by Bill Thesken
I followed its path, and I could see it’s outline just for a moment before it disappeared behind some trees. It was a truck, I couldn’t tell what color, but it definitely had the shape of a truck with a rack above the bed and something that looked like a stack of lumber or a door. Maybe it was one of the contractors on the island. I kept tracking it as it went towards the little town, losing it now and then as it passed behind homes, and picking it back up through spaces between the houses, I could see the glow of the headlights, and not much else. It stopped in the upper right side of the middle of the town, high on the hill in front of a little one story house. It must have turned into a driveway, since the headlights were shining brighter as though they were pointed straight at the harbor. And then the lights went out.
I needed to move fast. I took a last mental snapshot picture of the house from my view on the boat, and calculated the best I could where in the town it was located. I pulled out a map of the city, shined my red penlight on it, and used my finger to trace the route I thought it must have taken. Then I grabbed my weapons, night scope, and dark hoodie, jumped into the skiff, fired up the little two-stroke engine and headed for shore.
I caught up to the ship-to-shore ferry and passed behind and on the right side. While they were heading back to the dock to pick up some more passengers, I was heading straight in to the beach.
The driver looked back at me with a frown as I passed to the starboard side of their boat. He motioned with his hand in a flat palm downward motion for me to slow down.
I ignored him and cranked the throttle and sped up. Give me a ticket, harbor cop.
Within a few short minutes I shut the engine off, pulled the prop up out of the water to a forty-five degree angle and locked it off. I glided onto the shore, jumped out, and dragged the skiff up past the high water line.
The tide was going out and I knew it would be safe leaving it here for a while. I threw the anchor on the sand by the wall with ten feet of line, to be on the safe side, and headed to the stairway and up to the sidewalk.
No one talked to me or looked sideways as I made my way up onto the walkway that bordered the harbor. One old guy with a half-grey beard looked as though he wanted to say something about my skiff, then thought better when he saw the look in my eyes. He could tell I was in a hurry and was not to be disturbed.
Three streets over I took a left at the Italian Restaurant and took the same route as when I walked to the Zane Grey house for the party with Gale. I headed up the hill past the tidy little yards and quaint little homes of Santa Catalina to a snipers den.
The road angled to the left and about a hundred fifty yards up I took the first right onto the next road and headed a few doors over. This is the spot that I fingered on the map, and sure enough, there was a brand new black truck parked in front of a little house. There were racks above the truck bed, they didn’t hold lumber or a door, but a long yellow paddle board.
This is the truck I watched a drunk Corbin get into a few nights ago after beating the hell out of the guy who bested him at a poker game. We were, at the most, two blocks over from the Zane Grey house. I had no idea if Corbin was the same guy who drove this truck tonight, or even if this was his home, but if it was, he was a lazy bastard.
I walked past the house on the opposite side of the street, minding my own business, humming a little tune, just a tourist out for a walk, happy to be on vacation in Avalon.
I went up past a bend in the street until I couldn’t see the house with the truck anymore. An electric golf cart went whizzing by, a middle-aged couple heading home. They waved as they passed, but I tilted my head to the side so they couldn’t see my face while returning their wave, then walked slowly back the way I’d come, now on the same side of the street that the house was on.
The home was dimly lit and the front door was shut. Trash cans by the left side, a large round bush on the right. I took a quick three-sixty turn to take in my surroundings, looking up at the stars, and then slipped into the driveway and crouched in front of the truck, putting my hand on the hood.
It was very warm. Someone just got home from a drive. Still crouching, I made my way around the right side of the home. Blocked from the street by the large round bush, I looked down the side of the house towards the side window. Here at the corner of the house the electric main breaker and the wire from the street went straight over my head.
There was a drape with a crack in the middle of the window. I crept slowly forward, pressed my nose against the screen, and peered in. It was a dark living room, the light in the hallway was on, and then it too went off, leaving the whole house pitch black. I backed quickly away from the window and pressed into the side of the house. My breathing quickened. I needed to settle it down and get control. Had someone just seen me at the window and was getting ready to blast me?
The front door slammed shut.
Or maybe whoever was inside, saw me and was heading out to confront me face to face. I reached behind my back and slid one of the pistols out of the holster, clicked the safety off, held it with both hands in front of me and got ready for someone to come barging around the corner with a gun.
The truck door slammed shut and the engine started. I raced to the front corner and slithered along the ground and lay under the large bush and waited. I was looking through the branches directly at the passenger side window of the truck, but it was tinted, making the shape of the head inside nearly invisible. It backed out of the little driveway into the street, and when the front tires turned and the truck pivoted onto the road, the streetlight shined straight down through the windshield from above. I could see a large head with slick jet black hair and a overly tanned face.
Corbin.
The truck headed off down the street and took a left headed for the harbor and the middle of the town.
I pulled my hoodie over the top of my head and my cheeks, slid on the mirrored glasses and headed back to the side of the house. I pulled open the main breaker and zapped it with my hand held taser with a loud pop and a crackle. Then I headed to the side window, took off the outside screen and was ready to punch the window, but checked first, and found it was unlocked. I slid the window up and crawled up and into the house next to a couch. I was only looking for one thing, and it didn’t take long. Set in a side closet was a long leather case and inside was a long rifle. A sniper’s special with a large night scope. I felt the barrel, the cold hard steel was anything but, it was still warm.
When I was in the Army I knew some snipers who would wait twenty minutes between shots to let their barrel cool all the way down to get what they called a cold shot. I figured it had taken me ten minutes at most to get here. This gun had been very recently fired.
I considered removing the firing pin, but that would take too long, maybe two minutes and I didn’t want to stay in the house that long.
So I pulled the rifle all the way out of its case, lodged the tip of the barrel into a door jamb, held the bottom of the door with my foot wedged against it and bent the barrel very slightly. It wasn’t much of a bend and the gun would definitely still fire, but at a long distance would lose a lot of accuracy. It wouldn’t hit the broadside of a barn from half a mile and was effectively disabled.
After replacing the rifle in its case and putting it back in the exact spot where it was, I took a quick tour of the house to see who I was up against.
Shotgun under the bed, next to the door leading to the bedroom, next to the front door. This guy was just like Jack Wilson, ready to action and maybe a little paranoid. The kitchen was stocked with a lot of booze, whiskeys and beers, muscle building powders, vials of anabolic steroids in the refrigerator. All the ingredients that added up to a volatile attitude.
I sensed that my three minutes was up, and headed back and out through the window, carefully replaced the screen and crept out to the bush. When the coast looked clear I took off my shades, pushed the hoodie off my head, and walked out onto the street. I headed the way the truck went, whistling a tu
ne. Maybe I’d get lucky and see it parked along the way.
I turned left and headed down the hill to the harbor. I’d only travelled about a hundred feet, and halfway down the street when, what do you know, there was the black truck with the yellow surfboard on the rack over the bed. It was parked in a narrow driveway in front of a tiny one-story red-bricked Spanish style house. That lazy bastard drove his truck all of two hundred feet.
There were two other vehicles parked alongside it, a four seat electric golf cart and a white SUV with blue lights on the roof. The County of Los Angeles insignia on the side and in bold letters the words SHERIFF.
This street was well lit, the square homes were packed tight together and it didn’t look like there was any way I could sneak along the side and peek in a window. I turned around, tilted my head away from the house and went back up the street to think.
I walked as slow as could without drawing attention to myself. Again I was a carefree tourist just out for a nighttime walk around Avalon. Just passing the time. Not a threat.
Three doors up from the house was a large empty lot that looked like it might do the trick. I could disappear into it, walk along the backyards of the two adjoining houses, and come around the back of the Spanish style house. I walked to the far right corner, did a three-sixty looking up at the sky and the stars and the surrounding buildings. Seeing no prying eyes, I sauntered to the back of the lot and dis-appeared into the dark.
21.
Corbin, Jack Wilson and Don sat around the table, each man with a cup of coffee in front of him.
“Our next shipment was supposed to be next month, what happened?”
“I don’t know, all I do know is I got the call this morning and here I am. It’s a special order. What do we care? The money’s right.”
“No drugs,” said Don.
“They know that.”
“I don’t like the fact that we’re going out to the lane with that bastard poking around.”
“I’m telling you I took care of the problem,” said Corbin.
“Taking a shot at someone from half a mile away doesn’t take care of the problem,” said Don. “It creates a problem. It was a damned stupid thing to do. Someone could have seen you, and then I have to get involved.”
“I think I got him. The bullet hit right by his head and he fell onto the deck, I saw the impact. It was a clean shot. He never got back up.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Jack. “I thought when I sank his boat he’d stop sniffing around, and here he is in Avalon. Maybe we should send someone out there to check on him. Make sure he’s dead, or incapacitated. And if not, finish the job. Anybody make a report to the police, Don?”
He shook his head. “A couple of people reported hearing what they thought was a gunshot, someone called and complained about firecrackers on the hill, that’s all. No gunshot wounds at the hospital, or new bodies at the morgue. Yet. This guy Badger’s turning out to be a real pest, went to the mortuary this morning, and then spent half an hour interrogating me in my office.”
“Supposed to be the other way around,” said Corbin with a sneer. “What kind of cop are you anyways?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s the guy who broke into my house yesterday,” said Jack. “That guy’s got a lot of balls, and I’m gonna bust ‘em.”
“What about the drop tonight?” asked Don. “Maybe we should call it off.”
“What the hell do you mean call it off? We can’t call it off.”
“I don’t like it. What if he follows us to the shipping lane? Calls the Coast Guard and we get stopped and searched?”
“You sank his other boat, right? Let’s go out there and sink this one. If he’s still on it with a bullet in his head, so much the better.”
“It’s not that hard, to bust a pipe. We could stop there on our way to the Black Cat.”
“How much time do we have?”
“It’s eleven o’clock, so about an hour until we need to be at the boat. We leave at midnight and it’s two hours to the drop zone. We should probably get out to the boat pretty soon. What the hell is that?”
They all looked at Corbin, who was holding a small square black shiny object that fit in the palm of his hand.
“A taser. Haven’t you ever seen one?”
“Of course I’ve seen one, I have a whole arsenal at the precinct. I mean what the hell is it doing in your hand.”
Corbin pressed the trigger and smiled at the electric bolt crackling between the poles. “It’s my new toy, I’m bringing it with me to the lane.”
The statement brought an angry exchange with Don.
“The hell you are.”
“The hell I’m not.”
“Why for God’s sake do you want that on the boat? Those things are more dangerous than a gun in the wrong hands.”
“If one of those damn Chinamen gets stupid and tries to drag me into the water like on our last trip, I’ll taser the bastard and drag him by the hair into the boat.”
“If he’s dragging you into the water, and you’re holding onto him with one hand, and the boat with the other, how are you going to grab the taser?”
Corbin narrowed his eyes, the question was confusing and he needed to come up with an answer quick. “I’ll wedge my leg into the railing and then I’ll have two hands free.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like a lot of things these days.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Enough, you two,” said Jack.
“What’s that sound? Someone set an alarm on the clock?”
In the background they could hear a tiny beeping sound, not loud at all, just enough volume to wake you up if you were sleeping, like a clock alarm. Beep, beep, beep, beep.
Jack got up and pulled a pistol out of his shoulder holster, and went to the back door and pushed a button on a box on the wall, and the beeping sound went silent. “This is my new toy. I got here early and installed a few motion detecting sensors around the perimeter. Someone’s out there.”
“It’s probably just a dog or a cat prowling around.”
“Or maybe it’s our new friend. You want to take that chance?”
Corbin got up, still holding the taser in one hand and picked up a baseball bat that was leaning against the wall with his other hand, gripping it tight. “You two go out the back and I’ll circle around from the front, we’ll meet in the middle,” and he headed to the front door.
22.
The last thing I remembered was the crickets. They were singing in the bushes at the back of the yard by the Spanish style house. I made it through the back yards of the two adjoining houses with no problems.
There were toys to navigate around in the first yard, and gardening supplies in the next, and now it was just gravel, a hedge and the house, and crickets. I remembered how the Indians used the crickets at night when they were hunting. When the crickets were singing, they were happy and safe, and nothing was moving nearby, sentinels of the night, but when they stopped singing, there could be trouble. I remembered they were singing and they were happy and safe, and therefore I was happy and safe, and then for a split second they stopped singing, and I thought they must have sensed my presence and stopped, and so I stopped, and then there was a flash of light in my brain and eyes, shocking pain from head to toe, and then nothing, a void of time, till now.
There were voices nearby, whispering quietly, right above me. It was dark and my head felt like it was split in two, I was face down with my arms pinned under me, I didn’t try to move at first, not until I knew where I was, and who was with me.
First my eyes, I fluttered them open, not moving my head. It was dark because there was a rough cloth wrapped around my head. A bandage? I couldn’t move my lips, a wide swath of tape held them tight together and I breathed slowly through my nose.
I wriggled my hands ever so slightly. I wasn’t pinned, I was bound, zip tied, my legs probably the same. I kept my body still and listened
, quieted the pain and fear that gripped me and stayed still with my head angled onto the hard floor where they must have dragged and hog-tied me.
I floated on the edge of consciousness and blinked my eyes to stay awake.
“Now what?”
“I say we shoot him in the head right here and take him out to the lane and dump him.”
“Not here, someone will hear the gunshot. Do you have a silencer?”
“Not with me, but I have a couple of pillows, they’ll work just as good.”
“Not here I said.”
“Well it’s either here or we drag him out to the lane and do it.”
“What if he floats around for a while and some damn pleasure boater finds him? Just like the Chinese girl that got us into this whole damn mess.”
“We’ll weight him down. Tie a couple of Corbin’s barbell plates on him. He’ll sink to the bottom like a rock, bottom fish and eels will tear him apart and the crabs will take care of the rest. We get him on the bottom and we’re in the clear.”
“I didn’t get into this for murder.”
“Well you’re into it now. What other choice do we have?”
“We make this our last run. We’re over, we’re done with it. I’m done with it. We pump him with drugs till he’s passed out and incoherent, dump him on his boat and call the Coast Guard to report a suspected drug dealer. We’ll stash coke and meth and some stolen firearms in the hull, get a warrant and find it in the search. He can say anything he wants, no one will ever believe him.”
“Where are you gonna get the drugs and guns?”
“Idiot, from the vault at the precinct, I have the key.”
“Don’t ever call me an idiot again Don, or I’m gonna use this bat on you.”
“Framing him for drug running is a gamble, and I don’t like gambling. I like guaranteed sure things and the only guaranteed sure thing right now is if we send him to the bottom of the ocean.”