“What’s that mean, ‘Martina is where Martina is’? What kind of crap is that?”
“It means,” Carson shrugged, “that who can say? She doesn’t announce her movements. She just does. She’s here, she’s not here, she’s gone, she’s not gone. You know the score.”
“If he doesn’t, I do,” Blake interrupted. With a sideways glance at Russ, he insisted, “and that’s enough of that for right now.”
Ham gently relieved Blake of the envelope that Carson had produced and ripped open the flap. From inside, he withdrew two typewritten sheets, the first of which sported a mug shot of a younger Gordon Galey. He skimmed the flyer and the second typed page of details, none of which amplified much beyond the simple facts that Gordon had, at the tender age of eighteen, gone for a joyride in a car that had been stolen by some of his buddies. For some reason, and in their infinite stupidity, California authorities decided that this first offense warranted two years, four months in Folsom prison.
Nothing else showed as relevant, not before and not since. To Ham, long experienced with youthful idiots, that was a lark not worthy of suspicion. Joyriding was a long, long stretch from murder and/or extortion. Not even on the same planet.
Nevertheless, he handed it over to Blake. “Did you know about this?”
Blake spent less time on the details than had Ham. Glaring at Carson, he spit, “This is what you thought was so damn important?” To Ham he added, “I knew.” He tossed the pages and the envelope into the fire and watched as they leapt to flame. “And that is pretty much what I think about that.” Turning to Russ he admonished, “I’m surprised at you, especially. You know better than that. It’s not like we didn’t do the same damn thing when we were kids. We just didn’t get caught.”
To Ham, Russ grinned a combination of humored remembrance and embarrassed acknowledgement. “He lies. We did too get caught. Go on, tell him the truth.”
“What we did,” Blake announced, “was sneak out of the house Halloween night when I was staying over at Russ’ house. His older sisters—twins—were having a party and we, being younger and harder to get along with, decided it would be fun to turn a VW Beetle around sideways in the driveway. With the help of a few friends, we accomplished this enviable task and promptly let his sisters know that one of their guests was going to have a problem…hee, hee, hee, and aren’t we clever. Two very pissed twin sisters, who promptly tattled to two very much more pissed off parents and the upshot is that we were promptly sent to bed.”
Charlie returned, followed closely by Drew, each carrying a large circular and ornately carved silver service tray. Atop each perched various forms of liquid refreshment, including champagne on ice, chilled red Merlot and room temperature Chablis, along with silver smallish pots sporting hot chocolate or coffee. Thoughtfully arranged on each tray were a few accompanying snacks, including various cheeses, crackers and biscotti for the coffee crowd.
Drew placed her service tray next to Charlie’s, the two trays combined barely making a dent on the surface of the oversized table. Ham strangled a laugh—though not a wicked grin—as he watched Drew mimic a domestic side. She just might have pulled it off, he thought, were it not for that outsized pistol joined to her hip.
Ham helped himself to a steaming mug of the dark rich coffee brew—and two biscotti on the side—and while Blake, Charlie and Drew grabbed their desired allotments, Russ popped a beer and picked up the story where Blake had left off.
“To bed!” Russ spat, embarrassed rage either still there after all those years or really well feigned for the benefit of his audience. “I mean, can you imagine? Sent to bed at eight-thirty on Halloween night. And we weren’t kids, mind you, I mean we were fourteen, we were freaking adults! We had to tell our buddies that we couldn’t go out with them, that we had to stay inside. You can imagine how mortified we were to have to make that admission.”
Blake jumped back in, his huge grin denying any real anger Russ might have wanted to portray. “So we told them we’d meet them all over at Eddie’s house at eleven p.m. I mean, screw Russ’s parents, they couldn’t tell us what to do, not as old as we were. I don’t know who they thought they were messing with. I mean, we’ve proven we’re geniuses, right? It should have be clear to them even then, given our superbly sophisticated, nearly mind-boggling cleverness with the car.” Blake paused for effect before sweeping his arms in frustration and bellowing, “But could they see it? Nooooo….Not them. That’s how abused we were as budding young geniuses trying to launch our music revolution in the face of the disbelieving and great unwashed,” he added with a regretful sigh.
“True. How very true,” Russ affirmed, voice heavy with sorrow. “So we did the only thing we could do. We defied them. My room was on the second floor, front, and there was a porch roof outside my window. We, being geniuses and all, stuffed sleeping bags in my bed, pulled the blankets up over pillows masquerading as heads, turned off the lights and climbed right out that window. We left the window ajar about a half inch so we could get back inside, otherwise there was nothing to indicate our route of escape.”
“Or so we thought,” Blake interrupted. “Even budding geniuses have their limits, I suppose.”
“Your fault, not mine,” Russ charged. “You were supposed to handle that part of the plan. Anyway,” he continued, “we slipped out, tiptoed along the porch roof, dropped to the top of the fence, down to the ground and made good our getaway.”
Russ paused to guzzle a good half portion of his beer and to stuff a few pieces of cheese into his mouth. Grinning around his gnashing teeth, he waited for audience reaction, seemingly knowing Ham and/or Drew would be drawn in to an inside story about the Boy Superstars.
And he was right. “Okay,” Ham sighed, “I’ll ask. How does the story end? And why does it relate to Gordo’s joyriding days?”
Russ’s dancing eyes left Ham’s anticipation to grow, even as Charlie jumped in with the bottom line. “They stole a car,” she announced.
“We did NOT steal a car,” Blake corrected. “We BORROWED Eddie’s folk’s car. There’s a difference there.”
“Did they know you ‘borrowed’ it?”
“Well, we didn’t ask, if that’s what you mean. But no doubt they would have told us to go ahead and take it.”
“If,” Charlie inserted, “they had been awake—which they were not—rather than telling you to take the car, they might have explained that you were all fourteen years old, that none of you had drivers licenses, and that none of you even knew how to drive.”
“We had to learn sometime,” Russ pointed out. “That seemed like a good time to do so. For all of us.”
“We pushed the car down the driveway and out to the street,” Blake told Ham and Drew. “After we got far enough away so we wouldn’t be heard, we turned the car on and took off. We each took turns driving up and down the freeway. Unbelievably, we didn’t kill anybody else or even ourselves. Given my perspective from this day and age, I would have bet a million dollars against such a good outcome.”
“And,” Russ finished, “we weren’t arrested. If we’d been stopped, we probably all would have spent years in juvey, there would have been no Truckee River, and we wouldn’t be here today. God only knows where we’d be. I shudder to think of it.”
“We did get caught, though,” Blake reminded Russ, “just like you said. Only it was by your folks and it was when we were trying to crawl back in through the window.” Turning to Ham, he grinned, “Russ was half way in, I was behind him waiting my turn, and suddenly the light goes on, we see that the blankets are thrown back on the bed, the sleeping bags are fully exposed, and his folks are both standing there in the doorway. Just as calm as you please, his dad said, ’Why don’t you boys just come in the front door.’ And that was the end of it. That’s how cool his parents were.” With a far away look in his eyes, he added, “I loved them about as much as Russ did. They were another set of parents to me, you know?”
“And his mine,” Russ sighed. “
Ah hell, Garrett, let’s not get all misty eyed here.” To Ham he explained, “The pain of their passing never goes away. It does get to the point where it’s not there all the time, but it doesn’t abate.”
“I can’t believe nothing ever happened,” Drew laughed. “My parents would’ve grounded me until…well, hell, I’d still be grounded.”
“And her dad could make that stick, too,” Ham grinned. “He was one mean old cuss. In the best possible sense,” he recalled fondly.
“All they ever did to us,” Blake told them, “the only reference to that night, ever, was years later, when we were about to graduate high school and I came over to spend the night. Since we were going skiing from there the next morning, when we went to bed early and his dad told us, and I quote, ‘Goodnight, guys. Don’t run away from home again’.”
The silence that engulfed them leeched the gayety from the air as effectively as those smoke vents lifted pollutants from the bars of yesteryear. As each appeared to look inward, at whatever thoughts of their own that those parental memories may have evoked, Ham could almost feel the light dim, the air take on an icy edge, as though some unseen presence had seized the physical ambiance in its grasp and shaken the warmth out of it.
Until Carson piped up with some input of his own.
“My parents used to be so much fun, so full of life,” he sighed. “They haven’t been the same, though, since I died.”
Ham stared at Carson, open mouthed, noticing out of the corner of his eyes that Russ did as well, only Russ’ stare was that of a man watching a moron navigate a puzzle for idiots. Total stupefaction.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Drew informed him. “And let me tell you this, brother, if you’re not dead yet, you are very likely to be before this is over. You understand me?”
“That’s hardly a threat to me,” he grinned. “But I like the spirit. Double entendre very much intended.”
“Focus,” Ham reminded Drew in an aside. Pulling her out of earshot, he added, “Keep your eyes on the ball, not the distractions. It’s still about the payoff, remember?”
“Right,” Drew nodded. “Extortion, I know. It’s just that it’s so expertly done I’m beginning to think we may be in over our heads.”
“From Carson?” Ham sneered. “Puh-lease.”
“Pride can make you blind, Ham. Be careful here.”
“It’s all pretty straight forward, Drew.” Pulling at his lower lip, he allowed, “Except for Martina, of course. I don’t get that one. Mainly because I don’t know how the hell she’s managing to slip in and out so easily.” With troubled eyes, he admitted, “I had a really weird dream on the plane. I’m still a little jumpy about that. And this shit with Carson and Martina showing up here, waiting for us, certainly isn’t helping.”
“If this is so straightforward, who’s the mastermind? When are we going to get the demand for payoff? And the big one: should we recommend that Blake pay it, whatever and however much it is, and just move on with life? At least he’d be alive, and God knows he can afford it. No matter what it is…And what was the dream?”
Ham, with flushed face, stammered and stuttered over the explanation of Martina appearing to him on the trip over—and only to him. He explained how she had allowed nobody else to see or hear her, how she warned him of…well, not a test, but a need to believe. How his skepticism would cost Blake his life and how he’d better expand his consciousness to include the possibility that more existed in this world than he could explain, that he’d been chosen to help, that…
That he was obviously losing it. That she’d sent him a message just before landing that convinced him she must have been on the plane, a message that read “history is the only eternal…and the only test,” and that this was meaningful because it was exactly what she’d said in the dream…or the vision…
Or whatever the fuck.
And then she was here, waiting for him…okay, waiting for them, it probably wasn’t just him…but she winked at him, winked in a way that could only be another warning, a test, and it was disguised so only he could see it, and…
And he was insane. So what did Drew think about that, huh?
And how the hell could he protect Blake when he himself was insane?
“Take it easy, Ham. You’re spooked, yeah, I get that. I am, too, and like you I don’t get all this mystical shit. But like you said, way back there at that little would-be Irish bar with the sumo would-be wrestler, it’s all smoke and mirrors. It is all distraction, it’s a simple…well, okay, not at all simple, it’s complicated and well thought out…but it’s still extortion, pure and clear-cut. Nobody’s going to get killed as long as we don’t panic and do something stupid. At worst, it’s only money. Only money,” she emphasized, “and these guys have more of that than God or Midas. So what the freak, really? Right? You understand?”
Ham regarded her with glassy eyes and an unconvinced nod. “Yeah, I know all that. I know it’s all bullshit, and I know I’m being played. I also know I can keep Blake alive just by making him pay off and by not trying to catch the bastard who’s behind it. But what does that make me, Drew? Or you? We could have just told him that in the first place and saved him money…saved them money, Russ is paying you, too…by telling them that and delivering the funds on their behalf, couldn’t we? We could’ve done that and nobody gets hurt and nobody takes advantage of them and…”
“You mean we don’t take advantage of them. Well tell me this,” she demanded, “who do we pay? How much do we pay? How do we keep them uninvolved?” Drew pounded a finger against his temple. “Think, Ham. For heaven’s sake, I’ve never seen you this out of it before. So you’ve been spooked, so you can’t explain some magical misdirection, so what? Keep your eyes on the prize, that’s what you told me. Tell yourself. Do it.”
“Yeah,” Ham breathed, “you’re right. I guess this is just so far outside my norm, my comfort zone, that they’ve got me shook. Which I suppose they would know. They seem to have this pretty well planned. They probably knew who Blake would call, now that I think about it, given my relationship with Charlie.” Before Drew could object, he pointed out, “Yeah, I know, I’m assuming that whoever is behind this is an insider and would know about Charlie’s trouble.”
Drew smiled enigmatically. “So it’s the visions that bother you. Is that it?” Her eyes grew impossible to read as they danced, darkened, flashed and all of a sudden rounded. “Tell me, dear boy, have you ever had visions before? No?” As she said, “That’s what I thought,” her face dissolved into Martina’s gently smiling visage. “Well, dear boy, who do you think put them there?”
Ham stared at her, mouth agape, brain spinning at a dizzying pace.
Was he drooling? Was he even here?
God, that’s it, he realized with sudden and unexpected clarity, he was institutionalized! Tied down somewhere, drugs being pumped through his veins, psychedelic visions of ghostly imaginings…where’s the rainbow of colors, he wondered? Didn’t LSD and those kinds of mind altering distortions rain streams of colors? Isn’t that what he’d read, and isn’t that what the drug squad cops had told him all those years on the force?
“Here’s a clue, Ham. I give you these visions. You are not in a hospital, you are not tied down. You’re here and this is real. And one more clue, dear boy. Quit looking with your brain. It has less knowledge than your eyes, less awareness than your heart, less wisdom than your soul. Seek with your heart, Ham, your heart, your eyes and your soul. Then, and only then, will you find truth.”
Then she morphed back into Drew. Drew, who stared at him with concern, with a trepidation bordering on panic.
“Ham? Ham! Are you okay?”
Before an astonished Ham could reply, the sky ripped apart at the seams.
It must be so, he reasoned. It had to be that the sky ripped open, that some kind of cosmic tear in space and time had folded the world back upon itself. It must be so because the blast that accompanied that catastrophic event threatened to shatter th
e massive and impossibly shaking windows, windows which he couldn’t hear shake because, even as they threatened to double into themselves, a deafening blast echoed across the roof, through the compound and out across the lake, leaving him momentarily deaf in its wake.
Even as the concussive detonation left him deaf and senseless, his first and last rational thought was the realization that this was it, it was not the sky, it was manmade, that this was the third and final non-fatal attempt on Blake’s life.
The next one would be real. And would succeed. Martina had said so.
And he believed.
16
BAD MOON RISING
Ham tried to sit up but an unseen force drove him down, down, down, back toward the darkness that had engulfed him such a short while ago. Or was it a short while ago, he wondered. How long, actually, had he been out of it, if out of it he had, in fact, been?
He shook his aching head, too firmly at first, then slower as the room spun faster. The lead curtains that were his eyelids yielded to gravity and he found himself again in blindness, with only the sounds and smells of his predicament to tell him that he had not yet passed over. Most especially, that irritating “beep, beep, beep” of the freaking heart monitor kept him centered, here, alive, among the claustrophobic confines of the would-be medical angels who smothered the very air around him.
Various voices sounded a range of opinions on a variety of worries, all of which seemed somehow aimed at updating his condition to whomsoever might care. He’s awake . . . He might have a concussion…Check his eyes…Are his ears bleeding?
Sunlight burst through his suddenly forced open lids, blinding and burning the blurry nothingness beyond. “Get that shit the fuck out of my…” He stopped when he realized that all he’d said was “guhnnn muhnnn guhnnn.”
Okay, mouth doesn’t work. Eyes don’t focus. Ears work. But are they bleeding? “Mmmpphhh, grrpphhh, ummmpah?”
“ Be still,” an angel ordered. “Don’t try to talk.”
The Ghost of Truckee River (A Ham McCalister Mystery Book 1) Page 22