by Dean Ing
And so Gary told him a few brief bits about Jan: their long-distance commuting, her status as a fitness freak, the basic fact that she wasn't as anxious to marry as he was. He had just mentioned Jan's first experience in a sailplane near Bakersfield when the phone rang. "That should be her now," he said, getting up.
"I need to use the John," Andy said, with a "which door?" gesture as though he had not already been briefed by Romana. He carried his second beer, barely tasted, with him into the hallway.
Gary pointed, then answered the third ring. "Hey, Wonder Woman," he murmured, and smiled at the response. "I dunno, I guess because I wondered who else would be calling, and I wonder about your plans for the weekend, and I also wonder if I can wait."
Andy's tactic in leaving the room implied that he was not interested in overhearing the conversation, which was true because tonight, Romana's laser audio link should be picking up every word spoken in that room. It also gave Andy a chance to give the bathroom a subtle toss. Some bathrooms tell little. Some tell all. There was no telling what little detail might prove useful, or to whom; had Andy accepted the offer to swim, it would have been obvious to Landis that he had shaved his legs during the past few weeks.
Andy shut the bathroom door behind him, careful to press the lock button quietly, and let the horseshoe of toilet seat make plenty of noise as it dropped. If Landis were one of those people who could split his attention expertly, Andy would give him a scenario to follow with innocent sound effects.
He placed a bath towel below the storage cabinet before opening it with care. On the shelves he found clean towels, a boxful of shoe polish and brushes, a supply of soap and toilet tissue, a toilet brush, and a scatter of uninformative odds and ends, and on the bottom shelf an old cardboard box half-full of clothes in need of washing. He rearranged the towel in the sink directly below the medicine cabinet, then opened the cabinet a crack, peering closely to be certain he was not about to commit a huge gaffe.
With one of her tragicomic little anecdotes about the old days and later with a harmless demonstration, Romana had warned Andy to always position a towel to muffle any possible falling objects from cabinets.
She had discovered the hard way that some suspicious types will rig cabinet doors - especially a medicine cabinet - to let objects such as a child's marbles clatter out, an alarm against the prying guest who opens that seemingly innocent little cabinet door. The best way out of such an ambush, she had said, was a loud curse, followed by a laugh and "Now I know where you lost your marbles; but where do you keep your aspirin?"
But Landis was evidently not into such games and Andy made a brisk, expert survey of the cabinet.
Bromo, ibuprofen, Vitamin C, rubbing alcohol, Band-Aids, and personal-hygiene articles were scanned without a touch. The plastic prescription bottles were of more interest: old prescriptions for anti-inflammatory caps of piroxicam, and Tylenol with Codeine; another, very recent, for grooved white Percocet pain pills. Andy replaced each bottle exactly as he found it, closed the cabinet door silently and made a noisy production of tearing off several scrolls of toilet tissue with suitable pauses. Then he replaced the towel on its rack with his usual precision, emptied his bottle of expensive beer into the sink, and flushed while sitting on the toilet, undoing his belt.
Finally he washed his hands to complete his sound effects.
Andy opened the bathroom door to the sound of flushing and strode out renotching his belt while his host was still on the phone. He retrieved a third beer from the refrigerator and took a brief swig, then strolled to the big living-room window with its view of the parking lot and West Fresno rooftops. Beside the window sat Gary's little Compaq computer with a scatter of software manuals, vehicle overhaul manuals, windowed envelopes; all strewn under the benign scrutiny of a young woman who smiled out from a color photo in a cheap cardboard frame. And one letter with a Bakersfield return address written in a voluptuous looping hand. No name. None needed, he surmised. The letter and photo were almost certainly from the woman talking to Landis at that moment.
He studied the photo more carefully. She sprawled barefoot on a poolside chair in shorts and halter, squinting up from beneath the bill of a baseball cap that was too large for her. Her grin was impudent. No guile here, nor self-consciousness, and no wonder, with the well-defined musculature of a young tennis pro.
It seemed to Andy that warmth radiated from that photo as from a floodlight. As a sexual object, he decided, she would be perfection itself. He wondered how all that splendid tanned flesh would feel beneath a man's fingertips.
Because Landis was at the other side of the room talking, Andy leaned toward the window, craning his neck as though studying the view. Softly, he murmured the return address of the woman's letter to the window-pane. No possible way I can forget it now, he thought, smiling. But Mom will probably bitch that I took a chance in muttering to her toward the window. The prescriptions were firmly locked in his mind, even to the fact that a Dr. Bayless had recently given the Percocet prescription and a Thrifty pharmacy on Shaw had filled it. Mom salivated over little details like that, damn her. Strike that, don't think that way, we're the perfect team.
Presently Gary finished his call. "Sorry about that," he said.
"I can see how sorry you look," Andy replied with easy sarcasm because Landis was beaming.
"Well, she has that effect. If she'd canceled out on me this weekend you'd see one sorrowful sonofabitch," Gary said, and headed for the kitchen. "How you doing for beer?"
"On my third," Andy said and sat down. "My limit, long as I'm driving home." A pause. Then, "So she didn't cancel out. Gonna take her vroom-vroom on your motorcycle?"
Gary emerged swigging his third beer and smiling, but with a V of intensity between his eyes. "What motorcycle?" he asked.
Andy blinked, then pointed toward the desk with the mouth of his bottle. "Circumstantial evidence. Saw that bike manual and figured you must have one. Bad guess," he said, shrugging.
"Not so bad," Gary admitted. In the next half-hour, he told his earnest young friend about the Kawasaki gasket problem and about his old Cessna, and to explain that plastic cast but without the details, the fact that he'd cracked his forearm recently in a fall. With his third Sam Adams, Gary loosened up considerably.
Young Andy Soriano was a very good listener, chuckling at all the right places, content to let his host ramble on. He didn't even pry for details about the fracture, and whether that fall had been from the Kawasaki.
Sometime later, Gary realized that he had dozed off while talking, and that Andy Soriano stood near gazing down at him with a gentle, almost beatific smile. "Long day at the lab tomorrow," said Andy, seeing Gary's eyes focus. "I came too late and stayed too long." He retrieved his coat and tie while Gary made his own apology, and paused in the doorway to promise he would keep his eyes open for a gasket set.
When the younger man had gone, Gary splashed water on his face and watched the end of Nightline.
And thought fleetingly about Soriano. Odd young guy, anxious to please but, from most appearances, not all that interesting. Though already in his mid-twenties, he reminded Gary somehow of a college freshman craving acceptance from a big man on campus, eager to learn, or maybe to please. I guess some guys just try too hard, thought Gary. At least with Andy, he didn't have to play Scumbag Two to somebody like Ralph Guthrie, Scumbag One. A mistake with Guthrie could wind up getting you killed. In the company of harmless Andy Soriano, the only problem was staying awake.
30
JUNE 1994
Guthrie was still sleeping in the same dump in Merced so Luna wouldn't get antsy, but as he let himself in, the discovery that one of Luna's serpents was lounging on his couch failed to stab that familiar old icicle into his innards. Guthrie got the word on the street just like everybody else, and he knew about the interagency bust down Highway 99 in Fresno to take out some Asians who, in fact, were La Familia's competition. It was simply Luna's bad luck that one of his own boys was in the
way, choosing exactly the wrong time to be making a small personal buy of something Luna didn't sell. Now there was only one snake to deal with. Guthrie wondered how the guy had got past his deadbolt; probably, he thought, he'd find one of his screens slit later. "Well, make yourself right at home," he said.
"El Patrón wonders if you have found your man."
"I've found out where he prob'ly isn't, for one thing," Guthrie replied. "Staked out the lot where the feebs park their cars, and hung around where they come and go. Not a trace, so I think that's a nada. The DEA has its own little building downtown on M Street so you can't hang out there, but I watched their lot too. No luck there either." He didn't add that while having a few smokes nearby he had spotted some dude in a big old Plymouth, sipping coffee and actually flicking cigarette ash into the paper cup between sips; now, there was a little pick-me-up to gag a maggot. He got the idea maybe this dude was on a stakeout of his own, maybe to snare someone like Guthrie himself. The idea had unnerved Guthrie enough to send him scurrying. Well, if necessary he could slip that piece of news to Luna. It might not be worth much, but it was something. "Least we know Lane prob'ly isn't one of those guys," Guthrie said.
"Quizás; perhaps. And the cycle shop?"
That was different, and Guthrie was about to say so, but it was really a downer to be so far down Luna's list that he was now reporting to a snake. In fact, it was just a little off-pissing, now that Guthrie only had one snake to deal with. "I need to talk to Pepe about that," Guthrie shrugged.
The little Latino reacted as if he'd been waiting to reach some kind of decision, which pissed Guthrie off even more because it was unsettling. Usually this little reptile only followed orders. But maybe he was following them now. "You need to come with me," he said, and gestured toward the door.
Guthrie sighed heavily, but he put hands on knees to stand up, and that was when he found himself looking down the hole in the silencer of a medium-bore automatic pistol. "Hands behind, thumbs together,"
he was told. He saw the plastic strip, an automotive-wire-bundle tie, before it was drawn tight over his thumbs. It was really amazing how effective a wire tie could be; as good as clothesline rope, and a good deal more painful when used as thumb cuffs.
Guthrie let the Latino put his leather coat over his shoulders before they headed for the street, becoming a little less pissed, a little more worried. It was dark outside. Maybe Pepe Luna was waiting in the Lincoln. Yeah, Guthrie reminded himself, and maybe generals cooled their heels in town cars waiting for privates to make decisions. The car wasn't Luna's Lincoln, but within a few minutes after he was ushered into the backseat, Guthrie found reason to believe Luna had sat there. At first the little snake seemed to be headed for the Mex quarter, but picked up a main drag on the edge of town, proceeding due east out the Yosemite Road now, and Ralph Guthrie's intuition was hollering, "Deep shit! Deep shit!" as loud as it could. By then, he knew he couldn't reach the knife in his pocket but he'd scrunched down enough to get his hands behind the seat cushion.
Gum wrappers, a couple of coins, and a ballpoint pen met his scrabbling fingers before he touched a long, flat sliver of rough-faced cold steel with rounded ends that mystified him for only a second before he recognized it as a nail file, the kind of pricey diamond-surfaced tool Luna was always fiddling with.
Fumbling with the damned thing behind his back, he dropped it too many times to count before learning that it worked best using only the fingers of one hand to saw at the plastic wire tie. It hurt when he pulled, but it hurt when he didn't, and by now Guthrie suspected he was heading for a world of hurt unless he worked something besides his mouth.
Meanwhile, he tried to get some kind of conversation started, but Señor Snake wasn't interested in anything but getting out into the foothills at a safe pace. Guthrie had almost given up hoping as the sedan nosed off the highway onto a gravel road, his fingers cramping now, but as the turn tightened and Guthrie rolled a bit, the plastic parted. "Luna's gonna be royally pissed if I don't get to tell him the latest," Guthrie said.
A low chuckle from the driver. "You have tol' him all you have to tell," was the reply. For Ralph Guthrie, it was as clear a death sentence as anyone needed to hear.
Because he didn't trust the little nail file's blunt tip and completely forgot his pocketknife, Guthrie got the heaviest thing he could reach. It happened to be his left boot, which he pulled off quietly, the car jouncing hard and slowing to negotiate the ruts. There were no lights anywhere through the oaks and madrones, and Guthrie knew he had waited too long by a bunch to make some kind of statement for himself. He made it by stuffing his right fist into the boot, then grabbing the driver by hair pomaded so thickly you'd think the lice couldn't get a grip, and simultaneously he drove the boot heel home into the man's temple as hard as he could.
Guthrie would never know whether it was the boot's impact, or the man's head rebounding from the closed window, that put Señor Snake into hibernation. Whatever. It was enough that the driver never made an outcry or a good defensive move before lolling against the door, the car making one final lunge before it stalled.
Ralph Guthrie was out of that car like a squirt out of a goose, and would have run off into the darkness if he hadn't stubbed his bootless toes hard enough to send him sprawling. The headlights still bored into the brush and with the back door open, the interior light showed that Señor Snake wasn't moving. Guthrie sat down, took the boot off his right hand, and put it on his foot. Then he limped back to the car and began to do a few things right.
The driver was breathing, but dishrag-limp, and blood was trickling from his right ear. Guthrie shut off the headlights, pocketed the silenced pistol, and found himself suddenly filled with a sense of godlike power; the elation of reprieve. He checked out Señor Snake's other pockets and threw his switchblade far out into the night, then thrust the little guy, who was almost pathetically frail, into a heap in the passenger footwell, closed the back door, and treated himself to a Winston while he sat behind the wheel and thought it over.
It was tempting to exult in the idea that he'd beaten Pepe Luna, but Guthrie wasn't that stupid. He had only clobbered a little snake with his boot; but clobbered him so hard there was a good chance the guy wasn't going to survive it. By the rules of the game, the snake and the car and oh, yes, the pistol, too, were Pepe Luna's property, and Guthrie knew better than to make any of them disappear because, sure as shit stinks, the snake had got his comeuppance while on a deadly errand for Luna.
"Wait a minute," Guthrie said aloud. There was no real proof that the snake had gotten Guthrie out here; none, in fact, that he'd even seen Guthrie, if Guthrie was careful to wipe down everything he'd touched. And that little toss of his victim's pockets had turned up a few little glassine envelopes - dime bags - in the snake's jacket. "Oh, man, he wouldn't like that at all," Guthrie told himself, chuckling, thinking about Luna's reaction if he learned that Señor Snake was found somewhere in Mextown, with traces of nose candy around his nostrils in a car that had been graunched by the wigged-out driver. Uncut coke could turn a driver into a cop magnet on wheels, which was one good reason why Luna didn't knowingly keep users around long. The elation was still singing in Guthrie's veins, lending him optimism. He could even contact Luna as soon as he got home, volunteering everything he did have, which admittedly wasn't much, denying that he'd seen this murderous little fucker who was still breathing in brief snorts and snuffles in the dark down in the footwell. Chances were, after a setup like this, Senor Snake's word would be shit with Luna.
But if he had to - if the little guy woke up and gave him any static while he was setting this up - Ralph Guthrie was ready to put him away, kick his brains out if he had to. Shoot or boot, it didn't matter; Guthrie was on a roll. He'd never thought seriously about offing anybody before this, maybe because he'd never before actually believed he was seconds away from being murdered, but as he started up the car, backing to a turnaround, he marveled about a new insight into himself: given the moti
vation, he could waste an opponent in a second.
He could've opened one of those dime bags right then, smeared his fingers with it and stuffed them into Senor Snake's nostrils, maybe taking a tiny snort for himself, but he didn't need to feel any more cranked than he was and one thing he didn't want to do was jolt his victim awake too soon. He found his way back into town, cruising the edge of the Latino section until he spotted a few sturdy fruit trees near a little stucco place only a few blocks from the main drag. Headlights off, Guthrie eased the sedan off the road and so, of course, didn't see the shallow ditch until his front wheels nosed over into it. The noise wasn't as bad as it might have been, but the jolt had the feel of permanence.
In his haste to wipe his prints from everything, Guthrie nearly forgot the most important thing, but after hauling Señor Snake back into the driver's seat he got his fingers nice and powdery with white stuff before thrusting them into the nose, letting some fall on the guy's guayabera shirtfront as well, with still more on the floor mat. Anybody who couldn't draw the obvious conclusion from that and the rest of the envelopes - well, it wouldn't be Ralph Guthrie's fault.
Guthrie set out walking, cursing the local dogs, and splurged on a taxi from a nearby gas station. He wasn't feeling so hyper now, but he was still pleased that he'd resisted a snort that might have affected his judgment. Judgment, he knew, had never been his strongest suit.
His call to Luna wasn't returned for almost two days and, accompanied by two new guys who didn't seem to have any English, Luna met him at the park again. Luna sat across from him at a picnic table in bright, nonthreatening sunlight, and if reading his eyes was any help, you'd think Luna was regarding him with new respect. It turned out that Luna told as much as he learned, and that was when Guthrie found out how wrong he could be about a simple thing, and how your luck could turn like a pinwheel.
As Luna buffed his nails, Guthrie began by describing his efforts, including the surveillance he'd noted near the DEA's place in downtown Fresno. "I don't suppose that was one of your people."