Truck Stop Jesus

by Storm, Buck

  “Man in the Iron Mask, 1939. Louis Hayward and Joan Bennett. How do you know I was good?”

  “You hit the ball when the guy threw it at you. That’s good, right?”

  Doc laughed. “I guess that’s the idea.”

  “Do you miss it? Playing professionally?” she said.

  “Every day, all day. It’s the greatest game in the world. I fit there. It was home.”

  “A home where people throw things at you?”

  He laughed again. “What about you? Is it hard to be away from Los Angeles?”

  “If I get the part, it’ll be everything I’ve ever worked for. I’ll be a star. I’ve dreamed of it my whole life.”

  Apprehension stirred. “I’m sure you’ll be a star whether you get the part or not.”

  “It’s different, though, isn’t it? You love baseball for baseball. For what it is.”

  “You don’t love acting for acting?”

  Paradise crossed her legs and looked out at the sky. “I don’t know. It’s just different. It’s the whole thing. The life, the clothes, the happiness—everyone knowing you and loving you. It’s not just the acting.”

  “I play ball out here on a dirt lot. No crowds, no money, no fame. Just baseball because I love it. But I won’t lie. I miss the Majors.”

  “It would be wonderful to have something like that. I want to love acting like that. I think I did before—maybe. Everything is so strange since my father died. Like it’s all a dream. And here I am, camping in the middle of Arizona, talking to you. Burt’s car, someone chasing me, it’s hard to know how to feel.”

  Doc leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “It’s not actually camping. I live here, you know.”

  “As close as I’ve ever come. And now I’ve kicked you out.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ve bunked with Jake before. And I like having you here. Can I ask you something?”

  “I suppose, since I’m camping in your camper.”

  “Trailer. What do you want?”

  She turned sharp eyes on him. “Why do you ask that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m curious. Are you happy?”

  “I’ll be happy someday. Soon, if I get the part. Right now, I don’t have time.”

  “I know what that’s like. I felt it all the time working my way up to the Majors. But I’m happy right now. Right here, watching this sunset. Maybe you could be, too.”

  Paradise turned to the desert and the lights of the homes in the valley. “I feel bad for Father Jake. It meant a lot to him, didn’t it? Solving the puzzle? The coins?”

  “Sure, but he’ll live.”

  She turned back. Her lips parted, and she started to speak but stopped.

  “What?” Doc said.

  “Nothing.”

  It’s enough. Just this. Sitting with this girl out here in the night.

  The sky was more purple than orange now. Stars began to poke through the darkest parts.

  Paradise sighed and looked up at them. “If he had the coins, what then? If there was a treasure, what would he do with it?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on what it was, I guess. Why?”

  “I wish there was a way to get the coin back.”

  “It’s not that big of a deal. And it’s not your fault.”

  A single tear slipped down her cheek, and Doc died a little. “Hey, really, it’s not your fault.”

  “It was all I had left of my father. All I had left of anybody. Did you know he had an article about me hanging on his wall? I don’t know why that makes me so mad. Sometimes I want to hit him. And sometimes I wish I could hug him. It’s all so confusing.”

  “I’m sorry I said that … about it not being a big deal. I didn’t realize. I didn’t think.”

  Paradise didn’t answer. “Why are you helping me?” she said at last.

  What could he say? That two days ago she’d walked into Shorty’s and the world stopped? That in the hours that followed he’d found a purpose to get up in the morning and breathe in and out?

  “Because you need it.” Lame. “And you’re worth it.” Better, but still lame.

  “How do you know? You don’t even know me.”

  “You asked for help. That’s enough.”

  “Are you sure it’s not because you’re in love with Lana Turner?”

  Blood crept up his neck, and Doc silently thanked God for the gathering darkness. “You’re you. That’s enough.”

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Which one? It’s hard to keep track.”

  “Why do they call you Doc? After a baseball player?”

  “It’s not anything that cool. Doc’s my real name.”

  She laughed. A welcome relief from the tension. “You mean like on-your-birth-certificate real name?”

  “Yup.”

  “But why?”

  “My mom was only in labor for thirteen minutes. It happened so fast, and she was so happy about it, she named me after the guy who delivered me, Doc Longston, right there on the spot.”

  “So she named you after the doctor? What if he’d been Horace? Or Percival?”

  “Doc wasn’t a doctor. He was the mailman. I was born on a bench in the post office about half a mile from here. But he was nicknamed after Doc Crandall, a guy who pitched for the Giants. So it kind of works out for me in the end.”

  Paradise crossed her arms and bit her lower lip as if trying to decide whether to believe him.

  “Scout’s honor,” he said.

  “People who tell the truth never say ‘scout’s honor.’”

  “Okay, that’s true, but I wouldn’t kid you.”

  “You were a Boy Scout?”

  “Nope. Were you?”

  “What would you do if you had the answer? To the treasure puzzle? Would you try to find it?”

  Doc scratched the back of his head and thought. “I guess if we found the other coin then yes, I’d be curious to see if it led to anything. Doesn’t matter now. It’s gone. I doubt whatever bounty hunters are after you are gonna give it up anytime soon. Right now, the important thing is keeping you out of sight. You’re more important than some coin.”

  Paradise scanned the empty horizon. “Not much chance they’d be looking in a dilapidated camper on the edge of nowhere.”

  “Trailer. Airstream. It’s restored, well, kind of restored. Not dilapidated. And home is where the heart is. With a great collection of classic movies included at no extra charge.”

  “Still, I feel bad chasing you out of your tin can.”

  “The bunks at the mission aren’t bad. Like I said, I’m happy to have you here.”

  Her face softened. She sat up and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse, and Doc’s heart went to his throat.

  “Relax, Junior. It’s not what you think,” she said.

  Turning on her chair, she dropped the fabric of her blouse a few inches revealing the back of a very beautiful shoulder. “Take a look.”

  Two dark circles. He moved closer for a better look, and she leaned into the light that spilled through the trailer window. There—side-by-side—two circles, both a little bigger than silver dollars. The detailed front and back of a Dos Escudo coin tattooed onto smooth skin.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  God and Old Men

  Paradise used the phone in Doc’s trailer to call Ash. A rotary. She loved it.

  Ash’s Boston-ese cracked across the line, sounding like home. “Where are you?”

  “I’m on the lam, doll.” Paradise offered the Cagney.

  A sigh came through the phone. “When are you?”

  Paradise gave herself a once-over in the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door. “Rita Hayworth, Affair in Trinidad, 1952.”

  “You’re killing me.”

  “You’ll survive. I’ve made some friends.”

  “Friends? What kind of friends?”

  “A preacher, a cowboy priest, and a broken baseball player. Nice friends.”

  �
��Are we talking about a movie again?”

  “Nope. They’re real flesh-and-blood friends. I think the baseball player’s a little in love with me.”

  “Listen, Eve called me.”

  “Eve? Why?”

  “She’s worried about you, for one. We all are. She told me Burt sent a couple of real pieces of work after you. Some sort of P.I. bounty hunter and his lunatic wife. She used to be a cage fighter, if you can believe it. You need to be careful, Paradise. Eve wants you to call her.”

  Paradise paused, surprised to find that the thought of calling Eve appealed to a part of her. For a fleeting instant, she became five years old again. “She’ll spill anything I tell her to Burt. I can’t talk to her.”

  “What if they find you? I’m really worried. I’m afraid you’ll get hurt. The police are still looking, too. Eve said they think you might go to the house in Cabo. They’re watching the border and everything. Are you going to Mexico?”

  “Can’t say, doll, but they’ll never take me alive, see.”

  “Be serious.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m hiding someplace no one can find me.”

  “Wait … Back up. Did you say the ballplayer’s in love with you?”

  “Like a lovesick puppy. It’s kind of sad.”

  “What’s he look like? Handsome? Do you like him?”

  “I did mention he’s a washed-up baseball player, right? From the middle of nowhere? Who lives in a camper? I mean, trailer?”

  “Handsome?”

  “I suppose. In a washed-up ballplayer sort of way. Horrible timing. Not interested.”

  “You’re lying. You like him. I know you. I can tell.”

  “I have a career to think of. And who knows? I might get that part. I don’t have time for that sort of thing, and if I did it wouldn’t be here and it wouldn’t be with him. I just want to get back to LA. Back to normal.”

  “Don’t have time for what sort of thing?”

  “The romance sort of thing.”

  “Uh huh. There’s always time for love, chickie. I’m just saying keep your options open. And LA isn’t one of them at the moment, by the way. Why wouldn’t it be him? You too good for us little people now that you’re on the cusp of stardom? Baseball players are cute. Have you seen them in those uniforms?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. To be honest, he’s probably too good for me. And even so, running around after an aspiring actress isn’t fair to anybody. Trust me, he’s not the LA type.”

  “You’ve decided all this for him or does he get any say in the matter?”

  “I’m not interested. Can we please drop it? Okay?”

  “Okay. Just don’t tell me he played for Boston.”

  “No, the Red Sox.”

  “I may have to kill you. You understand that, don’t you?”

  A sharp knock sounded on the trailer door.

  The bounty hunters? Her heart skipped until she saw Doc’s head through the window.

  “I have to go, Ash. The baseball player’s at the door.”

  “He played for the Red Sox. Marry him right now, do you hear me?”

  “No marriage. Just a hot date with two three-hundred-year-old brothers.”

  “You’re really weird, you know that?”

  “Bye, doll. Call you soon.” Paradise hung up and swung the trailer door open.

  Doc gave a low whistle.

  “Rita Hayworth,” she said.

  “Nope. Paradise Jones.”

  Her effort to ignore the compliment crumbled beneath the weight of her smile. “At ease, soldier. What’s the word from project headquarters?”

  “Getting close. C’mon, you don’t want to miss history, do you?”

  She didn’t take the hand he offered but followed a step behind.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Doc said as they walked.

  “Curiosity killed the cat.”

  “When did you get the tattoo?”

  “You’d make a lousy cat.”

  “More of a dog guy, anyway.”

  “Yes, you would be. Back in Los Angeles. It made me feel closer to my dad, I think. It was a strange time for me.”

  Doc glanced back over his shoulder. “I get that. It’s hard to lose someone, especially parents.”

  “And you lost both of yours.”

  “I had Jake. That helped.”

  “But no tattoos for you.” A statement rather than a question.

  Doc paused a beat. “Not all tattoos are on the outside.”

  He led her through the back door of the mission, up another staircase and down a hallway to a large, bright room. Paco and Father Jake hovered over a massive wood table that dominated the space. Papers, both whole and crumpled, covered with notes and equations littered its surface and spilled onto the floor. An old-fashioned blackboard mounted on wheels stood next to the table, the words Gato Negro chalked on its center in clean, block letters. White lines radiated from the cipher-key in all directions, terminating at various letters and words, all of them either punctuated with question marks or crossed out with hard scribbles.

  “Look at those two,” Doc said. “They’re having the time of their lives.”

  “C’mon, Doc. Give us a hand here.” Father Jake crumpled another sheet of paper and tossed it toward a corner trash can, missing by a full foot.

  “And ruin it for you? Nah,” Doc said.

  “Forget it, Jake. We’re close. Let him miss the fun. He can cry about it later,” Paco said.

  “Yeah,” Doc said. “I’ll cry later.”

  Father Jake’s eyes narrowed. “There something you want to tell us, Doc?”

  “Not that I can think of at the moment.” Doc dropped onto a couch against the wall and stretched out with both hands behind his head. “But I think you should give Paradise a huge thanks for her permanent preservation effort.”

  “The only tattoo I’ve ever been happy to see,” Paco said.

  “I’ll second that. Paradise, you’re the woman of the hour,” Father Jake added.

  “Wait, Jake, look at this!” Paco sucked in a breath and began writing something. Father Jake pressed close to see over his shoulder.

  Sweat beaded on Paco’s forehead. “Here! What if this was a zero? Not an O?”

  Father Jake nodded. “How could we have missed that? You could be right.” He picked up a pen and added to Paco’s page. “That would make this a … wait … no … here.” More writing.

  At length, he finished, and both men stepped back, staring at the page.

  “What?” Paradise asked. “Did you find an answer?”

  “That has to be it,” Paco said.

  Jake put a long arm around the older man’s shoulder. “No doubt. I can’t believe it. After almost three hundred years. The brothers really did it.”

  “What does it say?” Paradise strained to see across the wide table.

  Paco turned the paper toward her. “Mission Del Dia Perdido. It must be a church.”

  To Paradise, this elicited more questions than answers. “But why? What’s there? Where is it?”

  Father Jake reached across the table, pulled an open laptop in front of him and began typing. “Wait, here—”

  “Dia Perdido,” Doc said. “It’s a town in Mexico. The Yucatan—jungle. And, yes, the church is still there. Only now it’s a children’s home run by a mission group out of Seattle.”

  Paco looked confused. “How did you …”

  “I knew it.” Father Jake smacked a hard palm on the table. “That smug look of yours. Why didn’t you tell us you already figured it out?” His voice was hard, though he didn’t look altogether displeased. Maybe even a little proud.

  Doc sat up, dropping his feet to the floor. “You were having too much fun. Am I wrong, Paradise?”

  “You did look like you were enjoying yourself,” Paradise said.

  Doc’s teeth shone white against his tan. His eyes, almost black, crinkled at the edges. “Just breathe in that sense of accomplishment! How could I rob
you of that?”

  “Shut up,” Father Jake said.

  Paco laughed. “Doc’s right. I enjoyed figuring the thing out. So did you, Jake. But now that we have an answer, what do we do with it?”

  “We could publish it. It’s just the name of a church, but even that’s a historical find,” Father Jake said.

  “Look,” said Doc. “What we need to do is obvious. There’s a chance whatever they were trying to hide might still be there. Or found a long time ago. But I’m thinking those brothers were smart and didn’t put all their eggs in one basket. The cipher wasn’t hard to figure, and it might only be the first step. Whether there’s something hidden or another piece of the puzzle, I say we go look.”

  “Go look?” Paradise said. “To Mexico?”

  “Why not? We’ve gotten this far with it. I want to see the end of the story. These guys went to a lot of trouble to hide something.”

  Paco dropped into a chair and scratched his chin. “Of course, Jake and I couldn’t go, we’re needed here. But you, Doc …” He leaned back and studied the ceiling, then eyed Doc. “You could go. Your story, remember? Maybe God’s handing you a pen.” His gaze found Paradise from beneath his dark brows. “And you, young lady. You’re going, too.”

  Did he just say that?

  “Me? No, I have to get back to Los Angeles. I have things to do there. I have my life waiting for me,” Paradise said.

  Paco nodded. “And yet here you are, hiding out in a camper in Arizona. Seems to me that Los Angeles isn’t exactly waiting with open arms.”

  “It’s a trailer. And Ash says the same thing about LA.”

  “So what do you say?” The excitement of the chase glinted in Paco’s eyes.

  Paradise tried hard to ignore the curiosity flooding her from head to toe. Could her father’s coin really mean something? I can’t go, can I? But it would be nice to see where the coins led. After all, he’d kept it all that time. Maybe this was something she could do for him. Kind of a goodbye tribute. And she already felt a connection with these men. Maybe Gregory Jones unwittingly left her more than a gold coin the day his soul fled the planet.

  Her brain and heart played tug of war. On one hand Los Angeles, Gone with the Wind, and all her dreams. On the other, Ash and Paco had a point. Los Angeles meant creepy Burt and the police.