9
Friday morning, after I dunked my head in the Colorado River, I looked up and caught a burst of hot light coming from the east. The sun moved above the horizon, and the cool morning disappeared fast. I hit the highway focused, but it wasn’t long before the desert started to mess with my mind. It’s bleak between the California Border and Barstow. It gave me way too much time to think.
I don’t think the cops have found Harper. Why haven’t the cops found Harper? If they can’t find her, how in the hell am I? I’d better find her. If I don’t have the cash by tonight, Lawson and T-bone are going to kick my ass.
I pulled off at County Road 1712 and parked outside the High Desert Trailer Park, on the south side by the entrance. The one-way driveway went around the pool and exited over by the manager’s office. Using the pool house for cover, I slipped in the park and stopped at the second trailer, the one were Morgan and me had lived. I checked through the window, saw that it was still vacant, and then checked under the trailer frame by the front steps. I felt around for the key I’d hidden, but it was gone, so I tried the door. I barely touched the knob, and the door plopped opened.
I went into the living room and peeked through the curtains. A pudgy little kid with his swim trunks hanging half way down his butt was doing belly flops into the pool while his dog barked. When the manager’s wife stormed over and yelled at him, the kid ran home, giving me a clear view of Harper’s trailer on the other side of the pool. I’d really like to go look around. Maybe I’ll talk to the manager first.
I was contemplating whether I should ask the manager for permission, or just break into Harper’s trailer, when a stock white ’67 Plymouth Fury whipped past the window, drove around the pool, and stopped in front of Harper’s trailer. Detectives Zico and Sanchez got out of the car.
The cops went in the trailer, and I slipped out the back door. I crouched down and moved toward the five-foot wooden fence that ran along the outside of the trailer park. Without bothering to look, I hopped over. When I realized I was going to land on a Hedgehog Cactus, I contorted my body in midair, and landed off balance. I tucked, rolled, and came to a stop in a stack of tumbleweeds. The brown stems were lined with rigid, needlelike spines. At the bottom of the pile, impaled on one of those spines, was a fifty-dollar bill.
I deftly wrestled the bill from it’s captive and slipped it in my pocket. As I bolted to my feet, the sharp spines pricked my flesh and tore tiny holes in my t-shirt. I cursed the tumbleweeds bitter kiss then ran around the corner and hopped in my truck. I flipped a bitch, and in seconds flat was headed west on the interstate with the cops none the wiser. I made a quick transition onto Highway 15 and drove south.
The Feds were holding my brother in a small jail below the Federal Courthouse in San Bernardino. It was different than county jail, more serious. All the cops were Federal Marshals, and they never smile. I had to wait a couple of hours, but they finally let me see Morgan.
A Marshal with no facial expression and no desire to speak led me down a dark corridor. It felt like he was taking me the back way into hell. He guided me through a metal door that led into a concrete-block visitation room the size of a short hallway. On my right, a very large mirror was built into the wall. I assumed it was one way, and that the Marshall would be standing behind it, probably the FBI too. I stepped to the first empty chair, turned to my left and stared through the partitioned security glass. I did it four more times. At the last booth, I lowered myself onto a cold-metal stool and picked up the phone. Morgan picked up on the other side of the glass, and we stared at each for a long minute.
I broke the silence. “We need to talk.”
“Watch your mouth. The marshal, and probably a couple of FBI agents, are standing behind that mirror.”
“No shit Sherlock.” I turned toward the mirror and said, “The Feds don’t care about you.” I focused on the mirror and tried to see through it. “Isn’t that right Agent Andrews?” I turned back to Morgan. “The Feds don’t care about you, the armored car robbery, or me. Agent Andrews has a bug up his ass about Lawson.”
“Keep your mouth shut.”
“Fuck you Morgan. I spent my eighteenth birthday in county jail because of your bullshit. I’m tired of you, your war-reject buddy Lawson, and his ass-wipe sidekick T-bone.”
Morgan stood up and puffed up, like an angry alpha dog. “You keep your Goddamn mouth shut.” A steel door echoed in the background and Morgan sat down, leaning toward the glass. “You listen to the lawyer. You do exactly what he tells you to do, and everything will be cool. Don’t try and do something smart Duff.”
“I’ll do what you say, but only on one condition.”
“What?”
“Answer me one question.”
“This better be good.”
“You remember how you told me you thought some girl was the reason you got fired from the mine. Tell me why?”
“Don’t fuck with me Duff.”
“I’m not. Answer my question.”
Morgan dropped the aggressive posture and got red in the face as he sunk in his seat. “That chick was married. Can you believe it?”
“Married! What do you mean she was married?”
“I couldn’t believe it either,” Morgan said. “She’d been coming on to me hot and heavy for weeks. One night I tried to put the moves on her, and she pulls up lame. She starts getting all female on me, and then she blurts out that she’s married.”
“She said she was married?”
“That’s not the half of it. It turns out she was married to the big boss at the mine.”
That doesn’t make any sense. Why would Harper be working at a truck stop, living in a two-bedroom trailer, if she was married to Morgan’s boss at the mine?
“She told you she was married to your boss? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not my boss—The Boss. And I don’t care if it makes sense or not. I told you what you wanted to know.”
I let the phone fall from my ear and stared at my brother with my mouth open until I saw his lips move. I lifted the receiver back up to my ear. “What was that?”
“How the Dodgers doing?”
“They lost four in a row,” I replied. “Just dropped below .500.”
A Marshal came up behind Morgan, tapped him on the shoulder, and motioned for him to get up.
“Do what the lawyer says.” He stood up and hung up the phone. Morgan put his palm against the glass, and I could barely hear him say, “Take care of yourself Duff.”
Seeing my brother behind the glass really zapped my head. When the Marshal took him away, it was like watching my brother fall off a cliff. I wanted to grab him, but all I could do was stand there and watch as Morgan fell into the abyss. I started to kick out the security glass, but I swallowed my rage in the face of the unmitigated futility.