Descending Son
Page 1
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2014 by Scott Shepherd
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North, Seattle
www.apub.com
ISBN-13: 9781477808733
ISBN-10: 1477808736
Cover illustration by Larry Rostant
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013936772
To Holly
She’s the One
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE JESS BELOW
PART ONE SUN CITY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
JESS BELOW
8
9
10
11
12
JESS BELOW
13
14
15
16
17
JESS BELOW
18
19
JESS BELOW
20
JESS BELOW
PART TWO DARK SANDS
TRACY BEFORE
1
2
TRACY BEFORE
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
TRACY BEFORE
10
11
12
TRACY BEFORE
13
14
15
16
17
18
TRACY BEFORE
19
PART THREE DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT
INTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
1
2
3
EXCERPTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
4
5
6
EXCERPTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
7
EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
8
EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
9
10
EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
11
12
13
EXCERPT FROM THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
14
15
EPILOGUE LIGHT OF DAY
POSTSCRIPT TO THE JOURNAL OF EDWARD D. RICE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A NOTE TO THE READER
PREVIEW: THE SEVENTH DAY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
JESS BELOW
When Jess regained consciousness the first thing he heard was a whooshing sound.
Something rhythmic in the night air. It was in the distance, but steadily getting closer. The noise hurt his aching head.
What the hell did he get hit with?
He was having a hell of a time wiping away the cobwebs.
Two men? A car trunk?
The thoughts jumbled together.…
One thing he knew for sure. He was being dragged across the desert floor, his body assaulted by every possible pebble and rock. He couldn’t see what or where the sound was coming from—the only thing in sight was the evening sky.
Damn, there were a lot of stars. The Milky Way washed across heavens that glittered like God’s jewelry box. It brought back childhood memories of being on the roof with the telescope his father had given him. (And the report he demanded on precisely which constellations Jess had seen and berating him for the ones that he had missed. That memory wouldn’t go away no matter how many times he got hit on the head.)
He worked harder on trying to clear his brain. Realizing one might only have a few minutes left on Planet Earth will do that to you.
Suddenly, the blades appeared—swooping down out of the moonlight. Jess thought the windmill was going to scoop him up and hurl him further into the desert. The actual blades weren’t even close. It was the overwhelming size of the structure and magnificence of the twirling works that made him imagine it was going to swallow him up whole.
More windmills appeared, pumping energy through the Coachella Valley. In their immediate proximity the roar was earsplitting, whereas if you were just traveling along Highway 111 they looked more like mirages on a hill waiting for mythical conquistadors to ride by and tilt.
Someone continued to drag him along the ground, past the windmill field and deeper into the desert. Even the moonlight wasn’t enough to illuminate the dark sands. A flicker of light caused Jess to twist his head.
He saw a ski-masked man about twenty yards away aiming a flashlight into the desert. Clearly, there was a destination in mind.
As the whooshing blades lowered to a hypnotic hum, Jess suddenly realized they weren’t moving. He was yanked to his feet and brought face-to-face with the dragger: another ski-masked man. His natural instinct was to try and resist.
For his efforts he got a gun embedded into the small of his back.
He figured this was the blunt object that had knocked him cold. He fell into a ski-masked sandwich—one step behind the man with the flashlight and the gun-toting thug at his rear.
“What do you guys want from me?” Jess asked.
The answer was another gun thrust into an already way-too-sore kidney.
A few more steps; then Jess saw something reflect off the flashlight.
A glint of metal.
As the beam located the object, it became abruptly clear to him that this was a one-way trip.
A shovel was sticking out of the ground. Next to it was a freshly dug hole.
A grave. In the middle of nowhere.
Panic raced through every blood vessel in Jess’s body. He whirled around on the gunman—and got pistol-whipped. Jess tumbled to the ground and was immediately kicked in the ribs by the flashlight wielder. More kicks followed from the gunman—each one propelling him closer to the open grave.
“Noooo…! Please…”
But no amount of begging, cajoling, or praying stopped the assault. Jess rolled over the edge of the hole and fell into the open pit. He landed in a heap—on something hard, made out of wood.
Jess rolled onto his back and his arms bumped against the walled sides of the casket into which he’d dropped.
The gunman stepped away from the grave’s edge to make room for his partner, who was carrying a large wooden object.
The casket cover.
The two men quickly worked together, holding either side of the coffin lid while standing on opposite sides of the grave. Then, lining it up like a champ about to sink that last eight ball in the corner pocket, they let it drop into place.
Jess screamed.
All that remained were a few precious seconds until the inevitable sound. The sound no man is ever supposed to hear.
The clank of a shovel as it scoops up the first mound of dirt to pour on his grave.
PART ONE
SUN CITY
1
“Some asshole dumped his rig on the 405 just north of Bellflower. Better tell Safeco I’m gonna be an hour late.”
Jess Stark leaned forward and tapped the dispatch mic. “And you’re where exactly?”
“Not even crawling by the Los Alamitos exit,” came the frustrated voice over the radio speaker that sat right next to Jess’s computer.
Jess clicked the mouse a few times, sca
nned a couple of Los Angeles virtual traffic pattern maps, and then spoke into the mic again. “Swing onto the 605 North.”
The squawk over the radio was equally mechanical and human. “Oh, man. That’s completely the wrong direction.”
Jess kept his voice at an even keel as he offered up auto guidance advice to the miffed messenger. “You head up to the 91, then go west. If that blocks up, which it probably will, get on the 710 North and take it up to the 105. Go west until you hit the 110 and you’ll cruise north into downtown from there.”
“That’s like a dozen freeways, Jess…”
“Five. Six counting the one you’re stuck on.”
“How am I supposed to keep track of all that?” whined the driver.
“You don’t. That’s why I’m here. You just drive.” Jess patiently began repeating the numbers in sequence—605, 91, 710, 105, 110—till it became the messenger’s mantra. By the time the driver got onto the 605 North, the anxiety had fled from his voice and Jess clicked off, knowing the package would reach its destination on time.
“I could’ve just called the client and told him we were running late,” said Rose, Modern Messenger’s Jill-of-All-Trades. Twenty-something, she was getting some kind of degree over at Cal State LA in the evenings, while during the day she answered phones, billed clients, and tried to keep the books in line.
“And because we missed our one-hour guarantee, the run goes to AAA Delivery next time, or whoever is listed first in the Yellow Pages.” Jess tapped the radio. “Plus this way, Clayton learns more shortcuts and I hold his hand less.”
Rose harrumphed. “Long as he doesn’t miss an off-ramp. Then he’ll never get there.”
Jess chose not to respond. Rose was one of those girls who needed to get the last word in, which meant this conversation could continue until next Tuesday. But she was a whiz with a calculator and balance sheet, and those were two things he was happy to keep on her portion of the double-sided partners’ desk that sat in the center of the tiny El Monte dispatch office.
Jess had driven for the company before taking the desk job. Blowing out an engine on his old Nissan by piling up close to a hundred thousand miles in less than three years and a multitude of speeding tickets had made the decision simple. (And he couldn’t stand one more day at the so-called Comedy Traffic Schools to wipe out a violation—Jess’s own private tour of hell.) When Old Man Martinez decided to retire, it left an opening behind the dispatch mic; Jess was happy to fill it. Running two dozen drivers all over town wasn’t quite working the LAX control tower, but he liked the fact that most people he dealt with were just faceless voices pouring over the radio speaker or out of a phone headset.
Jess took pride in the fact that he had upped the on-time delivery percentage from under eighty percent to ninety-eight percent in the year he’d been behind the desk. Occasionally, circumstances beyond his control would cause a run to slip through the cracks—a package that wasn’t ready, a wrong address, the two percent. But recently he had found drudgery creeping into the job; Jess could tell because he was doing more Sudoku puzzles and reading two detective novels at once while dispatching his fleet. The challenge had been laid down and met. Jess knew he was ready for greener pastures, but didn’t have the slightest idea where to go look for them.
It was one of the reasons he had taken to doing the Santa Anita run himself (even though it meant tempting the Engine Trouble Fates or the El Monte cops chasing a citation quota). Sure, he could have worked it into one of the drivers’ schedules, but it got him out of the office four days a week and let Rose feel like she was steering the ship for a bit, though upon his return Jess invariably had to reroute messengers she had spread all over the City of Angels.
At two thirty, Jess walked out to the parking lot, jumped into his year-old SUV, and headed up Peck Road toward Arcadia. Shortly before three, he pulled into the racetrack parking lot, which was so vast it had doubled for Wally World, the amusement park in National Lampoon’s Vacation. He paid his admission and once inside sat on a bench in the paddock to study the entries for the nightcap, the last race of the day. He scribbled all over the Daily Racing Form with two pens—one a red-felt Flair, the other a Pilot blue very fine ballpoint—and picked the four horses he figured had the best chance to win. This day, in no particular order of preference, Jess chose numbers 3, 5, 6, and 9.
Then, he walked up to a teller and placed a twenty-four-dollar wager boxing the 3, 5, 6, and 9 in the trifecta, which meant buying every possible combination using his four selected horses to finish one-two-three in exact order. After that, he purchased two dozen Racing Forms and programs for the following day to deliver to Fleishman, and returned to the parking lot.
Five minutes later, Jess walked into Arcadia Liquor and handed over the forms, programs, and purchased trifecta ticket to Fleishman, the gray-haired proprietor whose wardrobe alternated between four different way-way-too-bright-colored sweat suits. Fleishman handed Jess twenty-four dollars for the wager and they shot the shit until the last race went off on the TV hanging from the ceiling above the fine-aged Scotches.
The nine horse won by three lengths at 17-1 odds and the favorite (the five horse) finished second. But what got Fleishman whooping and hollering was when the six horse got up for third—completing a winning trifecta that paid $435—a nifty profit of just over four hundred bucks.
Fleishman patted Jess on the back. “Boy, can you pick ’em or what?”
“Sometimes it works out like you figure it,” said Jess.
“More often than not with you, kid. Tell me you bet it for yourself this time.”
Jess shook his head. “Nah. You know me. I just like the puzzle.”
“Puzzle, schmuzzle. We’re talking four hundred smackers. What’s with you and money anyway? You allergic or something?”
Jess shrugged and told Fleishman he had to get going.
No point in telling him the truth. When it came to money and all the things it did and didn’t do, Jess could sum up his feelings in four words the liquor store owner would never understand.
Been there. Done that.
Jess thought about the trifecta on the drive back to his apartment. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the “Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda Had It” that obsessed most gamblers after they missed out on a score. It wasn’t that his wallet had four hundred fewer George Washingtons in it; Jess had helped Fleishman cash tickets for three times that amount without regret. What he wondered about was why the handicapping and waiting for the result appealed to him so much. As he dropped out of Pasadena onto the 110 freeway, he could only come up with one answer.
It kept him occupied.
He was always looking for something to fill the waking hours. It kept his brain whirring, problem solving, just plain dealing.
Dr. Clifford had tried to tell him he wasn’t dealing at all. But Jess didn’t want to hear that.
A few months after he ended up in Los Angeles, he landed on a shrink’s couch (didn’t everyone?) because he was unable to sleep, his mind was on overdrive, and he knew every infomercial by heart. He was only halfway through his first session when Dr. Clifford said Jess was suffering from anxiety.
On his second visit, Dr. Clifford suggested they try biofeedback. Jess had never heard of it and asked Clifford to explain. The shrink said he would hook him up to a small machine that measured one’s anxiety level. (Some kind of pulse reader, Jess figured.) There was an arrow on the main display. The further it swung left, the more relaxed the patient was. If it went to the right—well, that wasn’t ideal. It meant all your synapses were on high alert.
“The idea is to do exercises that urge the arrow left, getting you to relax,” explained Dr. Clifford. “Making that happen in this office will help you apply those techniques in the outside world to calm down when you feel anxious.”
Jess figured it was worth a shot. Clifford pummeled him with all kinds of questions—name everyone from your first grade class, recite the presidents, say your Social Security number b
ackward. He threw enough at Jess to make an ordinary person sweat and rocket the arrow toward the danger zone.
But a strange thing happened.
The more tasks Clifford gave him, the further the arrow drifted left. His head filled with dozens of assignments, Jess was actually relaxed.
“Let’s start over,” suggested the shrink, scratching his head. “Imagine you’re on a beach, it’s a sunny day, and you’re thinking of absolutely nothing.”
Zing. The arrow swung to the right.
Jess practically had an anxiety attack right there in his shrink’s office.
Dr. Clifford decided Jess wasn’t a candidate for biofeedback.
Jess figured he wasn’t cut out for any more therapy.
He knew what the problem was—what was driving him crazy.
When Clifford asked him to clear his mind, Jess tried really hard to do just that. But the arrow picked up on the truth and made a hard right toward Anxietyville.
The truth was that whenever Jess tried to think about nothing—all he could do was think about her.
The Dodgers blew another lead in the ninth. They went down in order right around the time Jess finished writing his last check. That was synchronicity for you—both hit rock bottom at the same time. At least the Dodgers would get another chance the next night. Payday wasn’t for another week at Modern Messenger.
He put the checkbook in a desk drawer and then glanced at the one framed photograph on the desktop. The Coachella Valley shot from up high on a hill. Sun City, as the Rat Pack once called it, spread out in all its desert splendor.
He drifted across his one-bedroom Echo Park apartment to the front windows. Bright light from the stadium in the ravine filtered into the living room, washing the blank walls in sheer whiteness. In an hour or so, the light would disappear along with thousands of disappointed fans.
On home stands he would sit in this room with Vin Scully’s voice coming from the television in the bedroom. The TV director might select what he wanted viewers to see, but Scully’s mellifluous tone allowed pictures to form in Jess’s head. That way he could hang on to images as long as he wanted—sometimes for hours after the stadium lights flicked off and the taillights faded down the hill.