Then a slightly blurry picture of a young girl and boy—eight or ten years old, by the looks of them—standing in a green field in soccer uniforms, grew into an epic portrait on our seventy-five-incher. An unshaven and wrinkle-shirted Dalton was next, saying that HerediLink had proven “genetically within ninety-nine percent” that the boy and girl were cousins and that the boy had very likely gone on to a life of terror in the Middle East, where records were poorly kept. The girl, of course, was Ammna Safar.
Frank sat to my left and Odile to my right, leaning forward to talk across me like I was furniture. Frank’s mongrel, Triunfo, lay on the paver directly in front of us, giving me his full attention. A sleek black face with brown eyebrows and upright ears that flopped over up near the tips. He’s taken an interest in me lately but I don’t know why.
“Señorita Odile, did you see the future today?” asked Frank.
As a second-year illegal immigrant to the U.S., Frank worked hard to improve his English. I found him early the winter before last, living on the far reaches of the rancho, down in an arroyo, collecting water with a tarp, eating rabbits and quail he could snare. He was seventeen, skinny, and miserable. His father had been murdered in front of him and Francisco had fled his Salvadoran village under threat of death from MS-13. I honored the values of my nation by giving him asylum—a place to stay and a job. Which of course made me a criminal because Francisco Cuellar’s asylum is not mine to grant.
“Well, I did observe parts of a client’s future today,” said Odile. “It’s my job.”
“Was a good future?”
“Frank, I’ve told you about psychic–client privilege.”
“Yes, but I don’t know this person.”
Odile smiled and sipped her drink. Even sitting down at the communal picnic table, Odile is conspicuously tall. She hunches sometimes, as lengthy women sometimes do. Catches herself and straightens. She has fair skin and rosy cheeks.
“She has three very good weeks to enjoy,” said Odile. “A good job offer and no more car trouble.”
“And then what?” asked Frank.
“You know I have a three-week maximum sensing the future. I’m trying to get stronger . . .”
Frank tapped his soft drink can on the table. “What kind of car does she have?”
“Come on,” said Odile. “You know I won’t give details like that. And Frank, you should pay attention to the TV now—something important is about to happen. Though I’m not sure what.”
On the huge screen TV above me, the Local Live! studio anchors introduced their next feature.
“Ready to go ape in San Diego?” asked Dwayne Swift.
“All the way from the mountains of Congo!” said Jimena Callejas.
Then a cut to a Local Live! reporter at the San Diego Zoo with the newborn Belinda, a mountain gorilla. Although the size on-screen of an adult man, Belinda looked all baby, huddled deep and bright eyed in the arms of her Queen Kong mom.
“They ought to just leave them in the jungle, where they belong,” said Dick.
“They’re from the mountains, dearie. They look almost human.”
“If you consider flinging your own feces at visitors human.”
“You were a boy. You were taunting him.”
Burt left the table, worked his phone from his pocket and walked toward the pond. A short-legged, top-heavy little man. The sun was setting, a showy orange ball dropping through gray clouds. I looked past Burt, out at the sun on the water and saw Justine in her rowboat and floppy hat, her fair arms on the oars, catching the rays all those years ago.
The Local Live! reporter, outfitted in hospital scrubs, paper cap, and sterile gloves, cradled Belinda in her arms as the camera zoomed in.
“Such a beautiful baby,” she said. “Maybe she’ll see her mountains someday! Back to you in the studio, Jimena and Dwayne.”
Burt circled back to the table, setting up tomorrow’s tee time, apparently.
Something went haywire on the Local Live! transmission, the big-screen picture in sudden free fall then fracturing into thick black bars like those in a slot machine. A roar of static, then silence and a fully black screen.
“Your cable sucks, Roland,” said Dick. “Ought to rethink that satellite offer they keep making.”
I could hear the “lazy landlord” tone in his voice. “I got satellite six months ago, Grandpa.”
“This is much worse than a weak signal,” said Odile. Her rosy cheeks had lost their color. Sitting bolt upright, she stared at the black screen, then closed her eyes altogether.
When order was restored in the Local Live! studio, three human figures wearing street clothes and hideous masks stood behind the news desk. On the left, a female wearing a disturbing Hannya mask from Japanese theater, in the middle a man behind a grotesque Iroquois tribal face, and on the right another male wearing a splatter mask from World War I. On the mega-screen they looked like players in a stage drama performed by giants.
On either side of them stood two black-clad, balaclava-hidden actors—one a man and one a woman—each pinning a Local Live! anchor facedown over the desk by the neck and holding a handgun to their respective heads. Jimena Callejas’s hair had swept down over her face; Dwayne Swift was pale and bug-eyed with terror.
“God in heaven,” whispered Liz.
“Sonsofbitches!” said Dick.
“No, no . . .” said Odile.
The middle figure, in the Iroquois mask—black haired, wild eyed, crazily baring his wide wooden teeth—raised a sheet of paper and began reading from it, voice lowered to doomsday bass by a voice changer.
“God in heaven,” said Liz.
Burt and I commenced shooting with our cell phones.
“Allow us to introduce ourselves,” said the Iroquois. A male voice, unrecognizable. “We are representatives of The Chaos Committee. You know what we have accomplished in the last week and a half. We wanted to give you a chance to meet us. Face-to-mask. Forgive our shyness but our anonymity is important.”
It seemed as if all of Rancho de los Robles was holding its breath. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
“The last week has only been our introduction, as we have made clear. Injuring minor political slaves is not our goal. But now that you have seen us, we know that you’ll be taking our devolution very seriously. We are serious because this is the nation we once loved and believed in and fought for in a thousand different ways. This is a nation born in chaos. Then destroyed by two centuries of greed, moral sloth, and the mass rape of nature. We must now return to chaos to be reborn. To reclaim our future. To devolve.
“Citizens, act with us. Lash out with fury! Destroy the masters in government—from city hall to the president. If you are an honest policeman, turn your guns on the wealthy who control you! If you are loyal military, bring us the heads of your officers! Death to the lockstep of parties and opinions. Only chaos can burn the weakness and corruption and greed out of this republic! Burn it brightly and completely. Compromise is surrender. Violence is victory. Chaos is God and God is Chaos.”
Anchorman Dwayne Swift fainted, sliding down behind the desk as his ninja captor knelt out of camera beside him.
By now all of the Irregulars were standing and shooting with their phones.
Except Odile, who sat still as a statue, eyes wide. “Something worse is going to happen,” she said. “I can’t see it yet.” She closed her eyes again and I could see her hands, clasped together and trembling on the picnic table.
“My brothers and sisters in arms,” said the Iroquois Goliath. “As proof of our power and the power of our ideas, witness the Encinitas office of Representative Clark Nisson. Good night!”
The masks advanced on the cameras and the picture went spastic, then dark.
Burt stormed off toward the sunset, phone to his ear: calling Nisson’s office, I presumed.
Odile stood, her eyes still wide and fixed on the television.
I changed the TV to the local PBS channel, which would be mid-broadcast with their nightly news hour.
And there she was, the familiar face from which we got our commercial-free San Diego weather. Another sunny spring day everywhere in the county, she said, then was suddenly cut off mid-sentence, replaced by the anchors at their desk, a man and woman of stolid professional calm and good cheer, now obviously distressed and trying not to show it.
“We have a confirmed report,” said Rick Carpenter, reading off a teleprompter, “that a fiery explosion has rocked the Encinitas office of United States Representative Clark Nisson. We have no information on the cause of the blast, injuries, or damage. We do not know if Congressman Nisson was present. However—oh jeez—the terrorist group calling itself The Chaos Committee has apparently claimed responsibility . . . Donna, do we . . . Jimmy, is there any footage to go with that . . . no? None? Please, all of you at home, be patient, we’re trying to get corroboration of this very disturbing development. Please stand by.”
I hadn’t felt that helpless since pushing the gauze into Ernie Avalos’s gaping face in that gun-smoke-clotted room in the old city of Fallujah.
Dalton picked up. He was drunk and morose. He’d been gaming, hadn’t heard about the TV station takeover or the bomb sent to his congressman.
* * *
Late that night Mike Lark returned my several calls. Congressman Clark Nisson and aide Art Arguello were killed instantly when a firebomb exploded in the representative’s office at 6:48 p.m. The bomb had contained a gel fire accelerant that had been blown throughout the office by the explosion. The fire had engulfed the small ground-floor office almost immediately. Lark and his brethren suspected another mail bomb, as was The Chaos Committee MO.
California’s governor stated that the bomb was a terrorist act and declared a state of emergency at 7:30 the next morning.
SEVENTEEN
Tola Strait led me from the fragrant, spacious showroom of the Julian Nectar Barn to her office in the back. The skunky green aroma of marijuana followed us down a bare hallway, brightly lit. An armed and uniformed guard pressed a lock code into a wall keypad and the door slid open. He was a Native American, size large. Gave me a blank look on my way by.
The office was roomy and orderly: a brushed aluminum desk behind which Tola sat down in a task chair, a shiny concrete floor littered with Navajo rugs, brick walls hung with framed landscapes in oil and watercolor, and two Outlaw Iron Horse gun safes towering side by side on either side of a wet bar. A large digital scale on the bar top, away from the sink. A cowboy chic leather sofa along one wall, Pendleton blankets draped over both arms, and reading lamps at each end. A pink bathroom behind a half-open door.
And red-haired Tola, setting her cell phone on the brushed desktop. No business attire for her today. Instead, jeans tucked into cowboy boots, a crisp white dress shirt, and a red leather vest festooned with turquoise nuggets and leather tassels.
I sat across from her on a faux cowhide armchair.
“Thanks for looking at the Nectar Barn offerings, Mr. Ford,” she said, nodding to the wall-mounted security video screen. “Though I’m disappointed you didn’t pick out some good dope. I profiled you as a pump-me-up, high energy cannabis user.”
“On account of my laid-back nature?”
“You got it. One of those guys who toke up and run on the beach. Or hit the iron pile, or whatever you do to burn off the energy.”
“Not my drug of choice,” I said.
“It can take you up, down, or sideways. Ever tried it?”
“I giggled and couldn’t walk straight.”
“And the downside? Let me guess—loss of control over your surroundings. Paranoia and right-wing fantasies. An uncontrollable lust for ice cream.”
“Peanut-butter chocolate,” I said.
“We make an incredible edible—the Nectar Barn peanut-butter-fudge brownie.”
“I wish you’d quit trying to sell me something I don’t want.”
“You just need the right hybrid.”
“I know what I need, Ms. Strait.”
An amused gaze. “I must have something you want, or you wouldn’t have called.”
“Natalie’s been missing ten days,” I said. “Complete silence from her, no credit card charges, no cell phone usage. Your grandfather fingered Kirby but I think Kirby’s had his hands full. We know she’s not on a manic-phase jag, or at least things didn’t start off that way. Two men got themselves into her car, took her for a drive, then hustled her into a white Suburban not far from the Tourmaline Resort Casino. As you have probably heard from Dalton or Virgil, she wrote the word ‘Help’ on the back seat of her car, in lipstick.”
From a desk drawer she withdrew a pack of cigarettes and set them in front of her by the phone. Gave me a long steady study.
“This may be naïve,” she said, “but why hasn’t Dalton made this public? Why aren’t the police high-profiling it?”
“He fears political fallout,” I said. “And the police are doing what they can.”
“The police have forgotten her.”
“Forgotten?”
“Because of the bombs,” she said. “A United States congressman and one of his aides blown completely away by The Chaos Committee. Did you see them last night, storming the station?”
“Everyone did. That was their goal.”
“Not their main goal, though. Their main goal is to stop things. Like they said. So we can devolve. Natalie is one of millions of citizens who need help right now. Badly. But the police are all looking for the bombers. They’re distracted and paralyzed and Natalie isn’t important.”
I was about to make a crack about cannabis and paranoia but I saw that Tola had a point, herbally abetted or not.
“Okay,” I said. “Good.”
She slapped the cigarette pack against her free hand, aimed the two-cigarette offering my way. I accepted, she pulled the other one out and I lit both of them with a Nectar Barn lighter from her desktop. It was heavy sterling silver, shaped like a barn, of course, with a push button on the roof that sent a flame jetting from a barn door that opened automatically.
Even in this well-lit office, from this clear angle, Tola looked enough like Justine to remind me of her. Same trim jaw and dubious eyes, same lurking good humor and subtle confidence. Same question-the-system attitudes, too: Justine a proud public defender of people like Tola.
“Had Natalie asked you for money recently?” I asked.
Tola shook her head.
“How about Dalton?”
“I loaned him fifty thousand dollars two months ago. No contract, just sister-to-brother. In this business, there’s always cash sitting around, waiting to be spent or stolen.”
“And before that?”
“Another fifty thousand late last year. When his campaign was kicking in.”
“You know he’s hugely in debt,” I said.
“He has hinted at that. No hard figures. Mr. Ford—”
“Make it Roland.”
“Roland, big picture is, I think what happened to Natalie is more personal than politics, or even money.” She moved a Nectar Barn ashtray closer to me. “Very personal. Punishment. Revenge. Obsession.”
The same three muses that had been barreling in and out of my mind ever since Dalton had walked into my office and told about his missing wife.
“Okay,” I said, hoping to draw her out.
“Not okay. Because, if that’s the case, when they’ve gotten what they want from her, then what? That’s what worries me, Roland Ford. What will they do with her? I’d love to see a simple-minded ransom demand.”
“It’s been nine days,” I reminded her.
She gave me an annoyed look, drawing lightly on the smoke.
“How a
bout Dalton?” I asked.
She nodded as if she’d considered this before. “No. Dalton is weak, vain, and self-serving. But he’s not wicked like that. What good does her disappearance get him? He can’t even talk to the media about it.”
I was surprised at the depth of her disdain for her brother. But it was not as deep as Kirby’s.
“Did you take sides in Dalton’s and Kirby’s competition over Natalie Galland?”
“I was five. I thought Natalie Galland was the coolest, prettiest, most glamorous girl in the world. She didn’t live in Buena Vista like us Okies. She was from fancy Ramona. Big houses in the hills. Kirby discovered her. I wanted Dalton to get her. Dalton was the kind one. Kirby not. Now I can see that she’d have been better off without either of them. Kirby will never change. But the war changed Dalton, Mr. Ford. Drastically and forever. Took the strength right out of him. He used to believe in himself. Now it takes an entire assembly district to make him believe in anything.”
I imagined the Dalton of Fallujah, before the mine took out his Humvee and left Harris Broadman brutally disfigured for life. Dalton had been capable and well intentioned, at least. And after the IED that took half his leg a few days later? Well, maybe not. Maybe Tola was right. Maybe the war had left him an emptied-out young man whose only strength was the power of his office, the votes and money he scrambled for every two years. To prove his value.
Tola studied me curiously, tapping out her cigarette in the ashtray, which was shaped like a horseshoe surrounding a miniature Nectar Barn and barnyard. A tiny interior fan sucked the smoke into the nail holes.
“Have you followed up on Natalie’s stalker, and the creep on the campaign committee?” Tola asked.
“The stalker admitted a crush on her in a police interview, and claims to have mended his ways,” I said. “So far, so good, according to Dalton. The campaign volunteer is a slightly different story. Brock Weld. He didn’t show for work at the casino the day Natalie disappeared. Claims he stayed home sick. Neighbors say otherwise. I have an associate digging a little deeper.”
Then She Vanished Page 10