Hank tried to stifle his laughter. She turned back to him and handed the can back, trying to clear her throat. Hank pointed to the cherry red coal, glowing at the edge of the precipice. “I’m glad we have more,” he snickered. “Because I’m not crawling over there to get that.”
“Funny,” she said. “Let’s see you do it any better.”
“I guess that’s one advantage of smoking,” Hank said, as he repacked the bowl. “You can really inhale the good stuff when you need to.”
He held the can to his lips and composed himself. “Okay, watch this, slow and steady.” Hank lit it and took a small amount of smoke into his mouth. He tried to breathe in a little at a time, but his lungs rejected it. He started coughing immediately and handed the can to Janie.
“Oh I see,” she smirked, as he tried his best to hold it in. “Is that how it’s done?”
He managed to get out a “Yeah,” before he started coughing and hacking. Janie hit the pipe again. It was easier the second time. They passed it back and forth until it was cached. A tingling numbness floated over them and they sat quietly for a few minutes, staring out into the shimmering clarity of the night.
After a few minutes, Janie picked up the previous conversation, which, to Hank, seemed almost totally random now. “But I love my brother,” she said, then paused, and added, “Maybe that’s why I still stay here. So I can look out for him.”
Hank grunted a response and continued staring up at the sky. It was absolutely clear. The universe revealed itself as a million points of light poking through the blackness of space. There was never a view like that in New York City. Janie’s talk about her own brother reminded him of his, and the stars were a good distraction. Finally, Hank asked, “Why don’t both of you leave?”
“I’m hoping we can. It’s tough to save enough to escape a place like this when you’re trapped in it. You have to live on something, and the little you can make goes to that. There’s never anything extra.” She hesitated for a second, and added, “But I’m trying to get it together, so we’ll both be able to leave town.”
Hank smiled at her, wondering what she meant, and then said. “Well, at least it’s quiet and peaceful here. You wouldn’t have a view like this in San Diego.”
“Sure, but I think I can get by with the beach. Besides, I grew up here. The magic has worn off.” Then she started giggling. “Truth be told, it’s a lot better looking when you’re stoned.”
Hank started laughing too. “I’m sure it is. But think of all that space. The freedom that goes with it.”
“You’re a regular cowboy, aren’t you? The wild west? How do you survive back east?”
“I don’t know about the wild west. But really, you live out here, you can do anything you want, live by your own rules.”
“I think you’re being a bit romantic.” She smiled, giving him a long look. “It’s not a free-for-all. There may be fewer people, but the same laws apply. You’ve still got to be careful if you’re going to try anything.”
Hank shrugged. “If you’re in town, sure. But I’m talking about out in the desert, away from everyone. That’s why all the meth labs are out there. And they’re safe out there. Those guys only risk getting into trouble when they bring their shit into the city to sell it.”
“That may be, but what good is the stuff out in the desert? At some point, you have to come into town to sell it.” Janie laid on her back and stared up at the sky, a wide grin on her face.
“But what I’m talking about,” Hank went on, “is life when you’re out there—not when you come to town. I mean, imagine two guys running into each other fifty miles out into the desert, in the middle of nowhere. What obligations do they have toward one another?”
Janie laced her fingers behind her head, feeling them against her skull, feeling the cool night air on her skin. After a minute she said, “It shouldn’t matter if they run into each other in the desert or on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.”
“I agree.” Hank turned to her. “In either case, they don’t owe each other a damned thing.”
Janie spoke staring straight up at the sky. “They owe each other the same thing in both places. The law doesn’t change just because they’re out in the desert.”
“But law only applies when there are people around to enforce it. It requires something external. There is no law between two people. There’s only law if there’s a third person, society at large in most cases, there to apply it.”
She grinned at him. “You smoked too much.”
“What I’m saying is that law, the rules of our society, only exist in society. We’ve collectively agreed on them, but that doesn’t make them real in any external sense. It takes the presence of society, hence, a third party, to assess and enforce the law on the actions of the two people. So if two guys meet in the desert, all alone, then there is no law. They can do whatever they want to each other. There aren’t any rules out there.” Hank spoke out at the surrounding landscape, as if it might hear and understand him. Then he added, “That’s freedom.”
“Now,” he went on, “if the two guys agree on something between them. Let’s say they agree to share some food or water. Then if one guy takes too much, the other guy can do whatever he wants. If he kills the guy who took too much, that’s his business. They made their own rules, they get to enforce them however they want.”
“But you can’t kill a person over a glass of water.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because it’s murder. You can’t just go around killing people.”
“But what if they agree that that’s the punishment beforehand?”
“Doesn’t matter. You can’t agree to something like that.”
“Says who?”
“Society.”
“But in this case, there is no society. It’s just these two guys, out in the desert. And they’ve agreed to it.”
“So you’re saying that it’s okay to commit a crime out in the desert? I’ll have to remember that if I ever get caught.” Janie looked up at him, watching the outline of his body against the starry sky. She didn’t disagree with the proposition, but she knew no mere theory would change the way the world really worked.
“What I’m saying,” Hank said, grinning down at her, “is that it’s not even a crime. How can it be a crime without the presence of society, or some third party to enforce the rules?”
She listened to his tone, the sincerity in his voice. It sounded like a rationalization that was thoroughly believed. An odd position for a surveyor to hold so dear, she thought. Janie smirked back at him. “Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying it’s okay, as long as you don’t get caught?”
“Okay fine, say it’s not murder. Say they agree to share food and water. The first guy gives the second guy some food and the second guy takes it and keeps his water and runs away. Has the second guy done anything wrong?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “He broke his promise.”
“So what can the first guy do about it?”
“He can chase him.”
“Can he fight him?”
“I suppose.”
“But he can’t kill him?”
“No.”
Hank grinned and shook his head. “That’s so arbitrary. Where do you draw the line between what’s okay and what isn’t?”
“I don’t know, but it’s definitely somewhere before you get to killing people. I mean, look at what happened with that guy they found. The guy whose leg ended up in your front seat?”
“What about him?” Hank asked, as he thought it over. It seemed like a long time ago. He remembered the sheriff pulling over and telling him they’d found the body just earlier that day.
“Well, the radio said he’d been beaten to death with a heavy object. He was presumably alone out there with whoever did that to him. How can that be justified? Just because it’s out in the desert? I don’t buy it. The law is the law. Wrong is wrong.”
The words hung in his ears. Hank tried to put them
together with his thoughts of Lugano. A man being beaten to death in the desert could easily be Lugano’s work. But what was the likelihood of that? Janie said he kept to himself and seemed like a normal, quiet guy. But Hank knew better. And why did Janie know so much about the guy?
Hank looked down at her. Then he looked around at the endless desert. Who was she? What was he doing here with her? He thought about Miami and St. Louis and how the jobs had gone to shit. What was happening here?
Hank rubbed his face with both hands and ran his fingers back through his hair. His flesh tingled along his scalp. It was the pot. It was making him paranoid. Or was it? Maybe he was just putting it together now? Hank felt a sudden urge to get back to the Super 8, to drink a cup of coffee, go to sleep, wake up and get the job done. He needed to just get the hell out of town.
Janie smiled, watching the stars and feeling the contrast between the night air above her and the warmth of the rock below. She ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth, back and forth, slowly feeling each one. She was surprised that her teeth were always there, yet she never seemed to really feel them in her head. Finally, she grinned and noticed Hank leaning over and staring down at her. “What?” she asked.
Hank started laughing. “You’re completely baked.” He leaned away from her, holding his stomach, nearly giggling.
Janie sat up, smiling at him. “What? Was it my turn to talk? I thought you were saying something.”
“I was.” Hank snorted, turning red-faced. “I was talking about two people in the desert.”
“Like us?”
“No. Two people meeting in the desert.”
“We’re two people. We’re in the desert.”
“Yes. But I was talking about ethics, morality, jurisprudence.”
Janie started cackling and slapping her hand on the rock. Laughing silently and hard. Hank started laughing too, just from watching her. Finally, through bursts of staccato giggles, she said, “You know that Beatles song?” and then she sang, in a falsetto that sent Hank doubling over: “Juuuuuuuuris Prudence, won’t you come out to play-hey-hey …”
XXVI
They waited in the car, sipping from Styrofoam cups of coffee they’d gotten at the gas station across from the Super 8. The night air had chilled the world just enough for a small pool of steam to collect on the windshield above the dash where Victor set his cup. Victor checked his watch as Tom spoke.
“Maybe they arrested him.”
“I doubt it. But if he doesn’t come out in an hour or two, we’ll have to switch to Plan B.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Tom shifted in his seat, leaned against the door and sipped his coffee. Victor refused to answer questions last night, and was being coy this morning too. Tom ran through a list of everything he knew about Victor. It was a short list. In fact, what did he know really? He couldn’t be sure that Victor had ever even been in the FBI. It was a story he told, it seemed believable. Tom assumed the company would have checked him out. But Tom didn’t know. He didn’t know anything for sure.
And now he was sitting in a car in a shithole town in the middle of the desert waiting for a guy to go to work who didn’t seem to have a damned thing to do with the reason they were there. Tom thought about the ocean. He liked waking up to the moist air and the smell of salt water. Not that he minded being away from home. He liked to travel as much as the next guy, but this place was fucked and Victor was acting crazy.
“Look man,” Tom said, shifting in the seat again, “you’ve gotta tell me what we’re doing here. Do you really think this guy has anything to do with the oil? Where do you know him from?”
Victor cleared his throat and wiped his nose, but didn’t say anything. He just kept staring at the house, watching it as if the whole structure might suddenly sprout legs and scamper away across the desert. Tom watched him finish his coffee, wanting to push the issue, but not wanting to piss him off. After a few more minutes, he tried again.
“Victor,” he began. But this time Victor cut him off.
“Hey, this is a stakeout.” Victor looked over at Tom. “You have to focus. If you keep talking, we might miss something.” Victor shook his head. “Man, you wouldn’t last ten minutes at the Bureau.”
“Last I checked, we weren’t in the goddamned Bureau. And I might be more willing to sit here and stare at this guy’s house if I knew what the hell was going on. As far as I know, this is just some guy who coaches baseball in this podunk town and he doesn’t have a damned thing to do with the guys we’re after.”
“There’s something going on here.” Victor glanced over at Tom. “Last night, when I was listening on the phone, he was talking to some guy about a payoff.”
Victor kept talking while he watched the house, setting an example for Tom. He didn’t want to miss anything. “Now, if I know this guy—and trust me, I know him pretty damned well—he’s up to something. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s involved in some kind of oil theft. The payoff may have something to do with that.”
“But we know where he lives. Shouldn’t we be looking for that guy with the oil truck?”
Victor smiled. “I think this guy might lead us to that guy. And besides, if my hunch is right, I think the baseball coach is going to leave the house and go to work at Monarch. It’s the only damned business around here where he could get placed—” Victor caught himself and cut the sentence short. But it was too late, Tom had heard it.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You mean he was sent out here?” Tom sat quietly for a second. Victor could almost hear him thinking it through. Then Tom said, “What do you mean, placed? Like someone got him the job and sent him out here? Wait a minute, like the witness protection program or something? Is that what you’re talking about?”
Victor kept staring at the house. He wasn’t talking about anything now. But Tom kept at it. “Look, man, the cat’s out of the bag now. You might as well tell me. I’m not going to say anything.”
Victor stayed quiet. He’d screwed up. He shouldn’t have said anything. That was secret information. He was obligated to maintain confidences. Breaches of government secrets were taken very seriously. But Tom wasn’t going to drop it. And if Howard Lugano was involved in anything criminal, then there was no obligation to maintain the secrecy of his identity. If that was the case, then telling Tom wouldn’t matter. What difference could it make if Victor spilled it before or after they caught him?
“Come on, Victor, who the hell is this guy?” Tom leaned forward a little, waiting for Victor to crack. He could see Victor was getting close to saying something. “What’d he do?”
“Okay,” Victor started. “But look. The only reason I’m saying anything is because I’m damned sure this guy’s involved in something.” Victor tossed his empty cup over the seat and onto the floor behind him. He kept watching the house as he talked.
“Guy’s name is Howard Lugano. He’s a mob hit man. At least he used to be, before he ratted out the head of the family he worked for back in New York. We had him dead to rights for at least three murders and we’re pretty sure he killed at least twenty others. But hell, the real number’s probably a lot higher than that.”
“No shit?” Tom laughed. His excitement caused him to bounce a little on the seat and the whole car shook.
“Calm down.” Victor turned to him. “This ain’t no joke. This guy is one bad motherfucker. You know what his trademark was? He used to kill people by beating them to death with a baseball bat.”
Tom listened. Victor turned and watched his eyes grow wide as he processed it. After a few seconds, Tom said, “And now he coaches little league?”
Victor grinned and nodded.
“And the guy they found in the desert?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Victor said, and then turned back to the house. “Holy shit, there he is.”
Victor pointed and the two of them crouched down in the seat and watched Lugano, standing on his small fro
nt porch, locking his front door. He was dressed in light cotton coveralls and carried a black lunch box. Victor smiled at the absurdity. The former mob hit man dressed like an average blue collar Joe heading out to work.
He wondered how Lugano did it. How a guy used to wearing baubles and Armani suits and driving his Lincoln Continental around Brooklyn looking for the next skull to crack could survive in a place like this. It had to be enough to drive a guy like Lugano crazy. And then Victor thought of the dead guy in the desert and suspected that maybe it had.
“Are you sure this is the same guy?” Tom whispered.
Victor nodded. He was sure. He’d been the lead investigator who had personally questioned Lugano for a solid week. Wearing him down, day after day. Showing him black and white photographs. Playing him snippets of wire tapped conversations. Leaving him to guess at how much more they had on him. Leaving him to wonder what Fazioli would do to him when the feds let it be known who was talking to them. Lugano wasn’t an idiot. He knew Victor would leak it onto the street whether Lugano told them anything or not. Once he was in custody, the jig was up. They either had him, or they’d get him killed. The only way out was to start talking.
Lugano ran his hands over the pockets of his coveralls, making sure he had everything, and then went down the steps to his truck. They were parked off to the side of the house, at a hard angle, so they could just see the porch and only about half of the truck. Lugano didn’t even look in their direction. Didn’t suspect a damned thing.
A few seconds later, they watched the truck with the pipe rack on it back out of the driveway and into the street. Lugano let it idle for a second and then gassed it, turning down the street and driving away from them. Victor watched him go, waiting for the truck to get all the way to the end of the road and make the turn before he would follow. All of the space around them was wide open, which made it tough to tail someone without being spotted. But Lugano wasn’t looking for tails. He was too many years away from that kind of life and his sense of suspicion had all but disappeared.
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