Prayers for the Dead (28 page)

“You’re damning me out of context!”

“Then let’s talk about context
now
! Your friends are going to wonder about you, Father. So you’d better go. Like I said, people talk.”

Bram took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked as miserable as she felt. Pity tugged at her heart. Within minutes, her presence had turned him from a fun-loving youth into a morose, burdened old man.

He put his specs back on. Looked at her intently and whispered, “This isn’t the right way to say good-bye.”

“So I’ll say it properly.” Her voice softened. “Good-bye and good luck. I mean that, Bram.”

“Rina, please don’t—”

“I’ve got to go. So do you.”

She walked away.

And he had called her that night, begging her over the phone machine to pick up the receiver. When she didn’t, he left a long, rambling message.

Apologizing profusely for his rotten behavior.

Not realizing what had gone on at the yeshiva just a few months earlier, how some maniac had been stalking her, terrorizing her life. How this cop, this Decker had come through for her when she had needed help. Obviously he must be of fine character to put aside his own safety for her welfare. He hadn’t kept up contact with Rav Schulman so no he hadn’t known. He hadn’t
known
. Because if he had known… he would have… he felt like an ass… just please,
please
pick up the damn phone.

But she didn’t pick up. Instead, she lay in her bed, tears in her eyes, listening to him implore her. Please, please,
please
call him back.

But she remained stubborn, deaf to his pleas.

A year later, out of courtesy, she had sent him a wedding invitation. Bram had sent back a gift — a silver kiddush cup — along with the reply card, an X marked in the “yes” box.

The wedding came, the wedding went.

Abram Sparks had been one of their few no-shows.

They decided to
take Webster’s ’68 metallic-blue Hemicuda — a primitive animal that rumbled and roared, requiring a firm grip on the reins. But it fit nicely with the assignment and, more important, it flew at high speeds. From the Devonshire Substation, it was a quick hop north on the 405 until it merged with the Golden State, the empty lanes on 1-5 begging for pedal to the metal. The ’Cuda zipped through the north Valley, past the smooth, glassy surface of the brimfull LA reservoir, onto the Antelope Valley Freeway into Santa Clarita. Off the freeway and deep into Canyon Country.

Quarry Country. Miles upon miles of limestone mountains, rising and falling like scoops of toffee ice cream. The sky had turned endless and virginal with puffs of crystalline cloud. No-man’s-land. The area held electrical lines, telephone lines, smooth ribbons of asphalt, and not much else. Up close, the rocky hillsides nurtured lots of life — copses of chaparral, carpets of yellow and pink flowering weeds, gnarled oak, wizened Podocarpus, and thickets of oleander, shimmering silver with its thin, poisonous leaves. A sizable breeze rustled through the flora, blowing sand and loose gravel from recently tarred roadways.

Webster rolled up the cuffs of his Hawaiian shirt as he raced the ’Cuda through the sinuous turns. “Y’all think I should stuff a cigarette pack in the fold of my sleeve?”

“It would be authentic,” Martinez said. “I like the grease spots on the denims, Tom.”

“Quite the verité. From DW-40ing my daughter’s tricycle.” Tom chewed briskly on a stick of gum. “Me? I like the sunglasses hanging from my pocket. Thought that was a good touch.”

“Nice shades. What are those? Porsches?”

“A knockoff. But they are UV protected.” Webster changed the car’s CD from Bizet to ZZ-Top. “Like the shitkicker music? Bought it yesterday for the assignment.”

“Fits like a glove,” Martinez said. He had donned an oversized denim work shirt and a pair of torn, saggy jeans. On his feet were black biking boots. His hair was slicked back, and he hadn’t shaved that morning. “What kind of piece are you carrying?”

“Beretta, nine-millimeter. You?”

“Smith and Wesson six eight six.” Martinez picked up the Thomas guide. “You know where the hell we are?”

“I was wondering that myself. Guy at the dealership where Grease Pit worked told me to stay on Placerita, but I b’lieve I took a wrong turn somewhere. What intersects Placerita?”

Martinez skimmed through the map. “Bear Canyon, Coyote Canyon, Rabbit Canyon… oh, here’s a good one. Cougar Canyon.” Martinez sniffed exaggeratedly and wiped his nose with the back of his arm. “Want to hunt some cougar, boy?”

“Just let me get my rifle and dawgs.”

“What kind of dawgs you got, boy?”

“A pit bull and a Tree Walker Coonhound.”

“A
what
?”

Webster smiled. “A Tree Walker Coonhound. From Kentucky, indigenous to the South, suh. Anything illuminating on our map as to our whereabouts?”

“First we gotta find a landmark.”

“I’d settle for a crossroad.”

“How about a canyon? We’ve got plenty of canyons. We got Oak Canyon, Wilson Canyon, Maple Canyon, Ant Canyon, Bee Canyon, Tick Canyon…” Martinez looked up from the atlas. “Tell me something, Tommy. How do they know that the bees stay in Bee Canyon, the ants in Ant Canyon, and the ticks in Tick Canyon.”

Webster smiled. “’Cause they all zealously guard their turf. Little bee homeboys, brandishing stingers and wearing their wings backwards, fending off the new immigrant arrivals — industrious but interloper ants who bring over millions of relatives all crammed together in a single house. They bog down our welfare system.”

“Call up INS.”

“And don’t you know that both groups are scared witless of the tick gang-bangers drooling saliva teeming with Rocky Mountain spotted fever Rickettsia. I ain’t lying about this. Just check it out with any bug CRASH unit.”

“What the hell is Rocky Mountain spotted fever?”

“My uncle once got it when he was traveling up near the Great Divide. Comes from a tick bite. You get high fever, muscle aches, chronic fatigue, and lots of skin shit. He weren’t pretty for a long, long time.”

“The Great Divide is around a thousand miles from here, Webster.”

“Yeah, but with plane travel anything’s possible. You probably shoulda worn long sleeves.”

Martinez rubbed his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me this shit?”

“How was I to know there was gonna be a tick canyon out here?” Webster looped around a hairpin curve. “We passed Mountain Crossing. Don’t I turn there?”

“Yes, I think you do.”

Immediately, Webster swerved to the right and maneuvered an unsafe U-turn, wheels squealing under the chassis. Martinez gripped the door handle with white knuckles. “You’re crazy.”

“Where’s your sense of spirit?”

“It disintegrated after I married. Turn right here.”

The road snaked upward, then leveled. At the higher elevation, the winds became redolent with the scent of pine. Blackbirds cawed from above. A mile into the climb, the mountain walls abruptly fell prey to man’s progress: from a vertical barricade of hard rock to terraced soil. A couple of ranch houses, still in the framing stages, sat on dirt-covered lots. Next to the bulldozed mountain was wide-open space. Within moments, the glint of chrome winked at them. Then the motorcycles came into view. Next to the bikes was a makeshift shed. A miracle that the wind didn’t do a huff and a puff and blow the thing down. Several hundred yards in the distance stood a lone eighteen-wheeler semi, as out of place as Stonehenge.

“Well, well, well,” Webster said. “Lots more up here than a couple of trailers. We got a whole private dealership, no doubt specializing in ve-hicles without pink slips.”

“Or someone is running a chop shop.”

“That was my second guess.”

Webster pulled the car into the sandy clearing, shut the ignition, and got out, wind blowing grit in his mouth. He rolled down his sleeves. Martinez slid out of the car, popped a piece of gum in his mouth. They both took their time, sauntered over to the inventory. Immediately, a fat man came out of the shed. He wore overalls but no shirt. On his head was a Dodgers baseball cap.

“Help you?”

“Looking for Grease Pit,” Martinez said.

“You found him,” Sanchez answered.

Martinez glanced around, scratched his crotch. At this point, improvisation was in order. “Looking for a bike.”

“You come to the wrong place.”

“Don’t think so,” Martinez said. “Guy from the dealership sent me here.”

Sanchez took off his cap and wiped sweat from his forehead. “Then he fucked up. See, we only do repairs here, only do repairs. No retail, just repairs. He fucked up, man.”

Martinez looked around again. “He said you could get us a good deal.”

“Well, then he fucked up double,” Sanchez insisted. “’Cause we only do repairs here.”

Webster picked up the story. “He said somethin’ about the cause. We give money to the cause, we get a good deal. You sayin’ he was lyin’?”

“I’m sayin’ he fucked up.” Sanchez wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Who sent you here?”

“Tony.”

“Yeah, Tony.” Sanchez nodded. “He fucks up a lot. Gotta talk to him about that.”

“What about this cause thing?” Martinez said.

“If you want to give money to the cause, I’ll take it. But that ain’t got nothin’ to do with the bikes. Nothin’ for sale. I’m only doin’ repairs.”

“Well, what’s the cause?” Martinez said.

“To stop the fuckin’ government from tellin’ us how to run our lives.” Grease Pit kicked up a toeful of sand. “Too much left-wing regulation shit being crammed down our throats. What the fuck is it their business if we want to wear helmets or not.”

“Right on,” Martinez said.

“So…” Grease Pit snorted. “You want to give me money?”

“Can you make it worth something?” Martinez said.

“Depends.”

Webster started inching toward the shed. “You got lots of good bikes here.”

“All repairs.”

“Nothin’ for sale?”

“Tell you what.” Grease Pit appeared to be thinking. “Tell you what I’m gonna do. Yes, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do this just for you. You give me money to the cause, then tell me what you have in mind. Just tell me what you have in mind, I take it back to the owner. Maybe it’ll fly. Maybe it won’t. But maybe it will. But no promises.”

Webster moved closer to the wooden lean-to. “You ain’t got nothin’ for sale right now?”

“Nothin’. I tole you it was all repairs. But you give me money, I take your offer to the owner.”

“So I give you money,” Martinez said. “You go and tell the government to fuck off? What good does that do?”

Grease Pit sneered. “You don’t know shit ’bout how the government works, do you?”

Martinez waited.

Grease Pit said, “You buy off people, man! Get ’em in your pocket. They vote the way you want ’em to vote.”

“Like the NRA,” Martinez said. “Yeah, that’s smart.”

“Fucking-A right it’s smart. Money talks, bullshit walks. So if you want to give me money for the cause, I’ll take it.”

Webster said, “I give you money, you give us a good deal?”

“I take it to the owner, that’s what I said. Didn’t say nothin’ ’bout givin’ you anything.”

“Nothin’ for sale, huh?” Webster wiped sand from his eyes. “Shit, that’s too bad.” He was almost at the door of the shed. “I really didn’t feel much like wantin’ to come back.”

Sanchez shifted his bulky weight, his voice turning menacing. “Get the fuck away from my garage.”

Webster stopped, backed off, held out his palms. “Peace, bro. Sorry.”

“What the fuck you tryin’ to pull?”

“Nothin’,” Webster said evenly. “Just the guy at the shop told us we could get a real bargain here.”

“I tole you he fucked up. He fucked up bad. Now you’re fucked up bad.” Sanchez picked up a tire iron from the ground. “You give me a bad feelin’. Get the fuck outta here.”

Webster’s hand went inside his shirt, finger wrapped around the butt of his Beretta. He saw that Martinez had done the same.

Sanchez waved the iron, but didn’t advance. “Get
outta
here!”

Slowly, Webster walked backward until he bumped into his ’Cuda. Once Martinez was inside, he gunned the engine. As he pulled out, a rock crashed into the passenger door. Webster spun around, brought the car to a stop. “Stupid
shit
!” Webster screamed. “I’ll
kill
that motherfucker—”

Another rock came whizzing past, missed the trunk by millimeters.

“Let’s go, Tom.”

“Fucker put a dent—”

“Let’s go, Tom.” Martinez repeated. “Down. We’re going
down
the mountain.”

Webster cursed again and peeled rubber as he left. Martinez blew out air. “Slow down, for chrissakes. You’ll get us both killed.”

“I should report him to the local police.”

Martinez said, “You see that semi in the distance. Sanchez probably has a crew inside. Guaranteed, they’ll be outta here in less than five minutes.”

They rode the next few minutes in silence.

Martinez took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Sorry about your car.”

Tightly, Webster said, “Reckon I can fix it up pretty easy.”

“I’m not doing anything special this Saturday. If you want, I’ll come over and help you sand it out.”

“Thanks, Bert. That’d be great.”

Martinez patted his shoulder. “At least, we got what we came for.”

“I didn’t. I wanted to test-drive the Ultra Bagger. You see that mother? What a beaut!”

“Too much shit on it,” Martinez said. “Slows down the speed. I like something lighter and faster.”

“You do biking?”

“Used to do lots of it before I threw my neck out.”

“How’d that happen?”

Martinez laughed. “I rear-ended some poor harried housewife. I was driving a bunch of kids to a birthday party in my wife’s Volvo and got distracted by all the commotion.”

“You get any money out of it?”

“No, it was my fault. But the woman I hit didn’t do anything against me. Who’s going to start up with a cop?”

“The perks of the job.”

“You got it.” Martinez smoothed his mustache. “This cause that Sparks gave money to — Peoples for Environment Freedoms Act. You think Sanchez is just pocketing the money or is there actually some kind of cause?”