He swung open the screen door and entered the bar. “Hotel California” tinkled through stereo speakers as old as the song. As Jess approached the bar, a Steely Dan tune came on next. He would have bet the same mix tape had been playing in the Oasis for three decades. A couple of regulars hugged barstools and their beers. Two old-timers pushed balls around a pool table in back. A Latina waitress in her early twenties sat in a booth, sorting through a paucity of tips. She looked up when Jess entered and started to get on her feet, but Jess waved her off, indicating he was going straight to the bar.
As he crossed the room, he wondered what his father was doing at a dive like the Oasis. Walter Stark threw five-course dinners at home and entertained guests by the dozens at the country club. Jess couldn’t remember his father ever stepping inside a coffee shop or fast food joint, let alone a roadside bar.
The bartender was watching a muted college basketball game on a TV that still used an antenna. He swung his gargantuan frame around as Jess took a seat on a barstool. The man couldn’t have been less interested if Jess had been peddling Tupperware.
“What can I get you?” he asked, not bothering to stifle a yawn.
Jess nodded at the beer spigots. “Whatever’s on draft.”
The bartender pulled an iced glass out of a lower drawer and drew down on the Stroh’s lever. He handed the beer to Jess, who dug a ten out of his wallet and motioned that the bartender could keep the change. It raised the man’s eyebrow and his suspicion—no one left five-dollar tips at the Oasis unless they were drunk off their asses.
“Is Tom around?” asked Jess.
The barkeep’s eyes flickered. “He doesn’t work here anymore.” He started to move away.
“Funny,” Jess said. “My dad said he did. Maybe you’ve seen my father in here? Walter Stark?”
“Sorry. Doesn’t ring a bell.” The bartender turned away, clearly shutting him off.
Jess took a swig of the Stroh’s. He was considering using the direct approach and asking the man about Tom Cox’s death when a voice whispered behind him.
“Finish your beer and go out back.”
It was the waitress. Jess was surprised he didn’t notice it the first time—but he actually knew her. Of course, when he last saw her she’d been fifteen and running around the servants’ quarters in the Stark manse. Now she was a woman who would take any man’s breath away.
“Maria?”
“Hi, Jessie. I would’ve said something when you walked in but I couldn’t believe it was you.”
“My God. Lena… your mom… said you’d graduated college but I never imagined…”
Jess broke off, continuing to stare. Her brunette hair had hints of blond from the desert sun, her eyes were dark pools that beckoned without a hint of makeup, and her uniform did nothing to hide the fact that she was long past being the awkward teenager that Jess used to tease.
Maria’s eyes took on an insistent, desperate quality. “You don’t want to ask questions here.”
“Why not?”
“Your father came in here a few times and met with Tom Cox.”
She didn’t have to connect any more dots.
“And now they’re both dead,” Jess stated.
“I wouldn’t want that to happen to you.”
JESS BELOW
His wireless provider would have been upset—they weren’t going to be able to charge Jess for extra minutes. He doled out his cell phone usage sparingly. It was a good light source and Jess was kicking himself for not getting the souped-up battery package when it had been offered.
He was already tired from thumping his foot against the coffin walls. He checked the cell’s time display: 4:05 a.m. He’d been at it for over an hour and a half. He continued kicking the wood panel in front of him, but all he had gotten for his trouble so far was a sore arch, which he knew would hurt like a son of a bitch when he put some weight on it.
He managed an insane chuckle. Who gave a shit if his arch hurt right now? To put weight on his foot he had to be standing up, which meant getting the hell out of this damn grave. A whole bunch of good saving a little pain would do him when he suffocated to death.
Something obviously was making his brain circuits go a bit haywire. Maybe he was running out of air.
Jess started slamming his foot against the wall again.
The monotony set his mind adrift. He remembered being twelve and his mother forcing him to take ten-year-old Sarah to the park for the afternoon. Jess wanted to play catch but his sister insisted on flying a kite she’d gotten for Christmas. Jess showed her how to get it airborne. Sarah demanded taking over, promptly got the kite stuck up in a tree, and let go of the string.
She began whining for Jess to climb up fifty feet and get it. He picked up a baseball he’d brought and tried to knock the kite off the uppermost limb. His first ten throws didn’t come close. Sarah wanted to try and suddenly it turned into a game. Pretty soon they were both laughing and providing pitch-by-pitch commentary as they tried to dislodge it with the baseball. When they finally freed the kite three hours later, the sun hugged the horizon and they caught hell from Kate when they got home. But that was one of the few times Jess could remember having a good time with his baby sister.
Something cracked.
The sound snapped his daydream in half. Jess fumbled for the cell phone and aimed it at the coffin wall by his feet. The fluorescent glow illuminated a distinct split in the wood.
He wasn’t sure what that would gain him, but was happy to have made some kind of progress.
Then, he heard the dripping sound.
Jess swung the light just below the crack he’d made and saw another one had formed. This curbed any enthusiasm the first breakthrough had provided.
Water was starting to drip out of the new crack.
13
The fluorescent lights in the Denny’s were a sharp contrast to the dim glow of the Oasis. Same number of customers, but a distinctly different midnight clientele. The Oasis patrons were regulars who didn’t have anywhere else to go, while the Denny’s denizens were people headed somewhere. Travelers making a pit stop on an all-night trek to Los Angeles or Phoenix. Nightshift workers stopping for dinner before heading to bed. Others were getting sustenance before heading in to work graveyard. Maria and Jess were the only ones who couldn’t be categorized.
He couldn’t get over that this was the girl who had been so shy she hid behind Lena’s skirts when she was growing up. Age and gender had been the obvious reasons separating Jess from Maria. The Upstairs, Downstairs dynamic insisted on by his parents (especially Walter) widened those gaps. Jess remembered the time his father discovered him putting a dollhouse together for Maria. Walter berated him for playing with “the help” and Jess was dragged out of the room, embarrassed and feeling bad that the seven-year-old girl was too proud to cry.
Maria had quickly changed out of her uniform while Jess waited in the Oasis parking lot. When she opened the SUV door and climbed in, Jess couldn’t help but notice the way her silk blouse clung to her body, the slight V-neck just suggestive enough. As Maria strapped herself in, the seat belt secured tightly across her chest and her flowing skirt hiked just above the knee—giving further evidence that this wasn’t Lena Flores’s little girl anymore.
On the short ride to the Denny’s, they’d exchanged pleasantries and did a little catching up. Jess told her his dispatch job kept a much smaller roof than the one at the mansion over his head, but he was fine with that. Maria gave him an understanding nod. She’d grown up in the back rooms of that house. She might have been an awkward teenager when Jess left Palm Springs but there was nothing wrong with her eyes and ears. She was well aware of the tension between father and son.
Maria had done well in high school and gotten a scholarship to Pomona. Tons of competitive science classes had worn her out and she was taking a gap year before applying to medical school. Working at the Oasis gave her enough money to live in a small apartment just outside of downtown. She
actually didn’t mind waiting tables at the bar; it gave her time to think really hard if she wanted to become a doctor. At the same time, she didn’t want to disappoint her mother.
“The medical profession would be lucky to have you,” he said as they settled into a genuine Naugahyde booth. “But Lena would support whatever you chose to do. One hundred ten percent. She beams whenever she mentions you.”
“That’s because she can’t wait to introduce me as ‘my daughter, the doctor.’ ”
“I’ve known your mother longer than you. If you’re happy, she’s happy.”
A bored waiter brought coffee. Jess realized he hadn’t eaten since that morning, so he ordered an omelet. Maria nursed the coffee cup. Once the waiter shuffled away, Jess brought the conversation back to where he had started with the Oasis bartender.
“What was my father doing with Tom Cox?”
“I’m not sure. But he was there on more than one occasion.”
“Any idea what they were talking about?”
“Not really.” Maria lowered her eyes and studied the coffee cup.
“But…?”
“I did overhear them once.”
“And?”
“Your father kept saying he wanted Palm Springs back like it was before this all happened.”
Jess lowered his cup. “Before all what happened?”
Maria shook her head. “I didn’t hear that part. Like I said, I was eavesdropping.”
Jess continued asking questions about Walter Stark having clandestine meetings with a short-order cook in a bar like the Oasis. Maria really wanted to help and constantly apologized. He told her that was ridiculous; she was doing the right thing by not listening in.
“I was there when Tom died,” said Jess.
“You were?”
He told her about the motorcyclist and ensuing accident. “When I pulled him out of the car, he was absolutely scared to death. He grabbed me by the neck and begged me not to make him ‘go back.’ You think he meant the Oasis?”
Maria pondered the question. “I doubt it. The owner, Gus? The guy behind the bar you talked to? He’s not exactly your dream boss. But I wouldn’t waste my dying breath on him.”
“So what do you think Tom meant?”
“He was probably talking about Meadowland,” Maria answered.
“My father’s retirement complex?”
Maria nodded. “Tom worked as a chef there. He got fired about three months ago. That’s when he started at the Oasis.”
“That doesn’t make sense. My father cans Tom Cox and then shows up weeks later to talk to him?”
“Your dad wasn’t the one who fired Tom. He told me it was the doctor who runs the place.”
“Edward Rice?”
Maria caught the distaste with which Jess mentioned the name. “I see you’ve met him.”
“He seems to be running the house when he’s not fooling around with my sister.”
Maria’s eyes widened. “Ah. That’s what Mom was hinting about.”
“What’s that?”
“You know my mother,” Maria said. “She won’t come right out and gossip so she has a way of mentioning people’s names in the same breath without linking them up. I haven’t been around much, so I guess I missed it. But Sarah and Doctor Rice sort of fit.”
“How long has he been running Meadowland?”
“Quite a while.”
The waiter came over with the omelet. Jess waited for him to move off before he took a bite and continued. “You have any idea why Tom was fired?”
She shook her head. “We didn’t talk much even though I got him the Oasis job.”
“You did?”
“I was at the house when he came looking for your father a few months ago. He was really upset about getting let go—and our cook had just been deported. So I told him there might be an opening.”
“Nice of you.”
“He was a good guy. But he pretty much kept to himself the months he worked at the bar. When I asked him what it was like at Meadowland, he got nervous talking about it.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“That a lot of creepy stuff was happening out there.”
“Such as?”
Maria hesitated, and then leaned forward in the booth. At first glance someone would think she was striking a provocative pose for her boyfriend.
She was actually making sure no one could overhear.
“He said that way too many people were dying.”
14
Jess had been dreaming of his father when the noise woke him up.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d dreamt of Walter Stark—maybe the first few weeks after he’d taken off for Los Angeles. Jess chalked those up to rage during the day that gave way to repressed anger in the supposed calm of night.
This dream had been strange because it wasn’t a nightmare. Nor was it combative. The two of them were sitting in the stands at the Palm Springs Little League Field after a game, Walter trying to console his son after he’d struck out three times. Jess knew he was dreaming as it was happening. His father had never come to one of his games. But there was Walter Stark talking about nasty curve balls and strike zones, words he couldn’t imagine coming out of his father’s mouth. In the wacky way dreams and reality fold onto each other, Jess said his father shouldn’t be sitting in the stands with him.
“Game’s over, Dad. You’re dead,” said Jess the Dream Boy.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t sit here and enjoy ourselves,” replied Dream Man Walter. He reached over and rubbed Jess’s back. It actually hurt and Jess told his father to stop. Walter ignored the complaint and dug in with his nails, starting to scratch Jess’s back so hard you could hear the fingernails on the uniform shirt.
That became the scratching sound that brought Jess out of Dreamland.
He quickly rolled over and checked the luminescent clock radio. 3:15 a.m. The scratching continued and grew louder. Jess sat up, reached for the nightstand, and flicked on the lamp.
The room looked no different. It was totally devoid of décor, style, or inhabitants. Jess’s clothes were strewn on the desk chair; his shoes sat by the bed. He had been so exhausted that he’d fallen asleep before his head had hit the crummy foam pillow.
Jess noticed that the bathroom door was cracked open; no light came from within. He got out of bed and started to cross the room—then stopped in his tracks. He glanced around, looking for some weapon to fend off anything that might pop out of the bathroom, but Benji ran a no-frills operation, and that meant most things in the room, like the television set, clock radio, and lamps, were nailed down so no one could steal them.
Jess approached the bathroom door and banged his fist on it, hoping to scare someone hiding inside. He threw open the door and a startled gecko raced through a crack by the window. Otherwise, the bathroom was unoccupied.
Jess sighed, pissed at his imagination working overtime.
The scratching started up again.
Jess beat a path to the front door. He flung it open and was greeted by a blast of desert night air. At least a dead body didn’t collapse in his arms. The parking lot was empty except for the SUV and Benji’s Mustang. Walter’s death and ensuing police commotion had scared away the last of the Sands’s clientele for the time being.
He turned to go back inside, but stopped when he heard the chug-chug of a motorcycle on the road. It wasn’t very loud and got softer as it moved deeper into the desert night. Jess couldn’t be sure it had been in the Sands parking lot, but it gave him a reason to check things out.
He looked for tire tracks and found far too many to sort out, the culprit being the excessive police activity the previous morning.
Jess stopped looking in the dirt the moment he stepped in front of the SUV.
Moonlight cast a scarlet glow on the SUV’s windshield.
When he got closer he saw the color came from something spread across the glass.
Blood.
A s
imple one-word message had been drawn in it.
LEAVE.
15
“Think someone might be trying to tell you something?” Benji asked.
The sun was barely up when Jess showed him the message on the windshield. The blood had begun to dry. As morning progressed, it would get darker and crustier.
“Don’t suppose you saw or heard anything in the middle of the night?”
“I was out cold, man.” Benji’s sheepish grin would have done a Cheshire proud. “Sort of had a one-man wake after you took off yesterday. The coroner showing up doesn’t do wonders for business.”
“Right. Because it was booming before that.”
“Economic slump, Jess. Give things time to turn around.”
Benji’s lack of conviction told Jess his old friend thought this was a long time coming. “How are you making a living anyway?”
“I actually rented a few rooms out as office space. Don’t have any tenants right now, but I had an insurance guy for a year or so. Then there was this startup Internet company.” Benji coughed, and corrected himself. “Well, I thought that’s what they were till I realized they were shooting a porn movie.”
“You kicked them out?”
“I should have. But I let them finish the flick and then they skipped out without paying me.”
Jess tried to withhold the smile. “Imagine that.”
“I need a better class of citizen in here.” Benji suddenly looked at Jess like he was manna delivered from above. “Maybe we oughta start a business together!”
Jess was frightened to ask—but took the plunge anyway. “Like what?”
“How ’bout one of those sci-fi horror collectible stores? We could carry comics, graphic novels, movie posters…”
“Isn’t there one on the main drag downtown?”
Benji waved it off. “Real shit business. No one’s ever in the place. We could do so much better.”
“ ’Cause you get so much foot traffic out here.”
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