4
The smell of deep-fried potatoes and charred beef intermingled with the carbon monoxide waste from Dessie’s cigarette and the thought of my brother kissing Harper. I felt a little sick. I must of looked funny because Dessie laughed out loud. She mussed my hair and went back to work, while I looked out toward the parking lot and watched Harper walk away. Sure looks nice in those blue jeans.
Harper came to a slow stop and turned back, like someone behind her had called her name. Holding her hand level across her forehead, shielding her eyes against the midday sun, she pondered the ominous shrill of a civil defense air-raid siren coming from Barstow.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a dust devil. Looking south across the highway toward the McCord Mine, I watched a desert thermal spin dirt and debris fifty feet into the air and then disappear like a ghost. Through the fading apparition I heard the first few beats of a high priority alarm, like the dive warning on a submarine, coming from the mine. A cave in?
When I looked back toward Harper, a couple of sketchy looking characters on choppers had pulled up on either side of her. One of them lunged for her, and she quickly slipped beyond his grasp.
I was out of my seat and through the front door. The bikers were revving their engines, and the souped-up motors pumped out a ferocious thunder. Harper backpedaled, while the two bikers howled. Simultaneously, they stomped their bikes into gear and did a choreographed standing burnout. Vaporized rubber filled the air, and Harper became a silhouette in the smoke.
I sprinted toward Harper. Off to my left, I spotted a couple of mechanics heading our way. One of the bikers caught sight of the encircling citizenry, so he signaled his buddy, and they both took off. One of the assholes did a wobbly figure eight around the fuel pumps while the other guy screamed past me and gave everyone in the restaurant the finger. Then they hightailed it out of the parking lot and jumped on the interstate going west.
I got to Harper first. “Are you all right?”
“They’d hang those boys in Texas.”
The sound of a wide-open two-stroke engine, coming from the other side of the highway, closed in behind me. I turned, and an incredibly loud echo reverberated from the underpass. Some maniac riding a motocross bike, wearing aviator shades and a blue bandana across his face, came flying through. He ran the stop sign, like it wasn’t even there, and rode full blast across the intersection. When he entered the parking lot, one of the mechanics stepped in his path. The rider laid it down, and he went one way, while the bike went another. Motorcycle slammed through some oilcans and bounced off the gas pumps. Rider slid across the concrete fuel island on his back, arms and legs tucked, using his backpack as a skid plate, and was up on his feet before he came to a stop. He swung around and came in our direction, scrambling for his bike.
Harper said, “That’s Morgan!”
“What?” The same clothes and scruffy hair, it was Morgan.
Harper started running toward him, and I followed. Morgan didn’t see us, or he didn’t care. His only concern was the bike. With the motorcycle upright, he repeatedly stomped on the starter peg. It quickly escalated into a frustrated rage.
Harper got to my brother, called his name, and the bike kicked over. Blue smoke and the distinctive odor of Castrol shot from the exhaust. Harper covered her face and ducked as she turned away. I was standing behind her, and when Morgan turned to look, we locked eyes. It only took a split second; one quick glance said it all. He was fucked, and he knew it. Then he was gone, straight down the isle toward the back of the parking lot. At the far end, he laid it over like he was racing speedway and gunned it for the pumphouse.
The fluctuating air raid siren from Barstow and the pulsating disaster alarm at the mine played in syncopated rhythm. While I ran after my brother, the chilling sound of multiple police sirens chimed in. I sprinted to the back of the lot and rounded the corner. Slipping in the diesel-soaked gravel, I came down hard. With gravel imbedded in my hands and knees, I bit my lip and sucked up the pain. I got to my feet, and a cop car came tearing around the corner. Driver locked ‘em up, and the tires dug furrows in the gravel where the car came to a stop. Driver stayed behind the wheel, while the bulldog looking cop on the passenger side burst from the car, swung around, and leveled a shotgun on the roof, pointing it in my direction.
I held up my hands and backed away shaking my head. The cop’s adrenalin-fueled eyes wanted to shoot. And he might have, except the driver pointed toward the pumphouse and called out, ‘There he is’.
The squad car pulled away, and I focused on my brother’s truck at the far end. Morgan was squatting like a baseball catcher, with his hand up under the back fender, feeling around on top of the tire. I felt my front pocket. Was I supposed to leave the keys?
With the cop car closing fast, my brother was on his bike and gone. I stepped behind the engine cowling of a Mack Truck and peeked around the radiator. The cop car slid to a stop by the pumphouse. Unable to continue into the desert, the driver called it in, while the other cop jumped out and ran after Morgan. I couldn’t see past the pumphouse, but I could hear the wide-open throttle, and rapid-fire shifting, as my brother hauled ass into the Mojave. I heard a shotgun blast and feared I’d hear another. When I didn’t, and the sound of the engine kept getting further away, I knew Morgan was alive.
I heard footsteps crunch the gravel behind me. I spun around, expecting to see a cop with his gun drawn. It was Harper rubbing smoky tears from her eyes. I swung back toward the pumphouse and the police car sped away with its siren blaring. I followed the sound the long way around the parking lot and back through the fuel islands out toward the highway. Sounded like they went west on the frontage road, shadowing Morgan.
“Looks like my brother really stepped in it this time.”
“What happened; where’s Morgan?”
“Morgan took off like a wild man. He’s somewhere out in the desert. Follow me.”
With Harper in tow, I started to run toward the pumphouse. We only got a few feet before a stunned truck driver spilled out of his sleeper and almost knocked us down. I looked around and noticed a rapidly emerging crowd, curious customers drawn to the excitement, and some pretty frazzled employees running around making sure everyone was okay. We slowed down and melted into the crowd. We retraced Morgan’s path along the pumphouse and took a couple of steps into the open desert.
Harper said, “I heard a gunshot. Is Morgan okay?
“What’s your definition of okay? I don’t think he’s been shot, if that’s what you mean. But it looks like he’s a long way from okay.”
“What did he do Duff? Tell me—what did Morgan do?”
“I don’t know anymore than you do.”
“I know this,” Harper said. “The police are going to come back and start asking questions. We should get out of here.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I know I don’t want to talk to the cops right now.”
Harper took my arm. “Let’s catch our breath over at my place. I need a soda, and a couple of minutes of personal time.”
With a firm grip around my upper arm, she was leading me past Morgan’s truck, when I stopped short. “Hold on.” I pulled my arm free and fished the truck keys from my pocket. I reached up under the rear fender and set the keys on top of the tire. “Morgan might want these—if he makes it back.”
“He might want this too,” Harper said.
She was standing on the shortbed step, with one leg in the air, doing an arabesque, as she leaned over the bed rail into the truck bed. When I stood up, she let out a delicate grunt, and pulled a frazzled army-surplus backpack up off the truck bed floor. Resting it against the sidewall, she looked past me, and discreetly pulled back the flap. It looked like somebody had shoveled money into a sack. I stuck my hand into the crumpled mess and pulled out a stack of twenties, still banded together. I fanned the packet of bills, then dropped it in the backpack and pushed the flap shut.
“What should we do?”
&n
bsp; She nibbled on her thumbnail, and I could almost see the gears turning inside her head. “If we turn in the money, and tell the police what we saw, Morgan is toast. We can’t leave the money in his truck. They’ll just trace it back to him. We can hide the money someplace close. But there’s a good chance it won’t be there when we come back. Our best bet is to hide it at my place until we can figure out what happened.”
I unlocked the door and opened it wide. Harper jumped through the driver’s door and slid across the bench seat. She was balled up against the passenger’s side door, twirling her ponytail, with her eyes wide and bright, like a little girl watching a late night horror flick.
Fresh sirens filled the air as I slid behind the wheel, and I could hear the sound of diesel motors grinding to life all over the parking lot. Air brakes started popping, and drivers started grinding gears. The smart ones were leaving; about twenty big rigs pulled out all at once. I slipped in behind a Kenworth, pulling a flat bed trailer loaded with heavy machinery, headed for the back exit. The KW was taking a wide right, heading toward the highway, and I slipped through an opening on his left. Looking back across my shoulder, I could see across the flatbed trailer. Three cop cars, cherry tops blazing, were setting up a roadblock at the intersection. I made a sweeping right turn and rolled slowly into the High Desert Trailer Park. It was laid out like a motor court, with a pool in the middle, and trailers lined up on a cul-de-sac. I passed the place where Morgan and I used to live, drove around the pool, and pulled to a stop in front of Harper’s trailer.
“Morgan isn’t coming back. Too many cops.” I looked in my rearview mirror and the local sheriff pulled up behind me. “Way too many cops.”
Harper looked out the rear window and smiled. Undoing the rubber band around her ponytail, she let her hair fall across her shoulders and eased out of the truck. She strolled around behind the pickup and crossed over to the driver’s side. “I sure am glad to see you Officer Martin.”
Through my rearview mirror, I could see the cop staring my way. I glanced down to my left, and watched Harper in the side-door mirror. She bent over and folded her arms across the open squad-car window, then arched her back, and leaned into the car. Sure looks nice in those blue jeans.
After Harper stuck her chest in the guys face, she stood up and did a suggestive stretch. She said, “I was scared to death Officer Martin. I feel so much safer knowing you’re here.”
My eyes darted back to the rearview mirror. The cop pointed in my direction. Then he turned to Harper and said something.
“That’s Duffy,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about him. He’s one of the good guys. He helped save me from those nasty bikers.”
The cop stopped staring at Harper and looked toward me. Our eyes locked in the mirror. He was young, for a cop. With freshly coiffed hair, a regulation mustache, and starched epaulets, he looked like the kind of cop who wouldn’t slack off. He’d leave if he was satisfied, if not, he’d be a big problem.
His reflection moved out of view, and I heard him get out of the car. I looked over my shoulder, through the rear window.
The cop adjusted his gun belt. Then he started to put on his shades, stopped, and looked down at Harper. “A witness just told me you called one of the bikers by name. Is that true? Did you recognize one of them?”
“No. I don’t associate with those type of people. Why would I call one of them by name? Somebody’s telling you stories Officer Martin.”
“So you’re telling me you didn’t chase after one of the suspects and call him Morton, or Morgan, or a similar sounding name?”
Harper hesitated, looked a little nervous, and then started to laugh. “I did. I was so mad. I did chase after one of them. When I caught him, I called him a moron. I guessed that was his name. He was sure acting like one.”
“Hold on.” The cop leaned in the car and turned up the two-way radio. Grabbing the mike out of the saddle, he gave a quick response. He turned back to Harper and said, “You go on in the trailer and lock the door. If anyone you don’t know comes to the door, don’t answer it. Call the police. Call in anything that looks suspicious.”
“What happened?”
I leaned out over the door so I could hear better, and turned my head so I could see the cop.
He looked my way, glanced around the trailer court, and leaned close to Harper. “Less than an hour ago, several unidentified men on motorcycles ambushed and robbed an armored car out at the McCord mine. We don’t know how many men were involved, at least two, possibly five.” The sheriff tipped his hat and slid behind the wheel of his cruiser. After he started the car, he leaned out the window and said, “As of right now, no one has been apprehended. These men are armed and dangerous. Please be careful Miss O’Neal.”
“Aren’t you going to stay?”
“I just received an APB. The Park Ranger at the Calico Ghost Town spotted an unidentified motorcycle rider heading southeast toward Yermo. We’ll have this one in irons before nightfall.”
The cop turned on his flashing red light and pulled away. Harper stood waving like he was a brave soldier going off to war. The cop pulled out into the street, hit the siren, and punched it, going southbound in the northbound lane. Harper ran over, hopped on the side step, and leaned into the truck. Lifting the fully loaded field pack with both hands, she dragged it out of the truck and across the carport. She struggled up the steps and through the sliding-glass door.
When I came through the door, she was standing in the kitchen area, holding a jar of maraschino cherries, pouring the syrup into a can of 7-up.
“Would you like a Shirley Temple?”
“I’ll take a beer, if you’ve got one.”
“I have soda pop, if you’d like.”
“How much bread do you think is in the pack?” I walked over and sat down in the living room. I jumped up, stalled, and fell back in my seat. “What are we going to do with all that cash?”
Harper came out of the kitchen and sat next to me on the love seat. Her eyes had refocused, enveloping a singular light, and a deep blue confidence. Calmly she said, “The money’s safe here, for now at least. I’ll move it later if I need to. The money is like the all-powerful queen in chess. As long as we have the money, we control the game. If we can locate your brother, and keep him under wraps, everyone else will be like pawns. Insurance companies don’t care about your brother. They only care about money. We return the money, they agree to not press charges, and Morgan comes out of hiding, just like it never happened. If they catch him, things might be a little trickier.”
“You don’t sound like a waitress right now. You sound more like a mob lawyer.”
“I know what I’m doing. Believe me Duffy—I know all about insurance executive backroom board meetings. Trust me.”
“Even if the insurance companies are willing to make a deal, what about the police, and the mine, and the god damn armored car company. Somebody is going to want some blood.”
“Insurance companies control the purse strings, everyone else gets in line. In the end—somebody may have to take the blame—it just won’t be Morgan. We can work that out later. Do you have any idea where Morgan might go?”
“The rider they spotted going toward Yermo. Might have been Morgan. He could of circled back. The guy who got him the job at the mine lives over there. If it was my brother, that’s where he’d go.”
Harper laid her hand around my forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Be very careful. It won’t help your brother if you get arrested.”
“You’re way too cool about all of this.” I shook my head, like I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Who are you?” I stood up and patted my pockets for a cigarette. I went over and looked in the refrigerator for a beer. I opened a cupboard for no reason, peeked out the kitchen window, and then walked back over and sat next to Harper. “I really don’t know you at all.”
“Maybe you don’t know some of the details about me. We’ve really only known each other a few months. And
what with your mother passing at the end of last year, when we first met, you had a lot to get off your chest. You needed someone to talk to. I was here to listen. Right now—your brother needs us both.”
“You’re doing this for my brother?”
“Whatever your brother may have done, Morgan is a fine man. I know that. Sometimes a man needs a woman to save him from himself.”
“I can’t believe you want to help after the way he treated you.”
“Your brother never treated me badly. He just shut me out. Morgan has a problem letting people explain things.” She sat there sipping her soft drink through double straws, as calm as could be, like she had it all figured out. “I’ll show him what a loyal friend I can be.”
Morgan doesn’t deserve you. I walked over to the sliding glass door and looked back at Harper. “I’m going to go see if I can find my brother before the cops do.”
As I walked away, I heard her say ‘I’m here for you Duffy’. I stopped in front of the truck and looked over toward Tubby’s. Red and orange lights were spinning everywhere. It looked like every cop within a hundred miles had shown up for the shindig. Reminded me of Disneyland, the time Cousin Vince and me dropped orange-sunshine acid and went on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. My mouth tasted like baked dirt, and my head was starting to pulsate. Sure wish I had a beer.
It must have been around six when I slid behind the wheel. With the sun directly in my eyes, I flipped down the visor, draped my sorry ass over the steering wheel, and pulled out to the street. It was complete gridlock. Off to my left, the cops had shutdown the intersection, and a row of tractor-trailers sat idling in the street.
I didn’t want to deal with the cops, so I hung a right. About two miles north of the trailer court, County Road 1712 came to an unceremonious end when the truck dipped off the pavement onto a dirt road. I tuned in the local C&W station. Hank Williams was lamenting the Lost Highway, and we cursed the day together. While Hank faded into the setting sun, I turned right at the power lines. Using a little know utility company maintenance road, it wasn’t ten minutes before I caught sight of the Old Calico Mine. I glanced in my rearview mirror, noticed a big pillow of dust behind me, and let up on the gas. The dust began to settle, and my stomach started to churn. A black and white was coming up fast behind me. He flipped on his siren, and I slipped my foot off the gas. I eased over to the right, and the cop car flew by. When I started to speed up, the cop jammed on his brakes, whipped the steering wheel hard right, and slid to a stop, sitting sideways across the dirt road. The cop was out of the car and crouched behind the trunk, with his gun out, pointing directly at me, when I realized I didn’t have any brakes.
I was about forty feet from the Highway Patrol cruiser, and the truck wasn’t slowing down, when the Chippie abandoned his defensive position. Moving laterally to his right, he set up in a combat crouch on my left flank. He brought his weapon up in a two-hand grip, and fired a warning shot over my head.
I yanked the steering wheel right and went over a low berm into a shallow ditch. The front bumper slammed into the opposite bank, truck came to a dead stop, and I broke three ribs on the steering wheel.
I was still trying to catch my breath when the Highway Patrolman pulled me out of the truck by my hair, tossed me face down in the dirt, and stepped on the back of my neck. My chest heaved off the ground, and my lungs struggled for air. I felt a steel muzzle against my ear, heard the hammer click, and I didn’t struggle anymore.