The Big Law (1998)

by Chuck Logan

Travis smiled, displaying perfect California teeth. A tiny stud twinkled in his left ear, and his styled hair had been irradiated to the color of ash by the sun.

  "Inspector Joe Travis, pleased to meet you," he said, holding out a brown muscular hand. Danny saw a strap when the collar of Travis's coat shifted. Wearing a gun in a shoulder holster.

  "Danny Storey," said Danny, shaking confidently.

  "Prove it," challenged Travis, tightening his grip.

  Danny froze, explored Travis's merry prankster smile and resolved to show no fear. "Hey, what is this?" he demanded.

  "Ground zero orientation. Survival lesson number one coming up—where is the center of gravity in your new world?"

  Danny studied this young, assured, armed weight lifter. Caught the drift. "You are the center of gravity."

  "Good," said Travis. "You feel the slightest vibration, the tiniest temblor, you get on the horn to Travis. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  "Hell, pardner." Travis slapped him on the back. "This is going to go off slicker than whale shit."

  They were walking out of the terminal toward the parking lot. Danny asked, "You're from the West, right?"

  "Snowflake, Arizona."

  Danny took a Power Bar from his pocket and tore off the wrapper. Made a joke. "Are there any marshals from, say, the Midwest or East?"

  Travis's hand shot out and intercepted the energy bar wrapper. "Gotta watch that out here. You can't litter or smoke anywhere anymore. Not even beer joints. You drop a butt or a wrapper anywhere outside and it's a two-hundreddollar fine."

  "Jesus," said Danny, as he devoured the Power Bar.

  "Fine his ass out here, too, they catch him littering in public. You're in California, man," quipped Travis. After several steps, he asked, "Now, what were you saying?"

  Danny shook his head. He had just discovered how wonderful the blasé air tasted. Under luminous clouds he strolled through an open-air greenhouse. "When's the last time it snowed here?"

  "Oh, that's good, I like that."

  Travis led him to a mud-spattered Chevy pickup. Under the thick coat of dirt it might have once been maroon. New tires, though. The box was piled full of sawhorses, scaffolding and several large plywood, pad-locked boxes.

  They got in, Travis turned it over and the engine purred. "Like the ad says. Like a rock." He wheeled from the lot into traffic and onto a freeway. A small portable cooler sat on the seat between them. Travis popped it open and took out a can of diet Coke. "Help yourself," he said.

  Danny selected a Sprite and leaned back while Travis dodged through lanes of congested traffic. They passed an orange Kharmann Ghia, a mustard Volvo, an eggshell blue Saab; makes and colors more exotic and expensive than Danny was used to seeing on Minnesota highways.

  "Trying to beat the rush to the hill," Travis explained. "All this around here is Silicon Valley. Right over there." He swung his pop can at a jungle of vegetation and buildings. "That's Cupertino, where Steve Jobs did his thing. You into computers?"

  "Sure," said Danny.

  "Only way to go. Everywhere you look it's Startup City, people out in their garages working on the next software coup so they can be bought out by MicroSquash.

  "Problem is, a lot of the gearheads work here but live with the potheads, over the hill in Santa Cruz. And there's only one road over the mountains. Highway seventeen. Accurately nicknamed the Highway of Death."

  Travis wasn't exaggerating. The tortured road snaked through cuts in the hills. A steel guardrail fortified the center line. There was no shoulder. And no room to escape between the rail and the stark rock, both of which were scarred with auto paint. Tiny galaxies of shattered glass sprinkled the edge of the pavement.

  "See what I mean," admonished Travis. "I was you, I'd stay put on the other side of this damn mountain."

  Crossing the peak, Travis identified where the San Andreas fault came through. Then they started to descend into the Pajaro Valley. Danny had a contact high—hot metal, gasoline, cooked rubber, rain-plump vegetation, all marinated in the delicious air.

  Travis interrupted his travelogue. "Hey, you're a college graduate, right?"

  Figuring he was being tested, Danny responded, "Nah, I went a few years at Wayne State in Detroit."

  "No. I mean really. You graduated."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah."

  "University of Minnesota. Journalism."

  Travis grinned. "I've handled twenty-three people,

  counting dependents, in WITSEC. You're my first college graduate. Also the first one who had a workable plan for their future. I'm fucking amazed."

  They were winding through rolling foothills, and soon the land broadened out. The air thickened, spongy with mist. There were orchards, fields, and more swarthy people in jeans and straw Stetsons. Mexicans. Mexicans with muddy boots. The Pajaro was soggy this season. Travis stopped for a red light and then put on his left turn signal.

  "This is Scotts Valley. I know a guy here. We're going to get you a haircut."

  Not suggesting. De facto. Danny shrugged. They pulled off in front of a rundown strip mall of storefronts. One had a crude barber pole painted on the plate glass. Inside there were two chairs, both empty. A short Mexican guy in a white smock was sweeping the floor. A quick smile creased his brown face when he saw Travis.

  "Buenos días, hair ball," said Travis. "Those papers come through yet?"

  "Hey, Travis. Good, man. Finally got it."

  They shook hands ritually, locking thumbs, cupping fingers, then clasping both hands.

  "Great. Ah, this is a friend of mine. Danny Storey. Meet Hector Sanchez."

  Danny took the guy's hand. After a more conventional handshake, he discreetly wiped a patina of Vitalis off on his pant leg.

  Travis said, "Danny needs a haircut. He looks like he just crawled out of a blizzard. Fix him up so he looks at home eating fish and chips on the Municipal Wharf."

  "Could you cut it like James Dean?" asked Danny.

  Hector squinted. Vacant. But he winked and said. "Yeah, sure, sit down." Travis laughed and said, "I'll do my best to stage direct." Hector unfurled an apron like a matador and whipped it around Danny's neck as he sat in a chair.

  Travis gave pointers as tufts of Danny's hair collected on his shoulders and tumbled down into his lap. Hector massaged some fix in Danny's new hair and worked him over with a hair drier.

  Travis paced, arms folded, squinting. "Yeah, I think so. James Dean for the 1990s."

  The chair spun and Danny studied his new head in the mirror. His hair was full on top and short on the sides. Kind of lightning-struck.

  "Get you some sun, maybe a little body piercing, you'll look like a native," approved Travis.

  "I'll skip the earrings," said Danny.

  "No problem, I just do it to blend in with the gazelles up in Frisco." Travis handed Hector a roll of bills, they did their elaborate routine with the hands again. Then Travis and Danny left the shop. The soft late afternoon light was a cool haze around Danny's ears. They got back in the truck.

  "So what do you think?" asked Travis.

  "He's one of your success stories," said Danny.

  Travis gave him an appraising look. "You got it. I'm trying to help, but he's sucking wind, one day at a time. Maybe I can swing him a better location in town, that'd help. But basically he's fucked. He's an almost illiterate Mexican dude who sold dope all his life. And now he's the one thing he was raised to hate: a rat, a squealer. Guy never heard of James Dean." Travis sighed. "What are you gonna do. Most of my clients are up north in the Bay Area. I don't get down here a whole lot."

  "You put him through school to cut hair?" asked Danny.

  "Nah, he picked that up in the joint."

  "Life is not fair. And anything that can go wrong, will," he observed.

  "A-fucking-men," said Travis. They drove in silence for a while, entering a built-up area. Travis whipped into another strip mall, but this one was broad, paved, land

  scaped, full
of late-model cars and devoid of Mexicans.

  "What is this?" Danny balked as Travis walked him into a tanning salon.

  Travis spun on his Spanish heels. "Hector just got his new birth certificate. It took nine months. Yours is in the glove compartment of the truck. Along with a new Social Security card. Tomorrow when you get a driver's license, they take your picture. Right now your face looks like veal. Comprende?

  "After you get your temporary license, we go to the bank and you open a checking account. Then I sell you this truck and the tools in it. Then we take you to look at the house you're going to buy from us on a land contract. You're getting it at a steal because of a stipulation we write into the contract, that you rehab it. You with me so far."

  "What about the computer, printer, modem?"

  "In the works. The best money can buy."

  Danny pushed past Travis into the salon and walked up to the receptionist. "How long is the wait to get into a booth?"

  An hour later they were strolling past an open fish market on the Municipal Wharf that jutted into Monterey Bay from downtown Santa Cruz.

  "You don't need that jacket, it's warm," said Travis.

  "That's okay," said Danny, hugging his jacket.

  "See that." Travis pointed at a large mound of fish flesh on ice. "That's a bonito, that fish rode El Niño from Hawaii. Everything here is upside down this winter."

  Danny smiled; the idea that things were upside down put him on top for a change. Soon they were, as Travis had predicted, sitting outside at a picnic table, eating fish and chips.

  Lassitude wrapped Danny. He watched the twilight play on his newly grilled arm. His reflection in the restaurant window stared back at him. Tanned, the contacts, the shorter, swept-back hair. Eerie.

  "See that big hotel over there on the boardwalk," said Travis. "That's where we'll stay tonight. Tomorrow I'll take you to the house."

  Danny swung his eyes, saw a lot of hotels. Yawned. There was a beach, but nobody was swimming. And the Coney Island fretwork of an amusement park. And sailboats. Some tourists, Japanese maybe, were tossing shreds of hot dog buns off the pier to sea lions that roared hollowly below them among the pilings. A pelican perched on the railing in back of Travis, and behind the pelican the setting sun smelted the smoky sky and the ocean into a sheet of burning amber chrome.

  He had been trained to ruthlessly excise clichés from his writing. But right now, he couldn't improve on: today is the first day of the rest of your life.

  52

  Danny woke early, windows thrown open to the swoosh of Pacific surf, and went slowly at the day, one cup of room service coffee at a time. He took the carafe of coffee and the little silver creamer out to the small table on the balcony that overlooked the fog-soaked boardwalk. Wet cement tickled under his bare feet. Mist. Dew. Everything was jeweled. He could make out the ghostly shapes of palm trees and pine trees side by side, and the white tufts of the tall lollipop grass that Travis called pampas grass. Red tile roofs and squaredoff hacienda architecture.

  The gourmet air smelled like rising tropical dough. Dank. Humid.

  People came here to start over. They had to. No more land to run away on. Me too, he thought.

  The fantasy returned. Warm in his lap. As the first blades of dawn stirred the mist he pictured Ida Rain sitting across from him in a silky little bathrobe, kind of a kimono thing. Saw it draped open to show the one perfect crease that marked her smooth stomach. They'd have hidden the scars on her new face. Tucked them up under new chin. Her wide expressive eyes would be brimming with gratitude.

  If I did all this, I can make that happen, too.

  The kind of generosity that could make amends for the death of Caren Angland. Yes. Exactly.

  Purposefully, he glanced back over the California Rules of the Road booklet Travis had given him to study last night. An hour later, when Travis called his room, he was showered, shaved, and upbeat.

  At breakfast Travis presented him with a new wallet containing a Social Security card, and, nestled between the cleansmelling leather folds, four hundred dollars in cash. And he handed over the Photostat of his new birth certificate. He also gave him an index card on which were written three more pieces of his new identity.

  His address: 173 Valentino Lane, Watsonville, California, his phone number, and his employer, Acme Remodeling.

  "Which is basically me, Joe Travis, Doing Business As," said Travis.

  They had a full day. Travis seemed to genuinely enjoy himself. He grooved with quiet glee at being able to move behind the scenery at will—to effect deft custom alterations of reality.

  First they stopped at a State Farm office, and Danny purchased auto insurance, which he'd need at the Santa Cruz County Building on Ocean Street, their next stop. Travis preceded him into the license bureau to put the fix in. Then Danny went in and waited in line, then waited in another line with a lot of people talking Spanish. Then he sat in a room with a lot of these people and took a multiple-choice test about the rules of the road in California.

  An hour later the test was graded and he stood in a third line. Travis had arranged for him to skip "behind the wheel" to save time. He surrendered his fake Michigan license Photostat, used his new contacts to read the optical chart, and stood, short haired and tanned, for a photograph.

  Then he completed his first transaction as Daniel Storey, paying for his California driver's license. The clerk filled out a temporary form good for thirty days and told

  him his license would be mailed within two weeks.

  Then they got back in the truck and drove Highway I out of Santa Cruz. Travis joked, calling it Highway 911. "More fact than joke, you get 'down below,' that's what they call fuckin' L.A."

  Soon they were out of town, into the country. The fog had drifted up to baste the low-hanging clouds. Danny began to sweat.

  "Welcome to Steinbeck country, the Pajaro Valley," waxed Travis. "Strawberries, artichokes, apples, blackberries, lettuce and celery. This, and the Salinas Valley down south, is the stronghold of the United Farm Workers."

  Danny was too drowsy to pursue it, so he nodded and took in a road sign. They'd turned off the highway onto a secondary road named Freedom Boulevard.

  "Freedom's the town this side of Watsonville," said Travis.

  Danny smiled. Took it as a good omen. Another turn onto Varni Road, then a right onto Amesti Road. They were out in the sticks. Danny liked that, too.

  Then Travis turned one last time, onto Valentino Lane, and passed a sign: DEAD END. And that's where they went, past tidy one-story white stucco homes with fanatically manicured cactus gardens, until they ran out of road and stopped in front of a six-foot-tall slat fence overgrown with bushy vines. A whitewashed hacienda was about a hundred yards to the right separated by a corral. But no horses. Danny did see about five cats lolling in the muzzy shadows of the fence posts. The next nearest house was almost five hundred yards away.

  Travis got out and turned a key in the padlock on the gate, which was barely visible among the overgrown shrubs. Pulled the gate open, returned to the truck and drove in.

  The house was a simple box, flat roof, painted dark brown and tucked under the leaves of a tall spreading tree in the backyard. The picture windows along one front side were smoke streaked. A corner of the trim was buckled and charred. The fire had flashed in the kitchen, shot through the doorway into the attached garage, and burned a hole in the garage roof before it was contained. Plastic sheeting was tacked over the mangled garage shingles.

  Once there had been extensive gardens surrounding the place, but they had reverted to thick brush. Tall yucca cacti poked through here and there, and he saw a few smaller prickly pears.

  "Are there snakes?" he asked Travis as they got out.

  "Nah, bull snakes maybe."

  Travis unlocked the door, and they went into a dirty empty living room that reeked of lingering smoke damage. The hideous orange shag carpet was tinged with soot.

  "This end of the place is shot,"
said Travis, walking him into the kitchen, where a black slash up one wall revealed charcoal wall studs. A cheap GE electric range and refrigerator were plugged in at the edge of the living room. Neither had smoke damage. Used. Recent additions. The tour continued. "But back here it's not bad." They came out of the kitchen onto a broad screened porch that overlooked a tiered redwood deck that fitted around a gnarled spreading oak.

  Travis led him down a hall, pointed out the working bathroom and the two bedrooms at the end. One was empty. The other was stockpiled with furniture, boxes of bedding, utensils, dishes, mattress and springs. It looked new or, at least, not fire damaged.