He went back to the hot chick, the train-stopper. Some of these dudes in the pics had to be among the rich and powerful set. Lake Tahoe, with its bad-boy history…looked like some of those bad habits were back in vogue. What was the little snoop up to? Must be some blackmail goin’ on. This guy was up to his eyeballs in the muck.
C’mon home, Corbin. Can’t wait to meet you.
He found a file on Jesup. Pictures taken with a telescopic lens. Had a couple partial nude shots in her place. Man had been tracking her. Had all kinds of records on her. Even tapes of phone calls. A big investigation. Newspaper clippings of a girl named Karen Orland who’d drowned in Fallen Leaf Lake.
Corbin had a big profile on the woman. Her past in Sacramento. Her friends and relatives. Habits. Mountain rescue skier in the winter. He knew where she worked out, ate. Had a picture of her coming out of a breakfast place called the Red Hut Waffle Shop.
Leon couldn’t wait to get to the computers. He finally turned off the tiny light. Settled back in the recliner, his weapon on his lap. He was a light sleeper, but right now, he was a little more exhausted than usual. Still, he kept going back to the photo of Kora North. Never had he seen a more beautiful, more perfect woman. He wondered if, in person, she was half as fine.
He drifted off with his usual sleep protocol. He loved to imagine himself hunting down world leaders, killing them, feeding the news cycles, and playing with the government agencies hunting him. Taunting them. It was a kind of masturbation of the mind for Leon.
But on this night, after enjoying his kill in New York and his battle with the old man, he went to Kora North, having various forms of sex with her in his mind until he finally drifted off.
27
Just before sunrise on Tuesday morning, Marco and Sydney slipped out of a still-sleeping Markleeville.
Sydney felt guilty about dragging Marco further into this. She sensed he was already in deep yet was still serious about dumping her and going to his uncle, hat in hand. He was angry about what had happened, but she knew she was growing on him. Now a lot depended on what Gary Gatts could tell them—if it turned out the shooter was some random guy and not coming from Thorp, then she couldn’t expect Marco to join her “crusade.”
The Mountain View Restaurant squatted off the side of the snaking mountain road in the pines about six miles from Markleeville. A sagging dining hall, faded red paint, and a sign over the screened-in porch announced that you could “catch ‘em yourself” along with a colorful drawing of a fish.
“Is that the place?”
“Yes.”
The sun began its rise and would come with a vengeance. Another hot day ahead.
Suddenly, a small horde of leathered, tattooed bikers came roaring around the bend from the opposite direction and pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. It was awkward for a moment, as Marco slowed as if also going into the restaurant but then continued on, the bikers no doubt assuming their presence was enough to scare off any regular citizenry.
They drove around the curve; Marco found a place just off the highway in the woods, on a feeder road, and parked out of sight of the main road and the restaurant. “We arrived a few minutes earlier, it would have gotten uncomfortable,” he said.
“Timing in love and war is everything,” Sydney said.
Marco secured his piece under his shirt, and then they hiked down through the trees, where they had a view of the restaurant and parking lot but were well hidden. They waited about thirty minutes. Two girls were outside by one of the bikes. They were joined by the rest of the crew: four males, two more females. They stood talking for a moment, then mounted up, kickstands retracted, engines turned on and cranked up.
“Dogs on hogs probably making a delivery, or a pickup,” Sydney said. “The Hell’s Angels used to run the trade until the Mexicans took over. They work for them. Next they’ll all be working for the Chinese. A new world.”
Marco smiled. “You’re cynical.”
“Usually depends on the time of day.”
With the biker bitches clinging onto their road warriors like fierce female bats, they roared off down the winding mountain road toward Markleeville, their shiny black helmets gleaming in the early morning light.
Sydney and Marco walked across the parking lot and went on inside, greeted by a fragrant waft of chilies and old grease. A sign on the wall next to the empty hostess stand explained that you could catch your own fish down in the creek, bring them up to be cleaned, then cook them yourself, or have the cook do it.
Fishing poles and bait on the porch, the sign read in big red letters across the bottom, with an arrow pointing to the porch.
The man they were looking for wasn’t in the dining room or in the kitchen. A plump, attractive Spanish woman emerged and cast anxious glances at them.
“I guess we don’t look like customers,” Marco said. He nodded to the woman and said, “Cómo es usted que hace hoy a señora.”
She looked worried. Marco assured her they weren’t ICE. “No somos gobierno.”
“I speak English,” she shot back, eyes fiery like he’d insulted her. “Probably better than you do.”
Marco smiled appreciatively at her feistiness. “We’re looking for Mr. Gatts. He around?”
A flicker of anxiety shadowed her eyes. “No.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He comes, he goes. Doesn’t tell me when or where.”
Sydney glanced at the small kitchen table with two coffee mugs and two dirty dishes, then out at the tables. No evidence the bikers had bothered to eat or drink. Looked to her like they’d picked up or delivered and left.
“You just get a delivery?”
“No. Deliveries come on Fridays.”
“I’m not talking about food.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” the woman said, eyes now showing some real apprehension.
“Who’s down at the creek?” Sydney asked. She went over to the stove. “I assume you have the right credentials of citizenship. Or at least a green card.”
Marco said, and without any humor now, “No te echarás. Dónde está Gatts?”
“Yes, that’s him down at the creek. He should be up in a few minutes.”
Marco nodded. “We’ll go on down. He’s an old friend. Be a nice surprise.”
“He has friends?” she asked, with a wry raise of her eyebrows.
Marco and Sydney exchanged looks.
“We were in prison together,” Marco said.
Sydney thought the woman’s suppressed smile would have been laughter had they been sitting at a bar, and if the woman wasn’t frightened for her own safety.
Sydney said, “Sweetheart, you might want to take off, close the place for the rest of the morning. Silence is golden. And a way to stay in this country.”
The woman grabbed her purse and a canvas bag from under the counter and beat it out of there, the screen door banging resolutely behind her. Moments later, they heard a car engine cough, then start. They saw from the south end of the building an aging, wounded, blue Ford Focus sputter out across the parking lot and stumble down the road beyond the trees.
Sydney hung the CLOSED sign on the door, locked it, and they both took out weapons, holding them down behind their legs. It was time to shake some information out of Gatts and find out if an old friendship had any weight, and what that might mean.
28
Sydney’s got game, Marco thought. He liked the way she handled herself. Big city law way out of her true element in a small town like South Lake Tahoe.
As they crossed to the steps, Marco glanced at the fishing poles and rubber boots that cluttered the back porch. A broken refrigerator leaned against the wall, next to it, a sign in large letters: BAIT. A cheap hunting knife was stuck in the wall.
He paused as Sydney got out her phone, he guessed to make a recording of the interaction with Gatts. Then they went down a series of stone steps that led to the stream below. She had to go easy on her wounded leg but
seemed to not be in pain.
The creek was narrow but active. Had to be a pool somewhere that Gatts kept stocked. They made their way carefully, the murmuring of the creek over rocks loud enough to mask their approach.
They found him at a turn in the creek maybe fifty yards from the steps. Gatts squatted at the edge of the creek, feet in the water. He wore tan shorts from which dropped skinny legs, no shirt under his black leather vest. Skin and bones, the overall look of somebody who lives more on chemicals than food. A bulge in the pocket could be a handgun.
Gatts was next to a sluice box popular with gold rockers, oblivious to their approach. But it wasn’t the sluice box he was messing with. As they got closer, Marco could see a thick metal tube. He was pushing something inside before screwing on a cap, then pushed the metal tube into a pipe imbedded in the bank. A rock soon covered the hiding place.
A perfect hidey-hole, Marco thought, especially when the water rose to normal levels and covered the whole deal.
“Neat,” Marco said quietly. “Guy’s got himself a little safe right here in the creek. No dogs would sniff that out. No DEA would think to look under rocks in the stream.”
They moved closer.
“That’s pretty damn nifty, Gary Gatts,” Marco said. “How you doin’, boy?”
Gatts jumped up, startled, nearly falling over, his eyes wide, as if he expected to die right then and there. He tried to collect himself.
“Jesus, you scared the hell out of me sneaking up like that. The fishing poles are up on the porch. Ask the lady in the kitchen.” His mouth uttered the words, but his eyes showed concerns of a different sort. He knew they weren’t looking for fishing poles, knew they’d seen what he was doing, and this was not a good situation. He didn’t appear to recognize Marco.
“We wanted some fish,” Marco said, noticing the dragon tattoo on Gatts’ right arm, the tiny gold studs in his ears that caught a spike of sunlight dappling down through the trees. “We’d have you catch, clean, and cook them for us.”
The expression on the man’s face said run, said get the hell out of there, eyes big as an owl’s.
“Settle,” Marco said. “Things better that way. You don’t remember me?”
“Holy hell…Marco Cruz. Damn, I heard you got killed in Mexico. Hey, dude, good to see you.” He said it but didn’t look like he meant it, eyes all jumpy and dilated.
Then Sydney removed her sunglasses—did it in a cool way—and the little guy recognized her. She did this little rise with her eyebrows coupled with a gotcha smile.
Gatts mumbled through his shock, “Sydney Jesup,” like she was the second to last person on this earth to have come back from the dead.
“How are you, Gary?” Sydney said. “Nice little place you got here.”
Marco said, “I hear you’ve come a long way since your pot-dealin’ days. Nice setup. People make deliveries; you put them here in your secret little safe. Pretty neat, Gary—your own full-service restaurant.”
Gatts rubbed his temple with his left hand, his right drifting back of his thigh.
“What do you want?” Gatts asked, and then, rodent quick, he spun around and started to run, his hand going to his pants pocket under his shirt.
Marco fired a warning shot in the water ahead of him. Gatts stumbled and struggled with whatever he was trying to get and Marco fired a second shot in the water. Gatts abandoned his struggle with his weapon, rolling half in and half out of the water as he screamed and grabbed his wounded foot.
“Get under control,” Marco said.
Gatts rocked back and forth as both hands clutched his right foot, his eyes wide and staring at Marco, who was on him fast, grabbing the little guy’s face and pushing it under. Marco removed the weapon from Gatts’ front right pocket, where it had gotten hung up. He lifted the gasping drug dealer’s head up out of the water.
Sydney reached for Gatts’ gun. “Finally, one of my own. Thanks, Gary.”
Marco dragged him up on the side of the rocky bank, the little guy squirming and pleading.
“Settle, Gatts!” Marco said.
Gatts, on his back now, his leg pulled up to his chest, his hands on the wounded foot, moaned like a baby.
“Nobody told you to run,” Marco said. “You try and pull a gun on me and you’re still alive, makes me wonder what I’m coming to. Maybe it’s because I need some information bad enough to forgive you. Once.”
Sydney took a nearby seat on a rock just above and out of sight of Gatts’ eyes, saying, “Listen to your old buddy, Gary. He’s not the nice guy you once knew. He’s the nastiest bastard I’ve ever run into, and I’ve been around the block. He’ll hurt you slow and mean before he kills you if you don’t listen to him and answer his questions.” She prepared her cell phone to capture whatever transpired.
29
Gatts struggled with a nod of submission. Water bounced off his head, dripping onto his face. He muttered plaintively, crying out in pain and fear, “What do you want? I got some cash. Take it. C’mon, man, take my stash. Anything. Whatever you want, just don’t kill me. Don’t kill me, man. We go back, you and me. We had fun. Memories, you know. Good memories.”
Marco dragged him back to the bank, next to his drug cache. “You’re hardly worth a bullet. I might just drown you, though. Let’s see what you got. And get calm. I hate talking to excited people. Brings out the worst in me. Before you know it, the vultures will be circling.”
“Take it, man. It’s yours. I just make the connections is all. It’s pretty big money there. Take it. Just let me get out of here. I’m begging you, man, don’t kill me.”
“You don’t shut up, I’ll have no choice.”
Gatts shut up. Marco pulled the rock aside, pulled the tube out, unscrewed the cap on the end, then reached in and pulled out some plastic bags. He laid them on the nearest flat rock.
“What we have here,” Marco said, dumping the remaining contents of the cylinder out on the flat rock, “is a CVS pharmacy of hardcore drugs.”
“How do you think,” Sydney said as she wiped down the small revolver, “a guy like Gatts would do in prison?”
“He’d become popular fast food. Be buying and selling him the way he buys and sells these joy bags.”
“Where are these headed?” Sydney asked. “You provide for the big parties?”
Gatts didn’t respond. He was in obvious pain and afraid he was going to be killed. Marco gave him a little tap with the gun. Gatts yelped, one hand leaving his foot to grab his head.
“Yes. Yes.”
The bullet had cut through the outside of his left sneaker from top to bottom, just behind the toes. He was sitting half in the shallow water, tears rolling down his cheeks, blood trailing downstream, curling with the flow of the water.
“These for the big bash next weekend?” Sydney asked. “Thorp’s Great Gatsby Gala?”
Gatts nodded. “I’m just the delivery guy. I don’t even own this place.” He nodded to the restaurant. “I’m just managing it for some people.”
“Some people?”
“I really don’t know who they are. Just some real estate company. I think the lawyer, Rouse, has some connection to it.”
“That’s Thorp’s buddy, partner, and next door neighbor,” Sydney said. “He’s the real power behind the throne.”
“Jesus, my foot hurts bad. Damn!”
“You once worked for Shaun Corbin when they came in by seaplane to Fallen Leaf Lake, didn’t you?” Sydney asked.
Gatts looked like he didn’t want to answer that, but a little move by Marco altered his attitude.
“Yes.”
Sydney moved a little closer and, now behind Gatts, said, “You want to stay alive, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I have a few simple questions for you.” She massaged the back of his neck with the gun. “You answer them correctly and you’ll have a good chance of getting out of here alive. You don’t, I’m going to leave you two alone. I’m a little squeamish.”
Gatts had a look on his face, the skin drawn back, nostrils wide, fear crawling out his pores.
Marco leaned down and smiled as evilly as he could. “She’s not kidding. I’d answer her questions. And the thing to remember is, we already know a lot. We talked to people. She catches you in a lie, she’ll walk away. She walks, you’re completely and royally screwed.”
“Who ordered Karen Orland and her unlucky boyfriend killed?” Sydney asked.
Without hesitation, a very scared Gatts said, “You know it was Thorp.”
“Who did the killing?”
“I don’t…I’m just tellin’ you what I heard, what went around. I don’t know who the doer was. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
“Tell me what you know about me getting shot at the hatchery Sunday afternoon,” Sydney said. “Be careful how you answer. You make a mistake, lie, there’s no coming back from that. Don’t contradict things we already know. We just want corroboration.”
The expression on Gatts’ face made it seem he’d decided it was best to get on their side and find a way out. “You probably want to talk to Shaun Corbin about that.”
“And why is that?” Sydney asked.
“That moron came up here—”
“Corbin?”
“Yeah. A week ago…gets drunk and starts shootin’ off his mouth how he’s gonna be a big deal. Settle issues. You being the issue he’s gonna to settle. He’s got a small brain, big mouth. I didn’t buy it. I didn’t think he would actually go after you.”
“Thorp wasn’t behind it?” Marco asked.
Gatts hesitated. “Well, yes and no. This is gonna get me killed for sure.”
Sydney said, “Better later than now.” She turned to Marco. “You think now he’s going to start lying? Maybe a bullet in the other foot will get him to tell us what we want to know.”
Sydney cocked the revolver.
“Wait, wait! Okay. Don’t shoot,” Gatts cried.
Marco said, “She sees that little telltale hesitation that precedes a lie, she’ll put another bullet in you.”
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