Truck Stop Jesus

by Storm, Buck

  “What do you mean, missed her?”

  “You’re the one with the doctor in front of your name. I have to explain missed her?”

  “Do-o-o-o-o-ctor Simmons … ” Crystal sang the name to the tune of “Play That Funky Music White Boy.”

  “Is that Crystal?” Simmons said.

  “Nice chat. Gotta go,” Hollister said.

  “You know, Hollister, I paid you forty thousand dollars. That means you work for me. You can show a little respect.”

  “You want the money back?”

  “I want the girl. That’s what I want.”

  Hollister shrugged, though he knew Simmons couldn’t see him. “I am who I am. You get what you get. I told you I’d get the girl, and I’ll get the girl. You want to give me grief, and I’ll hand you your money back and walk.”

  “Big—tough—Hollister,” Crystal sang, still in her groove. She caught her reflection in the mirror, stopped dancing and started a series of flexes.

  Hollister turned his back to her again.

  “When will you have her? How long?” Simmons said.

  “Soon. We’re leaving again now.”

  “Just get her. Let me talk to Crystal.”

  Hollister turned around. Crystal grunted, in the middle of a set of push-ups.

  “She’s busy.”

  At this, Crystal hopped up and reached for the phone. Hollister dodged her.

  “Busy doing what?” Simmons said.

  “Putting on makeup.”

  An iron forearm snaked around his neck, and Crystal tried to pry the phone from his hand.

  “Just get the girl, you hear me, Hollister?” Simmons said. “And tell Crystal to make it painful.”

  “Yeah, adios. I’ll let you know.” Hollister jerked his phone hand out of Crystal’s claw and hung it up. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Why didn’t you let me talk to him?”

  “Just let me handle the deals, cool? Which, by the way, isn’t easy with you dancing around like Michael Jackson on a sugar high.”

  Crystal air-punched at him again, and he flinched. She laughed. “You’re a moron.”

  Hollister released a balloon.

  Crystal flopped onto the bed again. When she rolled over to face him, she had the gold coin wedged into her eye socket like a monocle. She saluted and shouted “Hogan!” in a thick German accent. “Who am I?” she said.

  “Knock it off.”

  “Colonel Klink from Hogan’s Heroes.Remember that? Or was it the other guy? The fat one?”

  “Shultz,” Hollister said.

  “What?”

  “Shultz, the fat one. No, it was Klink. He was the one with the monocle.”

  “What’s a monocle?” Crystal said.

  “An eyeglass.”

  “Who cares?”

  “What do you mean, who cares? You asked me.”

  “Moron,” Crystal muttered. “Old man.” Crystal loved the word moron.

  “Let me see the coin.” Hollister reached for it, but Crystal leaned back.

  “Let’s go find the girl,” Hollister said.

  “Nope, the Little Princess can wait. She’ll get hers. I can’t wait to get a fist on that chick. But we got other business first.” Crystal stood and headed for the door.

  “I told you before. Not a mark on her or we don’t get the rest of the money. And what other business are you talking about? Let’s get the girl and be done with it. Get back to LA. All this open space gives me the willies.”

  Crystal held up the coin. “What’s this?”

  “What do you mean? It’s the coin.”

  “Yeah, moron. The coin. One coin. Not two coins. What did the guy at the shop say? You gotta have two if you’re gonna find the Mexican’s gold.”

  “Spanish gold. And he don’t even know if it’s gold. Or if it’s real. Let’s just get the girl and go.”

  “Shut up, sweetie. We’re going to the museum. We’re gonna get the other coin, and we’re gonna be rich. Easy peasy, nice and cheesy.”

  “You think this is some dumb movie? What that guy at the shop told us is just a story. Besides, the museum’s probably closed.”

  “Of course, it’s closed. That’s the point. You want people watching while we steal the other coin? What happens in that rock of a head of yours? Anything?”

  “I do a lot of counting.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Crystal opened the door and Hollister followed the Game Over tattoo out onto the sidewalk.

  “We’ll get the coin, and then we can slap—arou—ound—Pri—in—cess—Pink.” Now Crystal sang to the tune of “Jive Talkin’” with a John Travolta disco side-shuffle.

  “No marks,” Hollister replied.

  “Yeah.” Crystal pounded her fist into her palm. “No marks.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Someone to Watch Over Me

  Jardin de Dios Mission. Arizona. United States. Planet Earth. Universe.

  Paradise liked Paco the moment she saw him. She liked his office, too, filled with the comfortable smell of old books and pipe smoke. Like Spencer Tracy would have smelled in Boy’s Town. But Paco was more intense than Spencer. Living color, not black and white at all. Alive, but more than alive. His was a beautiful calm. Here, in this office, she felt safe for the first time since she’d launched Burt’s car. The break-in at the motel room shook her emotions more than she wanted to admit, and she hadn’t argued when Doc and Father Jake packed her things and brought her to the mission. They’d mentioned her staying here, and though she had no idea what that might look like, she instinctively trusted the brothers.

  Doc stretched his body across a leather couch while Paradise opted for an armchair, hugging her knees to her chest. She’d changed clothes before leaving the Venus, first picking out a black dress and pearls—Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest, excellent hideout look—but switched at the last minute to Marilyn in The Seven Year Itch, capris and matching cotton sateen blouse.

  Paco listened to her story with the same patience that Father Jake had shown back at the diner, nodding but making few comments. Now, silence hugged the room save for the muted puffing sound from Paco’s pipe as he reclined behind his desk.

  At length, he blew a smoke ring, watched it climb and dissipate, then leaned forward and placed his forearms on the oak desk. “I knew him, you know—your dad. He was a good boy. He had it rough. I never blamed him for getting out of town. I’m very sorry you lost him. And even sorrier you didn’t get to know him.” He paused and puffed again. “Now, let me say this—Paradise, Arizona isn’t Los Angeles … or Beverly Hills … or Malibu. We’ll take care of you. You’re safe here at the mission. At least for now.”

  Paradise blinked back unwanted tears. “Thank you.”

  Father Jake leaned against a bookshelf with his arms crossed. “One thing I don’t understand is who got into your motel room? It wasn’t the police. And why the coin? Why not anything else? Who else knows about it?”

  “I’m sorry. I should have kept it in my purse. I didn’t think,” Paradise said.

  “What do you think’s going on, Doc?” Father Jake said.

  Paradise sniffled and raised an eyebrow at Doc. “He’s asking you? I thought you played baseball.”

  “It’s like chess on grass and dirt,” Jake and Doc said in unison.

  Doc shrugged. “You’re right, the police didn’t break into the room. That probably means Paradise’s stepdad put someone on her trail. Luckily she wasn’t there. But, yeah, why the coin? How did they know? It seems like they were looking for something specific, the way they trashed the room. Jake has a good question. Who else knew about it?”

  Paradise toyed with the strap of her white patent sandal as she thought. “My friend Ash was there when I found it, but she wouldn’t say anything to anyone. Eve—my mom—she knew about it. She was surprised he’d kept it all those years. She pretended like she didn’t care, but she’s good at that. I don’t know if she wou
ld have told Burt about it. I doubt it. There was the man at the coin shop …”

  “The coin shop guy, what did he say about the coin when you took it in?” Doc asked.

  “He recognized it. And he told me the story about the treasure. And about your coin, too. He wanted to buy mine, but I said no because it was my father’s. He even gave me an estimate.”

  “And he didn’t say anything else?”

  “Um … Go Dodgers, I think.”

  Doc tossed a baseball in the air and caught it. “Was it a written estimate?”

  “Yes. On a piece of yellow paper. He had very neat handwriting.”

  “Okay. What did you do with it?”

  “I don’t remember. I think I left it on my kitchen counter. Or in a drawer. Why?”

  Another ball toss. “If Burt hired someone to go after you, the first place they would have gone was your apartment. If your room at the Venus was an example of their work, they would have turned over everything, looking for anything they could. An estimate for a coin, especially a valuable one, and recent, would have been a good lead.”

  “You think they went to the coin shop?” Father Jake said.

  “I would have.” Doc glanced at Paradise. The corner of his mouth lifted. “And I’m just a ballplayer. If Burt did hire these guys, we can assume they’re pros. If they found the estimate, then they knew Paradise either had the coin or the cash from selling it. They’d figure there was a chance she might have mentioned where she was heading to the guy at the coin place. Anyway, it’d be worth checking. If the coin guy told them the same story he told Paradise, it would’ve been a fairly good bet she’d come here. Not many motels in town, so it wouldn’t be hard to track her down. The only thing we know for sure is that one way or the other somebody found her room and stole the coin.”

  Paradise rolled her head back and groaned. “I registered under my real name. I was Veronica Lake until then.”

  “Who?” Father Jake asked.

  “An actress. Big in the ’40s. But when I got here, I just wanted to be me. Just for a few days. I don’t know why. I’m so stupid,” Paradise said.

  “No,” Paco said. “You want to belong somewhere. We all do. It’s how we’re made. Don’t feel bad for wanting what you were created to have.”

  “If we could bring the police in …” Father Jake said.

  “That’s not a good idea. At least not yet,” Paco said.

  “I know, but if they could catch the guys … They’ve got the other coin.”

  “Not guys. It’s a man and a woman,” Doc said, still tossing the ball.

  “How do you know that?” Father Jake said.

  “C+H. The lipstick kiss on the mirror. Some kind of bounty hunter lovebirds.”

  “A couple? You think so?” Father Jake said.

  Doc tossed the ball again. Paradise sucked in a breath as he caught it a fraction of an inch from his nose. “Seems like it. The question is, where are they now? Did they leave? What’s their next move?” He sat up. “Paradise, you thought the other coin was in the museum, remember? You said you read it on the Internet?”

  “Uh huh. I saw it on a coin collector’s page. A whole article. The story of the Spanish brothers’ treasure and about the museum.”

  Doc turned to Paco. “They didn’t hesitate to break into the Venus, right? They might go after the museum—try for the other coin. They could find it on the web as easy as anyone else.”

  “That’s true. And if they’re still in town …” Jake said. “I think I’ll go check downstairs. Make sure everything’s locked up tight.” He stood and headed for the office door and the stairs.

  Paradise rested her chin on her knees. “I’ve brought you trouble, and you’ve been so nice to me.”

  “If there’s trouble, it isn’t your fault,” Doc said.

  “He’s right. And we’re happy to help,” Paco said.

  “Doc! Paco! Come down here!” Father Jake’s voice echoed up the adobe walls.

  Paco hit the doorway in four steps. Doc followed with Paradise close behind. Paradise’s heart sank as she rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs. Across the vestibule the museum door stood open, the knob hanging at an unnatural angle.

  “I’m in here,” Father Jake called from the museum’s interior.

  “Doc, wait with Paradise till we know for sure they’re gone,” Paco said as he headed through the broken door.

  “You sure nobody’s here? You didn’t see anyone?” Paco’s muffled voice found its way across the vestibule.

  “They wrecked the place,” Father Jake said. “It’ll take me a week to put this all back together.”

  “These walls are thick. No way we could have heard anything from my office. Only bright spot is they wouldn’t have heard us, either. They wouldn’t know Paradise is here,” Paco said.

  The men came back into the vestibule, and Doc flipped his coin up into the air. Light glinted off it as it fell back to his hand. “They didn’t get what they were looking for.” His eyes found Paradise. “Not the coin and not the fugitive.”

  Father Jake turned toward the thick front doors. “What was that? Did you just hear something?”

  “Yeah … Someone singing the Bee Gees,” Paco said.

  Outside a car door slammed, an engine revved, and a car sped into the night.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Second Most Beautiful Thing

  There are a lot of sunsets. In fact, if you think about it, there’s one happening every second of every day somewhere in the world. The old man eases his body down on jungles, plains, and mountains. He sinks, hissing into rivers, and casts his fading gold over the summer children who laugh and splash in the shallows. He bounces off sheets of ice and sets oceans on fire. The sun dies a hundred, a thousand, a million deaths a day—yet remains a grand and eternally optimistic Romeo, offering his dying breath to lovers and poets around the globe.

  When Doc closed his eyes, he felt his heart beat, and for the first time in years, it beat with purpose. When he opened them, he looked out on the second most beautiful thing in the world, a red sun setting behind a sandlot baseball field.

  The first most beautiful thing, Paradise Jones, sat on a lawn chair four feet away from him in front of his old Airstream trailer.

  “They don’t act it, do they?” Paradise said.

  “Who doesn’t act like what?”

  “Father Jake and Paco. They don’t act like priests.”

  “Paco isn’t a priest; he’s a pastor. Did you know you have a habit of picking up a conversation in the middle of one that never existed before except in your head?”

  She shielded her eyes from the last rays of the falling sun and turned to him.

  He felt his heart thumping hard in his chest, though this time his eyes weren’t closed.

  “I do?” she said. “Is that bad? I wish they’d caught them.”

  “Caught Jake and Paco?”

  “Whoever broke into the museum …”

  Doc nodded. “It might have made things easier.”

  “They’ll find me, won’t they?”

  Doc considered. “No, they won’t. What are priests and pastors supposed to act like?”

  “I don’t know. Calm. Holy. Godlike, I suppose.”

  “You think God’s calm? Tame?” Doc pointed toward the western sky, a riot of yellows and oranges fading to deep purple far above. “I wouldn’t call a God that does that, calm and tame.”

  “God does that?”

  “I think so, don’t you?”

  “Paco ran out into the night like he wanted to tackle somebody.”

  “He probably would have. I wouldn’t get on his bad side.”

  “You believe in him then?”

  “Paco?”

  She rolled her eyes. “God.”

  Doc watched a bird flit overhead. “Yeah. I believe in him.”

  Two perfect, small lines formed between Paradise’s brows. “How? How could you? I mean, if he’s real he took your parents. Th
en baseball. And you love it so much. How can you believe in a God like that?”

  “Maybe when he takes things from us, he brings along something better.”

  “Like what? What could possibly make up for what you’ve lost?”

  Doc looked at her but didn’t answer. If she understood his intent, she gave no indication.

  “I don’t think I could ever believe in him,” she said.

  Doc shrugged. “If he’s out there, and he is who he says he is, then he believes in you.”

  “How can you be sure? That he’s out there?”

  “When we were kids, Paco used to take me and Jake fishing. He was Police Chief Hollis then. Now that he’s a full-time pastor, everyone just calls him Paco because he says he’s not comfortable with titles. He told us stories out there. Miraculous ones. Things that happened right here in Paradise a long time ago. A lot of people around here still talk about it. I think I’ve always believed on some level, but listening to Paco made it real. He never talked about God like some idea. Some theory out of a book, you know? He talked like he knew him, like a friend. About conversations they’d had and things they’d done together.”

  Silence passed. The purple above the orange grew and deepened.

  “Do you always talk to people like this?” Paradise asked.

  “Never. Except maybe Jake.”

  “Really? I’m not sure what to think about that.”

  Doc shrugged. “Do you? Talk to people like this?”

  “No. Well, maybe Ash.” Paradise pointed to the ball field. “You were good out there today.”

  Doc glanced down at his sweat-stained T-shirt and sweats. “You watched? I didn’t think you liked baseball.”

  “It’s like chess on grass and dirt. You played hard.”

  “Yeah, well, go big or go home, you know?”

  Paradise smiled. “I like that,” she said. “Go big or go home.”

  “Yeah? That’s how I see things. I mean, if you’re gonna do something, give it everything you got.” He looked out over the ball field again. “So you were watching, huh?”

  Paradise looked at him and nodded. “What else was I supposed to do? You guys have me locked away in a trailer like the man in the iron mask.”