by Lee Baldwin
Second man, the driver, jumps out as he sees me, walks toward me with aggressive purpose. I’ve got one on each side of me now, hands poised to take my elbows if I don’t walk directly to their car. All right, I’m thinking to myself, play this out.
All three of us get in the back. Sandwich-style and I’m the filling. I wonder if Stacy sees from inside. It will only make her more settled in her decision.
“You got a hard head,” one of them is saying. Deep bass voice, growly. I have seen this dude at the probation department, what’s his name? These are not DEA. They are from Mick.
The other one speaks with more of a Boston accent, more direct.
“CEO doesn’t like it when people don’t return his calls.” Without elaborating, this burly fellow pulls out a phone, dials, listens.
“Yo, M, we got your dude right here.” He hands the phone to me with a menacing expression. I look at it for a second. Burner phone, untraceable. I raise it to my ear.
“Somebody wanna tell me why these fake DEA suits have me in the back of a car?”
The laugh on the other end I last heard four years ago, no mistake. Mick McIntyre. If the world is not totally out of shape, Mick is somewhere inside the concrete walls, chain-link, bars and barbwire of Lancaster prison, doing Fed time for major drug distribution.
“Only one person can really take care of you Sonny, and that’s me.”
“Like the way you took care by giving me up. Asshole.”
The suits on either side of me cringe then start sending out aggressive male vibes but don’t really know what to do. They do know nobody talks to Mick like this. Ever.
“Sonny, Sonny, you are too mean. You don’t know what’s good for ya. You know the best thing was for both of us to be inside. That’s where we could keep on building our team. I’ve had to do it without you, but I must say it’s worked out okay. There is still a place in the organization for you Sonny, we just have to work it out.”
Super charming dude, real charisma, voice full of warmth and confidence, covering raspy-edged steel that will show when you cross him. It’s been two decades since me and McIntyre first met, at a gas station in Hollister. I was filling my Yamaha trail bike, Montana on the back showing off her ass in tight black leather.
We’d talked bikes, hot cars, racing. McIntyre had wanted to buy my Yamaha, or so he said. Hot eyes for Montana’s bootie. But the man had kept in touch. We got to know each other, McIntyre became interested in my ability with electronics, in the oddball gadgets and model race cars I built. Few months later he’d mentioned a “little job.” Just pop some idiot, he said, and make twenty large. I’m a high school kid who had recently lost his dad, totally susceptible to the charm of a powerful older male and thinking I’m immortal, as teenagers do. I come back to the present.
“Yah we’ll work it out soon’s I get my hands on your throat.”
Mick laughs, this time sounding more dangerous. “Listen to you. You fucked up big time. You were s’pose to give me the location of your drop when we were at the restaurant.”
Oh I get it, this goes back to the drug run. “Like hell, Mick. I was there. You were there looking right at me. You walked away. That wasn’t even the plan.”
“No it was you that screwed up. That’s why I wanted you inside so the hiding place would be our little secret. Now you are out and my guy already located your little stash.”
“Okay then where was it?”
Mick stalls, I am sure he is bluffing. The way I hid the stash made it damned hard to locate. He goes on.
“You don’t improvise on my jobs, see? You were supposed to pick up your package in the car. You rode up on a bike. Amazing they didn’t pop you. They handed you the wrong one.”
“Mick you been around too many hacks, you’re thinking like one. I did what we agreed.” He’s trying to make it okay that he fingered me.
Mick only laughs, more menacing than before. “Something you gotta do to get back on the team Sonny boy. Ask Esteban for the envelope.”
This can’t be good. I look at the guys sitting on both sides of me. “The envelope.” One of the suits reaches into the front, comes back with a bulging manila package. It drops heavy in my lap.
“And just what’s this?” I say to Mick.
“Your dues brah, your assignment. Just like the old days. Check it out.”
Juggling the phone I rip open the envelope. Inside are three photographs and a vicious-looking pistol and loaded clip in a clear Ziploc bag. I look at the photos. First one’s a suit, pasty looking face, nothing exciting. No idea who. I look at the second one. I get the drift right away and I’m furious. Seeing this photo, my instant desire is taking a baseball bat to Mick’s head.
It’s Montana. Shot from across the street near the Adult Services Division on North First. She’s on her phone looking hot in slacks and a thin sweater, unaware she is being watched. I look at the third photo. Just like 20 years ago, Mick’s usual modus operandi, a clean gun, photo of the hit, photos of all the people he will hurt if I don’t follow through. Then, it was my mom. Now...
It’s Tharcia. Picture taken on her own front porch, holding a coffee cup. I remember that cup, the way she had her hair, the shirt she had on. I was there. They were watching us! I’m instantly yelling salty profanity into the phone.
“You insane moron, whaddya wanta do this for?”
“It’s just business brah. You scratch my back I scratch yours.”
I grab a minute to think before I answer. “You might be done with Montana, I get that. Maybe after all this time you figure she’s in your way. But I know the deal between you and Tharcia. She’s your kid. If anybody is in a position to hurt her it’s not you. She’s with me, Micmac.” I sneer out the name.
Now it’s Mick’s turn to yell at a phone. I’d guessed right. Tharcia’s childhood name for him gets his attention big city. I have a quick impression of the guys on either side of me squirming uncomfortable, seeing some nobody face down their big boss. Thinking maybe, can we get in trouble for this?
On the other end he’s screaming loud profanity, I hear crashes in the background like he’s wrecking shit. Let him destroy his cell. He can think about me later while he’s picking up the pieces. I already played my Ace in this convo and I’m hoping we’re done. It was one thing to get me as an 18-year-old kid to take a silencer pistol and pop somebody for what seemed all the money in the world. A kid who was arrogant and stupid enough to take his low-impulse-control girlfriend along for a high. She is the damn reason I missed, not that I’m unhappy about that. But it’s a different story now, I’m on probation, ready to trade my life for a fresh one if I can’t legally prove I’m innocent. And here’s this career smuggler wants to suck me back into my sordid past. Not going to happen.
And I’m furious as never before at anyone, the fresh memory of Tharcia’s sorrowful and angry words about what this abuser did to her as a child. I come close to going off on Mick with what I know, but then I think, wait. Just you wait.
We’re on the phone like that for another few minutes, mostly swearing back and forth at each other while the fake DEA suits inch away from me. Finally Mick pulls out his hole card. He summons an evil laugh, smoothing over the fact that I made him lose control.
“We know where your brother is, asshole. So if you know what’s good for you you’ll take that package and you’ll deliver. The schedule is there.”
“Which brother you talking about? Is it Wade, or is Cassius?”
Mick is silent. Finally he snarls out a name, just before he clicks off.
Furious, I sling the phone at the windshield. Before it stops bouncing around inside the car I’m giving one of the suits an elbow, hard. He’s moving, jumping out, letting me past. The interview is over. There are wins and losses, neither of us has a clear victory. We all notice though, as I’m stomping back to my El Camino, I do have the envelope with the gun and photos.
But as I exit the scene leaving two dark patches and a cloud of tire smoke, I
’m the only one knows there’s no brother named Cassius. It’s my own middle name. I have only one brother. And these days, his name isn’t Wade.
Chapter 8
The Game’s Afoot
AFTER TODAY’S MENTAL BEATINGS, fired by my friend Stacy then hired for a ‘job’ by my enemy Mick, I’m relieved to get home. Thinking what I’ll tell them at unemployment. Oh, the flying school let me go after my student killed himself.
Great.
I see by the lights that the twins are in the swimming pool, taking care of biz. I’d like to sit with them and trim for a mindless chore, but working in there is too dangerous for me. The amount of THC I’d take in from breathing and touching plants would show in a piss test, which for a parolee can be any random time.
The wind is coming up, maybe a blow tonight, weather’s finally acting like November. I’m so juiced, not into sitting around the house trying to figure out why this shitstorm blew into my life, so I tog up and get out my trusty KHS Tucson twenty-niner. A ride I like follows shady roads uphill from Felton to the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz mountains. Most of the time there’s scant car traffic, except for Highway 9 from Boulder Creek back to Felton. Since that part is mostly downhill it’s easy to stay ahead of cars. There is one steep section, a long climb along Felton Empire Road and then continuing along Empire Grade. It’s about 30 miles, elevation change over 2500 feet, I expect it to take maybe two hours.
Everything is fine I’m zooming along the dirt trails, the 29 inch wheels are soaking up the bigger bumps with ease. I see a couple riders ahead of me and I’m catching them so I push a little harder. After a while I’m close, the trailing guy is glancing sideways whenever he gets a chance to see who’s back there.
I call out I want to come through. Next switchback the guy slows on the outside, lets me by. Calls out a name, telling the guy ahead someone’s coming up behind. Someone is me. Other guy doesn’t slow down, not letting me pass. There’s a place down lower, where knowing how to use the brakes hard is a real advantage. The KHC brakes let me wait really late coming to that switch back, I get next to the guy, scoot down the inside of the curve and take him. Rear tire scuffs sideways a little as I power out.
Now it’s the red mist before my eyes. Didn’t think I’d go flat-out this ride but all the frustration fear and anxiety I felt since Roswell’s glider stunt, him showing up dead, Montana, Wolfe, Tharcia, Stacy, Mick and all the rest of it being swallowed by my speed down these twisty trails.
Guys behind can’t see me anymore. I push harder anyway. On pavement again, the downgrade from Boulder Creek back toward Felton, my legs are starting to tire, but my lungs feel great. Coming across a little bridge, easily staying ahead of some folks back there in a station wagon, I encounter my first difficulty of the ride. A thin stream of water coats the road for a few feet, hard to see in the waning daylight. All at once the rear wheel says bye-bye, sliding out to the side. Nothing to do but correct and let the front end follow where the back is headed. Which happens to be a muddy ditch at the foot of a dirt embankment.
I lunge for a couple small trees on the loose slope. The bike disappears somewhere while I get the shit slapped out of me by rocks and branches, finally I roll over backwards a couple of times and slam into a fat boulder. Knocks the breeze out of me that’s for sure. My head is ringing like a gong.
I get up, trying to find the bike. I can’t it’s too dark here under the trees, which by now are swaying in rising wind. Long story short I hobble back up to the road and wait for a bike to come by. Guy and a gal stop, with their lights help me find my Tucson. The back wheel is toast, tire’s off the rim, which is bent, broken spokes. And here I am six miles from home. I cross the road and start walking the bike downhill. Wobble wobble. Something’s dripping down my leg. I dig a light out of my saddle pack and sure enough it’s blood. I wrap a spare sock around the cut on my calf and keep going, but walking my bent bike along this road is stupid. At a wide spot I flip through my phone trying to figure how I can get some help here. Lo and behold there’s a text from nrrdgrrl, three hours ago.
My reply is simple and to the point.
Stuka109: You there?
nrrdgrrl: hey (smiley)
Stuka109: just had a major crash in my bike. Where you guys at?
nrrdgrrl: my fave thai place los gatos - you hurt?
Stuka109: feel like taking a ride to Felton?
nrrdgrrl: ok sure what’s your 20?
I send her my GPS coordinates.
I continue walking the bike, but thankfully she makes great time, pulls up in a steel gray Dodge crew cab 15 minutes later. She’s the passenger, I can’t see who’s driving. Throw my bike in the back, pile in next to her.
“Stuka, this is Rayne.”
“Hey Stuka. Don’t bleed all over my floor mat. LOL.” Tharcia’s friend is dark-haired, athletic like she is.
Soon enough we’re pulling up at my place. House is dark, wind is howling through the trees. We get out, the truck lights go off, it’s pitch black. I look up.
The sky is clear and what I see overhead are sprinkled suns amid dark shapes of thrashing trees. For a minute I can’t move, just stand there staring. Tharcia is next to me, she looks up too. Rayne walks over and the three of us gaze up at the sky. No matter how many times I see this it’s magic. And this idiotic nonsense I’m doing isn’t that important. Except to me.
We get ourselves in the house, I’m sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Pink blood rinsing down the drain. Turns out I’m also filthy in my riding tights, mud guck up one side and down the other. Rayne gets a good look at me, curses, grabs a towel and runs outside to her truck.
“Dayum,” I say to Tharcia, “I hope she’s not mad.” Her bruise is looking better today, the eye not so swollen.
“She’ll get over it.”
“Thanks a ton for coming out. Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
“We were just about to stop at a restaurant.”
“Hey, you guys meat eaters? I’ve got a bunch of leftover ribs and corn. We could make a salad. Scotch and beer.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder looking down at the cut on my calf. Her touch is electric, like Montana’s, but in a calming way.
“We’re on it.” she says. “I’m starved.”
“Tell you what, you guys get that together. I’ll be along after a shower.”
Later were sitting around the kitchen table picking at the last of the ribs. I’m sipping on a little Scotch, Rayne and Tharcia are working on some Merlot I dug out. Tharcia asks what it was like to know her mother in her teens. I tell them a little about the love-hate-sex addiction we had, and Rayne starts describing a paper for one of her classes, about the basis of physical attraction. She’s also enrolled at San Jose State, about to grad in biology, but they know each other from much farther back. I find it interesting that Rayne’s coloring so resembles Montana’s. Dark hair, pearl skin.
“It’s not only facial features that determine attractiveness,” Rayne begins. “Sure, distinctive features like eyes, nose, mouth, smooth skin are all important. One of the biggest factors is facial symmetry. But there are other things, such as the walk, the way shoulders and hips move together. One of the things we try to figure out when picking sex partners and mates is, will this person live long enough to raise young ones, are their genes good enough to mix with mine?”
“Which of course are superior,” Tharcia puts in. They share a laugh looking into each other’s faces. The voltage is there.
“Then there’s scent, or in the case of men, male odor,” Rayne says wryly, eyes flashing. Tharcia cracks up. I can’t help but grin.
“When it comes to smell, a lot of the information about genetic compatibility is in the histamine system. There is a complex of 100 genes that tell us about the other person’s immunities, all communicated through body odor. It’s because those genes determine which bacteria can live on our skin, and therefore what diseases we’ll be immune to.
“All of this pro
cessing, not just through smell but through vision hearing and touch, is related to the overall emotion we feel around someone. Biological basis of sex appeal.”
“Ta-Da!” Says Tharcia, I give you Dr. Rayne Chuley, Ph.D.”
I say musingly, “I’m descended from a long line my mother should never have listened to.”
“Totally believable,” Rayne laughs. She’s taking little jabs at me, or at men in general. She fastens onto the point. “Persuasion works too, but not so much from a distance. It’s why some people are born sales types, the gift of gab fills the gap when natural attraction is less.”
“I saw a documentary where women smelled T-shirts collected from men after working out,” I say. “The adjectives they used were telling.”
“Telling or smelling?” Rayne jibes.
“Tell you guys what stinks,” I’m coming back to my own private hell. “Got fired today at the gliderport.”
Rayne looks like she wants to keep going on her topic, but says, “Harsh, dude.”
Tharcia rests a hand on my arm. “Stuka, I am so so sorry. What happened?”
“Stacy feels there’s too much attention around the suicide jumper. I totally see her point, bad for the school. Problem for me, because I’m on probation, is now your mom’s going to be trying to get me a job, which will probably be a stupid job, take up a lot of my time looking for a stupid job, and I’ll probably have to go for more interviews with my dear case officer. Not the picture I was hoping for. I’m going to keep this from your mom as long as I can.”
Rayne has been listening in silence for quite a while, head going back and forth from me to Tharcia like at a tennis match.
“You are on probation?” Rayne asks evenly. Her suspicious look could have been copied from Montana. I just nod. Tharcia nods too, looking at Rayne with a glum expression. For a moment it is silent in the kitchen.
“Wild Thing,” Rayne says. “Can I see you a minute?”
Tharcia says sure, excuse us, they go out on the porch. Blustery wind blows through the door. I throw more wood in the woodstove, begin clearing the plates. I can hear them talking some, mostly swallowed up by the wind. They come back in and sit. I glance over from where I’m rinsing a dish in the sink.