away they were.
Amber Mountain Winery - one mile ahead
. 

Amanda saw the same sign, “Might as well be ten miles. I can’t walk with this.”

Kyle stood and reached through the smoking flames spewing from the car interior. He retrieved his shirt and wrapped Amanda’s leg with it. He tied it tight. “Hold that.”

“You’re not leaving me here.”

Kyle scooped her up in his arms. “I’m carrying you back to civilization.”

Amanda touched Kyle’s face, looked into his eyes, and nodded. He walked with her in his arms back to the road and along the gravel toward the winery. The burning car sent black, war-zone smoke billowing into the sky.

The car trunk rippled and exploded in a burst of flame. At least the dry sand did not burn.

Amanda sucked her breath, “What about your guitar? It’s in the trunk?”

Kyle said, “I can build another one. If I can heal my hand to play, I can build again. I’m worried about you. I care about you. I’m sorry I pushed you away.”

Amanda said, “I understand.” Her elbow hooked the back of his neck while her other hand pressed against her wound.

Feeling her body in his arms seemed more right than the rest of his life. 

A nurse pushed back the curtain. She saw Kyle and Amanda sitting in line at the emergency room. “You. I thought I told you not to see me again.”

“It’s not me this time.”

“I can see that. What is it about you that cause such injury?” She looked at Amanda, “This is a dangerous one.”

Amanda nodded, “Yes.”

“Follow me.” The nurse set her stack of charts down, washed her hands in the nearby basin, put gloves on, and had a look at Amanda’s leg. “My my my, you have a gunshot wound. It is going to be painful but you will be fine. You’ll have a bad-ass scar though,” She smiled, waiting for Amanda to laugh. “Not funny, no? I’ll get the doctor and he can stitch you up. I’ve seen many gunshot wounds. You’re not in a gang or something?”

Amanda shook her head.

“That’s good because when I see a person in here with this kind of wound they barely heal and they are in another gun fight. Often that’s the end of them. You stay away from gangs and guns. You’re too pretty.”

The curtain yanked back and the emergency room physician strode in. He squinted at the chart as it lay on the bench and glanced at Amanda’s leg. “Stitches for the gunshot wound.” He washed his hands and rifled through the cabinet over the sink. He set down crinkly packages of syringes, little bottles of anesthetic, and a pullback tray of needles threaded with sutures. He snapped on gloves and ruffled through the instruments. He shoved a syringe in the anesthetic vial and drew up the fluid, “These are going to prick a bit, but you’ll be in good shape soon.”

Amanda’s fingers gripped Kyle’s arm as the needle poked in places shallow and deep in her flesh and unloaded the syringe with a practiced hand. He discarded the materials and his gloves, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Nurse Jo will have cleaned the wound?”

The nurse said, “I didn’t want to clean it until you had a chance to see what was there, and she needed the local antithetic.”

“Good call. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

The nurse pulled around several trays, washes, and iodine disinfectants. She masked off the areas and said, “Hold your leg like so. You can’t feel any of this here and here?” Amanda shook her head. “Good. Still, this will probably hurt, a lot. I’m not kidding.”

Amanda squeezed Kyle’s hand and gritted her teeth. She nodded to the nurse.

The nurse had the wound cleaned and ready for the doctor when he whisked back through the curtain. He washed his hands again and snapped on new gloves. He pulled open the trays of sutures and looked at Amanda, “This will be quick. I will try to minimize scarring but you have quite a wound – lucky it mostly grazed you. If it had gone through here you would have bled out in a minute, or up here you would be in surgery with a long recovery.” He kicked his stool around and wheeled into place pulling his mask up. The nurse rotated an overhead light and pointed it at the wound. The doctor talked, “Do you know the shooter?” He paused, looking at Kyle. “Accident with a pistol?”

Kyle said, “No. A maniac that blamed Amanda and I for his house burning down.”

“That’s serious.” The doctor looped the needle through more stitches like darning a sock. “Did the police catch this person?”

Amanda said, “Yes. This guy shot me and then Kyle fought the gun away and knocked him out. Kyle carried me back to a phone so we could call the hospital and the police.”

“Don’t you have a cell phone?”

“The bullet hit the phone.”

“That explains this odd set of slices here then,” The doctor pointed in a swirl with his free hand. “A regular hero then.”

Amanda grinned, “Yes. My own personal hero.” She squeezed Kyle’s hand. Kyle looked into her eyes and squeezed gently back.

The nurse tipped her stance, “So the cops got the dude?”

Kyle said, “Yes. I must have hit him pretty hard. The cop said he was still groggy when they got there and he didn’t think to run away until after they had him.”

“Maybe you’ll be ok, girlfriend. No more guns after you.” Her eyes went across Kyle’s bare arms, “At least not
those
kinds of guns.”

The doctor made a quick set of movements and clipped the tied thread with scissors, “There. You’re all set.” He stood and kicked the roller stool to the corner and yanked out a pen and marked up the chart. “When you get checked out, they will have a prescription for your antibiotics and pain killers. Make sure you finish your antibiotics program or else you will cook up some resistant strain and then you will have a mess of recovery. Good luck.”

-:-:-:- -:-:-:-

The shiny yellow taxis whisked them across town. Kyle watched the dashboard counter notch up at every pause in traffic or the stop lights. He remembered the last time he rode in a cab when he was a young teen. He forgot where he and Sardis were going or why they needed a cab but neither had the cash to pay and feared a call to their father. They dashed at a stoplight and ran in the maze of city buildings for a mile before they thought the cab stopped following them. Kyle watched the meter exceed the six dollars he knew he had in his pocket. He leaned to Amanda, “How much cash do you have? I’m over my limit.”

The taxis driver’s eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror then back to traffic.

Amanda said, “We’ll be fine. I have enough.” She looked out the window. The glint of chrome and polished wood from a rack of guitars hung behind the window glass of a place called
Mad City Pawn Shop
.

The taxi sped up after the next light and drove smooth and quick out to Kyle’s tree where Amanda’s car still sat near the vineyard. She paid the taxi driver. She was glad she had recently cashed her last winery paycheck. The taxi left in a little swirl of dust. The quiet of the vineyard made the gravel under Amanda’s feet crunch as she came to the car. She unlocked it and pressed the button for the trunk release. She rummaged in the trunk under the wrinkled papers, empty soda bottles, and random clothes. “I need to replace your shirt.” She looked at Kyle’s torso and up his shoulders. “I like you without your shirt but better that you have something.”

“Yeah, all my stuff was in the trunk of that car. Except the shirt off my back.” He grinned at her.

“You know you look hot in jeans and no shirt.”

Kyle grinned. “Six dollars from broke but a six pack wherever I go.” He saw how her eyes watched him scrunch up his abdomen. “I should remember that for a song lyric.”

“Not bashful either. You keep doing that and you certainly won’t get a shirt.” She put her hand against his rock hard stomach to push him away but her body vibrated as if he plucked a string. She returned to shuffling through the debris in her trunk. The front of her car she kept clean but only managed that by tossing everything in the trunk. “Here it is. An old flannel shirt I used to layer on for the cold days. I haven’t needed to wear it out here. A habit from Michigan to carry it around. It’s likely to fit because it’s huge on me.”

Kyle took the blue and black checked flannel shirt, shook it out, and slid his arms in, “It fits fine. A little short in the arms but I can roll those up like this.”

Amanda looked at Kyle and how such a shirt made him look instantly rugged, like a construction guy, err, a roofing guy. “Get in the car. I have an errand to run.” She slammed the trunk lid down. Could be a bad idea to drive. She was unsure if the way she felt came by any after effects from the shots or her desire for Kyle but she felt giddy and nervous. She had not taken any of the pain medication prescribed yet, but she kept the little bag handy on the console, if necessary, which might be soon. The engine started up and she drove back to the city. She looked along the shop windows until she saw the place. “Ever been here?”

Kyle looked along the storefront. “Not this one. Others. A lot of others. Like short term loans to those that can’t even get savings accounts in a regular bank.”

Amanda got out of the car. “I saw this on the way out and wanted to look around.”

“It looks like every other pawn shop.” Kyle held the store’s door for her. Amanda walked in and across the window full of guitars to where they spilled down onto a rack along the wall, wedged together as if the stock person never played a guitar.

“While we are here, show me what is good in a guitar?”

Kyle looked down at the guitars on the rack. “Can be a lot of things. Some of these are collector guitars – with collector prices.” He flipped up a price tag so Amanda could read the eight thousand dollar tag on it.

“That is amazing.” She saw college tuition in that. She looked around the other shelves in the store and changed her view of the world.

“This one needs strings. That one is newer, probably from Indonesia that someone tried to make it look fifty years old.” He turned over the tag. “They didn’t fool the staff here. They figured out its origin and paid appropriately.”

“How do you know what they paid?”

“They won’t buy anything for below fifty percent, often much less than that and then price it up full.” Kyle tipped guitar after guitar out of the rack to inspect them. “I actually didn’t think these pawn shops would have this many instruments. It’s like they bought the end of someone’s regular store.” Kyle worked across the rack, “Broken, too expensive, bad player, funky frets, warped neck. Too much money for the parts missing, a lefty.” Kyle went down a few more and then said, “That can’t be.” He pulled the guitar forward from the rack, “It was made by
Revolution Guitars
.” Kyle looked around to make sure the staff was not watching him.

“What’s special about it? It is somewhat ugly, really banged up.”

“Shh … It’s ugly like a dive bar or a hole in the wall restaurant to any but those that play. These were legendary. The guy bucked all the trends in fancy exotic rain-forest woods, he chose the same local renewable woods Stradivarius put in his famous violins. He used handmade pickups and he also made many from plywood and celebrated that use since it’s extremely stable.” Kyle looked at the body closely, “Those must be the original pickups.” He looked around for a demo amp and a cable to test the guitar. “He knew all the tone came from the pickups and the player’s technique.” He checked the price tag. His shoulders drooped. “It’s a great price at a hundred and a half but it might as well be ten thousand since I don’t have that kind of cash.” Kyle returned the guitar to the rack.

Amanda said, “Why don’t you ask the guy at the counter if he can sell it for less.”

“I don’t have anything less, unless he will take six dollars.”

“See what price you can get.”

Kyle said in a voice that would carry across the store, “Any cords I can plug in these guitars with to test them?”

The person behind the counter wore a violet shirt blazed with a local cement contractor logo. “Isn’t there one on the floor at the end of the rack? Should be a small practice amp to use too.”

“Thanks.” Kyle saw the pigtail end of the cable that wiggled behind the metal rack. He plugged the guitar in and flipped a switch to the front pickup. Amanda heard the awful out-of-tune noise the guitar made when Kyle strummed it.

Kyle shouted across the store, “Hey, this will need a lot of work to sound good. What do you say, fifty bucks?”

“Oh, I can’t do that. My boss will get mad. I could go a hundred.”

“Kyle put his hand in his pocket. I can’t go more than seventy-five.”

“Tell you what. You take that practice amp and the cable and you can have it for ninety-five. That’s all I can do. It’s a crappy guitar, I’m not sure how anyone did a loan on the thing, but we have to keep the lights on. There’s also a phone message from a guy willing to pay a hundred for it and he’s on his way.”

“That’s still a lot.”

Amanda said quietly to Kyle, “We can do it at ninety five.” She might have to forgo that price on a textbook for any fall college class. “My guitar hero.”

Kyle whispered, “That’s too much. It’s worth much more than that, but you can’t afford it either.”

She pulled out her wallet and walked to the person at the counter, “Here is eighty. For the guitar, the amp, the cable, and I see a pack of new strings under there. The guitar only has five strings on it as it is.”

The guy in the purple shirt looked at the president’s beady eyes staring at him from the counter. Crisp new bills fresh from a real bank, not the walking zombie-like crumpled and torn bills that filled his register and smelled of malt whiskey, even though they all spent the same. “I’ll make the trade. Even with the strings. I’ve been getting tired of looking at that thing every day all summer.” He reached under the counter and put up a pack of strings. “I only have the one size of strings.”

“Nines will do,” said Kyle as he gripped the guitar by its neck. He picked up the amp and cable while Amanda took the strings and they walked to the door. As they went through the door Kyle said, “Hey, thanks.”

The clerk said, “Sure thing. I can give you half that next week when you bring it back, or if you have other stuff and a need.”

The door closed with the chimes of tarnished angels.

Kyle said, “Now I know what a girl feels like getting showered with jewelry for sex.”

“That’s not the way it is. It means more than that.”

“No, for guys it is to get out of old trouble or to get in new trouble.”