The old-timer shrugged.
“Hey.” I cupped my hands and shouted through the vent. “You should have heard what that bastard said about you.” The rancher spun around looking for the source of the voice.
“Up here,” I said.
He walked over to the shed. Only half my face was visible in the vent and it took him a moment to recognize me. “Hey, old buddy,” he said. “What’re you doin’ up there?”
“Just messin’ around.”
He clapped his hands together. “Goddamn, they got you all locked up . . . What you been doin’ to them who-ers?”
“Listen, did you hear what that bastard was saying about you?” I nodded in the direction of the old-timer who turned ominously in my direction, cocking his shotgun in warning.
“What’d he say?” said the rancher, putting his ear close to the shed.
I whispered to him: “He said the reason you come here is because your wife is always sleeping with the ranch hands.”
“He said that?”
“Yup.”
“He was kidding, of course.”
“The hell he was.” I paused meaningfully. The rancher turned away from me and stared at the old-timer. “You know what else he said?” I continued. “That your son isn’t even yours. That your wife went to live with a man named Peterson in San Bernardino in 1948.”
“That’s a lie!” The rancher’s skin blotched around his forehead.
“Well, you better tell him.” I nodded again in the old man’s direction. “He said it right in front of your boy.”
“He did?” The rancher stormed over to where the old-timer was sitting. “What kind of bullshit were you handing out, fella?”
“Nothin’, mister. I didn’t say nothin’. You’re not worth it anyway.”
“What’re you talkin’ about, you old fart?” The rancher wrenched the shotgun out of his hand and threw it across the ground.
“Your boy was sure upset,” I added. “He was running all over looking for you.”
“He was?” The rancher picked up the old-timer by the collar. “You rotten bastard!” he said and hit him in the chin with a solid right. The old-timer shot straight up into the air, then fell over on his side. His eyes had the glazed look of a boxer’s after the third knockdown. I was beginning to worry about him.
“Son of a beehiver,” said the rancher, marching away from him toward the trailer. “Ralph . . . Ralph Murchison, come on out here, boy! I’ve got something to tell ya.” He stepped up to the door.
“Hey, uh, Mr. Murchison. . . . Mr. Murchison.”
“Yah?”
“Before you go in there, could you do me a small favor . . . ”
“What’s that?”
“Get me out of here.”
“Can’t. It’s a combination lock.”
“Well, shoot it off.” I pushed my hand through the vent and pointed toward the shotgun.
He looked at me for a moment. “Okay, buddy,” he said with a grin. “But don’t you be givin’ any of them who-ers a bad time, now. They’re nice girls.” He picked up the gun and aimed it at the door.
“Wait a minute!” I shouted, motioning to Sebastian to hug the wall. “All right.”
The rancher fired, blowing the door open on its hinges. The shed filled with dust. I walked outside.
“Thanks, Mr. Murchison.”
“Anytime, old buddy.” He headed toward the trailer. “Ralph . . . Ralph Murchison, come out here this minute!”
“So long, Sebastian,” I said. The gambler’s son was slumped in a comer of the shed. I was nervous about what could happen to him but I had no time for that now.
I crossed the gravel path around the pond. I guessed it was just past 10:00 and with some luck I might be back in Los Angeles to stop the bombing if they waited until 3:00 like they were supposed to. I sat down in the Buick and found my spare keys in the magnetic box under the radio. I turned the ignition. Nothing. Again: No contact. No spark, no brake light, no radio, nothing. I got out of the car and opened the hood. Someone had taken a hammer to the engine. The block was smashed, the generator broken in two. Procari planned ahead.
I backed away from the car, feeling the Pentothal. Maybe I could telephone Los Angeles, but the lines in the ranch house were probably guarded. Then there were planes. Two men were seated in the cockpit of a Piper Cub, preparing to take off. “Hold it!” I shouted, running toward them. “Hold it!” But they couldn’t hear me over the roar of the propeller. The Piper took off into the night, its red signal lights blinking against a black sky. The airstrip was empty.
I walked out further. If I kept going along the dirt road, I might be in Death Valley Junction by morning. Just in time to watch the news on the Today show at a rural cafe. Barbara Walters looking quite grave reciting the up-to-date totals of death and injury on the Harbor Freeway; an interview with someone important in the Hawthorne campaign.
“Does this damage the candidate’s effort to woo the mainstream of American public opinion?” Perhaps even a statement from the boy wonder Nate Sugars: “Can your computer account for variables as extreme as this?” “The computer is not infallible, Mr. Newman. But whatever harm has been done, it will be counteracted at the polls on Tuesday. Senator Hawthorne will win. The voters know he is not capable of an act like this, even . . . ”
“Even what? . . . Even if his supporters are?”
“I, uh, didn’t say that, Mr. Newman. I doubt that this was the work of Hawthorne supporters. In fact, information we have leads us to believe . . . ”
“Is that information verifiable, Mr. Sugars?”
“We’re in the process of . . . ”
“I see.”
A commercial break to repair the normal traffic flow around the Los Angeles freeways. Cars are reported to be backed up as far as the La Tijera off-ramp and beyond.
I turned and headed back toward the trailer. Some of the farmworkers had returned from the date groves, creating a strange ecumenical atmosphere, a piquant mixing of the classes conducive to sex. I touched the seat of Murchison’s Harley and continued past them to the side of the building. A yellow light was on in Cynthia’s cubicle and the shade was drawn. I rapped on the glass. No response. I rapped again.
“Cynthia!”
She came to the window, pulling back the shade with a look of annoyance. Behind her, I could see the perplexed figure of a man holding his undershorts.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said.
“Aristide Bruant dans son cabaret at your service.” I pretended to tip my hat like Maurice Chevalier in the old Lubitsch movie.
“If you come back later. . . .” she smiled.
“Can’t. I’m in trouble.”
“What?”
I stepped closer to the window. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Hey! What’s going on!” The man with the undershorts moved in toward the glass. He was young with short-cropped hair like fraternity boys used to have. “You got a boy friend or something?”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m up against it. That motherfucker of a rancher is threatening to kill me.”
“He is?”
“Yeah. He’s been storming around the ranch saying I told a lie about his son.”
“You’re the one?” she asked. Her naked breasts were pressed against the glass, flattening the nipples. “I thought he was after the cook.”
“He wants me too. What do you think I should do?”
“Get the hell out of here before he shoots you.”
“I can’t. The bastard smashed my car.”
She paused for a moment to think it over. “Sounds like you are in trouble.”
“Damn right. Unless. . . .”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you get me the keys to his bike.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No. Just slide your hand into his pocket and see if he stops you.”
“Two weeks ago that bastard broke a girl’s arm just because
she laughed when he lost his hard-on.”
“Cynthia, do you want my blood on your hands?”
“Look, Moses, you’re a nice guy and all, but . . . ”
The fraternity boy came up behind her, putting his arm around her neck and kissing her back. She made a resigned face at me. “Sorry,” she said.
“Please, Cynthia. . . .”
The fraternity boy pulled the shade.
I walked to the other side of the pond, sitting down on the root of an ash which trailed off into the water. Across from me, the swans were asleep, their long necks bent with their beaks tucked under their wings. Time had run out. I listened to the sounds of the desert, the mocking cry of a thousand insects, and thought of Lila Shea. If she had only stayed away from Eppis. But that was always Lila’s way, tripping around every little trend like it was the last flash of the century. And maybe Eppis wasn’t so bad after all. He might have fallen for some dumb religion, but at least he had the brains to sense something rotten under the surface. That appeared to have cost him his life.
I gave up, slumping down and letting the reeds of the pond play in front of my eyes. A good breeze had come up and the temperature had cooled considerably.
Then I heard a rustling among the reeds. A rattling noise had awakened the swans. I leaned to my side. A set of keys was lying in the wet grass. The chain was attached to a gold medallion with the crest of the Barstow Grange. It was inscribed to Arthur P. Murchison for twenty years of service to the community.
“Have a nice ride,” said Cynthia, standing at the edge of the pond.
20
FLAT OUT: LATHROP Wells, Johnnie, Pahrump and Soshone. Tecopa Hot Springs, Ibex Pass and the Amargosa River. Harley riding like a runaway horse. Four-stroke vertical twin engine. 470 pounds dry weight. My shirt pressed back hard against my chest. The wind beating down my throat. I hadn’t been on a bike like this in seven years.
Silurian Lake, Silver Lake, Baker. Joshua trees dancing in the night, the road flapping like a flag, wheels bouncing on the lane markers. Gas stations and cafes. Signs: JOHNNY HORIZON SAYS: “THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND. KEEP IT CLEAN.” I stopped at a Holiday House outside of Barstow, wiring writing up on coffee and a half box of No-Doz. A headline on the Tri-City Express: “Record Turn-out Predicted in Demo Primary.”
Back on the road, the Arabian Nights Motel blinking its neon camel: NO VACANCY. And on to Victorville, Cajon Pass and San Bernardino, not stopping to think, not watching for the Highway Patrol, not worrying about crashing head over heels, slamming splat like a child’s mud pie into the center divider. If Hawthorne won this election, I would exact my price. The Oval Room would be changed to the Lila Shea Memorial Salon. One Jewish dick would have a pipeline to the White House.
Etiwanda, Cucamonga, Upland, the Los Angeles County Line and Claremont. Traffic was picking up, building to a climax, a crescendo of freeways. Santa Ana, Harbor, San Bernardino, 605, Long Beach, Garden Grove, Golden State coming together in off-ramps, underpasses, loops. The Water and Power Building looming in the distance like an electric waffle, fountains of pink and green like Versailles trivialized beyond description. The City of Angels, the basin the Indians called the Land of the Many Smokes.
I slowed in the right lane and turned off on Broadway into Chinatown. The streets were empty except for a small crowd in front of the Canton Bar spilling out into the courtyard of the Bank of Hong Kong. An electric clock was illuminated in the lobby of the bank. 2:30. The Harley purred softly beneath me, proud of its performance. I puttered around the block past a butcher shop and a large Chinese supermarket to an Oriental-style Shell Station with lion statues by the pumps and a Pagoda roof. I pulled into the station and made a phone call. Then I went on, driving up the hill on Yale Street and parking by the side of the freeway, fifty yards from the top. I got off the bike and walked the rest of the way, moving what I hoped was inconspicuously among the columns. The abutments of the Music Center were visible over the rise. I could see the reflecting pool and the relief on the Forum Theatre. Down below was the facade of a restaurant called The Little Executive, a lumberyard and a fire-station.
I leaned against a cement block. The area beneath the freeway was deserted and smelled of mulching grass. The cars roared over my head at a frequency of about one every half minute. At a location like this there was no ceasing, even in the small hours of the morning. I watched the access roads—the wide avenues coming from downtown and the side streets winding up from Chinatown. Temple Street ran off to my left, debouching at the far end of Union Station. Beside it, Sunset went as far as Olvera Street and the Pico Restorations, a dime-store version of Old Mexico reeking of moldy sugar cookies and stale guacamole. A bandstand occupied the center of the piazza where, four years ago, Bobby Kennedy had stood and received the accolades of a Latin American dictator. Viva Bobby! Viva Bobby!
My hands were clammy, sticking to the inside of my pockets like a used gum wrapper. A moving van rushed through the underpass and rattled the columns. I waited, wishing I had a weapon but knowing I wouldn’t use it. The minutes inched forward, time fractured like a cannabis dream. Off in the distance a Volkswagen van pulled up and parked in front of the lumberyard. From the other direction, a solitary figure moved through the underpass on foot. I ducked back behind a column. He wore a dark suit and a handkerchief over his face. In his right hand he carried a black box. I watched as he walked to the end of the underpass and then turned, heading back again toward Temple Street.
Moments later two more men in handkerchiefs joined him, one of them carrying a second black box and the other a coil hooked over his shoulder. Together, the three men crouched down, heading beneath the low ceiling toward where the freeways intersected. The man with the coil let the end trail out behind, unfurling it as he went. When they reached the far wall, the men with the boxes placed them about fifty feet apart and began to attach the detonators.
I slid along the opposite wall to Temple Street. Looking down, I took off my jacket and signalled to the Volkswagen below. Six people climbed out of the van and started winding their way up the hill. They wore black robes and carried masks. I waved them on faster. Soon they were running. The men looked up from their detonators. The one with the coil dropped his end and ran out into the street. He saw six figures wearing Aztec masks. They were moving swiftly toward him, chanting. Several of them held knives high over their heads. Alora was in front, her lovely body draped in an elaborate priestess robe, an Amazon on the attack.
“Watch it!” shouted the man with the coil.
His two buddies ran out on the street with him. One of them pulled a thirty-eight from inside his jacket, firing it down at the advancing Chicanos. They scattered into the neighboring buildings, one of them clutching his arm, the blood soaking through the black robe.
Then the three men turned, running off in the opposite direction, heading down the hill with two of the actors still pursuing them. At the next curb, the man with the gun tripped, flying into the pavement. Alora shouted. Her brother jumped on top of him, his knife held high over his head. In a flash, he plunged it into the man’s rib, rolling him over and pulling him up by the collar. A stream of red liquid flowed into the sewer grate.
Later, we drove the van along a winding street in Elysian Park. I sat in the front clutching the black box while Jorge drove. His sister was directly beside me. I could feel her thigh against mine. In the back, one of their friends lay groaning on the floor, a tourniquet around his arm. At the stop sign we turned on Stadium Way toward Chavez Ravine.
“You are a very clever man,” said Jorge. “Stopping this was very clever.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, unable to generate much enthusiasm. “Real clever. You wouldn’t believe how clever I am.”
“What do you mean?” said Alora.
“I mean this,” I said, opening the black box and removing a stick of dynamite. I held it up over her head and broke it open, snapping it at both ends. A clump of brown powder poured out onto the floor.
/> “Sand?” she said.
“Sand,” I confirmed.
“Stupid bastard,” said Jorge, pulling up at the gate of Dodger Stadium. The words GIANTS NEXT! were registered on the computerized sign across the parking lot.
“I came all the way back from Nevada for a dumb show . . . what time is it?”
“3:35,” said someone in the back.
“Somewhere in this city an explosion is taking place just about now,” I said, but I wasn’t thinking about it. I was thinking about Sebastian, about why he had lied about the location of the bombing. Had it been deliberate or had his father kept him confused as well? I couldn’t figure it. By now it was probably academic anyway.
“Well, Mr. Detective,” said Jorge. “Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?! You bring us out here in the middle of the night, get Esteban a thirty-eight shell in his right arm for a bunch of sand, and you don’t know? You got a lot to answer for, gabacho.”
I didn’t try.
I leaned against the window and stared out across the city. From this angle you could see the City Hall and the Municipal Court House, the Hollywood Freeway linking up with the San Bernardino. Any second I expected to see a flare. I didn’t want to look. I slumped down in the seat of the van and closed my eyes, but the image of the city remained. I could trace the skyline with my fingers, the possible points of detonation. It would be impossible to cover them all in a month.
“Maybe they’re bombing the Times building,” I said. “That one cost Los Angeles a socialist mayor in 1911.”
“Big fucking deal,” said Jorge. “Let’s go home and get Esteban to a doctor.”
He backed around the gate and headed out of the park in the direction of Riverside. I opened the window and took a deep breath of damp night air. A cloud cover had swept in from the ocean, totally obscuring the gibbous moon.
“No,” I said. “Let’s go back to the same place.”
“Let’s what?” said Jorge, staring hostilely at me. “Forget it. We’ve had enough for tonight.” He turned and looked at his sister. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a gabacho who always thinks he’s doing you a favor.”
The Big Fix Page 14