Horse jammed on his hat. He took his gun belt off the back of his chair, looped it over his shoulder, and went out the door at a dead run.
When he pulled into the Smoke Tree Police Department parking lot, Dave Campbell’s unit was already there. He got out when he saw Horse pull in beside him.
“Lieutenant.”
“Dave. Got a situation here. Somewhere in this complex are two mobbed up guys from Las Vegas. They’ve been going around town impersonating Las Vegas police officers. Based on past experience and information about these two, I’m sure they’re armed. Our goal is to arrest them without endangering citizens.”
“Where do you think they are?”
“Well, we can be sure they’re not at the police department. That leaves city hall, which is closed today, and the library, which is the only thing open besides the P.D.”
Dave smiled.
“What in the world would gangsters be doing at the library?”
“We’re about to find out.”
“Want me to bring my shotgun?”
“No. If push comes to shove, we don’t want buckshot flying all over the place. This is going to scare Helen bad enough as it is.”
The two men walked out of the parking lot, onto the grass in front of city hall, and around the corner. They could see the library steps.
Horse pointed across Highway 66.
“That’s their car over by the park. They’re probably inside. It’s best we go up the steps guns drawn. We might meet them coming out.”
When they eased through the doors, guns pointing at the floor, they saw two men in blazers standing in front of the librarians’ desk. They walked toward them, the old floor creaking under their boots.
One of the men turned around. His face did not register surprise or concern. He tapped his partner. The other man also turned toward them.
“Lace your hands behind your heads. Do it now!”
The two men complied.
Horse stepped slightly to the side. He could see the librarian sitting slack-jawed behind her desk. She was holding something but not looking at it.
“Sorry to scare you, Mrs. Sensabaugh. Please get up and go over and stand next to the card catalogue.”
It took the librarian a moment to rise to her feet. She seemed a little shaky, but she managed to walk carefully out from behind the desk and over to where Horse had directed her.
“You men carrying?”
“Yeah. Shoulder rig.”
“All right. My deputy here is going to take your guns. If you take your hands off your head while he’s doing it, I will shoot you. Are we clear on that?”
Both men nodded.
“Don’t just shake your head. Say ‘yes’.”
Both men said yes.
“Dave, hand me your gun”
Dave put his gun in Horse’s left hand. Horse took it without looking away from the two men.
“Get their guns.”
Dave reached inside the jacket of the man on the left and took the gun out of his shoulder rig. He stepped back, popped the clip out of the gun and put it in his pocket. Then he pulled back the slide to see if there was a round in the chamber. There wasn’t. He pushed the unloaded gun down the front of his pants.
He repeated the operation with the man on the right. When he had both guns, he backed up next to Horse and took his own weapon from Horse’s hand. The entire time, Horse never looked away from the two men.
“Got carry permits for the guns?”
“Sure,” said Salvatore.
“For San Bernardino County?”
Salvatore didn’t answer.
Horse spoke to the librarian without looking away from Fiore and Salvatore.
“What did these men tell you, Mrs. Sensabaugh?”
“They said they were police detectives from Las Vegas. They said they were looking for a girl wanted for murder. They asked me to look at this picture and tell them if I’d had ever seen her.”
She held the photo up.
Horse did not look at it.
“Well, they lied to you. But they lie for a living. These men are gangsters. They’re going to jail.
“Dave, please get the picture from Mrs. Sensabaugh and bring it to me”
When Dave retrieved the picture, he brought it to Horse and put it in his left hand. Horse slipped it into his front pocket without looking at it.
“Now Helen, we’re going to take these two men out of here. I’m not anticipating trouble from them, but you never know. So, what I’d really like you to do now is go in your office and close the door.
Will you do that for me?”
“Certainly, Lieutenant Caballo.”
“I’m going to send a deputy down to get a written statement from you. Once we’re gone, you might want to write down exactly what happened from the time these men came in the door until right now.”
She walked into her office. Horse heard her turn the lock.
“You two. Turn around. Now, take your hands off your head and put them far apart on the desk.
Farther apart than that.
Okay. Now, walk your feet back toward me while you keep your hands on the desk.
Now spread your feet.
Pat them down, Dave.”
Deputy Campbell went to work.
“This one’s got a switchblade.”
“Check for ankle holsters.”
He did.
“Neither one.”
Horse walked forward and touched Fiore on the shoulder.
“You. Step forward. Now, take your hands off the desk and put them behind your back.”
Fiore complied.
“Cuff him.”
Horse repeated the instructions to Salvatore, then got his own cuffs off his belt and handed them to Dave.
When both men were cuffed, Horse said, “Turn around.”
He took the picture out of his pocket and studied it. Then he held it up in front of the two men.
“Who is this woman?”
Neither man said anything.
“Okay, if that’s how you want to play it.
Out the door and down the steps. And be careful. If you fall you could get a nasty bump going down those steps.”
When the men were at the bottom of the steps, he and Dave walked them around the corner to the cruisers. They put Fiore in the back of Dave’s car and Salvatore in Horse’s.
Before Horse could close the door on Salvatore, he said, “Hey, how about it with these cuffs?”
He turned sideways on the seat.
Horse slammed the door.
“Dave, come with me.”
He led Dave far enough away that the two men in the car couldn’t hear them.
“When we get them to the station, book them both for impersonating law enforcement officers and carrying without a permit. Add the switchblade charge for the big one. Inventory everything they’ve got. Make sure the dispatcher witnesses you removing their LVPD badges.
When you’re done, put them in separate cells. After they make their phone calls, get hold of the phone company and see who they called.”
“Okay.”
The two men stood silently.
“What are we waiting for Lieutenant?”
“Nothing special. Just letting our boys marinate for a while.
And Dave?”
“Yessir.”
When you get them in their cells, turn off the air conditioning back there. And if we don’t get any more customers this weekend, leave it off.”
Dave smiled.
“Yessir. Welcome to Smoke Tree, huh?”
When he got back in his cruiser, Horse keyed his mic twice.
“Dispatch.”
“Horse. Call in two more deputies. Have one help Dave book the men we’re bringing in. Send the other one to the library to take a statement from Mrs. Sensabaugh.
“10-4”
Horse hung the mic back on the radio. He angled his mirror so he could see the man behind him.
“You boys ar
e going to be with us a while. There’s no court until Monday morning.”
The man turned his dead eyes toward Horse but said nothing.
Chapter 17
Smoke Tree, California
And the Mountains
Of the Eastern Mojave Desert
July 8, 1961
I had to make a late delivery before I left work on Saturday. By the time I got home, got something to eat and loaded up my kitchen box with food for breakfast, the stifling summer twilight was settling over the desert. The final remnants of red were bleeding into the blackness above the horizon as I drove out of town and headed west on 66. The lights of Smoke Tree were beginning to wink on in my rearview mirror.
When my headlights swept across the traffic islands at Mr. Stanton’s, it was after dark. I stopped next to one of the old pumps and got out. I went up the steps to the office and was just pushing open the screen door when he came out of his living quarters behind the counter.
“Well, I declare, it’s Aeden Snow.”
“Good evening, Mr. Stanton. Could I trouble you for ten gallons of gas?”
“Surely can.”
We went outside. Mr. Stanton turned the crank and drew gasoline into the glass measure above the pump. When it was full, he unlatched the hose and hooked the nozzle into my tank. Gravity drained the gasoline into my car. Simple, elegant, no electricity required. When the measure was empty, he pumped it full again and drained five more gallons into my tank.
When he was finished, he put the hose back on the hook.
“That’ll be six dollars, young sir.”
Gasoline was fifty cents a gallon in Smoke Tree, more than twice what it cost in at the coast. At Mr. Stanton’s, it was sixty cents, but in spite of the extra ten cents, I bought from him whenever I could. I knew he didn’t get many customers at his station.
I handed him a ten.
“Step on up to the office while I get your change. There’s somethin’ I want to tell you might could be real important.”
Inside, he rang up the sale on his ancient cash register.
“Last week when you was here and introduced me to your pretty lady friend …”
He paused.
“Yessir.”
“Well, I’m not rightly sure because she had that ball cap on and all, but I think I mighta recognized her.”
“From where?”
“That’s what’s got me worried. Back in the spring, May I believe it was, though I’m not completely sure ‘cause at my age the days they seem to run on together. Nothin special to mark ‘em, and I’ve already lived so many of ‘em, if you get my drift.”
“Yessir, I think I see what you mean.”
“I know for sure it was before that day you found me layin’ out yonder in the dirt.
Anways, two men come in here. Bad men. Rough characters. Well sir, they claimed they was private detectives from Las Vegas come lookin’ for some woman had gone missin’ from her family. They showed me a picture. It coulda been that young lady was with you last week. When the one man handed me the picture, his jacket come open and I saw he was armed, which kindly took me by surprise.
When I asked about the guns, the other boy, not the one who had give me the picture, he said some real bad stuff about the woman. Called her a bad name. And I knowed then they wasn’t workin’ for that woman’s family, or he wouldn’t a spoke about her thataway.
So I told them to clear off. And the one who called the woman the bad name? He got real nasty with me.
Well sir, I was standin’ right where I am now. I pulled my coach gun out from under the counter and run them off. And I remembered all that as soon as I saw your lady friend.
Then it kinda slipped my mind again during the week. More and more that happens these days. Ever since that day I fell down, seems like I remember stuff from when I was a young un better than stuff that happened yesterday. Darndest thing.
But this afternoon, when I was comin’ round the building, I saw the back end of a big black car just a flyin’ over the railroad crossing yonder, and I thought about it again. You see, it was the car called it to mind. It was the same kind of car them boys I run off that day was drivin’.
“Do you think it was the exact same car?”
“Couldn’t tell you for sure, Ade. It was too far away by the time I seen it. But it reminded me about that other time. I wanted to be sure I didn’t forget to tell you. So I come inside and wrote a note to myself. Generally, if I write somethin’ down, it sticks in my head for a spell.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stanton, for going to all that trouble. I’ll pass that along to Kiko.”
“Kiko! That was her name. I’ll have to write that down, too.
Well, I’ve kept you long enough. You’d best be gettin’ on.”
As I drove up old 66, the smoke trees flickering past in the spill of my headlights, I turned Mr. Stanton’s story over in my head. If it had indeed been Kiko in the picture, it was serious business. And it explained a lot. John Stonebridge found Kiko in Baker. The chances she came there from Las Vegas were pretty high.
It wasn’t long before I was on Lanfair Road. I drove through the sandy bottom of Von Trigger wash and up to where the Joshua trees dominated the landscape. Usually when I drove through them at night, with my headlights picking up the yucca and cholla cactus and shrubs spaced between, I felt at home. But that night as I rolled though the familiar country, I was uneasy. As if something sinister might be coming. I tried to shake off the feeling, but it wouldn’t go away. I kept looking in my rearview mirror, but there was nothing there but the blackness of a moonless desert night.
I made up my mind to get Kiko aside the next day and tell her what Mr. Stanton had told me. She could decide whether to pass it on to Mr. Stonebridge or not. It wasn’t my call.
I was wiped out by the combination of heat, long workdays and evening workouts, but I didn’t sleep well in spite of the cool air. After a restless night fitfully dozing off only to wake up to a vague feeling of dread, I gave up and got out of bed before first light. I started a fire in the stove and made breakfast. Strangely enough, three big cups of coffee calmed me down, and I was feeling better and finishing “To Kill a Mockingbird” when the world outside began to change from black to gray.
If I thought I would beat Joe to work by getting to the Box S before sunrise, I was mistaken. He was already working. I said good morning, got a nod in return, and went to work helping him add adobe bricks to a row he had already started. Like everything else I had ever seen Joe do, he had a knack for masonry work. We had the entire east wall finished by the time Kiko called us to lunch.
John was out doing some work on the stock tank at the south end of Watson’s Wash, so when Joe got up from the table and went outside, Kiko and I were alone in the kitchen.
“You have something to tell me, don’t you?”
“How can you tell?”
“Because you’re usually Joe’s shadow when you two are working. As soon as he went out and you didn’t, I knew something was up.”
I took a deep breath and crossed my fingers.
“This may be nothing. I hope it is.”
I repeated what Mr. Stanton had told me. When I was finished, she didn’t speak. Just sat absorbing the news.
“Is this important?”
“Let me think about it. Don’t say anything to Joe or John just yet.”
“All right. Whatever you want.”
I went back to work with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Kiko was the girl in the picture.
It was slower going in the afternoon. Fitting the bricks around the south side windows and the fireplace on the north wall was time consuming. The light was fading from the sky, and the evening hush was settling over the desert by the time we called it a day.
I walked toward the barn with Joe. We turned and looked at the room from a distance. Most of the adobe work was done.
“Looks good.”
“Not bad.”
High prai
se indeed from Joe Medrano.
“Finish this part tomorrow. Plaster next week. Whitewash the whole house.”
We walked back to the mountainside behind the house. Joe showed me the roof tiles he had fired.
“Floor tiles tomorrow afternoon.”
We were between the house and the barn when John pulled up in his truck. He got out and walked over.
“Jesus, Joe. That’s beautiful! Hundred times better than the stucco box I would’ve tacked onto the side of the house.
Kilo’s going to love that room.”
If she stays here, I couldn’t help thinking.
Kiko came outside.
“Dinner in ten minutes.”
Kiko, John and Joe stood together talking. I turned to take in Table Top and Round Valley and the bulk of the Providence Mountains. Venus was just visible in the evening sky. The world seemed at peace. I wished it could be this way forever, but I knew it couldn’t. Everything was going to come apart.
After dinner, we took our flan and coffee out to the veranda. When he was finished with his dessert, Joe got up.
“Don’t leave, Joe. Please, stay and listen.”
He sat back down.
Kiko told us everything that had happened to her, beginning when she was summoned to the executive offices at the Serengeti to meet with Eddie Mazzetti and ending with John rescuing her from the college boys in Baker. She was unsparing of herself in the telling. It took her a long time to tell it all.
When she was finished, we all sat silently for a while.
Finally, John said, “Good God, Kiko. You must have been terrified. You might have been killed that night.”
“I was so scared. I thought they were going to catch me any minute.”
“Did good,” said Joe. “Good plan. Smart.”
“And lucky.”
“Don’t believe in luck. Never had any.”
I spoke up to add my part.
“When Kiko and I were driving back from the river, I stopped at Arrowhead Junction to check on Mr. Stanton, and he met Kiko.
When I was coming up last night, I stopped by again. Mr. Stanton told me about two men who came by his station. He thought it was in May. He said they had a picture. He said it might have been Kiko.
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