Hidden Palms

by Harry Bryant

  My high school English teacher had assigned that book, and I had hated it. Thought the guy was the biggest loser. All worked up about a woman who never even knew who he was (and certainly not the lady he imagined her to be). Tilting at windmills. I never understood why we had to read the book. Well, that was true about most of the books we had been assigned, but reading Don Quixote had been such a pain in the ass.

  But, as I switched on the headlights and drove out of the parking lot, I thought I might track down a copy of the book when this was all over. I would probably still hate it, but maybe not.

  Maybe the dude wasn't as fucked up in the head as I had thought back then.

  CHAPTER 21

  I got her cellphone out of her purse, and tried to figure it out as I drove down the hill. It had a rudimentary contact list, but none of the names meant much to me. There was a call log too—time stamps were attached to the calls. I scrolled back and found the call she had gotten from David while we had been at dinner. There were two calls the following morning from a different number, and if I had to guess, that number belonged to Deputy Hackman.

  I didn't want to talk to Hack—not yet—but it was good to know that I had a way to contact him, should I need it. I still didn't know enough about who the players were to piece much of the puzzle together. David was key, but so was Hack.

  I doubted David knew much about the larger operations—not as much as Hack had led me to believe—but there wasn't much doubt in my mind that the bikers had nabbed him from the car after we had crashed in the ditch. The fact that they hadn't killed him (or me, for that matter) suggested they were still trying to get a handle on what was going on. How much damage control did they need to do? Who were all the players and what did they want? As long as these questions remained unanswered, I had time yet. I could still find David.

  But where had they taken him? I gave that question all kinds of thought, but when I reached the 101 interchange, I didn't have a good answer. I didn't even have a good idea.

  The winery tasting room was still open, and so I swung Dolly's car into the lot and parked facing The Rose. There were more than a dozen bikes parked in the lot beside the bar, and a half-dozen other cars as well. A couple of guys loitered near the front door, smoking and keeping watch. They didn't look over-agitated or nervous. Just another dull night watching the light die in the sky . . .

  I sat in the car for awhile, listening to the engine tick. Drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. Where was I going to look for David? The service station? If they were moving drugs through there, why would they take David there? It didn't make much sense.

  The hotel? Something nagged at me about the hotel, but I couldn't make the feeling manifest into a coherent thought. I knew Dolly wasn't involved—well, I really hoped she wasn't involved. It didn't make sense if she was—all of the drama about her brother would be play-acting, and for who? Hack? He liked her a lot more than she did him, and if she was involved, he would have to know.

  Unless he was the real stooge here, but that was paranoid prison logic—the sort of thing that made total sense when you had no contact with the outside world. Most of the time, events and occurrences happened for rather simple reasons. A drawn-out, complicated conspiracy intended to massively fuck with one or two people was—more often than not—drama invented by someone with way too much time on their hands.

  So, Dolly was out, and I was just tweaking about the hotel because Clint and Brace had jumped me there. They didn't have any connection with the hotel.

  Or did they?

  The nagging sensation wasn't going away.

  It was the sort of problem your subconscious would figure out if you just left it alone for a little while.

  Fortunately, I had some time . . .

  What about Rye? The cook whistling on that reefer had clammed up when I had asked about the delivery van. And then, a few minutes later, Hack had shown up. Like he had known I would be there. And why would he?

  My brain put it together. Because the cook had called him. Because I had talked about weed and then asked about the truck. In a rather ham-handed way. Like the way a not-so-bright undercover guy might try to ingratiate himself into a situation.

  I had been thinking about talking my way onto the delivery van as a way to get into Hidden Palms, but someone was already using the van for nefarious purposes.

  "Shit," I sighed. "That's how the weed gets delivered, isn't it?"

  But where was it coming from?

  Across the street, the door to The Rose opened, and a pair of bikers came out. They stopped to talk with the smoking squad, and in the neon light of the bar, I could tell one of the new guys was Clint. He was talking animatedly with the others. Delivering instructions, but there was some confusion and pushback about those instructions.

  The little chat group broke up: the one guy went back into the bar, and Clint went to the lot where he climbed onto his bike. He pulled out of the lot, heading north, and I gave him a little head start before following.

  I guessed it was time to find out what was north of town.

  Light industrial warehousing and trailer parks, as it turned out. I hung back from Clint and nearly lost him when he turned off into one of the older trailer parks. There was nothing but darkness beyond the small cluster of mobile homes—farmland and scrub.

  I turned off the headlights, and eased the car past the trailer park. There was an access road ahead, and I turned onto it. The road abruptly ended at a metal gate. The gate was attached to a fence that was a combination of iron rods and barbed wire, and it looked like it had been there for a long time. Beyond the fence was nothing but empty pasture. I left the car and jogged back to the trailer park.

  Most of the trailers wore their age badly—quite a few had carports with leaning roofs and cars in various states of semi-abandonment. There were lights on in about one in four of the mobile homes, and at least half of the dark ones had wind chimes on their tiny porches. At the back of the park, where the road looped around and headed back toward the front, I spotted a couple of bikes parked out front of a dilapidated double-wide, along with a dusty Jeep 4 x 4.

  I took a moment to make sure no one was watching me skulk through the neighborhood, and then I darted around the trailer next door. There was a kid's playset in back, and the swing creaked slightly as I passed, stirred by a slight breeze wafting across the dark field on my right.

  In the corner of the lot was a plastic toolshed, one of those prefab types that you snapped together and put enough bricks along the bottom to keep it from tipping over in a stiff wind. It wasn't locked, and I eased the door open and cautiously peered inside. When nothing collapsed on me, I felt around and found a couple of long wooden handles—two rakes, something that jingled, and a shovel. I liked the shovel but it was too long, and so I kept feeling around. I found another shovel, but smaller. Not a kid's tool, but one for turning over dirt in the garden or something—a one-handed sort of something, if necessary. That would work.

  I closed up the shed, and hopped the wooden fence that was mainly for show. Curtains covered the windows in the trailer next door, and lights were shining in two of the rooms. I crept closer, and was surprised by a security light that clicked on as I was halfway across the open space between the two trailers. I leaped forward, and somewhat breathlessly fetched up next to the trailer.

  My heart thudded loudly, and it was almost impossible to hear anything other than my own panic. I tried to get my heart rate under control as I inched along the house. I peeked up at the corner of window where the curtain was slightly askew, and I could see a tiny slice of the room inside.

  A man lay across a couch. His leg was in a white brace, and there were bandages up and down his arm. His head was wrapped with a bandage too, and what I could see of his face was covered in bruises. Judging from his medically provided attire, this was one of the guys who dropped his bike on the road.
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  I edged a little more to my right, and my breath caught in my throat as I saw a familiar pair of high-top sneakers. David was sitting in a overstuffed recliner, and broad strips of duct tape were wrapped around his chest and legs. Holding him in place. His head was down, and I couldn't tell if he was breathing. There was blood on his shirt, and it looked like he had bled on the recliner too. Not good.

  Someone walked past the window, and I flinched away. Holding my breath, I did a slow twenty count before peeking up again. The curtain had moved some, and I could see more of the room. The kitchen was off to my right, and the guy stretched out on the couch was talking to someone. The guy pacing back and forth was Clint, and he didn't look happy.

  "Goddamn it, Russo," he snapped, interrupting Couch Dude. Unhappy people talk loudly, which made it easier to listen in on their conversation. "I wanted you to talk to him. Find out what's going on, and now this—" He angrily indicated the still form in the recliner.

  "Hey, man," Russo whined, raising his hands in protest. "It's not my fault. They wrecked my bike. I can barely walk."

  Clint shook his head. "Did you hit him?" he asked the person in the kitchen.

  I heard a dull sound, like a barrel rolling over. Brace, I thought.

  "Once?" Clint raised an eyebrow. "Just once?"

  Brace said something, but I couldn't tell if he was agreeing or offering a different count.

  "What a fuck-up." Clint wandered over to the recliner. His body blocked my view, but it looked like he was checking on David. After a moment, he wiped his hand on the arm of the recliner and shook his head. "Get rid of him," he said. "I don't want to know."

  "What about—" Russo started.

  "Shut the fuck up and do what I tell you," Clint said. "And then put your ass back on that couch and don't fucking move until someone comes and tells you otherwise. I don't give a shit if it takes a week. You stay here, and let this all blow over."

  "But my bike," Russo whined.

  Clint stepped over the couch, and slapped Russo's brace. Russo yelped in pain, and Clint whirled toward the kitchen as Brace stepped into the living room. "Don't," Clint said. "Just don't."

  Brace stopped. Clint had some balls. Brace's face looked like a black squall bearing down, and I sure as hell didn't want to be standing in front of that storm when it broke. I looked away, and my gaze fell on Russo. His face was all twisted up too, but from pain, and after a minute, I figured out the source of Brace's anger. He and Russo were family.

  "I'm going back to The Rose," Clint said. "Going to talk to Doc and McCready. We need to find this asshole, and quick. Our friend with the hat is starting to come unglued. This is going to get messy really fast if we don't deal with it. You two"—he pointed at Brace and Russo in turn—"all you two have to do is dump this kid somewhere. And do it before morning." He stomped toward the door.

  I dropped to the ground, and pressed myself up against the sheet metal skirt that ran around the base of the mobile home. I had the shovel underneath me, and I kept my head down as the door opened and Clint's boots clattered against the wooden landing. He came down the stairs in a rush, and his boots crunched across the gravel. He got on his bike, fired it up with a noisy rumble, and the sound of his bike echoed back and forth between the houses as he roared toward the street.

  I stayed put until the echoes were gone, and then I carefully edged back up to the window again. Russo was still lying on the couch, and I didn't see Brace. I shifted around, trying to get a better angle, and the metal edge of the shovel scraped against the metal siding of the mobile home.

  I snatched the shovel away from the siding, and ducked down again. I put my back against the mobile home and held my breath. Waiting to see if anyone had heard the noise.

  The front door of the mobile home opened, and Brace stepped out onto the landing. He looked around slowly. Left. Right. Left again. And then he lowered his gaze and stopped.

  He was looking right at me, and I wasn't that invisible.

  Less than two ways to play this . . . was the thought running through my head.

  "Hey," I said. "Nice night, right?"

  And then I pushed off from the house and sprinted toward the fenced-in yard next door.

  Heavy boots pounded the gravel behind me. Brace was coming.

  CHAPTER 22

  I cleared the fence like a professional hurdler, cut around the edge of the neighboring house, and pivoted back. When Brace came charging around the corner, I swung the flat side of the shovel at his face. He was quicker than I anticipated, and I caught him on the shoulder instead. The blow was hard enough to spin him around and knock him off balance. I dropped the shovel, and barreled into him.

  We stumbled back, arms flailing, and he smacked into the car parked in the driveway. I fetched up next to him, my shoulder snapping the hood ornament off, and the metal spur tore my shirt. The car bounced on its shocks as Brace pushed off, and I rolled toward the other side of the car. His fist made a dent in the hood behind me, and I spun off the light assembly at the corner of the car before he could try to hit me again.

  He roared like a bull moose and charged. I was half-turned when he slammed into me, and I got sandwiched between him and the car. When I went limp—easy to do when all the air has been forced out of your body—he slammed me against the car a second time.

  Now I was seeing funny spots.

  He reared back like he was going to headbutt me, and I managed to pull an arm free and chop the edge of my hand across his throat. He made a funny retching noise, and I flowed through a tai chi technique—Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg—and shoved the heel of my other hand up under his chin. His teeth made a hard click.

  I drove my knee into his stomach, and when he doubled over, I flowed through Wave Hands in the Clouds, pivoting around him. It was my turn to slam him into the car, but I missed the window.

  Brace's head bounced off the hard frame between the front and backseat. I aimed better the second time, but he was already rubbery enough that he just bounced off. When I let go, he collapsed.

  He was still breathing, and his eyes stared blankly up at the night sky.

  Good enough, I thought, as I retrieved the shovel and headed back to the mobile home.

  Russo was still on the couch, but he was sitting up and he had a sawed-off shotgun in his hands.

  We both froze for a second, and the only reason the next second wasn't my last was because I was full of adrenaline and he was full of pain-killers.

  He pulled the trigger on the shotgun and it made a terrible noise. I had already dropped to the floor and was scrambling toward him. I couldn't hear a fucking thing, and the air was thick with the smell of black powder. I lunged forward, leading with the shovel, and I felt it connect with something hard. I kept moving my arms, and when the second barrel went off, all the shot made a mess of the light fixture in the ceiling.

  I dropped the shovel, jumped up on the couch, and started punching Russo in the face. The couch was soft, and it was like punching a pillow on a waterbed. I wrestled the now-empty shotgun from him and smacked him in the head with it. That seemed to do the trick.

  I collapsed on the cushion next to Russo's limp body, and slowly slid off until my ass was on the floor. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my lungs were heaving like they were trying to inflate a hot air balloon. My ears were ringing, and there was something wet oozing down the side of my head and my neck. Other than all that, I was what Mr. Chow could call "pleasantly exerted."

  The shakes started when I looked at the shot pattern on the back of the closed door and on the ceiling. Either one of those shotgun blasts could have pulped important parts of me. I had been lucky. Really lucky.

  "No time to celebrate, Bliss." I thought I said the words out loud, but I only heard them as an echo inside my head.

  The room was darker without the overhead light, and the only illuminati
on came from the kitchen. I glanced at Russo, who really did look like a sack of beef tossed out the window of a fast-moving car, and then moved on to David, who looked, well, dead.

  "Shit."

  So much for saving Dolly's brother. I had fucked this up. I had gotten him involved and—

  I stopped that line of thought. Yes, things had gotten out of hand, but was I truly responsible? David had been selling weed before I showed up. He still would have been popped by a sheriff's deputy—if not last night, then some night soon. They still would have arraigned him. And he still would have gone to county lockup, where the CMFMC would have shanked him.

  Was that true, though? I paused and gave that some thought. Hack had told me that the CMFMC wanted David dead, but was that good intel? Standing in this rather bloody and awkward situation, I had to wonder about that assessment. Clint had been pissed at Russo and Brace for fucking things up here, as if the death of David hadn't been part of their plan.

  But Hack had been so sure. Was that his own paranoia? Did he really have any idea what the CMFMC were up to? Or had he wanted something like that to happen? Something that would take David out of the picture.

  But why?

  I couldn't sit around and think it through. Brace was outside. He was going to get up sooner or later. I had to clear out before he came back. But I didn't want to leave empty-handed. There had to be something useful here. Something that I could use as leverage. I cast about the room one last time, and then headed into the kitchen to scope it out.

  Nothing but cheap kitchen appliances and a sink overflowing with dirty dishes. I put the shotgun on the counter, and rifled through drawers. I found one of the bricks of cash Brace and Clint had taken from me, and I shoved it into my back pocket. In that same drawer was a box of shotgun shells.