California Girl

by T. Jefferson Parker

  The pains in David’s stomach were coming faster now, like contractions for birth.

  He felt a drop of sweat roll off his nose but couldn’t get a hand free in time to stop it. Watched it plop onto the leg of his Haggar knits.

  Whitbrend began slowly and softly. His oratorical voice hardly stronger than his speaking voice. At first it seemed too low, so David found himself having to pay extra attention. Wondered why Whitbrend didn’t just get a little closer to the mike. Then David realized the whole congregation was listening closely.

  Whitbrend told about growing up in Oregon. In a godless family. No church, no prayer, no belief. He was a mean-tempered boy. Utterly selfish. When he was seventeen he fell “helplessly” in love with a girl. All he felt in his heart was love for her and for everything around him. Took her to the homecoming dance, the Sadie Hawkins dance, and the junior prom. On the way home from the prom a car ran a stop sign and crashed into them. He had lain trapped in the upturned car, caught in metal and vinyl under her bleeding, unmoving body, praying to the God he never knew to save her life. He told God he would do anything asked of him if He would spare her life.

  Whitbrend looked down at the pulpit for a moment. It was so quiet David could hear the cars on faraway Beach Boulevard. Could hear the squirting and sloshing inside his own stomach.

  Whitbrend stepped away from the pulpit, then back.

  She was dead when the police got there, he said. They lifted her off him and took him to a hospital. He suffered a broken wrist and minor cuts. All that night he stayed in the hospital for observation, and he prayed to the God he never knew that when he awakened this would all be a bad dream. He squeezed his eyes and arched his back and trembled on his heels and he ground his teeth in prayer. Over and over and over. When he awakened his father was standing over the bed with a broken tooth in his hand.

  The broken tooth, thought David. The cap just slightly whiter than the other teeth. A reminder of faith for anyone who had heard this story.

  Brilliant.

  Whitbrend looked down at the pulpit again. David admired this, too. What at first had seemed evasive now seemed humble. Darren Whitbrend was not asking the congregation to bear his burden. He was showing them how it was done. Alone. Through the making of scars. Through the capping of teeth broken by prayer.

  The young minister looked out at the congregation.

  He said that after the funeral he made the God he’d never known an offer.

  “I offered my life and flesh and soul to Him,” said Whitbrend, “if He would do one thing. That night I took the revolver from my father’s drawer.”

  He walked outside and down by the river. He popped the cylinder and removed all six cartridges. Threw one into the water. It didn’t make a sound. Reloaded the other five and spun the cylinder hard, once. He closed it. And told the God he’d never known to save him only if he could know Him. And to take him if he could not. Then he sat down and pulled the trigger.

  David heard the blood surging in his ears. Heard the dread and surprise ripple through his chapel, then the twitter of realization.

  “And I ask all of you,” said Whitbrend, “to let me share Him with you.”

  Whitbrend opened his arms to the believers and smiled. David could see the cap from here. Almost took his breath away.

  David’s fever broke halfway through the closing prayer. While Whitbrend talked softly about peace beyond understanding, the tormented muscles of David’s stomach relaxed and the ache departed from his bones. The demons in his mind were quiet. He felt his strength begin to return, the strength to love and care and offer. He knew he would soon have a partner to help him guide the future of this congregation. God would help him through this other thing. Please, God, help me through this. It’s the only thing I’ve ever asked that’s all for me.

  The closing hymn was a thundering, joyful roar of the spirit.

  THAT NIGHT they all had dinner at Max and Monika’s home in the orange grove in Tustin. David and Barbara and the kids, Nick and Katy and theirs, Andy and Teresa.

  David sat at one end of the long table, his father at the other. Everyone held hands while David said grace. He had never said a grace of more than one minute in his life but this night David took almost five. Wandered a little, because he hadn’t thought about it ahead of time. Mentioned every person at the table. And Clay. Simple thanks, but so much to be thankful for.

  When he opened his eyes David looked at every person and thought a secret prayer that they would all be around this table, just like this, many times in the years ahead.

  NICK LISTENED to the grace. One hand in Katy’s and one in Stevie’s. Opened one eye and spied up and down the table. Been doing that since he was a kid, and wouldn’t you know it, he caught Willie pulling the same stunt. Willie shut his eye and Nick almost smiled.

  But he shared David’s thankfulness and felt the grace of God hovering around them. It was a good family. Even without Clay it was still good. Everybody had their problems but that was human nature. That was life.

  Nick paid extra attention at the “watch over us” part. Really tried to make his heart open up and let God know he was needing something. He and Lobdell would be in Mexico by this time tomorrow. Katy’s hand squeezed his hard. Her little brother had been beaten and robbed down there when Katy was nineteen and she’d never traveled there again. Hated the place. Hated that Nick had to go. But understood.

  When he opened his eyes Nick looked again at every person and believed in his uneasy heart that this was the last time they would all be together.

  ANDY LET David’s words fall down on him like a warm rain. He didn’t personally think that God heard or responded to prayers, but who really knew? It was nice to believe for a minute or two. He felt Teresa’s hand and Wendy’s hand. Both soft and warm, one grown and one growing. He thought of the way the years run through everyone like a big river. Of the way we hang on to our little crafts and try to get to wherever it is we think we’re going. Sometimes flail and cough and spit up the river water, too. How some get a long journey and some get what Clay and Janelle got and some don’t even get that much. Which meant the people still here, still on the river, really should be thankful for it.

  When he opened his eyes Andy looked at every person at the table and knew he was lucky to be there among them.

  30

  NICK STEERED THE RED ROCKET south on I-5 while Lobdell smoked a cigarette and looked out at the new nuclear power plant at San Onofre.

  The Country Squire had two surfboards strapped to the top and food and water and camping gear in the back. Nick and Lobdell had tried to dress more like surfers than cops but Nick figured they just looked like cops in sandals. They couldn’t grow out their hair much in three days. Nick hadn’t shaved and Lobdell said he hadn’t used any Vitalis. Nick almost smiled when he first saw Lucky’s small white feet.

  “Look at that,” said Lobdell.

  There was a Camp Pendleton Marine Corps helicopter low over the water on exercise, dangling a single soldier by a long rope, sea spray flying, blades flashing in the sun. Eighteen thousand dead, thought Nick. Clay killed near a village. Body at Angel’s Lawn now but like he was never here. What bothered Nick wasn’t that people died but that they were forgotten. Made him shudder if he thought about it so he didn’t. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling he’d had during David’s prayer last night.

  In San Ysidro they got Oscar Padilla car insurance and lunch. Lobdell wanted Sambo’s for the last American food they’d get for a day or two. Maybe longer. Couldn’t find one, though, so they settled on Denny’s. Fine with Nick, who looked out the darkened windows at the bustling border town. Kept an eye on the Country Squire. Quite a load of valuables hidden down in it, under all the surf and camp gear. A short man bent by a shoulderload of serapes shuffled across the parking lot.

  Once across Nick got into the TJ way of driving. Plenty of horn work and don’t slow down or move over unless you have to. They honked and lurched through downtow
n, past the shopwindows of dresses and watches and jewelry and drawn chickens hanging with the feet still on. A taxi zoomed by on their right, almost picked off a guy jumping onto the curb. Nick watched an ancient Chevrolet pass with a rooftop loudspeaker blaring out the virtues of Fanta soft drink.

  “Even smells different down here,” said Lobdell. Told Nick about this bar named the Blue Fox, had live donkey shows. Never been to one and had no interest but knew some guys who had.

  Then up the grade out of Tijuana, past the shantytowns in the hills, past the bullring and the hospitals for cancer cures to the coast road overlooking the brown rock cliffs and the deep roiling sea.

  Nick looked out at the trash fires burning and the “No Basura” signs. A pack of skinny, big-eared dogs trotted along through the fires. Nick slowed for two Tijuana cop cars off to the right, lights flashing, four tan-uniformed cops standing over a body in the gutter. Around the bend a mountain of worn-out tires exhaled a tornado of black smoke that rose and spread out over the ocean in the faint offshore breeze.

  “When the hippies complain about America, I tell ’em to come down here and look at this place,” said Lobdell.

  Nick watched a big rig barrel down the highway toward them, hoped the guy’s brakes were decent. Eased the Red Rocket as far to the right as he could but the truck kept drifting over. No shoulder. A cliff to the right. Nick felt the gravel under his right-side tires. His forearms locked and his car was swallowed by shadow, steel rushing past the windows, slam of wind and diesel roar, and Nick could feel how really light the Country Squire was, could feel it skittering on the gravel, wondered if the surfboards were about to tear off. Then a burst of blue sky and brown cliff as the curve of asphalt carried him into the next pass.

  “Close,” said Lobdell.

  “Still got my side mirror,” said Nick, hands shaking and stomach rock hard.

  “Best country in the world for your car to break down,” said Lobdell. “They can fix anything with anything.”

  MEXICO STATE Highway 1 led south through La Gloria and Costa Azul. Then Rosarito, Popotla, and Punta Descanso. El Morro and Santa Martha. Santini Las Gaviotas and Puerto Nuevo.

  “Been there for lobster?” asked Lobdell.

  “Katy won’t come down here,” said Nick.

  “Two-fifty for a full dinner. Shot of tequila, complimentary. Little place called Chela. You get to pick the lobster you want. Good bugs.”

  They pulled over in La Fonda, just a few miles north of Ensenada.

  “Cortazar said here, because there’s tourists,” said Lobdell. “But we’re still away from Ensenada. He said park down by the hotel.”

  Nick got out and stretched his legs. Imagined that truck bearing down on them again. Cooler here than in Orange County. Stiff breeze and the water crashing below. Vendors with pottery and silver and piñatas. Elvis and Rolling Stones and Beatles posters lacquered onto plywood. A boy selling small shellacked sand sharks on strings. Nick got two for Willie and Stevie. Seashell necklace for Katherine, really nice. Silver butterfly on a chain for Katy. Chiclets for everyone.

  “Come on, tourist,” said Lobdell. “Cortazar is here.”

  They drove down a dirt road behind a dusty brown Chevy. Then up a hillside. Cortazar was an Ensenada cop Lobdell knew from years ago. They’d met working a car theft ring in fifty-five. It was a two-country operation, real pros, but OCSD and Cortazar’s state police busted the ring on its ass and everybody came out looking good. Lucky and Cortazar stayed in touch. Cortazar moved to Ensenada policía municipal and helped Lucky get a gringo rape fugitive back stateside in nineteen-sixty. Off-the-record kind of thing, because the United States–Mexico extradition treaty was tough to work with. Friends were the only way things got done down here and the Mexicans said the same thing about the Estados Unidos. Lucky had reciprocated two years later up in O.C. on a kidnap case. Later helped Cortazar’s boy get a car wash job in Orange County, get good papeles and into a junior college. Kid was managing five car washes now, owned a home in Santa Ana.

  The Chevy climbed a gentle rise, then took a sandy right turn and stopped. Nick followed and got out. Stood on the bluff top in the middle of the dead brown grass. Ocean across the highway, no clouds in the October sky. Burnt smell in the air.

  Cortazar was dark and heavy. Mustache, nice smile, dark dome of head beaded with sweat. Big revolver on a thick belt, pants too big, cuffs dragging in the sand as he followed Lobdell to the back of the Red Rocket. His partner was Marcello. Young and thin and hardly spoke.

  Nick swung open the door, flipped up the two small seats Willie and Stevie loved to use. Even with plenty of room up with Katherine, they’d sit back there and make faces at the motorists until Nick made them crawl back over and sit still and act like human beings. He missed the kids extra now, out here in the middle of this eternally burning nowhere.

  Nick let Lobdell pull up the first burlap bag. Lobdell lifted it and looked around quickly. Cortazar chuckled but Marcello didn’t. Lobdell untied the top, took the bottom and emptied it onto one of the little red vinyl seats. Two .22 automatic handguns, six .38 revolvers, two .357 magnum revolvers, and four .45 autos.

  Cortazar whistled. Marcello stared.

  Nick and Lobdell had gotten them out of the property room. It was a verbal transaction, “approved” but deniable. The weapons had been confiscated from criminals. Not material to any pending cases. Not salable. Not useful. These would be listed as destroyed. One hundred seventy-four more where they came from and more coming every week. Most of them ended up in the ocean. Lobdell had said that these were destined for “undersupplied Mexican law enforcement personnel” in return for “information on an American beauty queen killer now residing out-of-country.” He told the property room sergeant they had enough on the guy to send him to the gas chamber twice. The property room sergeant had helped load them into Nick’s take-home. The truth was the Mexican cops would keep most of them for themselves because the cops in Mexico had trouble getting permits for personal firearms. And they could always use a good throw-down gun. Made Nick think of the Mexico charity runs that David’s church always made.

  Nick had felt like a gunrunner bagging the weapons, then transferring the heavy, bulging bags into the family wagon under the bright lights of his garage last night. Katy had helped. And said for heaven’s sake don’t scratch my car and please be careful down there, there’s no way I can raise these kids alone. It was late after the dinner at David and Barb’s. The kids were asleep when Nick and Katy were done loading in the rifles and Katy switched off the garage light and pushed him onto the front seat of the Red Rocket and made love to him. Wouldn’t let him up until she showed him how she felt. Cried when it was over, just a little. Said please be really careful down there ’cause if you don’t come back I’ll wanna die but won’t be able to. Nick still couldn’t figure what had gotten into Katy since the Orange Sunshine extravaganza but he liked it. Miraculous, like they were eighteen again.

  The second bag contained ammunition. It was good factory stuff, new and boxed. Courtesy of OCSD, said Lobdell as Cortazar smiled and nodded.

  The rifles and shotguns were under the folded backseats. Nick pulled out the cases one at a time and handed them to Lucky. A Remington 12-gauge automatic, a Winchester 12-gauge pump, two Marlin .22 automatics, two old Springfields, and a nice bolt-action .30-06 with a custom stock and a good Weaver scope. And two surplus ammunition boxes, incredibly heavy as Nick yanked them up off the floorboards and carried them to the rear of the wagon.

  “For ducks, coyotes, and deer,” said Lobdell.

  “But of course,” said Cortazar with a chipper grin.

  Marcello smiled slightly and Nick looked down into the rear bed of the Red Rocket and the twenty-one firearms and ammunition that lay there in the bright Baja sun.

  “We can use these,” said Cortazar.

  “You got them,” said Lobdell.

  “We can use Bonnett,” said Nick.

  “You’ll get him,” said Cort
azar. “He will never remove another head.”

  THEY BACKTRACKED to Rosarito and spent the night at the big hotel. They’d meet Cortazar the next morning and go get Bonnett. Cortazar didn’t say exactly how. But he didn’t want Bonnett’s people making two gringo cops in Ensenada. At the hotel they just looked like a couple of surfers down for the waves.

  Kind of, thought Nick. They ate in the hotel dining room. Quiet on a Monday in fall. Nice view of the long flat beach. Horses and riders up and down the sand. Waves small and no surfers out. A gang of vultures and a gang of seagulls battled over a large black lump that had washed up. Seagulls seemed to be winning until the incoming tide rolled it loose and pulled it away.

  Lobdell went to his room and Nick stayed in the cantina. He sipped a couple of shots of good tequila recommended by the bartender. Nick thought about Katy and the kids, then Clay, then Sharon. Couldn’t shake the feeling that the family would never be together again like the night before. Worried about David. Pale and quiet and peaceful like someone going into shock.

  NEITHER NICK nor Lobdell could sleep long so they drank coffee, had breakfast, and waited for Cortazar. The Ensenada cop said there was no reason to do this early. In Mexico good things never happen early. No, go late and be relaxed.

  Just before noon Cortazar’s beaten Chevy appeared behind the cantina. Cortazar waved. Marcello sat beside him, thin as a switchblade. Behind the Chevy was a low-slung black Mercury with big rust spots and mismatched wheel covers. Four more men, staring straight ahead like you might overlook them. Nick looked at each face, notched them into memory.

  He fell in behind the Mercury and picked up Highway 1 south. Cortazar had explained that Bonnett would talk to him because the men in the Mercury had vouched for him. The men were not cops. They were marijuana businessmen from Nayarit. “Friends” of Bonnett. Actually, they were cops, it was just that Bonnett didn’t know this. The purpose of this meeting was for Cortazar to present himself to Bonnett as an agreeable Ensenada policeman eager to discuss a private airstrip owned by business-minded friends. Marcello was with him to establish Cortazar’s “seriousness.” Cortazar said that the six cops would control the situation and return to Nick and Lobdell with a handcuffed Señor Bonnett. Simple.