by G. M. Ford
“None whatsoever.”
She locked onto my eyes like we were magnetized. It was supposed to scare the pants off me. Under different circumstances, I would have gratefully let it happen.
Another ten seconds of glowering and they turned and walked away. Metroman led the way toward the stairs, twirling the picker like a majorette’s baton. I snapped the locks open, pushed the security door open, then poked my head out into the walkway. She heard the door squeak, turned her head as she started down the stairs, and caught me looking at her ass. Pretty sure I was supposed to look contrite.
It didn’t start to rain in earnest until they’d been waiting at the border for about a half hour. Chub pulled his plaid hat down over his ears and gutted it out in silence. The closer they inched toward the checkpoint, the harder it rained, until, as they finally pulled up under the border arch, the hammering downpour could only have been described as biblical in its ferocity.
An hour later, as they pulled into Tecate, Mexico, six inches of water was sloshing back and forth along the floor of the little car. A steady stream of discolored water dripped from the bill of Chub’s cap. Lamar’s right side was soaking wet. It was like driving a bathtub.
Lamar pulled the car to the curb and doused the lights. A sudden gust of wind off the Pacific rocked the car on its springs. Lamar unfastened his seat belt and watched as the wind gathered parts of palm fronds from the ground and swirled the pieces into the air like a mini twister.
“I can’t reach the handle,” Chub said. Lamar got out, leaving the driver’s door open, and walked around to the passenger side, where he grabbed the handle and yanked open the passenger door.
Chub oozed out in sections. Took him several minutes of stretching and bending to work out the kinks, at which point he jammed a Herford-size shoulder through the open window and, with a muffled groan, tilted the car up onto its side, all the way up until the driver’s door hit the ground. What looked to be a hundred gallons of water sloshed out the driver’s side, creating a puddle that nearly surrounded the car.
After dropping the car back to earth, Chub groaned and rolled his shoulders. Lamar hustled over to the car and leaned inside to roll up the passenger window. The sunroof mechanism was, however, history. Annoyed, he slapped the windup handle. It spun like a pinwheel. He sighed, slammed the door, and locked it.
The rain hissed down like Phil Spector’s wall of sound. Out in Sonora Street, a pickup truck rolled by and then another, second one booming hip-hop loud enough to rattle the car windows. “Hate that rap shit,” Chub growled.
“Ain’t music at all,” Lamar agreed. “Just a buncha idiots yellin’ at each other.”
“Where we goin’?” Chub wanted to know.
Lamar nodded toward the street. “Other side of the street there. We got a buncha brothers hiding out down here. You know . . . since the thing up in Conway. Lotta guys had to get lost for a while.” Chub nodded silently.
Lamar had taken one look at Chub in the airport and decided he wasn’t gonna mention the guy’s dead brother. Not as big as that mofo was. Uh-uh. Not unless Chub did, and even then, he was gonna keep it real cagey and sympathetic. None of that blaming the victims shit, like a buncha members of the Brotherhood were doing these days. Sayin’ the guys up there in Washington had just plain fucked up and brought it on themselves. That if it wasn’t for that sloppy shit, they’d have had white America back under control by now. He was keeping out of that political shit. Whatever Chub said . . . agree with him. That was the way to go.
Lamar checked the street. Nada. The rain had slackened to a drizzle. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Chub wrung half a gallon of water out of his checkered cap. Lamar pulled out his phone and thumbed in a number.
“We’re here,” was all he said.
Five seconds passed before the lights of one of the houses across the street blinked three times. “Let’s go,” Lamar said.
The wind whispered behind their backs as they sloshed across the street. In the eerie glow of the streetlight, the red bougainvillea took on an ungodly purple hue. Couple of houses up the street, an SUV pulled out of one of the driveways, hesitated at the curb, then turned off in the opposite direction. Lamar and Chub stood still and watched until the taillights disappeared around the corner.
Lamar pushed the lighted button on the gatepost. The place lit up like a ballpark at night. Chub pulled his hat low over his eyes. Lamar shielded his face with his forearm. The gate eased open. “Come on,” a gruff voice said from inside the glare.
“What then? Somebody dropped him out of an airplane or something?” Gabe asked.
I shook my head. “The body wasn’t fucked up like that. From what I could see, other than what the birds had done to him, he was pretty much intact. Yeah, the ground cover would have softened the blow a bit, but you fall out of the sky, there’s a whole lot of impact damage.”
“You sure? . . . Maybe . . .”
I waved Gabe off. “Saw a guy one time whose parachute didn’t open. They had to slide a sheet of plywood under the body to pick it up. What was left of the guy quivered like cherry Jell-O when they carried it to the ambulance.”
Gabe turned off the sink water and dried off with a dish towel. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” I asked.
“Let’s go figure out how the kid got to where you found him. Otherwise you’re going to worry this friggin’ thing like a terrier until you maybe get both of us killed or we have to move to fucking Iowa or something.” Gabe put on a red SDSU sweatshirt and started for the door. “Come on. I ain’t got Iowa in me.”
I wanted to argue but instead grabbed a gray O.B. hoodie from the hook by the door and followed along, trailing Gabe through the alley and between buildings until we were both standing on Santa Cruz Avenue. Up at the end of the street, everything was quiet. No squad cars. No gawkers either.
Gabe slid to a stop at the corner. “This thing takes up the whole damn block.”
Yeah . . . it was true. I’d walked by it a hundred times but had never taken notice before. The condo building was a block in length. All the way up to the yellow arrows lined along the fence at the end of Bacon, telling you that if you kept driving straight, you were about to experience a sodden sinking sensation.
Gabe’s limp was more perceptible going uphill but didn’t affect our speed. By the time we got to the end of the building, a couple of things were clear. First off, the building formed a complete barrier between Bacon Street and the ocean. No gaps. No doorways. No nothing. Unless you could get into the building itself, there was no getting to the cliffs and certainly no way of getting to the spot where I’d found the body. So, secondly and therefore, the answer to our little problem must have been either on a side street or on the ocean side of the building.
Gabe took off back down the hill, round the corner, and to the top of the Santa Cruz stairs. Santa Cruz Cove consisted of a series of rock fingers sticking out into the ocean. The two central fingers formed a U-shaped expanse with a little beach and collection of nice perches to commune with the ocean, especially suited for those not enamored with the controlled mayhem of the town’s regular beaches.
The tide was in and so were the fish. A dozen brown pelicans were working the water about a quarter mile out from the cliffs. Gliding effortlessly, wheeling in slowly descending circles until, at about six feet above the tops of the waves, zeroing in on an underwater morsel, they folded their wings and dropped into the water like dark feathered darts.
“See where it’s all mushed down?”
Gabe nodded and silently began to peruse the cove. A couple of minutes passed.
“The kid had to get put up there from below,” Gabe announced, pointing a thick finger north along the face of the cliff. “They came up from the walking path. Someplace between here and the pier.”
“They?”
“Much as I hate to admit it, Leo, you were right. No way one person could climb up that grade carrying anything, but you and I could do
it together. You know, bucket-brigade style. One of us climbs up, the other one passes the body up to the guy who’s already up there, who lobs it up into the ground cover.”
“So . . . exactly who is it you ask to help you with something like that?” I cupped a hand around my mouth. “Hey, Larry, a little help here,” I mock shouted. “Got me a kid’s body to get rid of here.” I pinned Gabe with a stare. “Would you do it for me?” I asked.
Gabe’s lips pressed together hard. “A kid?” The broad face said Gabe didn’t think so. “You’d have to have one hell of a story.”
“Or?”
“Or I just might shoot you myself.”
My turn to point. “You know . . . all in all, it was a pretty good place to stash it,” I said. “It’s not visible from the beach, and it’s probably too close to the fence for anybody in the building to see it from above either.” I waved at the path below. “Anyplace else down there’s nothing but rocks. Somebody’s gonna find it first thing in the morning and, even if you get lucky and the body washes out to sea, either some surfer’s gonna find it or it’s just gonna wash back in on the next tide.”
“Let’s take . . .”
That was as far as Gabe got when the garage door of the condo closest to us began to squeak its way upward. Without thinking, I moved over close to the building, putting a good-size bougainvillea between me and the garage.
A red Kia nosed out into the street, turned right, and bounced away from us. I made a dash for the closing door. Behind me I heard Gabe. “Goddamn it, Leo . . .”
I did a clumsy barrel roll under the descending door. Felt like I’d fallen off the roof, but I made it. I took stock of myself, making sure no body parts had dropped off, then grunted and groaned my way into the full upright position. Once afoot I walked over to the right side of the garage door and pushed the green button. The door began to rise again.
Gabe wasn’t happy. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“Let’s just see what this place looks like from the front yard,” I whispered.
Reluctantly, Gabe stepped inside the garage. The overhead door rattled closed.
As my eyes began to adapt to the low light, I could make out a doorway in the garage wall. I headed that way, turned the knob, and bingo . . . Gabe stepped out beside me. We were in the building’s front yard, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. The pool was closed. Big dirty blue tarp floating above pea-soup water. Buncha lawn furniture folded along the wall behind the flower beds.
I hustled over to the fence. Gabe reached up and grabbed the top of the fence, which was right up at the limit of Gabe’s reach.
“Boost me up.”
I laced my fingers together. Gabe stepped in, and I muscled two-hundred-plus pounds up a couple of feet. Gabe nodded and then looked down at me.
“Take a look.”
Gabe got down and we swapped positions. No way was anybody going to see the spot where I’d found the kid from up here. Whatever happened had happened from down below. No doubt about it.
I was still running that fact through my circuits when a shout split the air.
“Hey . . . you two . . .”
Guy carrying a mop. Big thick bastard. Spent a lot of time on the weight bench in his younger days but was beginning to spill over his belt buckle now. Blond curls turned the color of dirty chrome. Maybe five-ten but a good two forty or so. Wearing a janitorial work shirt . . . said RUSSELL on the patch. Waddling hard in our direction. Puffing himself up like an adder as he walked. Making sure we noticed all that time he’d spent in the weight room.
“What you doin’ in here?” he demanded. “You got no business in here. Get the fuck out before I kick both your asses.”
He grabbed the mop in both hands as if he were going to use it as a weapon. From the corner of my eye, I saw Gabe turn sideways and load up, which I knew from past experience meant that either this guy was going to stop threatening us, or he was going to have to go on to Craigslist and find himself a new sternum after Gabe busted his present model in half.
I stepped between Gabe and the approaching janitor. “Sorry, man,” I said. “We musta taken a wrong turn somewhere.” Big smile.
I watched as he slowed down and then stopped, still brandishing the mop like a weapon. I also saw doubt in his eyes. Something in his alpha-male survival instinct was telling him he needed to be careful here. Bullies are generally cowards, and since neither of us had gotten the Hershey squirts at first sight of his muscles, he was beginning to have some serious and well-founded reservations. This wasn’t the way it usually went. We were supposed to be way more scared than this. Something was wrong. He could tell.
“I’m callin’ the cops,” he said.
I laughed out loud. “Come on, man,” I said. “You know the cops ain’t comin’ down here for that kind of petty shit. You could get Chinese food delivered first.”
He frowned and took another menacing step forward. When neither of us developed an impromptu facial tic, he shuffled to a stop again. I heard Gabe shift weight and sidestep forward twice. I watched Russell’s face. He was having the same problem with Gabe that most people do. One of the first categories we stuff people into is gender. Male or female. With Gabe that wasn’t so easy. The army of scientists who had parsed out Gabe’s genetic material over the years had all agreed. Gabe could be male, female, neither, or both.
The uncertainty that always engenders was painted all over Russell’s face.
“What you think you got?” he demanded.
“Way more than you’re lookin’ for, asshole,” Gabe said.
Maalox minute. Last thing we needed was to bring any more attention to ourselves, so I opted to break the tension before we got to the point of Gabe beating the shit out of this guy. “Sorry . . . ,” I threw in. “We’ll be on our way.”
I put my hand on Gabe’s arm and started sliding toward the door. Reluctantly, Gabe scuffed along in my wake. I opened the pedestrian door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Gabe followed me out, then pulled the door closed behind us.
“Asshole,” Gabe muttered as the door snicked. “All he had to do was ask us to leave. No need for all that hard-guy shit.”
“Takes his job seriously, I guess.”
Gabe was still pissed. “Motherfucker thinks he’s a way bigger badass than he is. Must be accustomed to pushing around kids and drunks and junkies.”
“I think maybe we were supposed to cower and beg for our lives or something,” I said as Gabe wandered over to the top of the stairs and leaned against the railing.
What was left of the sun hung on the horizon like a giant yellow eye that never blinked. Gabe immediately began to wave me over. I loped over to Gabe’s side.
Down on the walking path, a bedraggled troll was stumbling toward the bottom of the stairs, ragged sleeping bag leaking out from under his arm, huge hiker backpack hanging from the opposite shoulder. And two uniformed cops coming around the corner in tepid pursuit.
From the look of it, he must have been wasted. The way he kept bouncing off the railings, pinballing his way down the path, falling occasionally, climbing back to his feet, gathering anything that had shaken loose and then scrambling onward again.
I could hear his frantic breathing. Sounded almost like he was singing to himself as he panted toward the lower landing. The frayed bottoms of his pants waved like pennants in the wind as he began to struggle up the concrete stairs.
Instinctively, Gabe and I faded into the bougainvillea as the kid labored up the stairs. Seemed like the cops were herding him, rather than actually trying to apprehend his ass. I was guessing they’d had a complaint from one of the movers and shakers along the cliff face and were mostly interested in sending him someplace else. Someplace with considerably less political clout.
He tried to throw his sleeping bag up to the first landing, but it fell short and then began to unroll as it bounced back toward him. Using both his hands and feet, he bear crawled up the concrete stairs in pursuit, gathering the ba
g in sections as he went.
The cops reached the bottom of the stairs. The tweaker was scrambling up the last flight of steps. The nearest cop pointed at me, as if he wanted me to stop their quarry for them. I shook my head and turned my face away.
The tweaker might not be somebody I’d invite for lunch, but that didn’t mean I was gonna help the cops arrest his filthy ass either. A man’s gotta draw the line somewhere, and mine stopped considerably short of helping the cops round up the wretched refuse of our teeming shores.
Gabe and I stayed plastered to the side of the building as he crawled up the final flight of stairs. He was breathing hard by the time he came into view. From a distance, it had looked as if he were wearing a Lone Ranger mask. Up close, however, I could see he had a bar code tattooed across his forehead. Part of me wanted to run him through the scanner and see what it read. Succotash, maybe.
The scuff of shoes on concrete pulled my eyes toward the beach. The cops were coming up the stairs now. He heard it too. Sucked in a great mouthful of air and wobbled, wild eyed, to his feet.
For about half a second, I thought he was gonna make it to the promised land. He was three steps from the street when he tripped over the unrolled sleeping bag and went down flat on his face. I winced as he began to slide, his teeth clicking cadence as his chin bounced off the stairs. A high-pitched wail rose from his throat as he struggled to his feet, grabbed the rail, and began hauling himself upward again, the sleeping bag dragging behind him like a giant plaid tongue as he scratched his way up onto the upper landing.
At which point he did a couple of things that while singularly harmless should generally not be attempted at the same time. He looked back over his shoulder at the rapidly closing cops and then took off running at warp speed. Bang. Right into the passenger side of a blue Honda Civic parked at the curb. Needless to say, the car got the better of it.
The cops were on him before he could regain his footing. He kicked at them from the sitting position. They kept screaming at him to roll over and put his hands on top of his head.