“Slower,” I told her.
At nine point two, a dirt road appeared to the left. Lucy made the turn onto a rutted washboard trail. Fifty yards off the highway we came to a gate of sorts—a section of barbed wire fence held across the canted trail by a loop of wire around a wooden post, a common arrangement in western rangeland. Lucy stopped the car and I got out, lifted the loop of wire from the post and dragged the gate—four strands of limp wire nailed to a vertical board in the middle of the road—out of the way.
As Shanna had said, NO TRESPASSING signs were nailed to each of the posts flanking the trail. And a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign, and one that read: KEEP OUT. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
Given the condition of the road, the number of signs seemed like overkill. Ignoring the signs, the unlikely prosecution, and an even less-likely protracted trial by a jury of my peers, I waved Lucy through and hauled the wire crap back across the road and secured it in place.
I went around to the driver’s side. “Move over.”
She scooted nimbly across the center console. I got behind the wheel. “Know how to use a gun?” I asked.
“Big one like a rifle, or a little one?”
“How about a revolver? That’s a little one. A handgun.”
She didn’t answer for a few seconds. Then: “My dad and one of my uncles took me to a firing range when I was thirteen or fourteen, something like that. I shot a .22 rifle and—I think—an automatic. It might’ve been like a .33 or something. Didn’t have a big huge kick to it.”
“They don’t make a .33. It might’ve been a .32 or a .35.”
She shrugged.
A few miles from the highway, on a slope into the foothills, nothing but rocks and weeds all around, I stopped the car and we got out. I opened the trunk and the lockbox, got out two revolvers—a sturdy SP101 Ruger .357 Magnum with a 2.9-inch barrel, and a little S&W .32.
I handed her the .32.
“We gonna kill things?” she asked, holding the gun between thumb and index finger as if it were a dead fish.
“The way you’re holding that gun, target practice might be a good thing. Just in case.”
“In case of what. Jihadists?”
“In case of anything. Trouble. Jo-X is dead, in case you forgot. We don’t know what might be going on around here.”
She looked at the gun, dangling from her fingers like a piece of week-old road kill. “Is this thing loaded?”
“Not yet.”
I took the gun from her, opened a box of .32 ammo, swung the cylinder out and put in five rounds, snapped the cylinder back in place. “Now it is,” I said.
“Oh, great.”
I handed it to her. “Keep it pointed away from yourself or me. Or the car. You need to think about what would happen if the gun were to fire, even accidentally, where the bullet would go.”
“Great,” she said again.
I loaded the Ruger. On the drive from Vegas, we’d each had a 20-oz plastic bottle of water. I got a viciously sharp CRKT knife out of the lockbox and cut the tops off the empties. I scooped up enough dust to weigh them down, set them a couple feet apart about twenty-five feet away, then came back.
“Okay, here’s the way it goes. You don’t just blast away. You get a reasonable sight picture before you pull the trigger. If that takes you an extra half second, it’s worth it.”
“A sight picture?”
I drew her a diagram in the dust. “Like this.” I pointed out the front and rear sights of her .32, had her line them up on a bottle. She closed one eye and wrinkled her nose as she squinted along the barrel. “Got it?” I asked.
“I guess.”
“If you have to use the gun, odds are your target will be less than thirty feet away, usually less than fifteen. In a gunfight, six or eight feet wouldn’t be uncommon.”
“A gunfight. Smokin’.”
“Beyond thirty feet you can pretty much forget about hitting anything—unless you’re an expert.”
“Right. Gunfights at thirty feet.”
“Here’s a little factoid: If your aim is off by just two degrees at thirty feet, you’ll miss by more than a foot. Which means it’s unlikely you’d hit anything useful. Like a man.”
“Learning stuff like crazy.”
I gave her a look. “Are you taking any of this seriously?”
“Sure. Thirty feet. Aim. Don’t blast away.”
I sighed. “Okay, watch. I’ll take the bottle on the left.” I gave her some foam earplugs, packed two in my ears, then lined up the sights, squeezed the trigger, and missed. Well, the bottle was only two inches wide, and I’d forgotten that the Ruger, with its fixed sights, fired a skosh left. I fired four more rounds, hit the bottle three times in eight seconds.
“Okay,” I said. “Your turn. The gun will kick a little, but not a lot. It won’t hurt you. Take your time.”
At which point she dropped into a stance, two-fisted combat grip, and hit the right-hand bottle four times in five seconds.
“Well, shit,” I said, staring at the perforated bottle. “You blasted away. I told you not to do that.”
“Was that okay?” she said with enough sugar in her voice to put a diabetic into a coma.
“I’ve been fuckin’ had.”
“Not yet, you haven’t. But you will. If not tonight then, I don’t know. Sometime soon.”
“I meant right here, now.”
“I know what you meant. Kinda fun, though, listening to all that NRA stuff. It never hurts to review the basics.”
“Shit. So, what’s the story, Sugar Plum?”
“The story is that I’ve had a concealed carry permit since I was twenty-one. My dad insisted since I’ve been sort of traveling around by myself. I’ve got a .38 in my suitcase loaded with plus-P ammo, and I find a firing range five or six times a year and fire at least four boxes, sometimes as much as eight, fifty rounds a box. Dad insisted, and I like doing it.”
“Well, shit.”
“But this little .32 was fun. Hardly any recoil.” She popped the cylinder out, ejected the brass, handed the gun back to me, barrel down. “It’s pretty wimpy, though. If you don’t mind, I’ll use my own. It’s got a lot more stopping power.”
“You never said a word about having a gun.”
“You didn’t ask. And there’s lots of things I haven’t told you. You don’t even know where I went to high school or if I went to the prom.”
“Well, shit.”
“Your vocabulary could use upgrading, though.”
“Well, fuck. And—no prom. Entire junior and senior class was probably terrified of you.”
“That’s better. And, wrong, I wore a dark blue gown.”
We packed up our stuff. Before we left, Lucy got her .38 out of her suitcase and buckled it around her waist in a black nylon holster. Not knowing what we might run into, I did the same with my .357. We took off, headed uphill. I drove. Two miles later, I said, “Art history major, shit.”
Lucy just smiled.
The miles were rough. Another six miles from the highway we reached the tire shredder. Except it was . . . shredded, more or less. The entire thing had been pulled out of the ground, dragged to one side. The hole it left was filled in with dirt, which made it just another minor bump in the road.
“Must’ve been an earthquake,” I said. “Bad one. Not long ago, either.”
In fact, given two or three uninterrupted hours, I think I could have jacked the mechanism out of the ground with chains, short sturdy I-beams, and a couple of 20-ton hydraulic jacks.
A sign on a post by the defunct shredder read:
PRIVATE
Edward L. Jacobson Addiction Treatment Center
By appointment only
KEEP OUT
Trespassers will be prosecuted
“Addiction treatment, sure,” Lucy said. “People roofying each other. Easy to get addicted to that kind of kiddin’ around.”
“Anyway, we won’t have to walk in.”
“And I wa
s so looking forward to the exercise in this heat.”
“Hop out. I’ll meet you up at the house.”
She slugged my arm. “Drive, Daddy.”
The road, such as it was, entered a narrow dry arroyo of weathered basalt that wound up into the mountains. We gained a thousand feet of elevation in two and a half miles before the road began to level out. Small rocks pinged up into the wheel wells. A plume of fine brown dust followed us up the hillside. Around an outcropping of rock, we stopped at another fence with a gate across the road. The gate had been left open. Two gates and a tire shredder so far. A sign on this gate read:
VISITORS MUST CHECK IN AT THE RECEPTION AREA.
Patients may be walking around the facility. If you have no business here, you may be liable for damages of up to $250,000 for loss of treatment to patients.
“They take their Rohypnol seriously here,” Lucy said.
“Wouldn’t you?”
I drove on, ignoring the quarter-million-dollar scare tactic. A faint odor riding a gentle breeze gave me a sense of déjà vu, but I couldn’t place it.
Half a mile farther, Jo-X’s hideout came into view. By now the odor was much stronger, the chemical smell of ash. The house was a low rambling structure, sandstone colored, with big picture windows and a four-foot decorative adobe fence around the perimeter of the building that encompassed little courtyards.
I spotted a broken window with soot on the outside wall above it. More windows, more soot. I was in the fifth grade the first time I encountered a house that had burned down. It was half a mile from my house. A friend of mine and I went through it a week later. The odor of fried insulation, plastic, wood, metal, electronics, and wallboard is distinctive. And rank.
“Fire,” Lucy said.
“Days old.” No smoke was coming from the house, just the smell.
“Probably has something to do with that tire shredder thing someone tore out of the ground.”
“You’re gonna be a first-rate gumshoe in no time, kiddo.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. It made her look sixteen, which was scary.
The driveway curved around to the right and ended at a six-car unattached garage. In front of the garage was a blue Focus and a red Chevy Cruze.
Looked like a party was in progress. Perfect.
I drifted the Mustang beside the Cruze and cut the engine. Shanna and Ignacio were by the front door, or what remained of what I assumed had once been the front door, now ash on hinges.
“Hola,” I called out cheerfully, wondering what the hell was going on. “Barbeque get out of hand?”
“You’re late,” Vince said. “The canapés are all gone and all we got left is a warm six-pack of O’Douls.”
I was liking the Wharf Rat more every time I ran into him.
“You know this character?” I said to Shanna.
“Yeah, sure. His name is Bill.”
“Bill Hogan, right?”
She frowned at me. “That’s right. So?”
“So you’re aware that he’s the guy who scared Danya away from your house the day Jo-X turned up in your garage.”
She stared at Ignacio. “You didn’t say anything about that.”
Vince shrugged.
“He has CIA-like following skills,” I informed her.
“Following skills?”
“He followed you all the way from Vegas to Tonopah, and Danya from Tonopah to Reno. Later he followed you and Danya from Reno to Caliente. And,” I added to give the party a boost, “his name isn’t Bill. It’s Vincent Ignacio, Celebrity News.” I smiled at him. “Just gettin’ it all out in the open so we can get things figured out.”
“Yeah, thanks a bunch.” He didn’t look happy.
“No problem, Vinny.”
“Jesus H. Christ, the tabloid guy.” Shanna backed away from him.
“Just the tabloid guy,” I said. “Christ was someone else.”
Lucy snickered.
I nodded at the house. “How’s it look inside? Ready for a party now that everyone’s here except Danya?”
Shanna was in her summer usual: jogging shorts and a halter top with prominent nipple bumps. Vince’s chin came about to her cleavage, which meant this might be the best day of his life—until Lucy and I showed up, that is.
“Merry Maids would be a plus,” Vince said, recovering. “And new furniture, electricity, and water. And a ceiling.”
Shanna still wasn’t through with him. “How do you live with yourself, creep, working for a toilet-paper rag?”
Creep. She and Danya had been talking.
Vince’s face turned a shade of pink. I didn’t think tabloid rats had any internal mechanism that allowed them to feel shame. Or maybe it wasn’t shame. It might have been a natural reaction to the lights coming on, like roaches scurrying into dark corners. But that may have been uncharitable of me, especially since Vince and I appeared to be approaching buddyhood, almost on a first-name basis.
“Good stuff,” I said. “Bigfoot loose in Manhattan’s subways. 7-Eleven spotted on the far side of the moon. You and Danya are serious front-page material.”
“Well, fuck,” Shanna growled. “The fuckin’ News.”
“Language,” Lucy said.
Then, of course, Vince stepped in it, which is what tabloid rodents do. His eyes shifted to Lucy, taking on a kind of glow. “You’re Lucy Landry, right?” Couldn’t resist showing off. Don’t know where he got that, but the lad was good. I would have to keep him away from Ma so she wouldn’t hire him, fire me.
Lucy was six feet from him. She took two quick strides and jabbed a finger into his scrawny chest, which happened to be covered by a T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it. The rat had been to Disneyworld sometime in his youth, and the joy of the place had made a lasting impression.
“Miss Landry to you, bucko,” Lucy said. “Don’t make me pull this gun.”
His eyes shifted again, this time to the .38 at her hip, which might not have registered before with two great halter tops to check out. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
But not to be outdone, he went around his Cruze, opened the passenger door, and reached beneath the front seat, pulled out a black automatic—a .45 Glock 21 in a Blackhawk tactical holster. He came toward us, strapping it on.
“Whoa,” Lucy said. “Nice piece, Rat.”
Vince stared at her. “Rat?”
“Cool it, Luce,” I said. I looked around. “Everyone feel safer now that we can hold off a small invading army?”
“I do,” said the Rat. He looked an inch taller with that gun on his hip.
“I don’t,” said Shanna.
“Me either,” Lucy said, giving Vince the eye. “You ever fire that thing?”
“Couple of times, yeah. You ever fire that little popgun?”
“Okay, great,” I said. I looked at the house. “What’s inside? Shall we go have a look?”
It was a standard burn-out—the cloying ash and chemical odor you get when household goods and the surrounding house goes up. There wasn’t much left of this one. It had burned itself out without anyone so much as pissing on the flames. The roof beams were gone and afternoon sunlight slanted through, illuminating black ashy lumps. Stringers of blackened electrical wire hung in loops in what little wall remained. A fire marshal might’ve been able to locate the source of ignition, but I had the feeling it would turn out to be lawn mower propellant—gasoline. And a single match, or a flick of a Zippo. Who might’ve done it and why were questions without answers.
So, what could be learned in this mess? Damned little, was my guess. DNA and fingerprints would probably be gone. If the place had been robbed, an inventory of the ash might reveal that, but that would require a list of what had been in the house. I wondered if Jo-X had such a list or where it might be, especially given that this place was a national secret and didn’t exist.
We were only a step or two inside. “I wonder who built this place,” I said. “And who the contractor thought he was building it for.”
<
br /> Lucy wrinkled her nose. “We’re not really gonna go through it, are we?”
“Have to.”
She looked down at her feet. “Well, I can’t walk around in here in sandals.” She held out a hand. “Key.”
I gave her the key to the Mustang. She went out and popped the trunk, got out her new tennis shoes and put them on.
Back in the house, she looked around. “What’re we looking for, anyway?”
“Missing stuff, charred bodies, the usual.”
“Bodies, that’s wonderful. But missing stuff? How would we know if anything’s missing?”
I turned to Shanna. “You were here, what? A week or two ago? Do you remember any of it, like furniture?”
“Furniture thieves,” Vince said. “That’s good. They do this a lot. Grab a couch, then burn the place down.”
Shanna laughed, which probably made his day.
I said to her, “Anything at all?”
“This is just the entryway. Was. Over there, that’s the living room.” She stepped gingerly through the ashy crud. “The main one, anyway. Guest room I was in had a big sitting room.”
We followed her through the devastation to what had been an open room with huge windows, even more open now with the latest in designer skylights and stumpy walls.
“What was in here?” I asked.
“It all looks so different, burned up like this. I’m not sure what was where.”
“Close your eyes. Try to visualize how it was.” I didn’t know what good that would do, but it couldn’t hurt to try. It felt very Zen, like I was a freakin’ hypnotist-investigator.
Shanna closed her eyes and stood still for nearly a minute. Then she turned in a circle. “There was a sofa about here,” she said. “I guess this is it.” She nudged a pile of soot with a foot. “And another one over there. And a couple of like La-Z-Boys. An entertainment center was against that wall, and a huge TV. I remember that.”
All piles of charred lumps. Hopeless. A forensics team might be able to make something of this, I thought. At least figure out what had been what, if it mattered.
“There was a room down a sort of short hallway that he kept locked,” Shanna said. “When I roofied him, I still couldn’t open it. I couldn’t find the keys.”
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