White Ghost Ridge

by Carol Coffey

  Tommy stopped talking and his face became serious. Locklear could see that the kid was starting to wonder if he was safe.

  “I already told you,” Paytah laughed. “This is my Uncle Two-Sides.”

  “Jimmy, dude, your uncle looks kinda white,” Tommy sniggered.

  “Yeah, he doesn’t get out much,” Paytah joked. “Sits at his desk all day managing an insurance company. He’s kind of a pasty-faced embarrassment to me.”

  “OK, guys, very funny,” said Locklear, “but I gotta get back to town. Tommy, I can give you a ride and then you and Jimmy could go have a few beers.”

  Paytah looked at Locklear. “Uncle, I keep telling you I don’t drink,” he warned.

  “Yes, and I keep telling you you’re a pussy. A real man has a few beers, damn it. Am I right, Tommy?”

  “Fucking A straight, Mr Indian,” Tommy said, laughing. “The Chief’s a pussy. He don’t drink, smoke, do drugs, don’t run around with a lotta girls despite being a goddamn handsome dude. Girls are throwing themselves at him at college but he just says nah, he’s looking for a special woman. Like there’s just one! Ha! He’s like a fucking priest.”

  “Is that right?” Locklear replied as he smiled at Paytah.

  Paytah looked away, embarrassed.

  “Well, let’s go,” Locklear said. “My assistant is waiting and, Tommy, a word of warning – she’s hot but she bites.”

  “Well, Jesus, that’s exactly the way I like ’em.”

  They passed through arrivals and made their way to Mendoza sitting in the car. Locklear opened the car door for Tommy. He slid into the back seat and Locklear climbed in beside him. Paytah sat in upfront with Mendoza.

  “Hi, babe,” Tommy said as he pulled on Mendoza’s seat to get a better look at her. “Oh, you weren’t wrong, Mr Two-Sides – she is hot!”

  Mendoza glanced back at him and scowled.

  “Look, there’s my – travel companion,” Tommy said as he pointed to a man loading his case into the trunk of a cab. “I bet he’s wondering where I am. Quick, we need to follow him.”

  Mendoza pulled out to follow the cab and drove behind it as it exited the airport and drove north-east on Route 44.

  “You need another smoke?” Locklear asked. “Go ahead if you want to.”

  “I’m all out. You got one?”

  Locklear shook his head.

  “No point in asking Mister Pussy for one!” Tommy laughed as he elbowed Locklear, reminding him about their joke at Paytah’s expense.

  “I do,” offered Mendoza. She felt down to her purse on the floor of the car and pulled out a small silver tin.

  “Watch the goddamn road!” Locklear barked.

  Mendoza straightened up the car and handed the silver container back to Locklear.

  Locklear opened it and sighed at the two half-smoked joints inside. He’d had no idea she was into marijuana.

  Mendoza looked at her boss through the rear-view mirror.

  “Relax. I took them by accident from a woman in a club.”

  “What club? When?”

  “In DC. I’ll tell you about it another time. OK?”

  When the idea had come to Locklear to keep Rosenberg as stoned as possible, it had seemed like a good idea but his conscience told him this was wrong. This kid was someone’s child, a neglected young man by the way Paytah told it. He couldn’t abuse him any more than the people in his life already had.

  Too late. Tommy’s light fingers lifted the larger of the two joints before he could shut the box.

  Tommy put the joint in his mouth and rummaged through his travel bag looking for a lighter.

  “Hey, cute babe, you got a light?” he asked, tapping Mendoza on the shoulder.

  Mendoza stared angrily at him through her rear-view mirror.

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Fuck, you offer me a joint and then I can’t fucking light it?”

  He rummaged through his travel bag which lay on the seat between him and Locklear.

  “Do you want me to try help you find it?” Locklear asked.

  “I’m not allowed to show anyone what’s inside.”

  Locklear pretended to let out a short laugh. “Why? You got a bomb in there?”

  “Fuck bombs. Who wants to mess with that shit? There’s way more money in this.”

  “What is it?” Locklear asked as Tommy finally found a lighter at the bottom of his packed bag.

  Tommy lit up, inhaled deeply and lay back in the seat.

  “This is good shit, babe. You wanna share it?”

  “Sorry, I can’t. Working!”

  Tommy pulled himself forward and pushed his long thin body suggestively into the back of Mendoza’s seat. Locklear watched as he smelt Mendoza’s hair. She flinched and pulled herself forward towards the steering wheel. Tommy inhaled again and blew smoke all over the crown of her head and then raised his hand to touch her thick black hair.

  “Hey, Tommy, do you mind – that’s my girlfriend,” Locklear said.

  Tommy raised his hands up in the air. “Jesus, sorry, man. You said she’s your assistant and, like, weren’t you going to the airport to, like, pick up your wife? I checked to see if the babe had a wedding ring and she doesn’t so I thought why not give her a go?”

  “Give her a go?” Locklear snapped but then tried to regain his composure. “You know how it is, Tommy. You try working with someone who looks like she does every day and not feel the need to, well, you know ...”

  “I dig you, man. You’re a little old for her but I dig. Legend!” And he raised his hand to high-five Locklear.

  Locklear did not raise his hand.

  Paytah let out a big sigh to show his disapproval of the tone of the conversation.

  “Hey, Jimmy, this guy is cool – you sure he’s your uncle?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “For real? Like, not just one of those Indian uncles – you know, where every Indian you know is an ‘uncle’?” Tommy placed his hand over his mouth, made Indian war-whooping sounds and snorted.

  Paytah turned in his seat and looked at Locklear. A moment passed between the two men.

  “No. He’s really my uncle but he’s a bad example to me,” Paytah said.

  When the 44 merged with Omaha street, Mendoza drove two further blocks and swung a right onto Haines Avenue. The cab in front of her slowed and pulled to the curb as it searched for its final destination.

  Mendoza pulled in and pretended to check her phone.

  “I don’t know which building I’m going to,” Tommy said as he began to lower the window. “I’ll just shout out to Mr Braff. He knows where.”

  Then he gasped as Locklear clamped his huge hand over his mouth. The redhead’s alarmed eyes swam as he tried to digest what was happening.

  Mendoza put the car in reverse and, as quietly as she could, moved the car about 100 feet back and parked behind an empty yellow sedan, out of the view of Braff’s cab. She turned off the engine, twisted around and reached back to roll up the car window lest Rosenberg manage to warn Braff of their presence.

  Mendoza got out and opened the rear passenger door. She leaned in and assisted Locklear to secure Tommy by sticking a long strip of tape over his mouth. As she reached across Tommy’s thin body, she thought about punching him for coming on to her so crudely but she didn’t want to knock the guy out before Locklear had a chance to interrogate him. They taped his legs together and his hands behind his back. Locklear began to empty the contents of the bag which was full of dirty socks and underwear as well as other grubby clothes, which Locklear reckoned was another trick Rosenberg deployed to deter airport staff from going through his bag. When he managed to empty the bag of its disgusting contents, he lifted out a heavy object. It was covered in dark-green silk and inside the silk was a heavily taped cardboard box. Locklear looked at Braff’s car. He ducked as the tall black-haired man he knew to be Braff got out, carrying a travel bag, and made his way to a side door of a massive steel warehouse. Outside the building a si
gn read Olsen International Distributors.

  “Paytah, this is what I need you to do,” Locklear said as he handed the young Native the box which no doubt contained precious artefacts. “You’re going to drive the car far out of town to an isolated spot and set Tommy loose.”

  Both Paytah and Mendoza registered surprise.

  Locklear reached into his own bag and took a bottle of water and a sandwich from it. “Take his phone and money but leave him with these.”

  Paytah nodded.

  Locklear held Tommy’s face as the frightened young man stared at him in horror.

  “Guess you’re starting to come down from your high now, Tommy, and you’re real paranoid. Don’t worry. I’ve been there. It’s a bad feeling. But here’s what’s going to happen to you now. Paytah’s going to drive to an isolated spot and keep you there for, oh, at least four hours or so until you can’t do us any harm. He’ll set you free when I tell him it’s safe to do so.”

  Locklear looked the dishevelled young man up and down and then looked out of the car at the bright-blue sun-filled sky.

  “When you’re eventually set free, best thing for you to do is to keep your mouth shut. Your friend Braff will go down and I guess he’ll sing like a canary about your parents’ involvement and maybe even yours – but you’re a dumb kid – you tell the police your parents asked you to carry some boxes and that you never knew what was in any of them. Best thing that could happen to you, kid, is your grandfather and parents get locked up for a long time and you get free of them and start thinking for yourself.”

  Tommy remained still as Locklear’s words sank in.

  “You see, Tommy, I’m not really after a little fish like you. You seem like a good enough kid apart from the fact that you’re a misogynistic pig with no morals and a penchant for drugs which will almost certainly ruin whatever little life you could have carved out for yourself. Now – and here’s the only lesson I have time to give you today – never ever disrespect any woman the way you did here.”

  Drawing back his hand, he slapped Tommy Rosenberg hard on the face.

  “That’s for disrespecting my friend. I’d say from the look on her face, she was hoping to do that herself but I wanted the satisfaction.”

  Mendoza grinned.

  “And this,” he said as he landed another slap across the groaning boy’s face, “is for disrespecting Jimmy’s culture. And mine.”

  Chapter 28

  Locklear stood out of the car and tied the seatbelt around Rosenberg’s body, pinning him to the back seat so he couldn’t cause Paytah any trouble on the long drive into the wilderness. He tried to kick out as Locklear secured another belt around his legs

  “Would you prefer to finish your ride in the trunk? It’s about 30 degrees in the car. Hotter in the trunk. No? Didn’t think so,” he said as Tommy became motionless.

  “Two-Sides? Look here,” Paytah said as he climbed over to the driver’s seat.

  Locklear leaned into the car as Paytah opened his backpack and took out two handguns.

  “Don’t worry. They aren’t mine. They belong to Looks-Twice but whoever is in there isn’t going down without a fight. Two-Sides, please take them.”

  Locklear was taken aback by the offer but then was struck by something else. “Why did you call me Two-Sides?” he asked.

  “I made it up. Natives receive many names during their lifetime.”

  “Yes, but why that name? Why Two-Sides?”

  “Because I can see the dark side to you, and the light side. Both fight each other until one side wins.”

  “I can only be on the side that’s right,” Locklear replied.

  “Then, you must decide which side that is.”

  Locklear stepped away from the car as Paytah pulled away from the curb. He handed Mendoza one of the guns and scanned the building on the other side of the scorched street.

  “Are you ready for whatever is inside there?” she asked.

  “Yes, but first we’re calling for back-up,” he said as he borrowed her phone and phoned the Rapid City police force. He wouldn’t know anyone there now. Too many years had passed since he had served as a rookie cop but he knew the mention of his popular captain’s name from that time would encourage those stationed there now to come to his aid.

  He finished the call, relieved that back-up would be provided by the captain who remembered Locklear’s old boss.

  He walked with Mendoza to the white metal building. There were no windows on the side that faced the roadway. They walked to the right of the building and made their way along the gable end which also had no doors and no windows. Parked along the back wall were about a dozen new Ford trucks.

  Mendoza pointed to them. “You reckon Diaz and Hill are involved and that they got their shiny new trucks as some kind of payoff? O’Brien doesn’t trust them.”

  “O’Brien’s got some answering of his own to do but, yeah, I suspect the trucks were payment from Sartre and his gang. Who knows how long they’ve been keeping their mouths shut about things.”

  Together, they crept along the back of the building until they came to a large roller door which was closed. A fork truck was parked outside a small door which had been left ajar. There were three cigarette butts on the ground outside the door and the keys were still in the fork truck’s ignition. One of the butts was still smouldering. Someone would be back very soon and Locklear reckoned they had only seconds to slip inside before being seen.

  They looked inside as they held their guns out, ready to fire. Inside the dimly lit building were multiple rows of racking on which goods were boxed for distribution.

  “Surely these can’t all be artefacts? There must be thousands of items here,” Mendoza whispered.

  “They must be running a legitimate distribution business here to cover up what’s really going on. Otherwise, the cops would have been all over this place.”

  Mendoza listened but the only sound coming from within the building was music humming softly in some distant corner of the huge unit.

  “Why can’t we hear anything?” she said. “We saw Braff coming in. There must be other people here.”

  Locklear signalled for Mendoza to follow him deeper into the warehouse. They crept at a snail’s pace as they moved through the long aisles, the racking of which was backed with wire caging, making it easy to see movement further into the warehouse.

  “I don’t like this. If someone comes upon us, we’re sitting ducks,” Mendoza whispered.

  Locklear nodded. “It’s too open. We need cover.”

  When she thought her boss was not looking, Mendoza blessed herself, thought of her mother, her son and her sick grandmother and prayed that she would get out of this place alive.

  “I saw that,” Locklear said.

  Mendoza snorted. “You’ve got eyes in the back of your head.”

  Locklear signalled for Mendoza to take another aisle in the hope that one of them would find Braff quickly. As they searched the sixth aisle they had still not seen or heard any movement in the building.

  Then Mendoza heard footsteps outside. She turned and stared at Locklear, who was three aisles down, through the wire cages. Her eyes turned towards the door which was still open.

  Standing just inside the door, with the brilliant light behind him, was a huge man with a revolver pointed at her.

  Locklear watched as his trooper put her hands up.

  “Drop the gun,” a male voice ordered.

  Mendoza did not look at her boss for fear of giving his position away.

  “I said, drop your gun.”

  Mendoza thought about the order for a moment.

  Locklear tensed. He knew she wouldn’t relinquish her weapon easily.

  “I’m a cop,” she said.

  “No shit,” the man replied. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have back-up on the way. I’d advise you to put your weapon down.”

  “Where’s your partner?”

  “I’m here alone.”


  Locklear heard a loud raspy laugh. “I saw the two of you sneak in here. You think I wasn’t watching you on my cameras. I let you creep far enough into this rabbit-hole that you can’t get out.”

  The huge man raised his gun higher and moved closer to Mendoza until she could see his face clearly. Mendoza took in his shock of white hair and deathly pale skin but it was his eyes that held her attention. The man’s pupils were so pale they were almost without colour. She had come face to face with the White Ghost.

  “Now I asked you, where is your friend?”

  “He’s gone upstairs to see Braff.”

  “Upstairs?” he asked as he moved even closer to her.

  “Yes.”

  The man lifted a radio from his belt and spoke urgently into it. Locklear heard loud footsteps running above him – one, possibly two, people. He hunkered down and crept in the direction of the man.

  “Do you know anything about albinism?” the man asked.

  Mendoza nodded towards the man who now stood no more than thirty feet from her.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s caused by a lack of melanin so people with the condition are pale and have white hair.”

  “Anything else?”

  “It’s usually genetic.”

  “Good girl. What a shame you wasted your intelligence and became a police officer. Tut-tut. But not all family members are born with this condition. Some show no signs of it at all.”

  Mendoza nodded. “So you have siblings who don’t have the condition? That must have been hard on you. It must have seemed unfair.”

  The albino laughed. “Oh, don’t try to mind-fuck me, officer. The condition can come with its advantages. Can you think of one?”

  While Mendoza tried to think of an answer, Locklear continued to creep towards the man.

  “Oh! You can’t think of an answer. What a shame! Well, then, let’s move to the disadvantages, will we?”

  Mendoza swallowed. “You can’t see very well.”

  “Very good but it’s really only strong light that affects me. Confuses me a little. It takes me a while to get my bearings. Otherwise I get around just like anybody else. But do you know what happens to people with poor eyesight? What special skill people like me sometimes have? What compensation?”