Zepp, J J

  “And how far do you think you’re going to make it, in this heat, without water?”

  “What’s the alternative? Stay here and wait to die?”

  “Well if you’re going, I’m going too.”

  “And what about G, I’m not leaving him behind.”

  “Of course not,” Kelly said. “Never. So we all stay and wait, someone’s bound to come by sooner or later.”

  “You’re right,” I said, but I didn’t share her optimism and I fell asleep thinking I had to go in the morning.

  Sometime during the night I woke. The diner was in pitch darkness, and I could hear Kelly’s steady breathing beside me, and Giuseppe’s raspy breath a bit further away. Something had woken me and after a while I heard it again, the spluttering sound of an engine.

  At first, I thought it was a Harley, and I was briefly terrified that the Dead Men had found us. But then the sound came again and it definitely lacked the deep-throated Harley rumble. I hoisted myself up using the side of one of the booths and now I could see lights out there. I took the AK and walked to the window, drew the blinds aside and looked out. There were two men standing on the road in the lights of their vehicle, clearing the barricade.

  “What’s happening?” Kelly said from behind me.

  “Stay there,” I said, “Someone’s outside.”

  I slipped through the door and skirted around the building in the dark, coming up behind the vehicle, an ancient VW Camper with something attached to the roof.

  I crept forward, keeping close to the vehicle, and now I could hear the men talking.

  “This is like totally, bogus,” one of them was saying.

  “Totally,” the other agreed.

  I stepped forward, breaking cover with the AK in a firing position. One of the men was pulling a rusted old fender towards the side of the road. He dropped it instantly and threw up his hands. “Whoa, dude, watch where you’re pointing that thing,” the other man said.

  “We need a ride,” I said

  “Totally dude, no problem. Just don’t shoot us okay.”

  “I’m not going to shoot you, unless you make me. Where you headed?”

  “San Clemente, dude. Catch some waves.”

  “You got any water?”

  “Totally. Perry, give the man some aqua.”

  One of the men climbed into the camper and came back with a bottle. “Wait here,” I said. “You drive off and leave us and we’ll die out here.”

  I ran back to the diner cradling that bottle like it was precious cargo. Kelly met me at the door. “What’s happening?” she said.

  “I got us a ride. Here, drink some water.”

  She shook her head. “G needs it more.”

  I poured some water into Giuseppe’s bowl, then had a sip myself and passed the bottle back to Kelly. The dog’s breathing was barely perceptible. I scooped some water from the bowl and wet his muzzle. Then I took some in my hands and held it for him and he lapped it up.

  There was a knock on the door and when I opened it, one of the men was standing there, “Dude we’re ready to roll, whenever.”

  Between Kelly and I, we got Giuseppe to the camper and we pulled away from Sal’s Diner forever. We stopped at the Audi to pick up the rest of the gas cans, and then we drove off into the darkness. I sat on the bench with Kelly cuddled into me and Giuseppe’s head in my lap and I fell asleep marveling at how little it actually takes to make a person happy, and how fragile that happiness is.

  five

  When I woke we’d stopped and there was faint light outside. I eased Kelly’s head from my shoulder and slid from under Giuseppe and lowered his head gently onto the bench. He opened his eyes and looked at me and I knew in that moment that G was going to make it. He had a determination in those eyes, a will to live, and I knew that this tough old dog had some running in him yet.

  Outside I found the surfers squatted around a smoky fire, brewing up some coffee. “Dude,” one of them said as I approached.

  “Hey,” the other said, “you want some coffee?”

  “I’d rather have some water if you have any.”

  One of them passed me a bottle and I downed it is a single dram.

  “Name’s Chris,” I said, “I just wanted thank you guys for giving us a ride.”

  “No prob, I’m Ted, this is Perry.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said and shook hands with both of them. “You guys from California?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What are you doing out here in New Mexico?”

  “We got an Apache dude out of the reservation, grows the sweetest weed you ever sampled. Say, do you partake?”

  “No,”

  “Pity,” Perry said, “this stuff is the like, way…Hey, you mind if we do a jay?

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Bonus,” Ted said.

  They lit up and passed the joint between them, then offered it to me.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “That chick traveling with you, she like have a boyfriend?” Perry asked.

  “Yes, she does,” Kelly said from behind me, then slipped her hand around my waist and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “Sorry dude. I didn’t realize.”

  “Bogus, dude.” Ted said and gave him a disapproving look.

  “Listen,” I said. “We need to get to Flagstaff. I know it’s a bit out of your way, but…”

  “No, problem, dude. It’s on the 40, we can swing by there and pick up the 15 at Barstow, then…”

  “That’s the 19 dude,”

  “I’m sure it’s the 15, whatever. We can hook up with the I-5 via Lakeland. That way we give L.A. a wide berth, way wide.”

  “What’s the deal with L.A.?”

  “Dude, stay out. Z central. We used to surf out at Redondo, but after a while you’d be catching a wave and you’d see the Zs like waiting on the beach for you to come in.”

  “So we moved, like way down the coast towards Pendleton, but then these like fascist, pseudo-soldiers chased us off.”

  “Total reactionaries,” Perry agreed.

  “Pseudo soldiers?”

  “Yeah, you know like corporate guns for hire.”

  “They’ve got a base down there?”

  “Dude, they’ve taken over the entire marine base.”

  An idea suddenly occurred to me. “You guys ever surf a beach with a white house set up against the cliffs? An old three storey house with three parapets.”

  “Totally dude, that’s at P.V.”

  “P.V.?”

  “Palos Verdes, bitchin’ waves.”

  “Are you sure dude?” Perry said. “I could have sworn that was Leo Carrillo?”

  “Yeah maybe. We were doing a lot of weed back then. Hey, you mind if we do another jay?”

  Ted lit up, took a pull then passed the joint to Perry who did likewise.

  “You know what,” Perry said. “I believe you’re right. It was P.V. I remember you were so stoned, you reversed into that road sign, like totally totaled it.”

  “Yeah, I remember that now,” Ted said and they both started giggling.

  six

  We reached Flagstaff after dark. The city had been turned into a fortified encampment with razor wire, watchtowers, armed patrols and sentries at all access roads. I half expected them to ask us for a password, but the sentry only asked Ted if he’d been drinking. “No sir,“ he said, “we don’t indulge.”

  The sentry shone a light into the cab. “What’s your business in Flagstaff,” he asked.

  “I live here,” Kelly said. “Kelly Capshaw, Janet Capshaw’s my mom.”

  “Kelly?” the guard said, “Christ girl, is that you? Your mother’s going bust a gut. She’d given you up for dead.”

  That little interlude earned us an armed escort to Kelly’s house, a modest bungalow on a quiet street.

  “Brace yourself, here comes the drama,” Kelly said as we approached.

  The guards had obviously radioed ahead and the l
ights of the house, including those in the front yard were turned on. There was a woman on the lawn wearing a nightdress that looked like it belonged on the catwalk at the Milan fashion show. She was smoking a cigarette, which she quickly stubbed out as the camper came to a halt.

  “Who’s the cougar?” Perry asked.

  “My mom,” Kelly said.

  “She’s a babe!”

  Kelly’s mom was now running towards us, her arms spread. “My baby!” she shrieked as she embraced Kelly, “My baby, my baby’s come home to me!”

  “Mom, you’re embarrassing me,” Kelly said.

  “My baby,” her mother repeated, then “God you smell, where’ve you been?”

  “It’s a long story,” Kelly said. “Can we go in now, the neighbors are staring.”

  “Screw them,” her mother said, “But yes, come in, come in, bring your friends.”

  “Err, we’ve got to like be on the road,” Ted said.

  “What’s the rush, dude? We can hang for a bit,” said Perry.

  “Dude? The waves?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Perry said casting a doleful eye towards Kelly’s mom.

  “Dude, we got to bolt.” Ted said to me, “Need some help with your dog?”

  “No, I think I got it.” I helped Giuseppe from the camper. He was still limping heavily but had recovered somewhat on the drive, taken on lots of water and even eaten a bit.

  I thanked Ted and Perry again for rescuing us. “No problem, dude,” Ted said. “If you’re ever in San Clemente, look us up.”

  “Yeah totally,” Perry said. “You’ll find us at the beach, or hanging at our place, or…”

  “Dude, we got to go,” Ted said.

  After they’d driven away, Kelly said to her mother, “Mom, I’d like you to meet…”

  “Oh, I know who you are,” Janet Capshaw said.

  “You do? How?” Kelly said.

  “I think you’d both better come inside,” Janet said. “There’s someone here been waiting for you.”

  seven

  I’d last seen Joe Thursday in a military encampment in Central Park. That had been over three years ago, and the man who now stood before me looked like an apparition. He was dressed in an expensive-looking black suit with an open-necked white shirt, his hair was expensively styled and he looked to have gained a few pounds.

  For a moment I just stared at him with a million words trying to form in my mouth and not one of them succeeding. Joe had saved my life more than once and was probably the only reason I’d gotten out of New York alive.

  “Hello, Chris,” he said. “Long time,” and then I walked quickly across the room and embraced him.

  “Let’s leave these boys to it,” I heard Kelly’s mom say. “We got some catching up to do. Right after you have a bath. Bring that little doggy of yours along, maybe he’d like to meet Lulu and Fifi.”

  “Mom,” Kelly said, “G will eat Lulu and Fifi.”

  “You done well, amigo.” Joe whispered in my ear and then pushed me away and held me at arms length, “You look like shit though.”

  “Christ, Joe,” I said, “What happened to you? Where’ve you been all this time? How’d you get out of New York? How…”

  “All in good time,” Joe said, “First tell me about you.”

  And so I told him the whole story and he nodded in all the right places, expressed his sadness about Babs and his delight that I’d made it despite everything that had been thrown at me. But his responses seemed practiced, like he was hearing a story he’d already been told.

  “So what now?” he said at the end.

  “So now I go to Palos Verdes and find Ruby,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” Joe said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because Ruby’s not there, or at least she won’t be by the time you get there.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Because it’s my job to, Chris. Because I’m head of security for the Pendragon Corporation.”

  For a moment I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly and I was about to ask him to repeat what he had just said when he continued.

  “You’ve got to let it go, Chris. Ruby’s gone, accept it. You’ve got that pretty little girl of yours in the kitchen. Flagstaff is a good, safe community. They got the power grid up, schools, a hospital. Settle down here with Kelly, raise a few kids, live your life. After what you’ve been through, you deserve that much.”

  “Am I hearing you right, Joe? Are you telling me to abandon my daughter? Are you telling me to walk away like she never existed?”

  “She never did exist, Chris. In the normal course of things she’d have died right there on the cutting board in Brad Pilsen’s apartment.”

  “You’re wrong, Joe. In the normal course of things she’d be a happy, healthy three-year-old. I’d be taking her to the park and pushing her on the swings. In the normal course of things her mother would still be alive rather than…”

  “It is what it is, Chris. I’m telling you this for your own good. Don’t come to California. You won’t leave there alive, and you won’t find Ruby.”

  “Is that a threat, Joe?

  “It’s a warning. The least I can do for a friend.”

  “Fuck you, Joe. Fuck you very much.”

  eight

  After Joe Thursday had left, I lie in the bath and soaked the blood and sweat and grime from my body. I stared at the ceiling and thought about what Joe had said and even now I found it difficult to take on board. Joe had been both a savior and a friend to me. He’d stood up to the military establishment and to his own bosses. He’d risked his life to protect me and Ruby. Yet now Joe was the establishment. Now he was the barrier between me and my daughter.

  I’m telling you this as a friend, he’d said. But was he really? Wasn’t he telling me this as head of security for the Pendragon Corporation, who didn’t need me stirring up trouble? On the other hand what chance did I have, a man alone against the might of the corporation? Maybe Joe was right, maybe it was better for me to settle down here in Flagstaff with Kelly.

  By this circuitous route, I arrived at the core question. Was I going to continue my search for Ruby? And by the time I lifted myself from the now cold water of the bath, it had been answered. Yes. Yes, I was.

  I shaved and pressed a fresh band-aid to the wound on my forehead and dressed in the clothes Janet had laid out for me. ‘Probably left behind by Babs,’ she’d said, but she didn’t seem sure.

  I found Kelly and her mom in the living room. “Here, he is,” Kelly said when she saw me. She rushed over and planted a kiss on my lips.

  “Mm, I see what you mean, Kel,” Janet said, appraising me with a skilled eye, ”he’s a keeper, alright.”

  “Kelly, I need to speak to you,” I said.

  “Ooh, this sounds serious,” Janet said. “Insist on a church wedding, Kel.”

  Kelly followed me out onto the lawn in front of the house. Before I’d had a chance to speak, she said, “You’re leaving aren’t you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew you would be,” she said without emotion. I’d expected histrionics but I’d underestimated Kelly or perhaps forgotten the strength of character I’d seen in her many times before.

  “Kelly, listen…”

  “You don’t have to say anything, I understand.”

  “No, I need you to hear this.” I stood next to her in the darkened street and reached for her hand and held it. “I don’t want you to wait for me, Kelly.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Let me say my piece. I don’t want you to wait for me because I doubt I’ll be coming back. Not that I don’t want to Kelly, believe me, I want to get back to you more than just about anything in the world, but I don’t think I’m going to make it this time.”

  “But you’re going anyway.”

  “Yes.”

  Kelly was silent for a while and then she said, in the same flat voice,“ I understand.”

  �
��You do?”

  “Of course. It’s who you are, Chris. I saw that back in Tulsa and I saw it in Pagan. You can’t not do something, when something needs to be done. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  I’d never thought of it that way myself, but Kelly was right. That annoying sense of responsibility, that nagging conscience, that pain in the ass need to do what I believed was the right thing, was as much a part of me as the fists that had once earned me my living.

  “Will you look after G for me?”

  “Of course I will, but there’s one thing I won’t do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I won’t give up on you, Chris. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  I kissed her then, and held her and realized that I was in love with Kelly Capshaw, and that I loved her.

  nine

  I drove away from Flagstaff before dawn. Kelly and I had said our goodbyes the night before and I left without waking her, kissing her forehead in the dark and then walking away while I still had the resolve to do so.

  I walked outside and loaded my gear into the Hyundai Station Wagon that Janet had loaned me, and then pulled away from the curb with one last look back at the house. As I did, I saw the curtain fall back into place in the room that Kelly and I had shared. I thought I caught a glimpse of Kel at the window and I fully believed it would be the last time I saw her.

  I took Interstate 40 and switched to the 15 at Barstow (Ted had been right it, was the 15, not the 19). Almost immediately, the road became more jammed up with vehicles. By the time I reached Victorville, I was wishing I had something with four-wheel drive to skirt around the wrecks on the road, and by the time I reached the outskirts of Corona, I had to abandon the Hyundai altogether.

  That left me with a problem. My plan had been to drive to the San Diego Freeway, then follow the road back up the coast towards Palos Verdes. Now, that route would mean an impossible 200-mile detour on foot.

  The alternative was a straight 60-mile hike through Anaheim and Long Beach, according to the map I was carrying. At 20 miles a day, that was going to take me three days walking. But I doubted I’d be able to move that fast, not carrying the amount of ammo I was going to need, and not walking straight through Z central, as Ted had called it.