Tahoe Silence

by Todd Borg

  Finally, Tiptoe made his move. He lunged and grabbed my left arm. His movements were awkward. But it would matter little if he could get me in a bear hug.

  When a man is the size of Tiptoe, many of the standard moves don’t work. Like putting a headlock or an elbow twist on a hippo, they just shake you off. So I tried a pull-and-drop move that had its roots in judo. I took his grab, rotated and added my weight to his momentum. The move was a little improvised, but when the opponent is the size of Tiptoe, the plan needs to have flexibility.

  I held hard to his right arm as I made the drop, remembering a mantra from the academy so many years before. Drop an ant from an airplane, it hits the ground and runs away. Drop a hippo from six feet and it dies from internal injuries.

  I tightened every muscle as I hit the dirt. I still held Tiptoe’s arm, bending him over as I rolled toward his charging legs. His shin bones felt like boards as they crashed into my ribs.

  I tried to roll through the impact. Tiptoe made an effort to lift a leg over me as he tripped. I let go of his arm and grabbed the ankle.

  Tiptoe went down. The impact was substantial. He made a whoomphing sound as air gusted from his mouth. He didn’t move.

  I kept rolling and jumped to my feet.

  Marky was coming toward me at a run, holding his gun at hip level. I feinted left. He reached to grab my head. I went back to the right and landed a hard kick on his back as he went by. He grunted and stumbled to the ground. It took him a second to push himself up to his knees, reaching around to where I’d kicked him.

  I had my knee against his upper back before he could stand. I put one arm around his neck, braced it with my other arm, and gave a quick jerk.

  “Drop the gun or I’ll break your neck.”

  Marky didn’t move. He tried to suck air through his compressed trachea. He was on his hands and knees, gun in his right hand. He released his grip on it.

  “Push it away.”

  He gave it a shove and it slid five or six feet to the side.

  “Who do you work for?”

  He hesitated, trying to breathe. “Tony Go.”

  “Convince me.”

  Marky wheezed. His right arm started to come up. I jerked on his neck and he gasped. “His real name is Antonio Gomez. Did two years in Granite Mountain Super Max for murder. Runs the Granite Mountain Boys biker gang.”

  He said the words as if they were memorized.

  “How’d he get out of a Super Max?”

  “He won’t talk about it. Word is he got some expensive lawyering. Then a judge did some stuff. I don’t know the details. All I know is they let him out.”

  “Why’d they take the girl?” I said.

  “Usual stuff.”

  “What is the usual stuff?”

  “Fun. Stuff like that.”

  “Why that girl?”

  “I don’t know. Skinny. I heard Tony Go likes skinny.”

  “Tell me about the Granite Mountain Boys.”

  “What’s to tell? Some of them go back to the Super Max. Some like the code.”

  “Code?”

  “The Aztec shit. The ancient language they use. It’s called...”

  I didn’t hear the rest of his words because Tiptoe had gotten up and was staggering toward me, his face red with rage. I stood up and put a mild kick to Marky’s head in the region of the right mastoid bone behind his ear. He dropped flat to the pavement. I tried to kick at his gun, but Tiptoe’s lunge was sudden. I spun away to the side, my toe just tapping the gun barrel and it skittered a short distance. Tiptoe swung his open hand in a big roundhouse and grazed my shoulder, clutching at the fabric of my shirt. I turned and his hand slipped off, ripping the cloth. His momentum turned him away from me.

  I took a quick step in behind him and stomped the back of his knee. He howled and collapsed to the asphalt.

  I walked over to their bikes and saw that they’d both left their keys in the ignition. I was reaching for them when Marky said, “Don’t touch it, McKenna.”

  I turned to see him lumbering toward me, his left hand massaging the side of his head where I’d put my shoe, his right hand holding the gun. It wavered, but Marky’s resolve seemed too firm for me to take a chance. I held my arms at my sides, palms out, and backed away.

  “Get up, Tiptoe,” Marky said without looking over his shoulder. He kept the gun on me as Tiptoe struggled up onto one knee, wincing with pain. Tiptoe grunted as he rose to his feet, then wobbled, limping, over to his bike. They each were in too much pain to try to hurt me for the time being.

  Marky kept the gun on me as they got on their bikes, fired up the loud rumbling engines and rode away.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  When Spot and I walked in the door of my cabin, the phone was ringing. I was still mad and frustrated after getting warned by Marky and Tiptoe. And I felt like an idiot for letting the situation distract my focus so much that I didn’t get the license numbers off their motorcycles. I also wanted to call Street, but she had already left for her flight to San Francisco.

  The phone rang again. I jerked the receiver up.

  “Yeah,” I nearly shouted.

  “McKenna?” The voice sounded thick like what can happen to fighters who suffer punches to the throat.

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Jose. I’m calling for Tony Go. He wants a sit-down with you.”

  “I just got your message. Tell Tony it didn’t turn out the way he planned. In fact, it’ll probably be awhile before Marky and Tiptoe report back.”

  “I don’t know Marky and Tiptoe.”

  “Right. The boys Gomez sent after me.”

  “Tony didn’t send no one after you.”

  “Tony doesn’t tell you everything.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m the one coordinates errands. Anyone does an errand for Tony, I tell them where and when. You got confused.”

  Maybe I did get confused. Maybe Marky and Tiptoe were told to say they worked for Tony when they were actually working for someone else. Or Marky and Tiptoe could be working for themselves and trying to obscure it. But they didn’t strike me as entrepreneurial wizards.

  “You tell Tony, he wants a sit-down with me, he asks me himself.”

  “Tony doesn’t ask. Tony tells. I’m his go-between.”

  I hung up. The man on the phone was a clichéd jerk, but he didn’t sound insincere. When he said he didn’t know Marky and Tiptoe, he sounded confused, too. Spot stood and looked at me, confusion on his face. Why was I sounding angry on the phone. Why wasn’t I letting him out to run. How come I wasn’t barbecuing a big steak for him to eat. Or at least dishing him up a bowl of ice cream.

  The phone rang again. I was still mad. I jerked it up a second time.

  “Yeah.”

  “This is Tony Go calling for Owen McKenna.”

  “You mean, Antonio Gomez?” I said.

  “Nobody calls me Antonio Gomez.”

  “You anglicize it so dirtballs like Marky and Tiptoe can remember it better?”

  “I don’t know Marky and Tiptoe.”

  “They run with your Granite Mountain Boys.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Tony Go’s voice was soft and almost polite. “Either way, I want to talk to you.”

  “What about?” I imagined that the man on the other end of the phone had ordered people less irritating than me killed. But I didn’t feel like acquiescing to his desires.

  His breathing was audible. “You’re looking for a girl. You think I have her, but I don’t. We should talk about it. I may be able to help you.”

  There are times in my business when you have to make a quick decision that could maybe get you killed or maybe save your ass. Here was a known murderer who was possibly setting me up. Or he didn’t like that somebody was setting him up to take the blame for Silence Ramirez’s kidnapping.

  “Where do you want to meet?” I said.

  “Drive to Regan Beach. Park and walk down to the water. I’ll meet you there. Oh, leave your dog at home.”<
br />
  “What makes you think I have a dog?”

  “I know everything about you, McKenna. What you eat, where your girlfriend lives, why you quit the SFPD. Have to, in my business.”

  I was waiting by the water when a small man walked up. He didn’t appear armed, but he could have had any number of weapons underneath the leather jacket, leather chaps, high boots, jangly chains, leather gloves with fringe. It was the bad-boy uniform that had been adopted by a quarter of all bikers. It meant either that you were bad or that you were enamored with the bad image. I knew that even doctors and lawyers sometimes wore the costume, but I couldn’t see advanced degrees in this raggedy excuse for a human. I’d have bet good money he never made it past fourth grade.

  “Tony Go?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Come with me. I’ll take you there.” He turned and walked away.

  I followed him up the stairs from the beach and back to the parking lot. “Which vehicle is yours?” I said, reaching for the door of my Jeep. “I’ll follow.”

  He shook his head again. “You ride with me on my Fat Boy.” He stepped over to a Harley, reached into a saddlebag and pulled out a little half-helmet, the kind that barely satisfies the law but wouldn’t protect a pimple on your scalp, never mind your brain. He held it out to me.

  I walked over to him, stood too close for his comfort and looked down at him. “Gomez requested this meeting, not me. He said he’d meet me here. You are a very poor substitute for Gomez, and I’m going to give you five seconds to get your skinny ass on your big mean machine and lead me to him. Otherwise I pick you up and throw you in the lake. The water is like ice this time of the year. Your choice. Four seconds. Three, two...”

  The man turned, swung his leg over his bike and fired it up. I got in the Jeep, backed out and followed as he cruised out of the parking lot. He turned left onto Lake Tahoe Blvd, quickly shifted up into third gear, then used his left hand to pull out a cell phone.

  I knew he was dialing Gomez, calling for instructions, trying to make excuses for why I wasn’t arriving as instructed, helpless on someone else’s bike. I also knew that in the world of bad-ass bikers, he was the real thing, and the only reason he didn’t pull out a knife and attempt to slice and dice me after I insulted him was that he was afraid of what Gomez would do to him. I could have flattered myself and thought that Gomez had told the man I might not be easily sliced and diced, but I knew this guy wasn’t smart enough to be afraid of anyone but Gomez.

  As we drove up the east side of the lake, I expected bikers to appear and box me in, front, back and sides, escorting me to a forced meeting with Gomez. But nothing happened. Either Gomez didn’t care to try to force me, or he realized that I wouldn’t be intimidated.

  Although most people would feel a loss of control should a gang of bikers surround their car on the highway, the truth is that bikers can’t force a car to go anywhere. They can shoot you dead or shoot out your tires and ruin your ears with their un-muffled engines, but they can’t force you to drive where you don’t want to go.

  I followed the Fat Boy up past Spooner Lake toward the North Shore. He turned off at Sand Harbor, and I followed him into the parking area. It was empty except for five bikers, all on their bikes, all arranged in an arc. Gomez would be the one in the middle. It was a silly attempt at Brando in the Wild Bunch, but we all have our rituals. They’d think my candlelit dinners with Street were silly, too.

  I came to a stop, got out, walked over and stood directly in front of Gomez’s motorcycle. The other men tensed, but Gomez stayed relaxed. He made no move to have me searched, no doubt confident that his boys could overwhelm me no matter what weapon I might pull out.

  “Good to meet you, McKenna.”

  “We’re such good buds, Tony-G, why don’t you call me Owen.”

  “I’m offering my services at no charge, and you are being disrespectful.”

  “Sending skinnyass here, in your place is disrespectful. Expecting that I’d ride behind him, sucking the miasma off his unwashed body in place of breathing oxygen, is an insult. Putting Marky and Tiptoe onto me was worse. I’m waiting for you to make it up to me.”

  Gomez didn’t frown and didn’t smile. To his credit, he made a small nod. “Like I said on the phone, this Marky and Tiptoe don’t work for me.” He turned toward the other men. “Any of you know a Marky and Tiptoe?”

  They all shook their heads.

  Gomez looked at me. “I didn’t kidnap the girl, either.” he said.

  “You got to vacation at the Super Max for murder. Two of your boys kidnapped a Sonoma girl, then murdered her. Her forehead had an Aztec word on it. Several of your boys were caught in a meth lab in the El Dorado foothills, and they told of religious sacrifices you perform during full moons. When you’re done, you pass around a vessel of blood for all to drink from. They said you cut up the body and burn it on a funeral pyre. And you want me to believe that even though you were here in Tahoe when the girl was taken, you had nothing to do with it.”

  Gomez turned his head and spit onto the pavement.

  “I was convicted of murder on false testimony and later released. The girl who was kidnapped from Sonoma was a real tragedy. The men who did it were never known to me. They may have tagged along on one of our rides, but they were not part of my church. Perhaps they learned some Nahuatl, the Aztec language, from my men. A lot of men join our rides. We have an open invitation. I can’t vet them all for moral purity. But I can have an effect once they join my church. The ceremonies during the full moon are our cleansing rituals. We sacrifice one sheep a month. There must be death to make room for new life. Yes, there is blood. Yes, we burn the sheep’s body.”

  “What kind of sick religion is that?” I said.

  “It is legitimate. We pray and give thanks to many gods, such as the sun god Huitzlopochtli who gave us the gift of fire, and the rain god Tatloc who gave us the gift of fertile soil. We find transcendence. Our rituals go back to an Aztec sect from seven centuries ago. I learned of it from my grandfather in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

  “Through my church I’ve turned over a hundred men from parasites on society to working, tax-paying citizens.” Gomez turned and glanced at the men to his side. “They may not be pretty to look at, they may frighten people, but they have jobs. Most of them, anyway. They are mechanics and janitors and trash collectors and construction workers. Three of them formed a business selling motorcycle parts on eBay, and those three employ four others. Are they saints? Of course, not. But we are making progress. Other churches turn down our kind. Other church-goers shun my men. My church remains open to all who are willing to give themselves over to the gods of nature.”

  “If you want me to think you’re an altar boy, then you brought me up here for nothing. Your debt to me is climbing.”

  “Listen, tall boy, I never said I’m pure. I’ve done some serious shit, shit that runs all over the rules that lawmakers and most church types focus on. But I’ve got a code. A man isn’t anything, he doesn’t have a code. My code precludes many kinds of behavior. One of them is murdering young boys and another is kidnapping young girls. Do I make myself clear?”

  “A slick speech,” I said, “but all I care about is the missing girl. How would you help me?”

  “You want to find her. Maybe we can help. Or, when you find her, maybe we can help rescue her.”

  “Why would you want to help?”

  “The Aztec religion is based on making peace with nature. Our church finds the violence done to the kidnapped girl and her brother an affront to all we believe in. It is like tearing the fabric of the cosmos. If we can help with the girl, we can heal the tear.”

  “You and your men never resort to violence.”

  “Only in pursuit of a greater peace. It is rare when I endorse a violent act. But I do it when it is the justified violence of repressed people fighting back.”

  “I think you are more concerned with getting me and the police off your back. Convincing the
m you didn’t kidnap the girl is the ultimate goal.”

  “Not the ultimate goal. But our church could be more effective if the police realized that peace is our only desire.”

  I considered what he said against his clear megalomania. Gomez was a persuasive cult leader, possibly convincing even me that his motives were not those of a simple thug. Like all successful leaders, he exuded a compelling charisma, and the men at his side seemed loyal by desire, not by threat.

  I said, “How do you want to proceed?”

  Gomez reached out and handed me a card. It had a phone number printed on it. Nothing more. “That is my private cell number. When you need help, reinforcements, men for a stakeout or even, possibly, some intimidation services, give me a call. There are no strings attached. My men wish to serve. I wish to serve.”

  “And you want me to put in a good word about you to the authorities.”

  “You have the ear of Commander Mallory. Also Sergeant Martinez. I understand they are both tenacious police officers whose talents would be best put to use by not wasting time investigating us.”

  I put the card in my pocket, got into my Jeep and left.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Saturday morning I fed Spot and jumped in the shower. I pulled out some clothes that would be appropriate for both a talk by a noted entomologist as well as a night out in The City.

  I’d made reservations at a four-star restaurant just off Union Square. We’d have just enough time to have a leisurely dinner, then head to our play, Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, at the grand remodeled theater on Geary. Afterward we could walk up Nob Hill and grab a single malt scotch at the Top of the Mark, listen to the jazz band, then retire to our hotel on Post. It would be the kind of night a woman like Street should expect far more often than she gets.

  The phone rang. It was Diamond.

  “If you’re calling about helping with dog chores, I appreciate your eagerness,” I said.