Mojave Desert Sanctuary

by Gary J George

  When Thomaso opened his eyes, they were blazing. But his voice was a whisper.

  “You wanna go along, Eddie? Maybe kiss this yokel’s ass, he shows up?”

  Eddie swallowed. He didn’t trust himself to try to speak. He shook his head.

  “Good! Salvatore and Fiore are doin’ this. Doin' it today. Not lettin’ this bitch get away again.

  Fiore, you remember the places you checked last time?”

  “Sure, Mr. Cortese.”

  “Don’t bother doin’ them again.

  This is a little place, right?”

  “Yeah. Real hick town.”

  “You wanna get businesses you missed last time, that’s okay.

  But I want somethin’ else too.

  First motel you come to? Stop. Send Salvatore in. They ain’t seen him before. Have him get one a them chamber of commerce maps, you know, the ones have a buncha ads, show all the streets in town?

  I want you to knock at one house on every block. Show the picture. Tell the story. Work your way through the whole town. Got it?”

  “Yes, Mr. Cortese.”

  “And find the library. These smart broads? They can’t stand to be without no books. Who knows, might have a library card.”

  He laughed.

  “Wouldn’t that be somethin’? Broad gets snuffed ‘cause she has a library card.”

  The men laughed, glad to have the tension leave the room.

  “Any questions?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  “Okay. Get after it.

  And don’t forget the camera!”

  Salvatore and Fiore got up and started toward the door.

  “Hey?”

  Both men turned around.

  “One more thing. Long time ago, my Antonate used to tell me stories about Italy before it turned into a dump. Back when there was Romans and stuff. Caesar and them guys, you know?

  Anyway, Nonno said they had a thing they told them legions, sent them out to fight. Said, ‘Come home with your shield or on it.’

  You know what that means?”

  The two men looked confused.

  Thomaso’s voice dropped to a whisper again.

  “Means don’t come back here and tell me you couldn’t find her, don’t know where she went. Believe me, you don’t wanna do that!!”

  When Salvatore Lupo and Fiore Abbatini drove east out of Las Vegas on the Boulder Highway, it was not long after noon. Their car cast no shadow they could see. But when they turned south onto Highway 95 at Railroad Pass, their shadow appeared beside them, so sharply delineated that Fiore could see the window openings and the profile of his head flickering by on the slightly raised shoulder of the empty road.

  It was not long before the road turned more sharply downhill. As they descended, the vegetation around them began to dwindle. Soon, even the Creosote was gone. The sandy soil was full of alkali creosote could not tolerate and sulfates even alkali-loving plants could not accommodate. Soon a wasteland devoid of anything but sand stretched out before them, the heat shimmering above the expanse and forming the false promise of a mirage above the blacktop far below them.

  A few miles ahead, they could see a small billboard of some kind beside the road. Lone evidence of the hand of man for miles in any direction. When they got close enough to read the lettering, Salvatore shook his head.

  “Slow down a minute.”

  Fiore brought their speed down from eighty to twenty miles an hour. It felt like they were crawling.

  Salvatore read the sign aloud.

  “‘No Fishing 1,000 yards’? The hell that mean?”

  “Dunno.”

  “How far’s a thousand yards?”

  “A little more'n half a mile.”

  “Stop, you get that far.”

  Fiore watched the odometer roll up the tenths. Then he came to a stop.

  Salvatore opened the door, stepped out, and stood looking in all directions. He got back in the car.

  “Turn around.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I hate a smart ass. Take me back to that sign.”

  “Sal, we’re a long way from this place we’re goin’. Every place out here, far apart. Should keep movin'.”

  Sal ignored him.

  Fiore shrugged, made a ‘K’ turn and drove back up the highway. When they drew parallel to the sign, Salvatore said, “Stop here.

  Got extra rounds, these guns?”

  “Glove compartment.”

  Salvatore opened it and looked inside.

  He slammed it shut and opened his door.

  “C'mon.”

  The sign was twenty yards off the road. As they walked over the bare terrain, Fiore could feel the sand coming over the tops of his loafers and filling his shoes.

  When they reached the sign, Salvatore looked up and down the highway. Save theirs, there were no cars visible. He suddenly drew his .45 and fired into the left hand post until the slide locked back. A wisp of smoke drifted from the chamber. The sign tilted slightly. The sound of the shots rolled off into the desert and was swallowed as if it had never been. The smell of gunpowder and cordite hung momentarily in the air and then drifted away in the hot wind, leaving little trace of its passing. Salvatore turned to Fiore and spoke in an unnaturally loud voice, as people momentarily deafened often do.

  “Gimme the clip outta your gun.”

  Fiore swallowed and tried to clear his ears, but he was still half deaf.

  He popped the clip out of his .45 and handed it over. Salvatore walked to the other end of the sign, slammed the full clip into his gun and emptied it into the post there. The sound rolled away as before. Was swallowed as before. The smell of gunpowder and cordite hung monetarily in the air and then drifted off leaving little trace, just as before.

  The sign still stood.

  Salvatore ejected the clip and put it in his pocket along with the other empty magazine. He put the gun back in his shoulder rig. Sweat was pouring off his face and running down his torso. He shook his head. Sweat flew off his nose. It evaporated the instant it hit the hot sand.

  He stepped up to the post and leaned against it.

  Once again, he spoke in a loud voice. “Gimme a hand here.”

  Fiore put his hands against the other post.

  “Push.”

  They put their considerable weight and leverage into their effort. Slowly at first, and then all at once, the sign toppled.

  When it fell to the ground, the two men walked to the car, got in, turned around and continued on their way. Salvatore was already thumbing replacement rounds into the magazines.

  “Jesus,” said Fiore. “I can’t believe we just killed a sign.”

  Behind them, the sign lay flat on the sand, the letters etched sharply against the white background in the glaring sun. Before the car was out of sight, a dust devil kicked up and blew across the sandy expanse. It obliterated the footprints the men had made. When the dust devil blew off into the distance, there was a sheen of sand and grit on the sign.

  A raven neither man had seen circling high above them landed next to the shiny shell casings and pushed at them with its beak. It picked one up and lifted off into the air.

  A half hour later, they were coming up on Arrowhead Junction. Fiore nodded toward the service station there.

  “Old man lives there? Stuck a shotgun in my face. This job is done, comin’ down here some night, paint the walls with the sonofabitch.”

  They drove on.

  Nothing was said until they were almost to Smoke Tree.

  A building beside the road just outside of town had a sign that read, “Rock House.”

  “Didn’t get this place last time.”

  He pulled the car off the highway and into the parking lot. There were no other vehicles.

  It seemed very dim inside the store after the glare of the sun. There was an old man standing behind a glass counter.

  “Help you gentlemen with something?”

  “We sure hope you can,” sa
id Fiore. “I’m Detective Blake, and this is my partner, Detective Kinston.” Both men held up the shields. “We’re from the Las Vegas Police Department.”

  He took the picture of Kiko out of his inside pocket.

  “We’re looking for this woman in connection with a murder. Have you seen her?”

  The man took the photo and examined it closely.

  “Japanese, isn’t she?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t.”

  “Well, never hurts to ask. We’d really like to get hold of her. She murdered her roommate in cold blood.”

  The man stood thinking.

  “This is a real long shot, and if the woman in the picture wasn’t an oriental, I’d not even mention it, but we don’t get many oriental people out this way.”

  Fiore was suddenly very alert.

  “Anything you can tell us might help.”

  “Fella comes in here from Goffs time to time. Brings me rocks he finds out in the Paiute Mountains. He was by the other day. He mentioned something to me that seemed odd. Some of the boys from the OX ranch was down at his store on the Fourth of July. Said he heard one of the cowboys telling someone else he’d seen an oriental woman out his way. Said it surprised him.

  “Young or old?”

  “Didn’t say. Don’t know whether the cowboy told the other person that. Just stuck in my head.”

  “Sounds like someone we might want to talk to. Can you tell us how to get to this place?”

  “Sure.”

  He reached under the counter and got out pencil and paper. He drew them a map showing 66 and 95.

  “Now, when you’re on 95, you’re gonna go through a place called Klinefelter. Old busted down motel there. When you get past it, you’ll come to a place where the railroad tracks cross the highway.”

  “By that old service station?”

  “That’s the place. Don’t go over the crossing. Just before you get to it, a road turns off to your left. That’s old highway 66. Get on it and it’ll take you right to Goffs. Can’t miss it. Nothing else out there. Stop in at the store.”

  “Which store?”

  “Only the one.”

  “Who should we talk to?”

  “Chuck Sweeney. Tell him Don Clark sent you.”

  “Thanks for your help, Sir.”

  “Anytime, officers. Always glad to help the police.”

  When they got back in the car, Fiore said, “What do you think?”

  “I think the old fart is right. It’s a long shot.

  Let’s do town first. Don’t turn nothin’ up, we’ll try this Goffs place.”

  They drove on into town and stopped at the first motel they came to, an ugly stucco building with the flat, rock-covered roof common on buildings where it rains but rarely. The motel itself was nothing more than an office connected to a string of single story rooms. The sign in the parking lot read “Have fun on the Colorado River. Colorado River Days 1959.”

  Salvatore went inside and came back with a chamber of commerce map of Smoke Tree. The two men drove to the Foster’s Freeze. A little whitewashed building so bright in the sun it hurt their eyes. They parked in the shade of a huge aethel tree. They each got a root beer float and planned their search.

  By the time they had completed most of the neighborhoods on the north side of town, they had not found anyone who had either seen or heard of Kiko Yoshida. They sat in the car after their last, unsuccessful attempt. Fiore picked up the map.

  “Tommy Bones said try the library. When Tommy says to do somethin’, best do it, so let’s find the library. It’s right in the middle of town. Probably gonna close soon.”

  The library was in an old complex cater-corner and across the street from the Santa Fe depot. They left the car next to a five and dime fronting the small park just beyond the station. They walked to the corner and waited to cross the street. Since the street was the part of Highway 66 that ran through town, they waited a long time, sweating in their blazers under the desert sun.

  While they stood watching the passing cars, Fiore said, “I can’t remember last time I was in a library.”

  Salvatore thought a minute.

  “Hell, I can’t either. High school, maybe.”

  By the time they climbed the concrete steps to the library, both of them were drenched.

  They pushed through the double doors. It was cooler inside, but not much. At least the sun wasn’t beating down on them.

  The old, wooden floorboards creaked and groaned beneath their tasseled loafers as they walked to the librarian’s desk. A thin, elderly woman looked up at them over her half-moon reading glasses, immediately curious about two men dressed so formally on such a hot day.

  “May I help you?”

  Fiore and Salvatore held up their Las Vegas Police Department badges.

  “I certainly hope so, ma’am. I’m Detective Blake, and this is my partner Detective Kinston.”

  He got out the picture of Kiko and handed it to the woman.

  “We’re from the Las Vegas Police Department. We’re looking for that woman. She murdered her roommate last spring. We have information that she may be in Smoke Tree.”

  The librarian seemed to consider carefully what he had said.

  “I am surprised you’re not accompanied by an agent of local law enforcement, detective.”

  “We just got this tip this morning. We wanted to follow up on it quickly.”

  “But you think she came this way last spring and is still here?”

  “It’s possible.

  She’s a college person, this woman. We thought she might get a library card.”

  “I see.”

  Salvatore and Fiore could tell she didn’t believe them, but she was studying the picture as if she did when the day went south on them.

  Lieutenant Caballo was in his office trying to catch up on paperwork from the previous week, but his phone would not stop ringing The calls didn’t come directly into his office, but the dispatcher had instructions to ring them through if the caller asked to speak to Horse personally. Many callers did.

  As he struggled to end the call with Lilly Menendez, he was wondering if he should make up a “do not forward” list.

  “Mrs. Menendez, I sympathize with your frustration, but you can’t file a complaint against the Smoke Tree Police Department with my office. Our departments cooperate with each other.

  “Well, I guess that’s good for you, but they don’t cooperate with me. No se supone para sevir todo el pueblo?” she asked, so angry she was slipping in and out of Spanish.

  “Si, senora, ciertamente.”

  “Then why don’t they come when I call? Es que no les gusta venir a la parte mexicano de la ciudad? A caso el jefe sabe que hay gente mexicanos que viven aqui?

  “Senora Menendez, I’m sure the chief knows there are Mexican people in Smoke Tree.”

  “Well then, he needs to remind all those policias blancos who work for him. Porque Horse, I have called about my neighbor many, many times. He comes home barracho and drives over my yard. Sometimes over my garbage can. Last week he ran over my mail box. Next he’s gonna run over my nietos.

  Luego va en es casa. Sucia y convierte su musica tan fuerte como sea possible. That rock y roll trash. Y sabes porque he does this thing?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Menendez, you’ve told me before.”

  “That’s right, he beats up his wife, y no quiero a nadie a escuschas sus aritos. Poor woman.”

  “Mrs. Menendez …”

  “Por favor, Horse, call me Lilly. I’ve know you since you were a boy.”

  “All right, Lilly, I’ll pass this on to the chief personally.”

  “And one more thing...”

  The dispatcher appeared in Horse’s doorway.

  “Urgent call, Lieutenant.”

  Horse put his hand over the phone. “Let me finish up here.”

  “You’re gonna want to take this one right now, be
lieve me sir.”

  “Okay.”

  He uncovered the mouthpiece.

  “My apologies Mrs. Menendez, but I have an emergency.”

  “I understand, Horse. Thank you for your help.”

  Horse punched the other line.

  “Horse, here.”

  “Lieutenant, glad I caught you. Jim Garret.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Garret?”

  “Remember back in May when I called you about those guys from Las Vegas with the picture of the girl?”

  “Yes sir, I do.”

  “They’re back.

  I never forget a car, and I even remember the license plate on that one ‘cause I wrote it down to call you that day.

  The car just showed up again.”

  “Where did you see it?”

  “I saw them in my neighborhood, up here on Rio Vista. I was driving down the street when I saw them knocking on a door. I got curious, so I drove past them a ways and parked. They left the house and drove to the next block and knocked on the O’Brien’s door.

  After they left, I went to the house and asked Bob what it was they wanted. He said they told him they were Las Vegas Police Department Detectives. Showed him badges and a picture of an oriental woman. Told him she was wanted for murder in Las Vegas and they were following up a lead.”

  “Got ‘em,” said Horse.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Where are they now?”

  “After I talked to Bob, I found them on the next block over. When they drove out of the neighborhood, I followed them. They drove down Jordan Street hill into town and parked over across from the depot. Their car is in front of the five and dime by the park there. They got out and walked to the corner. They’re standing there right now, waiting for a break in traffic so they can cross the street. Looks like they’re going to the civic center. I ducked into the Jade to call you.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Garret. I’m on it.”

  He hung up his phone and keyed his intercom for the dispatcher.

  “Who’s close to town?”

  “Dave Campbell’s unit just came in from the north.”

  “Have him meet me at the civic center. Tell him to come code two and pull into the police department lot. Tell him if he gets there before I do, he’s to wait for me in his unit.”