She had heavy, purple eye liner around her brown eyes. The thick mascara on her eyelashes was the same color.
This broad puts on her makeup with a shovel, thought Guido.
He couldn’t help wondering how many cans of hairspray the woman used to hold her towering beehive hairdo so rigidly in place.
“Get you boys something?”
Guido pulled his Las Vegas Police Department badge holder out of his blazer and flipped it open.
“I’m Detective Kinston. This is detective Blake.”
The woman cupped her ear and leaned toward him.
“Gonna have to speak up, officer. Can’t hear you.”
Guido shouted the message.
“Yeah, so?”
He put the picture of Kiko Yoshida on the bar.
“We’re looking for this woman. Have you seen her?”
The woman glanced at the picture and shook her head.
“Do you mind if we ask your customers?”
The woman surveyed the lively crowd and smiled.
“No, I don’t mind.
Tell you what. I’ll even get you a microphone.”
She came out from behind the bar and walked toward the riser where the band was finishing their song with a final flourish.
Guido watched her put her hand over the lead singer’s microphone and talk to him. She turned and motioned Guido forward.
“Come with me,” he said to Fiore.
The two men crossed the floor and stepped up onto the riser. They stood side by side, facing the crowd.
Guido banged on the microphone a few times.
“Hey, listen up.”
The noise level dropped. People turned to look.
He held up his badge.
“Good evening. I’m Detective Kinston and this is my partner, Detective Blake. We’re from the Las Vegas Police Department.”
The room fell silent. The only sound was the squeak of two ancient, black ceiling fans trying to stir the thick cloud of smoke and overheated air in the room.
Guido noticed several of the men and a couple of the women were beginning to edge toward the door.
He held up the picture of Kiko.
“We’re looking for this woman. My partner and I are going to come around with her picture. If you’ve seen her, we want to know about it.”
A voice came from the crowd.
“Piss off.”
Another voice chimed in.
“Yeah. Little out of your jurisdiction, ain’t ya?”
“We’re working in cooperation with local law enforcement.”
“That’s a good one, bozo. Local law enforcement don’t come here.
Any of you seen any ‘local law enforcement’ lately?”
That got a laugh.
The second voice came again.
“We don’t like cops here. Get your sorry asses out of town!”
The crowd surged forward.
Fiore reached inside his jacket.
A deep voice called from the back of the room.
“Hold it. Hold up, Goddamnit.”
The crowd came to a halt.
“These guys ain’t cops.”
“What are they then?”
A large, thick, muscular man shouldered his way to the front of the crowd. There was a huge spider tattooed on the side of his face.
“I don’t know the guy with his hand in his jacket, but the guy at the mic is Guido Battagliano. He’s a made man with the Chicago Outfit. And before you decide to push him, you should know he’d just as soon kill you as look at you.”
The crowd moved back.
The first man who had yelled spoke again.
“How you know that, Spider?”
“He did a nickel jolt a Leavenworth when I was there. Stand up con. Nobody messed with him. Not even the screws.”
He turned back toward Guido and Fiore.
“Member me, Mr. Battagliano?”
“Yeah, sure, Spider. See you’re still clankin’ that iron.
What’s the haps?”
“No haps, Mr. Battagliano.
If you hand me that picture, I’ll have everyone take a look for you. That okay?”
Fiore took his hand out of his blazer.
“Sure, Spider. Come ahead.”
The man came forward. Guido handed him the picture.
Guido and Fiore watched as Spider circulated the room with the photograph. They noticed that everyone looked at it very carefully.
The man brought the picture back to Guido.
“Don’t look like anyone’s seen her, Mr. Battagliano.”
Guido took the picture and turned around and showed it to the band. Nobody recognized her.
He turned back to the silent room and spoke into the microphone.
“Thanks for your help. Get back to your dance.”
Behind him, the drummer did a rim shot on the snare and hit the cymbal.
The crowd laughed. The tension went out of the room.
Guido stepped down and walked over to Spider.
“Glad you spoke up. Partner’s a little crazy. Probably woulda shot a couple people.”
“You don’t mind me askin’, who is he?”
“That’s Fiore Abbatini.”
The man paled.
“Jesus!”
“How do we get to Kingman from here?”
“Just keep going up the hill, Mr. Battagliano.”
“Any motels there?”
“Lots. Kingman’s on 66.”
“Thanks.”
Guido turned to leave, then turned back.
“And hey?”
“Yessir?”
“That woman ever shows up here, call me.”
“Sure. How do I reach you?”
“Just call the Serengeti in Vegas. Have them put you through to Eddie Mazzetti. Tell him I told you to call. There’ll be somethin’ in it for you, the lead pans out.”
“You’ve got it, Mr. Battagliano. Glad to help.”
As Guido and Fiore walked out, the band launched into “Fallen Angel.”
Guido and Fiore drove the narrow, winding road from Oatman to Kingman where they got dinner and a motel room. After breakfast the next morning, they worked their way through town, once again leaving their guns in the trunk and using the private investigator story. No one had seen Kiko Yoshida.
By midmorning, they were headed west on Highway 66. They crossed the Colorado at Topock again. Noon found them at the 66 / 95 split on the south side of Smoke Tree. They turned onto Highway 95 and headed for Parker, Arizona.
Two hours after crossing the Colorado into Arizona, they had worked their way through the little town with no success.
They were back in California when they arrived at the agricultural inspection station at Vidal Junction. After they confirmed they were not carrying any fruits or vegetables from Arizona or points east, they parked the car and showed Kiko’s photograph to the inspectors. None of them had seen her.
Leaving the junction, they took Highway 62 to Twentynine Palms. By late afternoon, they were entering the town.
After checking into a motel, they went out for a look at the place.
“Man,” said Fiore, “There ain’t nothin’ out here but dirt and jarheads. Never seen so many guys with white sidewalls.”
“Was you ever in the military, Fiore?”
“Nah. The service is strictly for suckers.”
The next morning after consulting the map, they headed east on Amboy Road. After passing miles of abandoned shacks, the road turned north over Sheephole Pass. As they drove down the hill on the other side, the desert stretched out endlessly brown and unbroken below them as far as they could see in every direction.
“Man, I seen enough desert, last me forever. Can’t wait to get back to Vegas, get a good meal, good broad.”
“Yeah, me too.”
At the bottom of the pass, the road cut across Bristol Dry Lake, a place as barren of vegetation as the surface of the moon. After they passed the salt wo
rks settling ponds, Amboy Crater rose up on the west as they approached Highway 66.
They got out of the air conditioned car at Roy’s Cafe in Amboy. Even though it was early May, the temperature was already over a hundred degrees.
They showed Kiko’s picture in the cafe with no success.
“What’s the shortest way back to Vegas from here?” Guido asked the man at the counter.
“Go on down the road toward Smoke Tree. You’ll come to a turn-off that says Kelbaker Road.
Take it. Stay on it. You’ll come to a place called Kelso. The road splits just past the train depot there. Go to Baker. You’ll find the L.A. to Vegas Highway.”
They took the road that rose up past the Old Dad Mountains. As they approached the Granite Mountains, the road abruptly turned to dirt.
Fiore stopped the car.
“We get stuck out here, nobody find us but the buzzards.”
“”Yeah, well, we’re not goin’ the long way around. If that guy at the diner thought we couldn’t get through, he’d a said somethin’.”
“He’s probably back there laughin’ his ass off. Probably sends ten tourists a day up this road to get stuck in the dirt.”
“If we get stuck, I’ll go back, make sure he never laughs again.”
When they drove across the asphalt onto the broad, dirt road, a huge cloud of dust scrolled out behind them. After they went over the pass east of the Granites, the road turned to pavement again.
As they drove down the hill, the desert rolled away on all sides. After two turns, they could see a green swath far below.
After they crossed the Union Pacific tracks at Kelso, they stopped at the depot.
“Hey,” said Guido. “Look at this place! Must have been somethin' a long time ago.”
“Yeah? Well it’s a dump now.”
They went inside. There was a lunch counter with no customers. They showed Kiko’s picture to the waitress. She hadn’t seen Kiko.
Guido gestured toward the north.
“Where’s that road go?”
“Cima.”
They left the depot and got in the car.
“We already checked Baker. Go this other place.”
They drove east on a narrow road with countless dips. The Kelso Mountains hung on the southern horizon. A freight train at least a mile long passed them on its way down the grade.
After a few miles, they came to Cima. There was nothing there but a combination store and tiny post office.
The woman there didn’t recognize Kiko.
“What’s off that way?” Guido asked the woman.
“Nipton.”
Twenty minutes later, they were in Nipton, another almost-deserted place. They showed Kiko’s picture at the little store with the usual result.
“Where’s that road go?” asked Guido, pointing east.
“Searchlight.”
“How about the other road?”
“Hooks up with the Vegas Highway.”
They trudged out to the car and drove to where the road intersected with the highway to Las Vegas. They joined the stream of traffic heading that way and stopped at Stateline to check at the casino and gas station. No luck there either. Once they got back on the road, Fiore put his foot in it and took the big Chrysler up to a hundred miles an hour, recklessly passing anything slower on the two lane highway.
After a few miles at that speed, the temperature gauge began to move toward the red.
“Hey, dumbass, we’re gonna boil over. You either have to slow down or turn off the air conditioner. And if you turn off the A/C, I’ll kill ya.”
Fiore sighed.
“What a huge waste of time.”
“Hey, we work for Eddie. We do whatever he tells us to do, so quit your bitchin’.”
Fiore settled back into disgusted silence.
As they got closer to Las Vegas, they saw a sign for Goodsprings.
Fiore looked over at Guido.
“Do we hafta? She wouldn’t try to hide out this close to Vegas.”
“How do we know what that broad would do?
Take the turnoff.”
Goodsprings was a bust.
It was twilight before they reached the Las Vegas Strip.
Chapter 5
Smoke Tree, California
San Bernardino, California
And Highway 66 between those two towns
Friday, May 12, 1961
Horse
On Friday, Lieutenant Carlos Caballo, commander of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Smoke Tree Substation, known throughout the Lower Colorado River Basin simply as “Horse,” was in San Bernardino. Once a month the lieutenant had to drive there to meet with Sheriff Frank Bland, his staff, and the other substation commanders. It was a trip he didn’t like to make.
It wasn’t the two hundred mile drive that bothered him. Anyone who lives on the Mojave is used to long drives. Besides, Horse loved the desert and never grew tired of its beauty. Nor was the meeting with his boss, a man he respected and admired, something he objected to.
What bothered him was leaving the desert behind at the top of Cajon Pass and descending into the sprawl that began at the bottom of the hill and extended all the way to Los Angeles.
San Bernardino County was twenty two thousand square miles, bigger than seventy of the countries in the world. San Bernardino County could, for example, contain the entire country of Switzerland inside its borders and still have room left over. But ninety percent of the population was concentrated inside the four hundred and eighty square miles on the down slope side of Cajon pass. The other ten percent of the people were scattered over the deserts and mountains of the remaining nineteen thousand square miles of the county like a handful of sand flung into a high wind. The result was a population density of far less than one person per square mile.
And that was the problem. As far as Horse, a typical desert rat, was concerned, less than one person per square mile was just about right. There were just too many people packed into the section against the foothills of the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains. Too many cars. Too much noise. Too much eye-burning, lung-choking smog. And way too much concrete and asphalt smothering the earth.
After the meeting in San Bernardino was over, Horse treated himself to an early dinner at Bing’s before he headed home. The sun was setting when he crossed the Mojave River at Victorville with its beautiful stand of green cottonwoods stretching along the trickle of water.
By the time he drove from Victorville to Barstow, the last of the light was leaking out of the sky. The Calico Mountains to the north of the town were only a vague outline.
When he reached Ludlow, night had fallen. The tiny community marked the westernmost border of his area of responsibility. At over twelve thousand square miles, the twenty seven million acres he and his deputies policed was a huge area with very few people. But what it lacked in permanent residents, it made up for in transient population. Except for the traffic that split off at Barstow to head for Sin City, the bulk of the cars and trucks heading east from the coast stayed on 66 until they crossed the Colorado River into Arizona just south of Smoke Tree. That meant thousands and thousands of people moving through Horse’s area every day of the year.
Most of the travelers were ordinary, decent people going about their lives or business. That’s not to say some of them didn’t get in trouble. Sometimes, they got off the highway onto some desert road and then broke down on a day when the temperature was over a hundred and twenty degrees. When that happened, Horse’s deputies had to go search for them. Many times the travelers were dead before they could be found. But some of the transients were bad guys. And these were the people who accounted for most of the crime in his part of the Mojave and Colorado deserts.
Driving down the hill from Ludlow, he passed through the driest part of an arid region. The tiny outpost of Bagdad had once gone over two years without a single drop of rain falling. And yet, when the rain finally came, the creosote bushes, which
had lost all their leaves and looked for all the world like they had died months before, put out new leaves and turned green again. You had to love a plant that tough! The Cafe Bagdad and the old gas station were still open for evening travelers.
An hour later, Horse crested South Pass and started the descent into the Mohave Valley of the Colorado River. It was not long before the lights of Smoke Tree appeared to the southeast. All the rest of the valley was inky black. As the lights came into view, Horse felt the tension from the long drive leave his neck and shoulders. It was good to be coming home.
Smoke Tree was an isolated little town without charm. Many of the desperate people fleeing the dust bowl in the 1930s thought they’d made a horrible mistake coming to California when it was the first town they came to after crossing the Colorado River on the Mother Road.
Smoke Tree was a railroad town. The Santa Fe was its heartbeat. The railroad provided a living to almost everyone in Smoke Tree, either directly or by the railroad workers supporting local businesses. The Santa Fe depot and rail yards were the most important part of town. The rest of Smoke Tree had sprawled haphazardly along the highway over the years, like many of the towns along Route 66. Most of those who didn’t work for the Santa Fe had jobs that depended on the traffic that came though the center of town on 66.
Smoke Tree wasn’t much to look at. A cracked, shabby and shopworn gemstone embedded in a beautiful setting on the banks of the Colorado River. The housing stock was mostly old and worn out. Many of the streets were in bad shape. There were very few rich people, and except for the impoverished Native Americans struggling to survive in the Mojave Indian village on the north edge of town, very few really poor ones. It was the most blue collar of blue collar towns, almost entirely middle and lower-middle class.
The few stores in town carried only basic goods. Clothing for men was limited to Levi’s, flannel shirts, khaki work clothes and white T-shirts. For women, the choices were cheap, print dresses, one color blouses, and pants and “sensible” shoes. Anyone who wanted more drove one hundred miles north to Las Vegas.
Mojave Desert Sanctuary Page 7